Gut Instinct: Ho, Ho, Oh No!

“Please, please don’t wear the mask,” my girlfriend begged.

“But it makes me beautiful,” I said, fondling the blue ski mask with crimson stitching outlining eyes, snout and deformed maw—camouflage for a mutated survivor of a nuclear apocalypse.

“Wasn’t it enough to wear the mask during the Black Label Bike Kill?” “That was an appetizer to today’s main course.” “But…it’s terrifying,” she said, shaking her head in the slow manner of parents whose children have failed them. I pulled on the mask, the rotten cherry crowning my Kris Kringle outfit. “And it wouldn’t be Santacon without terror.”

Each December, hooched-up St. Nicks maraud NYC streets, passing out candy canes and pornography, holiday cheer and fright. For bystanders, Santacon can be hell: Clauses impede traffic, croon bastardized carols (“Deck My Balls” is particularly delightful) and clog subway cars. “You’re spitting on the holidays,” my friend Jose tells me. “It’s despicable.”

True, true. But for subversive sumbitches (what atheist or Jew doesn’t want to thumb his big ol’ nose at December 25?), Santacon’s a drunken dream. The id runs roughshod, smashing sacred cows. Take the case of the Jewish Chicken: Several Santacons ago, my girlfriend and I bumped into the Jewish Chicken, wearing a clucker suit, yarmulke and Stars of David aplenty.

“Bring me your shiksas,” he commanded, seeking goyish gals dating Jewish men. “There’s a shiksa,” I said, motioning to my girlfriend.

“Meet the shiksa paddle,” he said, thwacking her backside with perverse, reddening pleasure. Lord, it’s a deepening mystery why she still loves me. And I love Santacon too. It’s tough to create rituals in New York. Jobs, friends, families and relationships engage in a tug of war for time. Santacon, though, has become my twisted tradition. I anticipate it as eagerly as my birthday—and not just because I can belt Jameson before noon. Last Saturday’s Santacon, like every Santacon, was a clusterfuck from the start: Santas clogged 36th Street, sardined into a.m. dives such as Blarney Rock and Hickey’s. Santas climbed atop trucks and did cartwheels, then slammed brownbagged Bud Lights. Others dispensed candy canes to confused kids. “Those Santas aren’t real, Sally,” said one sweater-wearing dad, shielding his pig-tailed daughter’s eyes. Ostensibly, Santacon is unorganized.

Like a late-July thunderstorm, thousands of Santas supposedly spontaneously appear. If anyone asks what’s going on, the response is, “Santa convention.”Where are we going? “The North Pole.” It’s marvelously maddening, especially for police unwilling to risk the public-relations nightmare of arresting Santa Claus. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” a cop chided me, using his only weapon: yenta power.

Soon, hordes headed to West 34th Street’s grand General Post Office steps, then it was off to Grand Central, then Rockefeller Center, where Santa packs split into rogue factions. Some serenaded tourists at the tree, while others stormed to Times Square. Santas spread across the city like an unchecked, idiotic virus.

“Don’t dry-hump Mr. Hanky,” my girlfriend pleaded at South Street Seaport, where I rubbed my well-padded extremities against the Christmas-loving South Park turd’s leg. “I think it’s time to go and get dinner.”Needing nourishment, my Santacon crew hit Vietnamese eatery Nha Trang (87 Baxter St. betw. Bayard & Walker Sts., 212- 233-5948) for fragrant pho soup and crispy, seaweed-thin pork chops.Was Santa KO’d ? Ho, no. We had one final stop: a birthday party at subterranean tavern Botanica (47 E. Houston St. betw. Mulberry & Mott Sts., 212-343-7251).

Before I wished my friend Alex a happy 33, I saw her. “Super Mario Santa, what are you doing here?” I asked a young woman dressed as the video game plumber—overalls and mustache, natch. Every Santacon, I’ve fought SMS: in a pizza parlor, throwing snowballs in Central Park, riding the subway, each confrontation devolving into a drunken screaming match.

“Screw you,” SMS said. “I’m not here to fight. Truce?” I extended my gloved hand, covered with white Santa-beard strands. “You know,” she began, her voice tinged with liquor-aided melancholy, “every year for Santacon, I think, Will someone remember me?” “Well, I remember you, Super Mario Santa.” In this anonymous city, the urge to be acknowledged can be maddeningly consuming.

“And just my luck—the only person that remembers me is an asshole.” “That’s Santa Asshole.” Super Mario Santa glared, a plush invincibility star poking from her overalls. Her star would provide scant protection for Sunday’s crushing hangover, but tomorrow’s regrets could wait. “Until next year, Santa,” she said, stumbling off to prolong the long day’s fantasy. “I need some champagne for my water bottle. Because that’s how Santa parties.”

