Wednesday Night Drinks: June 2006

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

WND record-breaker

Forget the fattest twins ever or that dude with the longest Fingernails. I've got the ultimate record for the Guinness Book:
"Most Friends on MySpace." I'm about to go over the top with an unprecedented...
100 friends!
The century, the c-note, el primo followed by a doublet of big salamis (if you cut out the middle and leave just the rinds). And it took me only 16 short months of emailing 50 complete strangers a day to do it.

I wish I knew what exactly is so remarkably amiable about me, but whatever it is, I've got the touch. Just the other day, I read about this topless teacher from Austin, found her MySpace page, requested her as a friend and boom -- "Mrs. H" and I are thick as thieves. And Oprah was so excited, she sent a personalized thank you, plus a discount on a subscription to O At Home. To be honest, I've never really had "friends" per se, so I'm a little nervous about how to behave. I'm hoping there's some pamphlet available. Anyway, I'll just sit tight and wait for the Guinness people to drop by. Should be any minute now.

Join Jay and Mr. Popular this Wednesday after 8:30 at:

Formosa Cafe

7156 Santa Monica Blvd
West Hollywood, CA 90046

Cross Street: Santa Monica

Wednesday, June 7, 2006

Color me WND

What do you know? Jay's engaged! To a girl. I didn't catch her name. Kate something. Anyway, what's really exciting is that they've chosen me to pick the color for their wedding. I have no idea why, but I’m psyched. I definitely want to go with a shade, not some tired one-word crap like Purple. And I condemn any pre-conceived nonsense like "Canary" Yellow or "Powder" Blue. I've got to reinvent the color palette just as Jay and Karen are reinventing their life palette. Here's what I've got so far:

"Tube Sock" Buff with Yellow Stripes

"Government Terror Alert ('Guarded')" Blue

"Slightly-Less-Aggravated-Sunburn-After-Rubbing-On-Ointment" Red

"That-Chair-In-My-Room-I-Had-Growing-Up-Which-I-Once-Stood-On-To-Grab-Something-Off-The-Top-Shelf-Of-My-Closet-Without-Realizing-That-I-Was-Crushing-This-New-45-I-Bought-Of-Quincy-Jones-Playing-'Stuff-Like-That'-A-Song-I-Really-Dug-As-A-Kid-So-Save-The-Jokes-Mr.-'My-Musical-Taste-Has-Always-Been-Super-Cool"-And-I-Can't-Imagine-How-Important-Whatever-I-Was-Looking-For-Could-Have-Been-If-It-Was-So-Completely-Out-Of-Reach-Like-It-Couldn't-Have-Been-A-Big-Bag-Of-Money-With-A-Dollar-Sign-Printed-On-It-Or-My-Living-Will" Beige-ish.

While I spend the better part of a year hammering this out, join me, Jay and Khalil for drinks this Wednesday after 8:30 at:

Renee's Courtyard Cafe

522 Wilshire Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90401
Cross Street: 5th

See you there,
"Jeremy" Swarthy

How many have you been to?

Los Angeles
3rd Stop
4100 Bar
72 Market Street
Air Conditioned
The Alibi Room
Baja Cantina
Bar Lubitsch
Bar Marmont
Bar Noir at Maison 140
Barcopa
Barney's Beanery
Beauty Bar
Beechwood
The Belmont
Bigfoot Lodge
Birds
Boardner's
The Brig
Boulevard Lounge
Bowery
Burgundy Room
Cat & Fiddle (the first bar in L.A.)
Chez Jay
Coronet
The Crescent Hotel
Daddy's Lounge
The Derby
The Dime
Dresden
Eat on Sunset
Edendale
El Carmen
El Guapo
Father’s Office (santa monica)

Father's Office (culver city)
Formosa
Frank N Hank’s

The Garter
The Gaslite
Good Luck
Hinano Cafe
Hollywood Social Club
Hop Louie

Hush Lounge
James Beach
Jones

Johnny's Cocktail Lounge
La Poubelle
Liquid Kitty
Lola’s
Magnolia
Monroe's
The Other Room
Rainbow
Red Lion
Red Rock
Renee's
Roosevelt Hotel - Tropicana Bar
Roost

Rush Street
S Bar
Saints And Sinners
Sapphire Lounge
The Snake Pit
The Spanish Kitchen
Tangier
Tiki Ti
Tiny’s KO
Tom Bergin's
Venice Whaler
Viceroy
The Village Idiot
Voda
The Well
The Woods
The White Horse
Winston’s
The World Cafe
YE COACH & HORSES

New York

10th Street Lounge (where wnd began)

Bar 9

Chelsea Billiards

d.b.a.

