Hepatitis: Not referenced nearly enough in Zagat's Restaurant Guide

I've never really been the type of person that needs business cards (at least, beyond the fabled "Stunt Cock" business cards that nearly got me thrown out of "Buzzcut" Stipek's[1] Desktop Publishing class). It's entirely possible that one day, though, I could wake up as that sort of an asshole. If so, serious consideration would be given to billing my profession as "Amateur Sociologist". Bad information from worse people can prove an invaluable resource, oftentimes more so than that of an allegedly reputable one. For example, nothing proves that the Stones are better than the Beatles with such succinct effortlessness as the negative Amazon reviews for "Exile on Main Street".

As for those who say Exile isn't an album but a place, I'm not sure I'm into the mystical stuff, but I left that place about 1975 and I don't care to go back there again. I guarantee you nobody has bothered to clean up the half-empty beer bottles, the bloody needles and the discarded condoms.-Some Jerkoff

That comment makes a pretty convincing argument. At least, the argument that his wife presumably began cuckolding him before the ink could even dry on their sham of a marriage. Now, with his better half galavanting around town with a bottomless glass of White Zinfandel, the man devotes nearly all of his free-time to tireless labor in his garden. In no way is it hyperbole to marvel aloud at his horticultural feats. Selflessly, though, he deflects all compliments given to him, and his finely manicured lawn. The real hero? The garden claw. Cultivating, weeding: important steps, no doubt. But the AERATING. Loosening the soil, letting oxygen penetrate the roots. The implement, friends, deserves the credit. He is merely a humble steward over a small patch of earth.

The reason I lead with this anecdote of questionable relevancy is that it helps to illustrate the core values that define my love for New York City's very own, Patriot Saloon. A cursory peak at it's rating on metropolitan booze bible Yelp suggests mediocrity. Look closer, though.

One reviewer spends over four-hundred words, begging and pleading for you to turn tail and run from this terrible, terrible place. They find it's mere existence an affront to decency. Akin to The Animals' definitive performance of "House of the Rising Sun", they caution you to avoid ensnarement in it's tentacles of moral decay. These people obviously reek of fucking cowardice.

Ignore such clowns. Their limp pulses and bourgeois sympathies comprise a cage far more inescapable than the steel bars Michael Bolton sang of. In fact, run contrary to the wishes of these callow, fragile naysayers. Rather, welcome the evil. Roll around in it. Marinate. Let it seep in, mingle with your blood. Make friends with the great Satan. You no longer even control your will. You are a mere vessel for terrible things. Democracy and reason left when you entered. Abandon all faith, forsake hope. You are Krang, and loathsome intent is that creepy brain thing in it's belly. Needless to say, it's intoxicating.[2] Don't listen to me, though. Listen to these excerpts from reviews lambasting the establishment:

I walked by today and the chalkboard outside said, "Wanted: Shameless Slut Bartenders"

I don't care what their reasoning is, that's offensive.

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And I always do throw up from the Patriot. On the street. In the cab. In the apartment lobby.

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I have to admit I have never bought a drink here. But my sister worked her for a short period of her lifetime and the stories she told me were both priceless and very very scary.

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Seriously, are leather bustiers really acceptable to wear before 9:00 PM?

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Do not go upstairs at the Patriot Saloon, especially not at 7 pm on a Tuesday night when folks up there have been drinking since noon!

I am a huge dive bar fan and the cheap prices are oh-so-tempting (so is the fun Hank and Cash music) but ladies stay downstairs! The second me and a co-worker hit the 2nd level a dude fell out of his bar stool..this then lead to ice throwing and drink splashing. If it was a Saturday-more power to em' but a Tuesday night at 7? Lay off the lunch hour shots!

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cheap beer is always nice, but a dive bar that needs its bartenders in pasties to establish atmosphere is too seedy for me.

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This place is trashy and demoralizing. Will make you feel dirty and smell like piss.

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Saturday was probably my least eventful trip to the Patriot ever. Yet, I still managed to wake up at 86th street, traveling on a Bronx-bound C train, at 4:30 in the morning. I live in Queens. For those unfamiliar with NYC geography, it's comparable to going out for drinks in Haiti, and coming out of a blackout in the Dominican Republic. Getting home isn't an impossibility, but you certainly complicated things for no good Goddamn reason[3].

After drunkenly pissing in a corner of the train station (my coronation as an official New Yorker, as far as I know), I apologized to a bum, dozing on a bench, for my uncouth behavior. He sagely nodded with understanding. In my shape, I needed to purge my system of toxins far more than he didn't need to see my limp dick, mere minutes before sunrise. That man was a saint, and I commend him both for the depths of his empathy, and for using the New York Times as a blanket (The Post is unfit even for sheltering vagrants from inclement weather).

I spent most of Sunday uncontrollably convulsing, shades of Michael J. Fox. If an AIDS patient got on the train after me, they would've hurriedly moved to the far end of the car, scared that whatever the fuck I had could overtake their fragile immune system. Still, though; totally worth it. In honor of the mighty Patriot, here's a smattering of the kind of hillbilly shit I play on their jukebox.

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Jerry Lee Lewis - "What's Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me)"


David Allan Coe - "You Never Even Called Me By My Name"


Tanya Tucker - "Delta Dawn"


Roger Miller - "Chug-a-Lug"


Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard - "Pancho and Lefty"

For those who don't approve of the latent white-trash streak running through me, I present to you an offering of Mystikal. If you somehow don't like David Allan Coe or Mystikal, then you probably blow. Hard.


Mac & Mystikal - "Murda Murda, Kill Kill"

By my math, he gets out of prison in January 2010. Needless to say, that will be absolute crack rock. Sadly, Mac will be locked up for much longer. In either case, both men have deep catalogs that more than justify "putting the tank on your casket". No Limit ain't never left, yadadamean?
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[1]Though it's tough not to be secretly enamored with any female whose celebrity doppelganger is Sergeant Schultz from Hogan's Heroes.

[2]Pun not intended. Trust me. We're all better than that.

[3]An artists conception of my retardation