Gays: Here is one of the plainest insights you will ever get into how you are perceived by the liquor industry, and, by extension, by the advertising industry that gets paid to understand consumers such as yourself. Pictured here is an ad for Basil Hayden's whiskey that was placed in "general market" publications. Its tagline reads, "When you walk into a bar, you're on stage." After the jump, the tagline for the version of that same ad that was placed into Gay/ Lesbian publications:

Hey, remember that fun project I was doing about media haunts? Well, it's come to fruition. Click the image for a detailed map of where New York journalists drink. Now, finally, you too can drink where New York's journalists drink. Anything missing? Let us know. [Map via Gridskipper]

Even with the demise of print journalism and the so-called end of journalist watering holes, writers still drink quite a bit. Gridskipper has done pieces on blogger bars, and we've made references the New York Observer's predilection for Old Town Bar before, but I'm going for a full list of drinking places, so you, the media adoring public, can do a little casual stalking. A cursory Google search leads me to believe this hasn't been done before, but I could be wrong. Feel free to object to my ignorance in the comments. But after that, let me know where your staff drinks. The office is not an acceptable answer. Every writer drinks in the office.

"They're smart, successful professionals who never miss a day's work - the very opposite of the image of the problem drinker," writes London's Telegraph in an article about functional alcoholics. The real question remains: are you one? Delightfully, the amount of alcohol their subjects consume each week — all successful lady professionals, have we mentioned that? — is broken down into an easy-to-read daily booze diary. See how you measure up!

The New York Post is reporting that The Animal may have been sippin' on a few Purple Monsters — a nastariffic homemade concoction of Red Bull, vodka and NyQuil — before she got carted off to Cedars-Sinai last week after refusing to turn the kids over to K-Fed's handlers. This explains a lot. `Cause there have been more than a few times that we've hit The Tuss and The `Quil a little too hard. Trust us, it turns everything into the scene in Knocked Up where Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd go to Cirque Du Soleil high on 'shrooms. Not fun.

Last night we went out for late drinks at Von, on Bleecker, to observer the departure of Alex Balk and Doree Shafrir from this here website. There I was accosted by a woman who was referred to as a "slutty intern" in a recent Gawker post about Harper's editor Roger Hodge.

With the ongoing incarceration and/or rehabilitation of other wildly popular, troubled starlets hampering the dissemination of breaking news about their fluid intake, we turn to Us Weekly for up-to-the-minute information on what the last free member of the Lindsay/Paris/Britney troika has been drinking, courtesy of a club manager who doesn't believe in treating the consumption of a couple of cocktails by a famous person as a shameful secret:

How bad have things gotten for Tara Reid? Apparently, so bad that she'll have to travel all the way to a Marriott in Chicago to get someone to pay her a modest appearance fee in exchange for downing tequila shots, dancing on top of a bar, and occasionally shouting a slurred "Woooo!" on New Year's Eve, activities which a basic cable channel once paid her to perform at drinking establishments all over the world. We can't bear to see Reid in such a desperate state, so party promoters of Los Angeles, we beg of you: Please make her an offer to let her stay in town for the biggest (amateur) drinking night of the year; we're sure the Chicago people haven't sold too many of those $135 and $165 tickets yet, and would be compassionate enough to release her from her commitment if a less embarrassing offer came along.

Fabian Basabe, that dude who first attracted our attention by being on a rich-people reality show, marrying a lady even though he is obvs gay, suing Bungalow 8 for not letting him in, and calling a doorman a Negro, has gone and done something stupid. (Please take a moment to take a few deep, calming breaths if you need them.) Apparently Mr. Basabe ran a red light at CPW and 65th — which, hey, who hasn't run a few red lights? Like Fab (we're going to call him that now)'s lawyer Mark Heller says, "Sometimes [the light] changes while you're in midstream." However, running a red light drunk in a Hummer without (probably) a license is kind of asking for it. Of course, Heller blames the "bumbling" cops who tested Fab's sobriety with "antiquated and faulty equipment." We hope that Fab didn't encounter any more of that pesky stuff during the time he spent in jail!

We've always been unimpressed with the people who trumpet their participation in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which as far as we can tell involves telling everyone you know (usually via your blog) that you're writing a novel in a month, woohoo, way to go you. Seriously, it's almost as tiresome as people who think they're all special for sprinting through five boroughs. Color us not impressed.
But you know what IS impressive? NaDruWriNi — National Drunken Writing Night — which we had no idea was this past Saturday. (Even so, we may have inadvertently participated). The concept is wonderful, but the results are even better. Some of the drunkest are collected here. To whet your whistle, here's an excerpt from one of our favorites from last year:

The glamorous life of our Team Party Crash reporters takes an occasional toll on their fragile psyches. For an example, look no further than this bonus outtake footage shot at "the busiest, coolest, slammingest bar in downtown Manhattan." Warning: This video is so vivid you will smell the stale beer and bad cologne.

Nice little bittie here on Hoy Wong, believed to be the city's oldest bartender:

• Could it be that Madonna is considering parting ways with Kabbalah? The Independent, which is slightly more respectable than the 3 AM Girls, reports that Madge is said to be "wearying" of the red string and its effect on her family and her wallet. But can she bear to abandon the countless retard celebs who have followed her example? [AFP]
• AdAge's Media Guy, His Crankiness Simon Dumenco, celebrates the one-year anniversary of his column with one of the more sincere pieces we've seen out of him (it looks great on him!). He's learned a few things in the past year, mostly that no one likes Bonnie Fuller or James Truman and that blogs make mainstream media lazy. Consider it etched in stone. [AdAge]
• If you're footing the bill for Fido to get to doggy day care via the Pet Taxi, then why the hell do you even have a dog? Will you pay someone to pet the poor thing for you, too? [BW]
• Lindsay Lohan (or so we assume) returns to the loving, blind vice arms of Ted Casablanca's column, in which we learn that true security guards cut your lines for you. [E!]
• The most unintentionally hilarious picture of Hillary Duff. [Goldenfiddle]
• Time Out New York celebrates summer with the next level in drinking games: an eight week boozy scavenger hunt across 24 different venues. Our drinking game piggybacks on this: take a shot every time a participant in the TONY game gets their stomach pumped. [Fishbowl NY]

Dust off the Gevil tees and trek to the Southern Plex. A Yahoo mail user (employee? maybe) says:

• The Mozilla Foundation shows the best Firefox Flicks at San Fran's Kabuki Theater at 2 PM. The best grassroots ads for the indie Firefox browser will be shown — and the best of the best get prizes, including a massive three-screen monitor. [Spread Firefox]

Overheard by a thirsty reader:

The insomniacs at Open All Night didn't make it to the premiere of Steve Buscemi's Lonesome Jim in Chelsea last night, but they did make it to the after-party, at the nightclub Home. A bit of their report:

And you thought Google Maps were only being used to stalk celebrities. Turns out you can use theem to get completely shit-faced, too. Thanks to the alcoholics at New York On Tap, you can now use maps to locate bars by address, neighborhood or subway stop. (Looks like they have a way to go before they have every watering hole indexed, but most of downtown Manhattan is now covered.) Drunks never had it this easy.

It seems that some downtown bars, including the Tribeca Tavern, the Bubble Lounge, and several places we've never been to, are in danger of having their liquor licenses pulled. Why? From today's Sun:

Like drinking? (Of course you do.) Like the East Village? (Can't imagine why you wouldn't.) Have a spare $670,000 lying around? (Aha. You knew there was something.) If you answered yes to these three questions, then have we got an eBay auction for you.