May 2010 SE mixer

Sure.

Yes! I could not attend the one this week, so would love to do this.

I nominate Alan to not only coordinate the "Mixer" but also book the bands.

Booked: The It's Always Better to Rent Than to Owns, a combo that never fails to please

Isn't that Steve's house band?

Thanks for choosing the venue.

some of the band's best-loved songs:

sunday morning (open house)
i'm waiting for the (broker) man, and of course
all tomorrow's (moving) parties

as poorish would say, it's enough to make one weep.

He Ain't Heavy, He's My Broker

alan you are killing me! hahaha

seriously though, which neighborhood?

and now for the next set:

gimme (cheap) shelter
i can't get no (condo) satisfaction
let it bleed (concessions)
live with me (in b'burg)
you can't always get (the apartment) you want

sing 'em with me.

What about DBA in the east village? Its a bar, and you are allowed to order in anything you want (would kind of avoid a group check situation).

What happened at the get-together? Problems when the check came? A group check?
Did somebody mention the Band?
I love to do song parodies.

How long before that magazine's website steals this?

Alan: I am, said I.

we had a mix-up at an earlier event. SE paid for this one, bless them.

Isn't it "I Can't Get No Satisfaction of Mortgage"?

"We All Live in a Home-equity Submarine"

I was referring to a different get-together's check-pooling thing, not this week's one, Truth.

I though Steve's house sounded good, but otherwise I have no preference for locations. I liked Galway Hooker, but it was a tad too loud (as many otherwise appropriate places are, too). Don't know DBA; sounds good.

*thought*

I hope Steve's coop board doesn't give us a problem.

Where's Steve been? Did I miss a dramatic blowup in the past few weeks?

no, steve's was a silent exit. perplexing, actually.

dba might be too crowded, but i haven't been in there in ages. the galway was a fun place, but not a good venue for something like this. we just need a bar with plenty of room so people can order their own stuff easily. not too loud. cheapish is good.

Fill me in: Who is Steve?

stevejhx

So, Steve has a big pre-war co-op apartment? Seats how many? His co-op board lets him throw parties, attended by lots of people? Even us? Really?!

no, steve is a man of many words who lives in a hell's kitchen rental of disputed proportions but indisputably having two terraces.

is rather good at the limerick. i thought it would be fun to get together a group to see him do stand-up.

Oh, he's the limerick guy! I read a few, on that L.I.C. string. Is he also that stand-up comic guy?

We need an indoor venue, anyway.

That's the one!

His balconies would come in handy for those of us who like to spit and throw things at passersby ... most leases prohibit defenestration.

guys, didn't steve (loudly) threaten to leave during the beginning of troll control and then followed through on his word? haven't seen him post since.

union square seems to be a solidly central location for this kind of thing...

wrong steve, glamma. steveF went off in a huff.

anyone been to gonzo recently? they have that front room with the bar that's fairly large and wasn't crowded early in the evening weekdays. b/t 6th and 7th, maybe 13th street.

Personally, I think we should go for some place which is much less popular than the spots we've been going. I don't care if the place is a total dive. I'd rather it be less crowded and MUCH more quiet.

I agree ... is there an old man bar left somewhere that never gets hopping after the afternoon crowd leaves?

Has anybody been to the Holiday Cocktail Lounge in recent years? I was in there a couple of years ago, mid-afternoon, for the first time in over 20 years. Probably a tad TOO divey for our purposes.

dives are fairly trendy these days. there's a shortage of them.

Eeh, do you think you could potentially pick up bedbugs in the Holiday Cocktail Lounge?

I used to live at the Holiday Cocktail Lounge. Well, practically.

Stefan died last year. I haven't been in since. :(

nyc10023, it's not a place to go for fancy new cocktails like that. But you can try. Or maybe they can manage this simple substitute: http://www.cocktailmaking.co.uk/displaycocktail.php/443-Cockroach

Miette, what's-his-name is running it now. I'm not sure if he'll throw you out for slightly rearranging the furniture, the way Stefan used to.

