Drunk of the Day: Look at My Eyeball Sliver

It’s like he won a contest to see who could open a single eye the least.

Drunk of the Day: My, What Pretty Molars You Have

In three seconds, that youngster will attempt to insert that beer can into his—her?—gaping maw and fail horribly, negating a orthodontics-filled childhood.

Drunk of the Day: Yearning for Youth

Ah, age 17. How I miss you so. Except for the bacne. And undescended testicles.

Gut Instinct: Fearing the Wurst

A school bus trip to a forgotten borough gets to the meat of the matter

It was an offer most folks could refuse.

“Show up at the City Reliquary at 11 a.m. Saturday, and we’ll ride a school bus…somewhere,” was my fancifully mustached pal Matt Levy’s pitch. He was orchestrating arts collective Flux Factory’s inaugural Going Places (Doing Stuff) outing. Rent a school bus, give the guide free reign and then ask passengers to depart to destinations unknown.

“Sign us up,” I reply, for I’m a man who enjoys mystery—meat and otherwise. My girlfriend and I arrive in Williamsburg with my stomach growling like a muffler-less Mustang.

“I told you to eat dinner,” my girlfriend says.

“I did.”

“Beer is not dinner.”

The previous eve we visited the recently revived International Bar (120 1/2 First Ave. betw. 7th St. & St. Marks Pl.). Though the grit and communicable diseases have been Mr. Cleaned, the drinks remain panhandler cheap: I pounded $4 whiskey-Schaefer couplings in lieu of solid food.

“Well, let’s eat before the bus leaves,” she says, leading me to cupcake-mad Cheeks Bakery (378 Metropolitan Ave. at Havemeyer St., Williamsburg, B’klyn; 718-599-3583). I order a strawberry scone the size of a mouse’s torso.

“Three dollars,” the counter lady says without irony—surprising, since we are in Williamsburg and the price is a joke.

I disappear the crumbly scone in two bites, then I investigate a bodega’s choices for sustenance. Amid Doritos I discover Engobi—caffeine-infused Energy Go Bites crackers, bearing an orange $.99 sticker reading value priced. The flavor is “lemon lift,” which inspires as much culinary confidence as Cheez-Whiz.

For experimentation’s sake, I purchase a bag and crunch brittle, scoop-shape crackers. Engobi tastes like puffed Fruit Loops rolled in crushed Lemonheads candy, sticking to my teeth like peanut brittle. Enough Engobi: It’s time to go places. And do stuff.

“Who think we’re going to Manhattan?” asks Matt, as adults pretzel into the cramped kiddie seating.
Crickets.

“Brooklyn?”

Zip.

“Queens?”

Nada.

“Bronx?”

A couple hands.

“What about…Staten Island?”

As travelers clap and hoot like A-Rod smacked a World Series grand slam, we bounce across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to the first stop, Our Lady of Mount Carmel’s grotto. It’s an artificial stone-and-seashell cave containing religious iconography, much like our next stop at the Castleton Hill Moravian Church.

“We’re going to a labyrinth!” Matt announces.

The group cheers. Then we discover that this labyrinth shares little with goblins or David Bowie: This labyrinth is a circular walking path for meditation.

“I’m not feeling too meditative,” I tell my girlfriend, sliding away to my ulterior motive: visiting thin-crust pizza shop Joe and Pat’s (1758 Victory Blvd. betw. Manor Rd. & Northrop Pl., Staten Island; 718-981-0887). Our tour craves pizza for lunch, so I accompany Matt to lend my expertise in ordering ’zas (about $20 apiece), including pesto, broccoli rabe, arugula and, umm…

“What’s scungilli?” Matt asks.

“Conch,” replies a chubby-cheeked counter boy.

“With garlic,” Matt says.

Twenty minutes later, our adventure posse attacks the crisply charred pies like fallen Slim-Fasters. In a cheesy tsunami, the pizzas—creamy pesto and crunchy broccoli rabe are clear winners, with briny scungilli far behind—are reduced to grease-stained cardboard.

“Sated,” I whisper to my girlfriend, rubbing my belly.

“I doubt that,” she says.

Fattened up, we mosey to the Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art. We learn how a child actor from Cincinnati, Ohio, married a chemical industrialist and created this verdant center for Himalayan art in Staten Island, complete with Zen-calm terraced gardens. Now filled with knowledge, too, our motley crew departs to our final stop.

“Who’s ready for beer and meat?”

Matt asks.

“I am!” I shout.

“When are you not?” my girlfriend adds.

The bus disgorges us at 19th-century Killmeyer’s Old Bavarian Inn (4254 Arthur Kill Rd. at Sharrotts Rd., Staten Island; 718-984-1202). Though this is my second visit, I’m still in awe of the beer hall. Stuffed critters decorate ornately carved wood, while dirndl-wearing waitresses deliver half-liter mugs of wheaty, lemon-dunked Franziskaner Weiss ($6.50).

“Staten Island tastes good,” I say, sipping myself a beer mustache.

A perky blonde waitress saunters over. My meat-averse girlfriend orders a salad, but I go whole hog with a sausage platter ($15) and a “beer stick.”

“You eat it with beer,” the waitress instructs, delivering my thick, mild, chewy sausage. It’s lip-smacking with a liberal stripe of tangy mustard.

“Look, I’m smoking a meat cigar,” I tell my girlfriend, inserting a brown length into my mouth like Groucho Marx.

My girlfriend shakes her head, then she wisely averts her eyes when I receive my fat, nearly pornographic tubes of bratwurst, knackwurst and weisswurst. I knife clean juicy wheels, spin them in grainy mustard, chew and repeat, like I’m the hungriest, happiest worker on Staten Island’s heart-attack assembly line.

