99 Beers Off The Wall
Sunday, February 22, 2009 at 8:56PM 
99 Beers Off The Wall is a book I wrote and my friend Joe Freedman designed. It came out in 2002 and basically it's a one-man bar guide and travelogue of a writer (me) attempting to go to 99 bars and drink 99 beers during my seven day vacation from my night job.
The idea came to me while looking at a Zagat's guide book and realizing that everything in quotes in their reviews has been sent in by a third party and none of it is fact-checked. So people could (and probably do) send in glowing remarks about their own bars and no one knows. They get a good review and post it in their window, that's a free ad for the Zagat's guide and they sell a ton of their stupid guide books. And that pissed me off. Not that the Zagat's people were pulling a scam, but that I didn't think of it first!
Anyway, I had written bar reviews for Time Out New York and for citysearch.com, so I had experience writing bar reviews. My idea was to be a one-man bar reviewer for seven days and then write the reviews. And sandwiched in between the reviews is a running travelogue of my drunken adventures running around Manhattan in somewhat of a stupor.
It was tough to get press for the book, as a lot of people told me it glorifies drinking and I talked unashamedly about doing drugs in the past, but I did get write-ups in the New York Press, the Peoria Journal Star (thanks Phil Luciano!) and on several booze related websites, that have all sunk since the book came out.
It's out of print, but I still have about 100 copies, which I'll sell about 90 of them. Send me an email at: fishwrap@earthlink.net and I'll tell you how you can order one, if I haven't sold out of them already. Cheers!
Reader Comments (2)
I remember back in High School that this book was required reading! It is the book that made me what i am today! It should be on Oprah's list! 100 stars!
I knew there was a reason I gravitated toward you, Marty!