Where to Drink in New York City

I put the finishing touches on my book Red Sand at Kenn's Broome Street Bar in SoHo, so I thought I'd share with you the five best places to get a beer in New York City. In a city with $18 appletinis, the most important rule to remember is: Never trust a bar that doesn't have beer on tap. You’ll be overcharged before you cross the threshold. Go to the right place, like PS450 on Park, and you can still get a good pint for 4 bucks. Here's where you'll find me and the best places to drink in New York:

New York Renaissance Faire

Up front: I despise Renaissance Fairs. First, they're hard to spell. Second, they’re typically designed to attract two types of people, troglodytes and cash-laden tourists, neither of whom I usually associate with. Here are the types of people I expected to see:

1. Twelve year old boys in the “Knights and swords are cool!” phase. That’s the one that comes after dinosaurs and trains, but before girls. Typically indicative of art school aspirations.

2. Dungeons and Dragons players. The actual game, not video games. These people crawl out of their mother’s pot hazed basement for an annual dose of Vitamin D.

3. LOTR fanatics. If you know the acronym, you are one. 

4. Comic-Con rejects (if there is such a thing without being a tautology).

5. Grossly overweight faeries. 

6. All of the above. Grossly overweight LOTR fanatic Comic-Con reject D&D playing boys.

Needless to say, I was not looking forward to getting dragged to the New York Renaissance Faire. So, in apology to all of the above, let me first say I was pleasantly surprised.

Don't Blog Drunk

"Everything mankind does is much, much easier if you're ever so slightly drunk." - The Mitchell and Webb Look.

Don't blog drunk. The reason is, you will write something to regret later. Why? Because society is unforgiving when it comes to our weaknesses. You don't care? You disagree? Certain people disappoint you? You are finding it hard to cope with reality?
Well, fuck all that. Blogging is about expressing yourself. Your true self. The part of you that other people don't hear on a daily basis.
So why blog drunk?

How to make Soap and a Hot Shower on a Desert Island

How do you make soap and a hot shower on a desert island? In "Red Sand", survivors stuck on a desert island struggle with natives, sand fleas, a mysterious killer, and certainly hygiene issues. The mechanics of a hot shower would have slowed down the plot, but if you read it wondering, "How did they stay clean?", here's the answer.
Surrounded by stinky castaways? You're not the first. Among the travails of marooned mariners, hygiene typically gets the short shrift. It's hard for us modern folk to focus on famine, disease, and elemental exposure when the guy next to you stinks to high hell.
Luckily, even the rudest island has all the ingredients necessary to take a hot shower with real soap.
The following recipe

How to Stop Dating Married Men

I once endured an uncomfortable situation where a single woman asked me, “Why are women attracted to married men?” on an elevator in front of the married man, my boss, she was currently shtupping. I remember stammering out some grand theory for about fifteen seconds before I decided discretion was the better part of employment.  

I’m sure many unfortunate women are wondering the same thing, so, having given the pros and cons several years of thought, both as a married man and not, here is my best attempt at a diplomatic and balanced answer.

The Antidote to Viagra

Don't you wish you could calm down once in a while? I do. I wish I could look at the hottest woman in the world and, instead of thinking what every man on Earth would be thinking at that moment, say to myself, "Gee, I have some writing to do." Sadly, the Red Pill hasn't been invented yet. For those of you too young and vigorous for Viagra, here's the antidote, as published on "The Scrib".