Is what's-his-name one of the sons? One of the sons is stern (but a good guy), one is pretty nice. Stefan often got cranky when the bar was busy. But when it was slow he would serenade you.

No, what's-his-name is too close to Stefan in age. He was the second bartender for decades, maybe a friend or relative, but not son. He's craggy. I'll find out from my people.

El Parador, on East 34th St. (close to First Ave.) has the best Ritas and great food. There is a lounge, downstairs, which I can reserve for us.

Now you've got me stumped. If he's been there for decades I should know him -- my glory years there were in the mid 1990s. Perhaps I should go peep in!

"Pay-as-you-go, no group check, revisiting our city's Dutch roots, etc."

If we're revisiting our Dutch roots, I propose we do Coogan's on 169th and Broadway!

Maybe I'm wrong, then, and it is a son. What's the stern (but good guy) named?

Heh, funnily enough, I'm running Coogan's Salsa 5k on Sunday.

Like one-two-cha-cha-cha?

stefan was amazing. as the night progressed he'd put less and less cranberry in your vodka until it was just a drop. your drink would go from 2 dollars a pop to nothing as long as he could hold your face in both his hands super tight and sing to you. i loved that dude.

I just confirmed that Miette was right and I was wrong: what's-his-name is a Stefan son. I still don't know his name.

jasonkyle, you must be young (even younger than I am), because drinks were $1 or $1.25 or so. Also, not sure, but I don't think they even had cranberry juice ... grapefruit yes.

Great white Russians and jukebox. I used to go to The Holiday in high school(senior). How old are you alanhart?

You mean my real age? Here, let me talk around that question: You really didn't need to be a senior in HS to drink there or many other bars, uptown and downtown, because the drinking age was 18 and totally unenforced, except by bars that wanted to maintain a certain atmosphere for their resident Old Men. White Russians were really good there, and I think they even crossed the Ukrainian-Irish cultural line to do Nutcrackers (known on the West Coast as Mudslides) ... like the most cloying delicious ice cream you could imagine. But I mostly drank vodka & grapefruit (known on the West Coast as Greyhounds) or second choice vodka & OJ. It's weird that drinks tend to be called by ingredients here ... many because we're very precisely demanding about food & beverages. In a Western state recently, I was served a Bloody Mary that had an olive (and probably some of its packing juice) in it? Ewwwww. I hope you've forgotten the original question by now.

So hard to find a really good Bloody Mary. I think the best I had was at Pastis many years ago, or perhaps it's just another distorted blurry memory. I compare all to that mythical one I had long ago...
Most are at best watered down tomato something or other and recently here on the East Coast I too was served one with olives, that was the least of its problems.
I did have a pretty damn good one at Community Food a few weeks ago, but paid dearly $12 bucks!

Any suggestions for Bloody Marys? (Yes I forgot). lol.

"How old are you alanhart?"

It's impolite to ask a lady her age.

the had something akin to cranberry juice but it was repulsive. i think i go as far back as the 1.50 and the 1.75 cocktail. mid 90s

Bloody Mary

46-oz bottle of tomato juice
3 oz lemon juice (fresh, or frozen Minute Maid JUICE; never RealLemon or the like)
1 Tbs Worcestershire
1 tsp Tabasco
1 Tbs ground horseradish
1 Tbs fresh-ground pepper
1 tsp salt

tall glass with celery stalk, including its leafy top

And, of course, ice and vodka alongside.

Thank you alanhart. I think using very good tomato juice and of course good vodka is the trick along with those fresh ingredients.

Bad vodka works very well, too ... I recommend Popov or Georgi. Tomato juice is all the same too, except that the plastic bottle is better than the can because you can't taste the plasticizers that will kill you.

