After looking at a few restaurants and generally sauntering about for a good hour, we ended up in some not-quite-as-god-awful-as-you’d-normally-expect Irish bar. When they put down the portion of food I had ordered for dinner I wondered how big a family it was supposed to feed. My gut said a family of 8 after the first 15 minutes of trying to batter through it and making no noticeable progress. The food was good though, better than you would expect of a shit-hole Irish bar at home.
One thing that was surprising was how American pints are smaller than a pint. In a country where everything I’d seen so far had been bigger, and everything was incredibly convenient, it was disappointing to find that one thing I was so fond of, alcoholism, seemed to be made more difficult. This situation was quickly resolved when I discovered that spirits are free-pour. It took me a while to figure out the best way get leathered, but having a friend that had formerly lived stateside, I was party to the inside track on how the bar system worked.
For those of you who have never been over to see our American cousins, tipping there is approached slightly differently. Every time you order a drink, you tip. When you order a meal, tipping is not always optional, instead you are given the choice between two percentages. In my experience the two most common options were 18% or 25%. In Scotland, I thought 10% was a standard tip, 15-20% if the waiter had been really good. I’ve always been a tipper, I like to show appreciation for people’s efforts, if nothing else it’s polite. However, if your waiter’s shite, and you still have to lob 18% on top of the bill, it can be a bit of a kick in the tits.
The biggest difference though was tipping at the bar. Every time you order a drink you have to tip, or you will be for all intents and purposes ignored by the staff next time you try to get a drink. I was informed upon my consternation at this revelation that waiting staff and bar staff get paid fuck all, so tips are their livelihood. Knowing this, it was hard to be that annoyed, despite the curmudgeonly tight walleted nature of being Scottish. Tipping is also integral to getting smashed. The bigger the tips you give, the stronger the bar person will make your drink. Bingo.
Upon discovering this technique in the Irish bar, we left a bit tiddly, and headed towards the upper east side, where there were apparently some ‘cool bars’. When we finally found somewhere that looked full of enough wankers that it had to be classed as ‘cool’, we sauntered in, noticeably being the only ones not looking like we had spent an hour on our outfits. We filed through the crowd, which was mainly made up of attractive young professionals, to the bar. The drinking age in the States is 21, so you don’t tend to get the school kids popping in for a swally. However, this means that people of our age had considerably less experience being drunk in public than we did, which manifested itself pretty quickly.
When we eventually made it past the visibly confused clientele of this ‘cool bar’ to the counter, I ordered a mojito, wanting to fit in with the locals. I knew the tipping procedure so prepared a ten dollar bill to casually drop a ‘keep the change’ when it was handed over. That was the plan anyway, until the boy joked that it was $24. His reaction to my “Fuck off!” told me he was in fact not joking. 24 fucking dollars. Christ. He got a dollar tip and I got the fuck away from the bar.
After telling the other boys I was with of the atrocities that had been committed upon my person, they confirmed a ‘pint’ had cost $13, if it was intended to make me feel better it didn’t. I drank down the most expensive drink I had ever bought, and found it to be pretty fucking average given the pricing structure. I headed outside for a cigarette, trying to take my mind off things.
Americans are incredibly friendly. Like Glaswegians, they’ll talk to anyone and seem genuinely interested in what you have to say. The main difference is that Glaswegians while being civil can sound threatening to the untrained ear, while Americans trying to sound threatening sound hilarious. I got chatting with a chap while having my cigarette. I had heard prior to making the trip over the Atlantic that if you chucked your fag end and a policeman saw it, you get a $50 fine, that’s two mojitos! My first communication breakdown of the trip happened upon my questioning of this chap about this law.
Coming to the end of my snout, I innocently asked “here man, where do you ping your fag butts?” The look he gave me suggested I might have just shat in his pocket.
“What the fuck did you say?” I was confused, he hadn’t appeared to be suffering from deafness at any point prior to this. So I repeated the question, exactly as I had before. His countenance remained unchanged. “You calling me a fag bro?!” This did nothing to alleviate my confusion.
“What the fuck? No, this is a fag (pointing at my cigarette).” I looked to see if he understood, the primate-like brow furrowing suggested he wasn’t quite fully onboard yet.
