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You Are Too Poor To Throw Yourself A Celebration
“'If you can’t afford to hire a bartender,' he added, 'you shouldn’t be having a party.'"
Lest you think I was hasty on this one, I would like to point out that it took heroic efforts to persevere past, "this is my sh-bam, my moment." Or even "Williamsburg."
Photo by Sklathill, from Flickr.
you missed the part where the guy responsible for that utterance "said his job was to get models and Saudi royalty into hot clubs."
oh, styles section, you are SUCH A GREAT TROLL.
I read that as, "hot tubs."
I know people who have this job. They are horrible people/places.
they should rename it the Smiles Section.
Or the Smug Section?
I'll be your bartender, Balk. ARNOLD PALMERS AND KOCH'S SILVER ANNIVERSARY ALE FOR EVERYONE!!!
Wow, I just open up a bottle of whiskey, throw a pack of smokes on the table and turn down the lights. People expect more than that?
If you can't make a punch yourself, maybe you're too stupid to throw yourself a party. Hiring someone to put shit in cups is so unimaginably lazy.
Hands up who wants to punch this Dustin Terry bloke in the face?
I did actually have a barman at a house party back in the 80s, but he was a friend doing it for nothing and he was serving Tequila slammers from the ironing board in my kitchen.
Second from right, in case you were wondering: http://guestofaguest.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/massantejlongdterryabarlok_112608.jpg
Hot Chicks With Douchebags.
@LondonLee: I have never met a Dustin who was NOT a douchebag. A Dylan, on the other hand, can go either way, but most eventually embrace the dark side.
Remembering what my grandmother always told me, "if you can't say anything nice….."
Biting my tongue.
My valet and I would both like to take a swipe at him.
Even with all this interesting commentary I can't get past "Adding Class" which is the title.
@barnhouse: I only allocate a set number of times I can use the phrase "you know what, -fuck- those people" per day, and without that title I'd have read the article and used them all up. So it's kind of a public service, that title?
@Gef TRUTH.
On the plus side, I now have another way to recognize dickheads that I'd never want to hang out with.
And for goodness sakes people, make sure you wear a strappy little purse the party. But NOT A CLUTCH.
But then again you don't need a free hand to take care of your own trash.
Bartenders can also expect a tip — anywhere from 20 to 100 percent — from the host, not the guests.
100 percent! I just put in my two weeks' notice.
You might want to watch Party Down all over again.
My bartender friend makes in a day in tips what I make in a week. It is vaguely maddening, but I also know he works far harder than I do.
This is good to keep in mind. My job involves a lot of sitting, which is all I ever dreamed of when I was a kid.
That is the best Styles quote I've read in the Times since 1996: "Spare looks best at over 4,000 square feet. At anything less, it's more like, 'You poor thing….'"
I read "sh-bam" as "Sh-Boom," and thought, yes, achieving success in the late stages of capitalism does bring to mind the 1954 hit for The Chords and The Crew-Cuts, a song often also referred to as "Life Could Be a Dream."
Then I went back to wrapping fish.
Like this?
Precisely.
I gave my guests a number for a dude who shows up in an SUV real fast. Now I have to give them drinks too?
I need a drink…
I'll get it for you if you'll tip 100%
On the plus side, this will redirect a lot more cash from class-conscious morons to service workers.
If you can't afford a flat of Four Loko, you shouldn't be having a party. If you actually buy the flat of Four Loko, you shouldn't be having a party.
Wait okay now I actually read this. Lady had $600 to throw a party with, and spent $195 on a bartender. Ummm…people could have opened their own bottles and not had to eat 'panko crusted chicken' (chicken nuggets they mean, right?)
Pank you very much!
In the olden days that $195 would have been spent on drugs for the guests to enjoy instead.
By Olden Days I hope we mean tomorrow.
yeah, whatever happened to Spiral Jetties of Cocaine.
@LondonLee – Now I feel really stupid. I just laid out 50 bucks for some red snapper for a dinner party.
yep, thats right, i bring the girlsss.
Example 23095 why Patti Smith said New York is "over". Goddamn these awful fucktards have taken over the whole damned world.
You can like people with money, hate people with money. But you cannot say that an entire city with people with lots of money is fascinating. It [i]isn't[/i]. – Fran Lebowitz
the phrase 'media console' made me want to drop that television on someone's head.
Yeah cool and that's still a fucking cheapass Expedit Bookcase from Ikea behind your bartender.
ARTIE DON'T HURT 'EM!!!!
ALSO: The complete lack of cocktail mixing tools suggests that all that bartender does is fill plastic cups with stuff from those two jugs (Punch and Eggnog?!?)