Eight Mile Creek

Eugene

Happy Ending

Lincoln Center - Midsummer Swing

Lounge 24/8

McSorley's

Motor City Bar

O'Neals

Park Bar

Pop

Roxy

Rhone

Rudy's Bar & Grill

Swim

What is WND?

"Join Mike and me for Wednesday Night Drinks this Wednesday at:
10th Street Lounge
212 E 10th St
NYC
Cross Street: 2nd Ave"

That was the first, scintillating email I sent about wnd back in October of 1998. My buddy, “Iron” Mike, had suggested we start a casual get-together at a bar on Wednesdays since people usually have plans on the weekend and it's nice to have a mid-week break. The idea was that he and I would host, showing up to said bar where some of our friends would join us and... well, that was pretty much it. Sometimes 30 people graced us with their presence; sometimes it was just Mike and I catching up on the last 15 seconds. Whatever the turnout, it was always fun and a great way for our friends (and hated enemies) to meet each other.

We began at the 10th Street Lounge in the East Village, and stayed there. I just calculated that from October 24, 1998 (the first wnd) thru July 19, 2000 (the 76th wnd), we never switched bars. That's 76 times at the same bar. If I could go back in time, I guess I'd tell Mike and myself... How about a little variety, guys?! Switch it up, for god's sake! Is this some kind of Skinner Box experiment? Open a yellow pages. Something.

Amazingly, and without the help of my time travel, we started mixing in other bars. We kept wnd going though the beginning of 2005, at which time I moved to Los Angeles. I then solicited the help of my buddy, "Iron" Jay, to continue the tradition out west, where it has now flourished for nearly 4 years. Jay's most notable contribution was spearheading the idea that we never repeat a bar (with some very special exceptions) which is now the policy. Since he's the Bar-Czar, in charge of finding new locales, you might say that was a dumb idea. Way to think that one through, Jay-Jay.

In the early days, I'd send a brief email invite (see above) for purely informational purposes. As you can imagine, that got boring real fast, and worse, started to resemble spam. So the challenge became, and remains to this day, how to craft an email that won’t elicit the response, “Unsubscribe! Unsubscribe!” It’s not enough simply to avoid pestering: people actually have to look forward to the reminders. Since it's now been nearly 10 years, we figured it was time to put all the idiocy in one centralized place where people can mock me more efficiently. That said, peruse these many invites, each listed under the very date that particular wnd took place, so that you can determine for yourself the exact moment you would have blocked my email address.

That tingle you now feel is anticipation.

A Post From The Future

Wednesday, December 31, 9999

Yes, it's the year 9999 as you'll notice both from the date of this posting and how awful my 8000+ year-old wife and I look in the photo. We're so old - so very, very old. The skeptics among you might think that the Jeremy of your time somehow manipulated the timestamp, as if I/he were some sort of, I don't know, computer genius. You flatter us. Blogs such as these are too carefully constructed and honed to perfection to allow for such horseplay.

Wnd is of course still going strong, so you have that to look forward to when your body starts to decay in unbelievably disturbing ways. I'd tell you about how different things are in the future, but I've never been particularly observant. Even as a kid, my parents would ask what camp was like and the only thing I could remember was drinking bug juice. Sure, I could make up stuff for you all about the amazing technology we now have and the really great sit-coms that are hilarious, but what's the point? Knowing what happens in the future won't clean all those dishes you left in the sink, will it?

(We're all about pithy aphorisms here in 9999.)

I should probably take a nap since I'm really unbelievably old. Ancient really. There's probably a better word that captures the sheer breadth of my age, but I can't think of it.

Oh, crap! I just realized tonight's New Year's Eve 10,000 and my nice pants are at the shop. What a bummer.

Posted by Jeremy 1 comment
Labels: Esperanto, Flying Cars

1 comment:

Dominica said...

I'm very disappointed to see that punctuation marks are still alive and well in the year 9999. There goes the PhD thesis I've been toiling on for years entitled, "Banish the Question Mark: What Good Is It"

Thanks a lot.

June 17, 2008 1:21 PM

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