Joe Mentioned Malarkey. Drink Up!
Image by josh nathan-kazis
Josh Nathan-Kazis October 12, 2012
All but four of the people at Professor Thom’s bar in the East Village on Thursday night were watching the vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan.
The other four were watching the Yankees lose to the Orioles in extra innings in their playoff series.
In a bar that leaned heavily Democratic, the cheers for the Yankees landed incongruously, one coming in the midst of what might have been a Ryan applause line in another bar.
It’s hard to get a good read on the response to a candidate’s performance in a boozy, partisan watch party at a pub. (I tried a similar thing in West Palm Beach last week, where I sat in on both Republican and Democratic debate watch events.)
As far as I could tell, though, the experience of the Democrats at the divey NYU-area sports bar last night was anxiety, followed by relief.
“I’m worried (that) I’m maybe in denial for not being worried,” said Rachel Schwartz, 23, expressing a complicated nest of election-related issues. Schwartz was attending a debate watch event at Professor Thom’s organized by something called the New American Tavern, which plans political-themed events at watering holes.
Speaking before the start of the debate, Schwartz sat at a table full of beer pitchers. Two tables over, a group of friends had sketched out an elaborate drinking game with a marker. A mention of the word “deficit” meant that everyone at the table had to “drink.” A mention of the notion that Bin Laden was dead and General Motors was alive required a “shot.” And a mention of P90X, the workout program Paul Ryan favors, required that players “chug.”
They had a long night ahead of them.
Evan Berkow, 30, and Megan Gohlke, 34, didn’t arrive in time to get seats. Standing by the bar while waiting for the debate to start, both said they were nervous. They cut the tension with jokes.
“He’s like an evil Eddie Munster,” Berkow said of Paul Ryan, presumably referring to the Republican vice presidential candidate’s prominent widow’s peak.
Once the debate started, the crowd let Biden and Ryan handle the zingers. They appreciated Biden’s jabs more. One circle of young women nearly screamed at Biden’s snide, “Oh, now you’re Jack Kennedy.”
As the debate wound down, the room seemed pleased.
“He killed it,” Gohlke said.
At the table that had been playing the drinking game, things were a bit disorderly. Craig Hirscheerger, one of the players, gestured to the vast number of empty pitchers and glasses on the table. Justin Chotikul, another player, thought the group could have gotten drunker.
“We could have had malarkey on there,” he said..
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