Drunk of the Day: Thirsty Girls

Little does she know, but my heart is found at the bottom of that glass.

Drunk of the Day: Captain Grabbin’

I love this action shot: her hair in motion, his hand reaching for the promised land, and random dude just sippin’ on his Bud. Hells yeah, yo, that’s a Friday night.

Drunk of the Day: Orange You Special

Oh, yeah, nothing like a cool, sticky Vitamin C injection when I’m trashed beyond repair. Pass the Sunkist, sweetie.

Drunk of the Day: Right-Angle Man

Sweet patoosie, how did that boy angle his body? It’s time to call a chiropractor. Or pour him another drink.

Gut Instinct: Josh on Rye

“What happened to you?” my girlfriend asks, equal parts question and indignation.

“I had a few drinkshes,” I mumble, keeping myself as bipedal as a dog dancing on hind legs.

“Uh, I can see that.” She examines me, all Jell-O limbs and sweet booze stink, like I’m a feral creature mistakenly introduced into polite society. “But how many drinks did you have?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too, but it’s 9 p.m. On a Tuesday.”

“I was thirsty.”

“Why?”

Because it’s Tuesday. For five years of Mondays, I’ve toiled as a late-shift copy editor at a glossy periodical covering celebs and reality-TV tartlets as substantial as cotton candy. My inner stickler enjoys wrangling commas and semicolons, proving others wrong and myself, as always, so right. Know Catherine Zeta-Jones needs a hyphen? I do.

This is a point of pride and grief—great gobs of gray matter contain senseless facts, like Amy Winehouse’s skuzzy skin condition is called impetigo. I have zero need for pop culture’s flotsam and jetsam, so come Tuesdays, I give myself a liquid lobotomy.

Tonight’s ill-advised procedure occurred at South Williamsburg’s Trophy Bar (351 Broadway betw. Keap & Rodney Sts., B’klyn, 347-227-8515). It’s a recent newcomer to a stretch of beneath-the-train Broadway thick with taquerias like Taco Santana (301 Keap Street betw. S. 5th and Broadway, B’klyn; 718-388-8761), where quesadillas are crispy and cecina cemitas are slicked with chipotle salsa. The sign-free bar offers picnic-table-strewn backyard and arty, ironic touches—subway tiles, a chandelier’s concocted from gramophones, vintage trophies line mantles and the jukebox spins 45s from classic artists like the Doobie Brothers and Salt-N-Pepa.

“Stop. Push it. Push it real good,” I sing to myself, as I suck my thick and hoppy Sixpoint Righteous Rye ($4 until 8 p.m.; $6 otherwise).

“What was that?” asks the skinny bartender. He’s tending to blondes drinking sweaty margaritas. Fresh fruits and herbs create many of Trophy’s painstakingly prepared cocktails.

“Nothing, nothing,” I say, filling my mouth with crunchy, complimentary corn nuts. Note to self: inside voices.

“Mmhmm. You alright?”

“Yeah, just a little sleepy.”

“Mmhmm. Well, let me know if you need anything.”

“Will do,” I reply, drinking my anesthetizing beverage.

In certain cases, alone-time inebriation signals a serious problem. Freshman year in college, my dorm neighbor was a lanky country boy nicknamed Cowboy Craig. He liked visiting my room to drink beer and bring gifts, oftentimes his mother’s chocolate-chip cookies.

“Too sweet,” he’d drawl, tossing me a Zip-Loc bag filled with maternal love.

One night, I knocked on Cowboy Craig’s door to borrow a pen. He emerged from the pitch-black room, wearing tightie-whities and a creased cowboy hat, clutching a smudged glass of tan whiskey.

“Are you…OK?” I asked.

“Never better,” he smirked, handing me a pen. He shut the door. His bedroom lights never flicked on. His nocturnal intoxication continued until freshman year’s end.

In the right situation, solo drinking is socially acceptable. My first year in New York City, I wandering gum-covered sidewalks and popped into downtown dives, such as

Holiday Cocktail Lounge, Lakeside Lounge and Blue and Gold, for a gin-and-tonic pick-me-up. Bar drinking allowed me to compile my thoughts, perhaps jot in my journal and observe like an amateur sociologist.

“Can I tell you something?” says one blonde to another at Trophy Bar tonight, swallowing salty margarita.

“Of course,” her friend replies.

“I don’t love him.”

“About time you figured that out.”

Make sure my girlfriend loves me. Do not become someone’s barstool confession, I scribble in crumpled notebook, adding with underlined emphasis, Sad!

“Another drink?” the bartender asks. He points at my empty vessel.

Enable me, please. He pours a spicy, wheaty Hennepin ($4 until 8 p.m.; $6 afterward), followed by another Righteous Rye. Feeling magnanimous, I leave a $2 tip on each pint.

“This one’s on me,” the bartender rewards me, refilling my pint—my fourth, my limit, my point of no return. A deep, jagged crevice separates cheery tippling from drooling intoxication. I loosen my throat, swallow my freebie and nose-dive into the drunken mire.

“I’m done for,” I tell the bartender, dropping another dollar tip and venturing home via wobbly feet and speedy bus, my brain as blank as unlined notebook paper, my notebook filled with the evening’s most vital thought.

Drunk of the Day: Jamaica’n Me Crazy

Though he’s fallen face-first in paradise, his drinks remains unspilled. Talent! I smell talent! And sunscreen.

Drunk of the Day: So Handy

Mystery stain on pants? Check. Knee on friends neck? Check. Bleary eyes? Check. It’s only fun until someone gets hurt T-shirt? Check. Irony? No extra charge.

Drunk of the Day: Flick You Off, Man

My favorite part of this picture: the nonplussed guy in the background who’s thinking, “Man, what a bunch of drunk morons.” Also: WTF with that facial hair?