Lifestyle #11:THROWING HOUSE PARTIES

So these days, what with the RECESSION and all, even jobbies are throwing cheap-o parties! Instead of the typical let’s-go-to-a-fancy-restaurant-and-then- split-the-bill-and-make-you-pay-$80- even-though-you-didn’t-order-anything- parties, they’re going to “dive bars” and buying “cheap beer.” Here are some REAL-LIFE INVITES to jobby parties:

dont you miss thursday nights at the [redacted]? what about bipolar bartenders (not [redacted] of course)? for all you recessionistas come join me for my birthday for $8 pitchers because lets face it, these days none of you can afford $20 vodka tonics on the lower east side.

AND:

In This Economy

Forget $15 haute cocktails

Lines of bridge and tunnelers & bouncers who rule the scene

Come celebrate my 25th with me at the dive of all dives in [redacted]. There will be cheap drinks, sandwiches and freeze dance!

You can obviously parlay this microtrend to your advantage. Say it’s your birthday, an event you haven’t celebrated since, like, college. Throw a HOUSE PARTY (actually, say it’s a HIPSTER DANCE PARTY, which will make all the jobbies feel jealous because they have their parties in shitty BARS), promise all those recessionistas CHEAP BEER, and then PRETEND THAT YOU’RE ALL OUT OF BOOZE BY THE TIME THEY GET THERE. Obliging jobbies will go to the nearest bodega and pick up an entire case of Magic Hat because that’s what they think the poor kids drink. Everyone gets drunk and has fun, and you’ve managed to celebrate another year of non-accomplishment for free. It’s win-win-win. You might even get laid, but oh wait, you sleep on a fucking ratty mattress.

Dating Tip #3: The Local Getaway

So you charmed the shit out of some jobby’s girlfriend with your avant attitude and that worldly glisten in your eye and now she wants to “hang out.” But hold up broke-romeo, this business is not ready for your abstract fantasies of nudie movie watching. Even the PRK must go out on dates, and as everyone knows dates cost money. Maybe you already tried a trip to the museum, or maybe she’s just not that kind of gal (is she from Long Island? did she go to Vanderbilt?), but rest assured there are plenty of cheap dates, and  we’re not talking about cruising the LES for lonely, drunk 18-year-olds at 3am. We present PRK Dating Tip #3: Roosevelt Island.

Established in 1921 as Welfare Island, this sliver of land between midtown and Queens is the perfect spot for your PRK date.

Why: Although it’s just a stones throw away from Manhattan, no one ever goes there. Filled with a rich history of prisons, psych wards, and syphilis containment centers, the old hospital buildings are something between a tour of Scottish castles and a good ol’ scary movie–either way, a total panty-dropper.

What to do: Check out the old Octagon lunatic asylum (now luxury apartments with an art gallery in the lobby). When you are done there head down main street to the one diner/bar (Trellis, 549 Main St.) for a couple of cold ones, before taking a sunset walk down the east-river-front promenade.

How to get there: You can take a subway there, but be sure to catch the cable car back, as the sun goes down over midtown and the stars begin to twinkle over the Bronx, this ride is the perfect spot to make your move.

Lifestyle #10: The Flask

Say for some reason you weren’t able to stay at home and some girl dragged you out to Rose Bar or whatever with the jobbies. The girls order cosmos or whatever it is girls drink, and the bros are downing double-shots of bro-sauce. Your “friends” are picking up rounds left and right – pretty soon it’s going to be your turn to take on the dreaded $70 tab. This could easily spell disaster.

But you had the foresight to bring a flask!

You take out your flask and pass it around, telling everyone that this flask–monogrammed, obviously, and bought off Ebay!–belonged to your grandfather, who was some famous Salingerian New Yorky half-WASP, even though you are full-time Jewish–who gives a shit, you could be Hindu! You claim that you would go get everyone drinks, it’s just that the bar is so fucking crowded–isn’t this easier? The girls are left shaking their heads at what a classy guy you are. The bros are jealous of your seemingly endless supply of the sauce. The flask is an incredibly easy way to exude class while simultaneously–and secretly– maintaining cheapness.

As a bonus, you can put cheap, well whiskey inside and tell everyone it’s Johnny Walker Black. No one will know the difference, because all flask-alcohol tastes disgustingly similar. Just beware of bouncers, who will kick you out of the bar for bringing in outside alcohol, and of your friend’s friend Melanie, whom everyone knows has mouth-herpes.