Rise If You Must

From: John Carney
Date: Thu, Mar 16, 2006 
Subject: Team SPD

The Committee for the Current Disaster: Saint Patrick’s Day (CCD:SPD)

of the Greenwich Village Society for the Preservation of Whiskey &
Morals has concluded its research and proudly presents the following
agenda.

Listen people. The parade runs up Fifth Avenue, from 44th Street to
86th Street.  In years past we’ve learned that drinking in midtown
during the parade is impossible due to overcrowding, while drinking
downtown too early means missing out on the chaos of the day.  We’re
starting early, east and uptown.

Feel free to join us at any point during the day or night.  If you
aren’t sure where we are, call or text me or CCD:SPD
Chairman Will Snyder.  Texting is probably the surest
way to reach us.  If you are a dodgeball subscriber (and you should
be: www.dodgeball.com), look for last minute changes via dball
check-ins.

10:30 am: Breakfast and pints at Kinsale Tavern, located on Third
Avenue between 93rd and 94th Streets.

12 Noon: Midday drinks at the Gael, located at Third Avenue and 83rd Street.

1:00 pm: Quick peak at the parade on 83rd Street.

1:30: Some of Team SPD will make an excursion to The Emerald Society
Benefit, which goes runs from 1 to 5 pm (although doors close at 3
pm). Pier 88, 48th St and 12th Avenue.  We will be joining Team SPD
members Officer Jack Malone and Officer Juliet Shields there.  A $25
cover-charge buys free drinks, free food, bands and a chance to mingle
with sauced members of New York’s Finest. [Note: This portion of the
day is optional.  I suspect some members of team SPD will be remaining
at the Gael or a nearby drinking establishment.]

5:00: Workers of SPD Unite!  Those of you who have been working all
day while we have been drinking and fighting will meet us.  Do not go
home.  Do not pass go.  Do not collect your sense of responsibility.
The official meeting point is the Gael, on Third Avenue and 83rd
Street.  If this is untenable because of crowds, fire or dry taps, we
will relocate.  Text Will or me for the lastest news.

9:00-10:00: The Great Migration South.  Sometime around now the bars
of the Upper East Side will become soaked in green unmentionable green
liquids and our deeply downtown compasses will start dragging us
toward the homeland.  There will be great confusion.  People will get
lost. Someone will sneak off to mess around with a green-clad drunk
they met earlier in the evening.  Someone else will realize they have
lost their wallet, purse, hat, coat or girlfriend.  Someone else (I am
sorry there are so many somones, but that’s the way the world is) will
forget where we are going.  But you won’t.  We’re going to Mona’s, on
Avenue B between 13th and 14th Street.

Later: Be realistic.  We have no idea where we’ll be much later.  If
we’re still standing and moving, we may end up at the Village Tavern
at the tail end of this disaster.  It happened last year, I’m told.
The VT is located at 46 Bedford (near 7th Avenue).  Or else we may end
up somewhere on the Lower East Side.

Remember this is all subject to change due to over-crowding,
over-charging, uncompromising men or uncooperative women.

I’ll see you all tomorrow.  Good hunting, soldiers.

Best,

John Carney
Vice President,
Membership & Debauchery,
Greenwhich Village Society for
the Preservation of Whiskey & Morals

From: John Carney 
Date: Mon, Mar 5, 2007 at 9:49 PM
Subject: SPD07 Approaching: Saturday, March 17

Listen up.  We’re putting together an agenda for The. Worst. Saint.

Patrick’s. Day. Ever.

Worse than the year everyone passed out with their head on the brass
kickrail at The Unknown Irish Bar.  Worse than the year we got in a
bar brawl with 200 angry corrections officers.  Worse than the year we
ended up in the Chelsea Hotel with three kegs of green beer and no
sense of responsibility.  Worse than last year, when we ended up in
Sing Sing karaoke and everyone was broke so instead we paid the bill
with the last shreds of our dignity.  The. Worst. Ever.

Last year we made new friends, overcame great challenges, celebrated
triumphs and gave thanks to our saints, gods, stars, genes or good
luck for everything we have and most things we have become. Girls fell
for boys and boys mostly fell down. Try to avoid any more of that sort
of thing. It was embarrassingly lovely.