Drunk of the Day: Pile O’ Crap Dude

I find the ski goggles to be a particularly inspired choice for mocking the drunk dude.

Drunk of the Day: Horizontal Inebriation

Uh, what? I’ve got some bad news: You don’t get drunker when you slurp down booze sideways. Or elevated in the air. Trust me: I’ve tried too many times.

Gut Instinct: On Holiday

While these are tough times to earn a paycheck—soon, the Press will compensate me with ramen—there’s one upside to this rocky economic climate: drinking with canned comrades.

Recently, I’ve commiserated with a photo retoucher at Gowanus’ industrial-hip Bell House, where we sipped two-for-one Smuttynose IPAs. “No more full-price beers,” he lamented. Over at Crown Heights’ Franklin Park, which recently unveiled a gaming room, I shared Sixpoint microbrews with a fired condo broker. “Another round?” he asked.

“It’s not like I have to get up tomorrow.” Still, a laid-off editor friend’s invite was most enticing. “To celebrate my return to freelancing, I’ll be drinking at the Holiday,” he wrote. “It doesn’t get cheaper.”

“Yes, yes and yes,” I responded, later adding, “Sorry about your job.” Back in 2000, I lost my dive-bar virginity to the Holiday Cocktail Lounge (75 St. Marks Pl. betw. First & Second Aves., 212- 777-9637). I know I sound like a knockedup teen, but I swear my cherry-popping was accidental. At the time (to conveniently extend my pregnancy metaphor), I toiled for American Baby magazine. By day, I’d sort mail and send toddler calendars to friends.

“Congratulations on your girlfriend’s pregnancy!” I’d write. “American Baby looks forward to joining your journey to fatherhood!” By night, I strolled darkened streets like Baudelaire’s flâneur.Then as now, I knew New York City’s secrets weren’t all Googleable.

Whither the street-corner magician? The Chinatown arcade offering Street Fighter II? My knowledge-seeking missions were fueled by a brown-bagged Bud, its boozy kiss making New York more lurid, more cinematic—and filling my corn-kernel bladder.

Wandering St. Marks one eve, direly needing a toilet, I spied the graffiti-splashed Holiday. A few chain-wearing punks poured out, puffing Marlboro Reds. Sketchily promising, I thought, yanking open the creaky door. Home, I sighed. That is, if home was filled with chain-smoking grandpas—as creased and worn as their stacks of dollar bills—watching Wheel of Fortune.

“Close the door!” shouted a dumpster of a dude. I obeyed. Who knew I liked being bossed around by old men? After relieving myself in a bathroom ripe with decades-old urine, I faced a bartender who recalled the Crypt Keeper.

“Whaddya want?” croaked the corpse-like octogenarian named Stefan Lutak. According to legend, Stefan was once an Olympic soccer star. Now, his only goal was getting drunk.

“Bud,” I ordered. Stefan cracked the beer and shuffled away to bus empty bottles, leaving me to scribble in my journal. Dear diary, I found a bar I loved! Like the best dives, the Holiday was a refuge, a port in the city storm where nobody asked questions or passed judgments, least of all Stefan. He’d inevitably drink himself into a surly stupor and sing warbling songs, like an aria dragged through the gutter. And when he’d finish crooning (or clearing his throat; I could never tell the difference), he’d often refuse to serve customers. One memorable Valentine’s Day, Stefan liquored himself into dreamland.

So us lonely-hearts bargoers went to a bodega and bought six-packs, partying at Holiday while Stefan cut Zs. Since falling for the Holiday, I’ve had countless dive-bar flings: Imperial Biker, Johnny’s, Navy Yard Cocktail Lounge.

Some would call it cheating. I prefer to think I’ve become a polyandrous lover of sleazy, whiskey-soaked saloons—rotgut whiskey is the route to my heart. But my editor friend’s firing brought me back to my first love.

Little had changed since my last years-ago visit. Then again, why should it? Dive bars exist in slowly degrading stasis. Swaths of duct tape held Holiday’s booths together, and Iggy Pop still sang about being a passenger.

Sure, drink prices ticked up a couple quarters but, defying medical science, they were served by the same gaunt figure.

“Stefan, can I have a beer?” I asked. He looked up, his eyes dripping with as much disdain as my mom’s after I wrote about her squirting me with her breast milk. “Whyyyyyyy?” he groaned, as if I’d killed his dog. “Because…you sell beer,” I said. Stefan wearily acquiesced. I brought my longneck to the I’m-fired gathering, where we discussed media’s collapse.

“The rate things are going, media will go down in flames. Anarchy will reign. But you know what will remain? Bloggers and Stefan.”

“To Stefan!” we said, drinking to survival against all odds.

Drunk of the Day: Rather Have a Root Canal?

Ah, revelry: Why does the man with the streamers look like he’d rather be having a root canal?

