—Josey and Christian

What the fuck happened in 2010?! How did I get these bruises? Where the hell is my wallet? Where am I—and who are you?!? 2010, it’s been real. As we scratch our soaking brains to try and remember what the fuck happened last year, one thing’s clear: there was drinking. And it all gets kinda blurry after that. Here’s our best attempt at a round-up of the year’s top stories in booze:

Drunken rants and DUIs. “Mooooom! You’re sooooo embaaaarraaaasssingggg!!!” Calling Audrina Patridge a “celebrity” is a stretch, but we don’t care who she is or where she comes from—her mom’s wasted rant following the ex-reality show “celebrity’s” “elimination” from more-vomit-inducing-than-store-brand-tequila-mixed-with-milk-in-a-moment-of-misguided-desperation “TV” “competition” Dancing with the “Stars” (are you sick of air quotes yet?—us neither!) was one of the best recorded drunken rants of 2010. Happy America! We’re all American!
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—Chelsea

Guest writer Chelsea regales us with her first forays into the wild world of booze in this multipart series.

Working as a cigarette girl is only partially about selling cigarettes. It’s much more about selling yourself. A Peachy Puff is a product, and when a customer buys a pack of cigarettes from her, he’s also buying her company. It’s a form of very short-term, platonic prostitution. This is where it came in handy to be witty, funny, and exciting, because these things were the real wares we were peddling, much more so than the packs of gum and the disposable lighters. But this could cause some confusion about the role of a Puff as well; we were propositioned often, if not nightly.

I can’t tell you how many times people tried to pay me to party with them at someone’s house after the bars closed. I remember one guy drunkenly trying to convince me to come play a late-night game of tennis, with complete sincerity. But sometimes, people were looking for more than just friendly company. Once, a man with a thick accent and an old-fashioned pinstripe suit and hat pulled me over to sit next to him. He wrapped his arm around me, telling me that he wanted me to come back to his hotel room with him. “I have a jacuzzi in my room,” he offered. “You don’t have to take all your clothes off, just wear your panties.” He pulled out a huge wad of hundred dollar bills—more than I had ever seen in my life—and waved it in front of my face, saying “Don’t you want this? Take it.” I quickly removed his arm from around my shoulders, smiling nervously, and hurried off.

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—Christian and Josey

There’s something magical about this time of year. The air is crisp with cold and possibility as we huddle inside with the people we care most about.

Parents who cut extra-loose, with stories about after-partying in the ’70s told louder and more insistently following every downed cocktail and emptied bottle of red wine. Your aunt with an over-flowing glass of scotch who travels a few miles past sobriety and reminisces about the pants you wore at nineteen that were so baggy they threatened to expose your nether regions. The underage cousin you sneak a few hundred too many Jack swigs to, whose bedroom floor later feels the wrath of your indiscretion. The overage cousin you do shots of the Goldschlager you hid beneath your bed during high school with—insisting that you still fucking love this stuff and swearing that the bottle wasn’t, in fact, first opened over a decade ago. Even the older, unrelated gentleman who everyone likes but no one remembers inviting, who passes while out standing up and must be carried to a couch to sleep it off.
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—Chelsea

Guest writer Chelsea regales us with her first forays into the wild world of booze in this multipart series.

The Peachy Puffs were a motley bunch of tough, loud, beautiful, shit-talking night owls, who would do almost anything for an easy buck. And by easy I mean, not requiring 40 hours a week behind a desk, a Bachelor’s degree, or getting out of bed before noon. These girls were hustlers. The maximum amount of money in the shortest amount of time was the goal, and many also took work as alcohol promotion girls, models, gogo dancers, and drug dealers—as long as the pay was in cash and under the table. The turnover rate was high, as the job can be intense. Many girls quit after one or two nights. But there were some stalwarts who became my nightly companions.

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—Chelsea

Guest writer Chelsea regales us with her first forays into the wild world of booze in this multipart series.

Despite my novice status as a drinker, alcohol quickly became my fuel, pushing me through the insanity of each night as a cigarette girl. I knew nothing about cocktails so I usually asked the bartenders to make me something they liked themselves. The beautiful brunette tending bar at the upscale dance club on Broadway made me an ultra-sweet concoction in a martini glass called a Purple Hooter; the friendly, scruffy-faced guy at the dingy sports bar made me a SoCo and peach schnapps atrocity called an Alabama Slammer. The geeky bar-back who clearly harbored a crush always greeted me with two shots of Fernet, one for me and one for him. And the aging, chubby queen behind the bar at my favorite gay dive made me a large juice glass filled to the top with his secret recipe for a Vanilla Cosmo, which he refused to reveal. I didn’t know what I liked, so I would try just about anything. I never had to ask for a drink, as bartenders tended to have some affection for the cute Peachy Puff girls, and offered booze freely to us. I enjoyed the camaraderie I felt with my fellow night workers, and they, along with the drinks they shared with me, were my only comfort during each night of stressful, fast-paced, disorienting work.

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—Josey

What makes a good drinking song? From first shot to sunrise bottle-swig, here are a few of my wasted favorites.

1) Hey Ya!, André 3000. Two words: Col-lege. Commence frantic, awkward arm-and-leg flailing and vigorous, desperate grabbing at anybody within appendage-reach. Well, that’s what I did when this song played at parties, anyways. Call and response lyrics encourage the boisterous participatory shouting we drunks assume is necessary no matter what song (or lack thereof) is playing. And Mr. 300o’s commands that the soaked and seething mass of booze-sweating bodies “shake it like a Polaroid picture” is the second olive in the dirty martini. Get ready to un-tag some pictures tomorrow morning.

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—Chelsea

Guest writer Chelsea regales us with her first forays into the wild world of booze in this multipart series.

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—Christian

Sometimes a bartender takes it to the next level. The bartender in question here is named Albert Trummer, and he was the mastermind behind Apothéke, a Manhattan bar recently mired in scandal and intrigue. Transplanted from Austria in the ‘90s, Trummer has been working in New York for over ten years and quickly gained a reputation as a mixological savant. What sets Albert apart from the rest?

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—Chelsea

Guest writer Chelsea regales us with her first forays into the wild world of booze in this multipart series.

As a teenager I was shy, awkward, and lonely. I devoted most of my free time to solitary pursuits: writing to my pen pals, listening to records in my room, watching my favorite Japanese soap operas. Socializing was not my strong suit and I was rarely invited to the parties and high school dances where most kids experience an assortment of Firsts: first date, first kiss, first swig of beer, first bitter puff of someone’s cigarette. Hearing my peers talk of their typical adolescent antics was like listening to stories from another time and place, completely foreign and without context. Needless to say, I did not drink, ever.
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