Anyway, classy shit.
Oh, wait… I just read the thing. It actually IS vodka punch and eggnog in plastic cups
and not a single LP to be found. fuck a bartender, a party without a joint rolled on a record is no party at all.
^ 'gets it' (although I don't need to hit off that, do I? You don't wanna get acquainted with my party paranoia.)
you do what you want, man. i'll be splayed out on the couch, digging the vibes.
"Another guest, Eric Carson, 32, a stock trader who lives in nearby Greenpoint, agreed that the bartender added class. “I feel very sophisticated at this party,” he said. “And I usually feel like a complete dirt bag.”
I loved this.
How about, if you can't afford an apartment that's larger than 400 sq ft, you shouldn't be spending your money on bartenders.
How about you actually act like an adult, instead of trying to just look like one by hiring a bartender to pour two-step drinks into plastic cups?
Correct, but not irritated enough by the milieu of the piece (and the Times).
How about, if you read this piece and don't get a migraine, you're all for pissing in the reservoir.
I only go to house parties with bathroom attendants.
You mean that random hot dude behind you in line who quietly follows in to watch you pee?
Sigh. That dude is never hot.
"In my opinion, if you don’t have a bartender at your party, you’re a loser,” said Dustin Terry, who noted that he will be first against the wall when the revolution comes.
my thoughts exactly
FACT: Anyone who uses the word "class" (or a derivation) in this context is probably an asshole. Also, bartenders never make drinks stong enough.
Use of the word "class" or "classy" to mean "elegance" or "sophistication" is a dead giveaway that whatever is being described will be simply dreadful.
@City_Dater: It's kind of analogous to how the words "luxury" and "exclusive" have, through overuse and too-broad application, become red flags indicating that their subject is anything but.
You clearly do not know the right bartenders.
I save a few bucks by using my uncle Sid as a bathroom attendant.
And WTF is up with this gem: "Hosts don't want to have to look after their guests' needs"?!
So don't have parties, you rude stupid young people.
I know it's been awhile since I've left the house, but is Williamsburg already gentrified and full of yuppies? And "stock traders" live in Greenpoint now? Last time I was drunk on Bedford Ave it still seemed at least a little edgy and authentic. Didn't take long for those fake warehouse "loft" apartments to fill up with "stylists, publicists and DJs." Yuck.
Dustin Terry is so not invited to my next (awesome) party. I would have posted this to the Times' comment section for this piece, but they didn't open it up.
inspiration via television shows and movies equals class, duh.
Classist!
commercials too, especially the commercials.
http://video.adultswim.com/tim-and-eric-awesome-show-great-job/prices.html
Every time someone calls to invite me over, I ask them if they're hiring a bartender. If they say no, then I say, "Then you shouldn't be having a party," blast them with an airhorn, and slam down the receiver.
"They like airhorns, generally"
For everyone of us who says, "FUCK THESE PEOPLE" there are three more who say, "Oooh! This looks cool! I wanna go!!"
And this is why you must delete your blogs.
Deleted by user
"Artists don't have servants, Bob."- Andy Warhol, in response to an aide's bitching at not having waiters/bartenders at Factory parties and lunches in the 70's. Guess he was a loser.
"I think everybody should like everybody."
Sh'bam? Is that Yiddish for fauxhemian-fest?
Getting Saudi royals into "hot clubs" is sooooooooo classy.
Christ almighty. If I spend $600 on a party, I better be getting laid at the end of the night.
So, like a wedding?
Back when I worked the door at Tunnel, it was my job to keep out the Saudi Royals.*
*Disclaimer: I never worked the door at Tunnel.
ok, i figured this out.
First I wanted to just go and put my head in the oven, but maybe…
just maybe the NYT is trying to help drum up work for yours, and my… down and out bartender-catering friends during these holidays.. just maybe. Because catering or bartending is money, and
that is always nice, especially if it does not go through PayPal.
Or, they are just instructing their newest readers at eighth-grade level, on how to be cool in NY.
*puts head back in oven*
For anyone here in NYC who'd actually consider getting a bartender and/or party help but is too afraid to admit it, I"d like to let you know that Barnard runs a bartending and party helper service. You get sweet, fresh-faced girls who can use the money, and it's really not that expensive at all.
Bartenders suck up valuable stripper-money.
"she said she’d just seen the movie, 'A Single Man,' set in the mid-1960s, and had chosen her party dress — a floaty, sleeveless black silk and chiffon minidress — to channel Julianne Moore in that film." Really? Dressing up like a superannuated fag hag? That gave me a schadenfreude sad.