Drunk of the Day: Gravity-Defying Joy

Heavens, that drunkard be happy. I can’t hate. Today, let’s celebrate! Until gravity works its horrible, terrible magic. Then we’ll say, “I told you so.”

Gut Instinct: Pilgrimage and Progress

In a feat of marvelous daring, damning narcissism and reckless idiocy, I decided to cook Thanksgiving dinner for a dozen. Included would be four couples (counting my girlfriend and myself) and, to my pants-wetting terror, my family. They’d fly in from Ohio, their expectations higher than the cloud-cutting plane.

To my food-crazed clan, Hanukkah, Purim, Easter and Christmas are redheadedstepchild holidays. Culinary-centered Thanksgiving is our money shot. We whip up sweet-potato purée, garlicky mashed potatoes, mushroom-carrot stuffing, sour-cream coffee cake and both roasted cauliflower soup and turkey. Our annual menu is an edible antidepressant—eating it rights our mental ship, connecting us like Krazy Glue.And this would be our first Turkey Day away from Dayton.

“That’s great and all, but how will we seat 12 people?” my girlfriend asked, not unwisely. Like countless New York City apartments, our Brooklyn dwelling lacks amenities such as tables, chairs and, quite often, toilet paper.

“We’ll buy tables and seats,” I said. Money, you solve everything! “Plates and knives?” “Buy ’em.” “And don’t forget decorations. I want candles that look like Pilgrims.”

“Please don’t become a Thanksgiving-zilla.” “I’m not a Thanksgiving-zilla. I just like the holidays,” she said, as if it were a sexual position that could provide untold pleasure.

We outfitted our apartment with Target’s finest furnishings, spending money so wantonly you’d think Thanksgiving was a Scores stripper’s pseudonym. Following the locavore rulebook, I sourced veggies from the Prospect Park Greenmarket and ordered an 18-pound organic, free-range beast from Trenton, New Jersey’s DiPaolo Turkey Farm.

“Sure you don’t want a 22-pound turkey?” the saleslady asked. “Plenty of leftovers.”

“Does Thanksgiving really need more leftovers?” I replied. Besides, when a turkey crosses the 20-pound barrier, it verges uneasily into toddler terrain.And any creature that large deserves a name. Pass me little Billy’s crispy, crispy leg! More of Melissa’s breast meat, please! Days before Thanksgiving, I was fully ready save for my mom’s crème fraîche recipe—soured, thickened cream that gives our sweet-potato purée a rich depth. Clock ticking, I emailed her for guidance.

Hey, Mom: I’m making crème fraîche today. Do you know the proportions? Love, Josh

Mom’s response came quickly and confoundingly.

Good afternoon Mr. Bernstein: My name is Steve, and I’m your mom’s human resources manager.Your mother regrets that she is unable to reply due to several meetings, and thus has instructed me to reply.You mother says that she will e-mail you specific measurements later this evening. Please note that some of what you are looking for may be found in specialty grocery stores. Per your mother’s wishes, please have it finished by tomorrow night.

Thank you, and I wish your family a pleasant Thanksgiving. Had my mom been replaced by a robot? I understand that HR employees are emotionless automatons, terminating employees’ benefits without blinking a hardened eye. But this took the callous, confusing cake: Per your mother’s wishes,please have it finished by tomorrow night. I smacked DELETE and, like thousands of freshly fired New Yorkers, cursed HR. Hours later, my inbox held my mom’s rocket-science recipe: mix equal parts heavy cream and sour cream. Let sit overnight.

The night before Thanksgiving, I couldn’t sit. Or sleep. To brine my turkey (six hours in salt, brown sugar and bruised thyme and rosemary) in time for our 4 p.m. dinner, I’d have to awaken at 4 a.m. “Turn the alarm off,” my girlfriend sleepmoaned, mistaking my fleshy rump for the clock. I slumped from bed and stumbled into the cold kitchen. Sighing, I rolled up my sweatshirt sleeve and, clutching herb sprigs and carrots, rammed my hand into a turkey’s dark, dank cavity. Following the aromatic fisting, I submerged the bird in a double-ply garbage bag filled with salty brine. Filthy, salmonella-riddled work, but the saline bath worked its plumping, moistening magic.

The next morning, I slow-roasted the wellgreased bird to a burnished brown.The potatoes and stuffing turned out buttery and decadent. Friends arrived, bearing green beans, pumpkin pies and booze. And then came my parents and two siblings, taking seats at our new table, at a new tradition’s beginning.

“I love the candles!” my mom said, beaming at the melting Pilgrims. I told you so, my girlfriend’s eyes telegraphed, as everyone said their thanks and feasted until too full.

Drunk of the Day: Do You Hate Yourself?

Is it just me, or is the gentleman in the background flicking himself off? Why the hate, baby? We all ’bout the love here. You need a big ol’ hug.