This year we celebrate Saint Patrick on a Saturday. That means that
the city streets will be awash with green colored garbage and other
sorts of people. But once again we’ll move through the crowds as if
they were ghosts and mist. The parade goes up Fifth Avenue, creating
an impenetrable barrier of human flesh marching uptown. So we’re
starting early and going late, working our way from North to South
down the east side of Manhattan, avoiding the parade altogether (if
you insist, you may make a side trip to wave at people waving at you
and then return to express your regrets at this unwise decision).
There will likely be a few stop-offs in various saloons. So feel free
too contribute your suggestions.

You’ve been carefully selected by the Greenwich Village Society for
the Preservation of Whiskey & Morals as a candidate for participation.
If you think you’re up for it, please respond to this email and you’ll
be provided with details once the Sub-Committee for the Current
Disaster 07: Saint Patrick’s Day (SCCD07:SPD) gets around to figuring
out what they are.  If you cannot come, we promise not to tease you
too much about missing it.

As always,

John Carney
Vice President,
On Temporary Disabled List (Automotive Section),
Membership & Debauchery,
Greenwich Village Society for the Preservation of Whiskey & Morals

PS: Sorry for the mysteriousness of the BCC.  If you knew who this was
going to, you’d thank me for not sharing your email address with them.
Trust me. Feel free to forward to any friends or enemies you think I
may have forgotten to include.

From the Archives: Memories of Grace in Winter (2005)

A winter night in early March. The wind shakes the glass of the shops on Franklin Street. The cobra-headed street lights make little cones of cold yellow light in the darkness. You walk west into the wind toward Broadway, and turn right up a short flight of uneven steps at a place where the columns of an old Tribeca textile building are wrapped in white Christmas lights.

Inside is a long tall room with a bar on the left. J.J. behind the bar sees you come in and reaches for the bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey. The place is called Grace. You’ve been here before. You used to be a regular but something changed. A new crowd ran in newer bars and you stopped coming to Grace. Even you are surprised you are back in Grace again.

You push aside one of the tall stools in front of the bar, and lean up against the bar on your elbow. J.J. puts the glass in front of you. Two ice-cubes float in the amber whiskey. You watch them melt for a moment before you take a hit. The water cuts the alcohol a bit and lets the flavors of the whiskey flourish. The small portion of ice makes the drink cool but not cold. After your first drink you lick your lips and smile at the taste of whiskey. The muscles in your neck loosen and your eyes relax. 

“Been awhile,” J.J. says as he shifts around some glasses beneath the bar.

“Yeah. Awhile. I didn’t know I was coming here,” you say. “I had other plans. But I found myself in the neighborhood and then in front of the bar.”

This was true. You had other plans for the night. Those were gone now. 

You try to remember the last time you were here. It was in November. You were alone. You were alone a lot last November. A good friend had died. Another friend had given up the drink. Your brothers had all moved away. 

Of course, there had been trouble with a girl. You know the moment the trouble started. It was just before dessert in a restaurant in Chicago where you and girl had gone for a weekend. She stopped talking, and put her fork down. This wasn’t what she wanted. When she said “this” she meant everything that had to do with you. She meant she wanted to leave you. You were to tell your mother not to expect her for the holidays. 

Thinking about it now you realize that the trouble hadn’t started then. It had its start in a hundred smaller conversations that were tucked into everyday the rhythm of life. This one stood out because it was a disruption in the rhythm. The conversation that stopped everything else. You imagined it as a doorway in time which would forever divide what had come before you crossed the threshold and what had come after. 

Afterwards, it was easy not to think about the girl and the dinner and the doorway during the day. Why was it so hard to avoid looking back through that doorway at night? You spent your nights pretending not to look but the only way you could stop yourself was with whiskey. So you drank too much.

You are drinking again tonight. Trying not to think about how cold it was outside. Somehow you had managed in a few short months to march yourself down another corridor that led directly toward another doorway, through which you had stepped tonight. Another conversation that brought stillness to life. Another mark between before and after. Another girl with tears in her eyes, saying goodbye.

J.J. hands you another whiskey. How many has that been? You’ve already lost count. You take a pen out of your pocket and start to write on a bar napkin. What you write is meant to be a joke, a twelve step program for people who seem to be addicted to broken hearts. But you can’t laugh at it tonight. You hope tomorrow it will be funny. Tonight you just wish you could cry but that’s the other part, that you cannot even, ever cry. 

The whiskey helps though. It really does.