If it's like bad gin, bad vodka is fine. I used to get Tanqueray, at $40-odd a bottle, then switched to some crap at half the price. No difference that I can tell, not that I have a palate. The embarrassment at buying booze in a plastic bottle wore off. I'm just finishing a couple of bottles of Bombay Sapphire I got as a gift, and can't tell that from the other two.

Re: vodka- there was some sort of taste test a few years ago - all the premium brands, Grey Goose, Belvedere, etc., etc. vs. Smirnoff. Smirnoff beat 'em all. (But it WOULD be tacky to refill the Grey Goose bottle with Smirnoff, though it would also be fun to see if anybody noticed the difference.

I like Belvedere, don't know popov but Georgi is a little harsh....But if you gave me the Vodka challenge I would probably choose Pepsi...lol.

We have recently been buying some decent wines (reds) in a box, its also fun going up and getting a pour out of the little built in spout. Black Box is one on them....

I originally typed the Grey Goose refill option, but deleted it and now I'm sorry I did, so thank you ph41 for suggesting it. What's tacky is when people turn down a good drink altogher because the hostess doesn't have Grey Goose or Ketel One or Belvedere or whatever is demanded ... I actually witnessed this on someone's big fancy boat, and I could tell the hostess wanted to throw the guestess overboard.

So the bottom line is, save your gifted Bombay Sapphire empties, NWT, and all other premium-brand bottles, and keep them somewhere outasight so that when you go to pour the Popov into whichever one your guest MUST have, you're prepared.

It's too bad bars have to destroy their empty bottles before trashing them, because otherwise one early morning of dumpster-diving would provide a lifetime of impressing your guests and showing what a classy guy I am.

alan -I have a dear friend who actually CAN tell the difference between orange Stoli and orange Grey Goose- (and, I hate to admit it, but now I can also) and, lord love her, much prefers the Stoli, but also, she would NEVER turn down a drink just because it was made with the more expensive brand.

I have a bottle of some kind of vodka in the freezer that was a gift from the Russian ambassador. Apparently you can't get it here in the states.

That's against coop board policy to have illegal Russian vodka in your freezer.

ph41, she's right! The way they flavor the vodkas varies wildly. So that classic Absolut is nearly unpotable, yet Absolut Citron is by far the best lemony vodka (and is PHENOMENAL with grapefruit juice, the traditional white kind and not the icky ruby-red kind, thank you). And I'm sure the same holds true for the other flavors as well.

Plain old Stoli, like Absolut, tastes a little more like fire-water, but I still maintain that all vodka comes out of the same vat, worse hangover bedamned. Okay, the only exception is when the quadruple-bypass distillation/filtration, as in Svedka and that cheap, obscure one from Kentucky or some such place; I think it's called McSomething.

Keith, it's what Matt did to get it that's against board policy.

Burnett's vodka is what I meant. I probably tried to remember the name a long time ago by associating it with McBurney, and of course only learned the irrelevant association.

This review might be right about its taste, because I tend to drink it rocks, with enough fresh lime to obscure firey tastes: http://www.boozebasher.com/2008-01-03/vodka/liquor-review-burnetts-vodka/

whoa...mcburney?

I didn't go there ... did you? Its closing was unfortunately timed.

yep...and yep...

I think they reopened on 14th street in a new facility. Haven't been there, afraid of flashbacks to a Virginia suburban "family" YMCA where they took the "C" more seriously than the "YM".

mcburney - as in the school or the gym?

I think CC and I meant the school, and Liz meant the YMCA/gym/song

Although the school was a YMCA product.

I assume you mean the preschool? Don't they still have it? Some kids I know went to a summer program once at the McBurney Y but it wasn't too much fun, all "Chelsea kids"?

No. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McBurney_School. The preschool still exists.

Thanks 10023. Never knew they had a prep school. Got to love NYC. By the alumni list you can tell that the McBurney school might have been YMCA but the "C" was obviously not a big issue.

>But I mostly drank vodka & grapefruit (known on the West Coast as Greyhounds) or second choice vodka & OJ.