Drunk of the Day: Not Food

In my long, well-lubricated annals of inebriation, I’ve never mistaken Band-Aids for food. Brings new meaning to plastered! Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha? I’m going to go back to sleep now.

Drunk of the Day: The O Face?

Lordy, lordy, that looks like an orgy. And lots of…fun?

Drunk of the Day: No Fire!

Fire, booze and cigarettes? Either the best or the worst idea ever—or both.

Gut Instinct: DC Me ASAP

“What are you doing?” my girlfriend calls from her office, where she’s watching the acne-free antics of Gossip Girl. “Words! They hurt!” I moan, clutching ears made sensitive by too much Mama Juana, an herb- and wood-soaked Dominican rum touted as Caribbean Viagra—if you don’t swig so much you resemble a wet noodle.

“Are you hungover?” she asks. She stomps into the living room like a drill sergeant. “Muhhhhh,” I mumble through a mouthful of carbonated, caramel bliss.

“Hmmm,” she says, solving my peculiar game of Clue: Josh. In the living room.With Diet Coke. “You’re definitely hungover,” she proclaims, returning to her stories and leaving me to my self-inflicted misery.

To cure the devil-sauce sickness, some folks turn to greasy, cheesy eggs and robust coffee. Not I. Post-boozing, java makes my nerves raw and jingle-jangly, ushering in a twitchy, heart racing, hyperventilating panic attack. But unlike java’s rocket-fuel takeoff, bubbly DC is a gentle jump-start, soothing my stomach while sating my caffeine addiction—methadone to dark-roast heroin.

“What are you, a sorority girl?” my everunderstanding girlfriend wonders. No, the blame—like my neuroses and atrocious eyesight—is planted squarely on my parents.

As a child, my duty was unloading the groceries from my mom’s minivan, especially the soda. My baby-food-soft muscles straining, I’d ferry Diet Coke two-liters—we always bought a dozen during the $.69 sale—to our garage shelves. Like the ancient Egyptians, I’d stack the plastic bottles into a pyramid, where the Bernstein clan worshipped the almighty God aspartame during breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Naturally, my sugar-free leanings left me open to even more ridicule than a short, hirsute Jewish kid in Jesus-loving suburban Ohio would normally endure.

“That stuff is poison,” said my friend Jeremy. “You’re such a freak.” This was an odd indictment from a kid who, several years later, plugged in his mother’s vibrators and waved them at me like Darth Vader’s buzzing, bumpily textured light sabers. However, his comments spoke to a greater truth: Diet Coke engenders a cultish devotion. Fans swallow DC like it’s a life-giving elixir, a magical cure-all for every ailment. So what of the artificial sweeteners and laboratory-concocted preservatives; the nose-tingling beverage has zero caloric impact, enticing spaghetti-thin models and medical professionals alike. Each night before bed, my doctor dad would fill a tall, icefilled glass with effervescent Diet Coke. “It’s to prevent kidney stones,” he’d say. I believed him, too young to discern an addict’s flimsy deception.

Still, my best and saddest Diet Coke story comes from the brick streets of Athens, Ohio. This leafy town is home to my alma mater, Ohio University, and the Ridges, a.k.a. the Athens Mental Health Center.

This sprawling Victorian institution (now university property) has a horror-movie pedigree. Here, unlucky loonies were treated with ice-water dunkings, shock therapy and everyone’s favorite, the lobotomy.When the center shuttered in the 1990s, many of the quote unquote “sane” patients were turned loose on the town. Thusly, Athens was a hodgepodge of characters like Can-Collector George, Right-Angle Bob (he walked at a 90-degree angle) and Diet Coke Man. According to local lore, Diet Coke Man— a haunted 50ish fellow with wind-blown grey hair—was a onetime mathematical genius. He ingested too much acid, flipped his gourd and was committed.Whatever cure he undertook, it failed. Miserably. Diet Coke Man wandered Athens’ streets day and night, cradling a halfdrunk Diet Coke two-liter like a baby. He’d periodically pause, examine a scrap of paper or trash and then shuffle on, his eyes scanning the ground for things bright and tattered.

By my senior year, I’d developed an abiding affinity for the Diet Coke Man. He loved DC as much as I did! Like the quirky cast populating our daily commutes, Diet Coke Man was part of my landscape—an enigmatic constant. A couple weeks before graduation, I decided to employ my supposed journalism skills and debunk his mystery.

“Excuse me,” I said one evening, halting his stroll. I also held a Diet Coke, demonstrating kinship. “What are you looking for?” He paused. Looked up with wounded doe eyes. Drank Diet Coke. “There are two worlds: An A world and a B world,” he said wearily the two-liter dropping to his side. “I’m trapped in the B world. I’m trying to find my way back to the A world.”

With that he shambled off, the sloshing Diet Coke his sole companion on his endless, maddening quest.