“You want to put a fag in my butt?!” I had to stifle laughter at this point. He didn’t seem to find it as funny.
“No. I do not, thank you though.” This went clean over his head. “This is a fag, it’s what we call a cigarette. I’m wondering where you ‘ping’ (made a flicking gesture) it once it has been smoked to the end, or ‘butt’ (I pointed to the fag butt).” He watched intensely throughout my explanation and it was like someone had switched a light on behind his eyes as I pointed to the fag end. “I heard you get a fine if a policeman sees you throw it on the street, and I can’t see any bins.” He looked confused again. “Trash cans.” He nodded.
“Oh shit, OK, I thought you were calling me a fag then wanting to put something in my butt.” He smiled.
“I could see that.”
“Man fuck the pigs, you just throw that shit on the ground fuck them.” At this he actually grabbed the fag end out my hand and lobbed it on the ground as if to make the point.
“Alright, cool. Thought I should ask a native to be sure.”
“What?” I could see we were back at the start.
“Never mind, nice to meet you man. Thanks for the advice.”
“Sure bro, have a great night, welcome to New York!” With that I shook his hand and headed back inside, unsure of what had just happened.
We spent a little more time at that bar, there was a lot to look at and we fell to chatting to a couple of the less wankery people around us. After finding a gin and tonic to be $18, the call went up to bolt. Plus time was getting on. I had been told to go to B.B. King’s blues club on Times square. I’m a big blues fan, and this sounded right up my street, so eventually, I managed to convince the rest of the party to come along.
Walking from one bar to the other, it became obvious how few of the other people on the street were as drunk as we were. It was about half 11 at night, so you would expect at least a few other inebriates to be wandering the streets, but if there were I never saw them. This was my first lesson in the differences in drinking culture between the two sides of the Atlantic. Basically we drink a lot more, and are a lot more comfortable being drunk in public. There were a few funny looks shot our way, but rather them than bullets eh.
When we arrived, I will admit I was excited. There are very few blues clubs in Scotland, and since the genre was spawned over there, I assumed it would be more authentic. My confusion began upon passing the man-mountain bouncers and hearing disco music emanating from the belly of the club. Not wanting to admit to my pals I may have mistaken what the place was, I pointed out that there were at least a couple of girls kicking about for them to try and woo, and made my way to the bar. Drinks here were significantly cheaper, and therefore we spent the next half hour getting tanked up on free-pour. After a good skinful, I suppose demonstrating how tiddled I was, a Justin Timberlake song came on and I started singing away. I’m not the best singer but I can almost carry a tune. So when a big black woman standing next to me at the bar tapped me on the shoulder, pointed at me and said “sing it sugar!” while dancing away, I found it hilarious. A good deal of dancing and japery ensued. At one point me and my pal were surrounded by natives all either enjoying the patter, or taking the piss out of us, either way it was a good laugh. They all joined in and it almost became a karaoke night.
I nipped out for a fag a bit later and found my friend, who was off-the-planet drunk, having a conversation with the two enormous bouncers about the Fast and Furious films. The funny thing was they seemed more into it than he did. After twenty minutes discussing a scene with a plane being chased by cars, where if it had happened in real life the runway would have had to have been 120 miles long, we headed back inside. My pals were chatting away to some folk and everyone was unbelievably friendly. It was only upon one of my pals kissing a girl that some funny looks were shot about.
As it turns out I had brought all my pals to gay night at B.B. Kings.
I had never been to one before but I can say it was the most friendly and hilarious crowd of people I’ve ever met in a club. One of the chaps came up to us almost looking worried about us not knowing it was a gay night, when we explained that we couldn’t give less of a fuck he seemed genuinely shocked that it wasn’t an issue. Clearly there are a lot more closed minded people in the Big Apple than one would have thought. Obviously I got pelters for my clerical error, but nobody minded, it was a cracking night out and one of the chaps even gave me a feather boa to wear home.
We stumbled out absolutely hammered and were met with one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. Five Guys was still open at 4am. By far and a way the drunkest diddys in the shop, we got served very quickly. Eventually we managed our way along the hundred yards to our tiny apartment and conked out, a full day of New Yorking accomplished.
A drunk abroad 