Actually, in New York in the 1980s we called these greyhounds and screwdrivers.

I know it's out of the way for some of you, but my understanding is that Forbidden City on Avenue A has been pretty dead since the shooting. I can also ask my friend Mason about using his spot (Destination) across the street)

Welcome back, stevejhx!!!

We really missed you, and were starting to worry that we'd have to find another venue for this mixer instead of your apartment.

If we are going to use Steve's place (great idea)...we have to all promise to be as well behaved as last time. The balconies could be a potential issue and I'd hate to traumatize Steve's cats. (Steve now that the weather is getting nice please keep the cats indoors...they have no concept of heights and if an interesting bird flies by....Vet hospitals make a lot of money from "High Rise Syndrome" and those are LUCKY cases that are treatable....)

This goes for anyone with cats...make sure your windows are screened and balcony/backyard doors are SHUT.

"Heh, funnily enough, I'm running Coogan's Salsa 5k on Sunday."
I'm still picturing everyone salsa-ing all the way to the finish line! that would be so great.
Alan, this will be the 5th meetup no? tshirts???
I add to the list of suggested dives: International on 1st ave, Grassroots Tavern on St Marks

glamma, Steve's place doesn't sound like a dive, except maybe in the context of a dramatic exit.

Alan... What kind of man are you? Have you no shame?

No, but to what are you referring?

Having the next mixer at stevejhx's place? It can't be as bad as all that, despite not having granite counters, can it?

No takers for Margaret's and Krystina's Pierogies on Roebling St in Wburg? It's a nice dive, with a bracing L-train chaser.

Okeh, how does Wednesday, May 12 work for yez?

We recently went for drinks on a Wednesday evening at XR Bar (Houston & Sullivan), http://tinyurl.com/y5kc8na ... and it's a good bet for our purposes -- especially on the loudness front. Definitely not a dive, but not sceney or this or that either. Fairly convenient to a bunch of subway lines. No food served, but a friendly bring-in policy.

Other opinions welcome and solicited on this suggestion.

And StreetEasy staffers are more than welcome!

.

bump?

i don't know, AH. you're stepping up and paying good money for your sidecars when you could drink leftover liquor in the quiet splendor of your apartment out of donated glassware?

bold move.

It just takes a few people to go out for a smoke, get into a heated conversation with their social opponents, etc. Usually the result of mixing their pre-owned drinks gives me something reasonably similar to a sidecar, just not necessarily 6:2:1

I have a feeling this still won't bump up.

Sacre bleu!

Wed May 12th? A propitious date.

wow, i stopped reading about halfway thru as my eyes started to glaze over but i am game. take you on one at a time or all at once. just be gentle. hahaha! pls invite rhino in case things get boring so he can start throwing chairs around and maybe the occasional se poster whose a bit light in the shoes....

.

Magical Internet Robots?

Can you hear me now?

It's the 'bots. Took 12 hours for my post to show up.

I think we're too polite to each other now. Liquor up, and fight!

And then liquor up s'more

poor me... another drink

Stuck in Paris in the Icelandic volcano ash at the moment! If I can get back by May 12, I'm in.

Alan.... If you reread this thread you'll recall that you agreed to book the band and agreed on Steve's Place for the venue. That was of course before you ADD'D into Stephan and the Holiday Cocktail Lounge, Bloody Mary recipes, the relative values of Vodka, McBurney (YMCA or School?) etc. etc.

One thing leads to another...

truth - given how versed you are in verse, it occurs to me that: "stuck in Paris in the Icelandic volcano ash..." is almost Dylanesque. What do you think?

Since the doorman decided not to strike, we decided to renew the contract with our magical internet robots. They assure us that these discussions will be working smoothly, at least for a while. We are working on some other performance issues, so it may be a little choppy this week.

We thank you in advance for your patience.

So the plunky performance that always accompanies rent/buy discussions is just coincidence?

spinny: "...with the Krakatoa blues again..."