The first lesson to learn is that you will have to leave Morningside Heights. As I quickly found out, there is little to do as far as tying one on as the sun comes up in our neighborhood. The real bars in the vicinity, namely the Abbey, Cannons, and the Underground, don't open until four in the afternoon at the earliest. That is, of course, to be expected from 'respectable' drinking institutions. If you are a late riser, there is hope, of course, thanks to the numerous restaurants dotting Broadway. Most, such as the West, the Heights, and Le Monde, open at eleven, each with a bar for your convenience. The winner in the category, though, is Nacho Mama's, which beats the competition by a full hour, as it opens at ten.

Yet this is all still a poor substitute for what we originally set out for: a place to drink at seven in the morning. Let me take a moment to clear up a misunderstanding raised by one of my colleagues. This article is in no way connected with the promotion or preservation of alcoholism. [A successful alcoholic in his stays away from bars, as it is much more cost-effective to purchase a few bottles of Everclear and stash them in your Carmen suite (not that we have any alcoholics in Carmen.) No, I am promoting a new syndrome from which I myself suffer: Baraholism. This means, that one is not simply addicted to drinking, but addicted to doing said drinking in bars only. That said, I will get on with the study.

While researching this article, I came across something that looked incredibly promising, but I should have known better from the start. A new theme bar (warning sign number one) had opened early this summer in Times Square (warning sign number two) called Barcode. It is the second in a chain (warning sign number three, abandon ship) that started in Australia (I'll leave that one alone). Barcode claimed to be opened twenty-four hours. I went in for a closer look. The theme of this establishment, if you can call it that, is technology and video games. One instantly gets the shivers at the thought of little kids knocking back manhattans while they blast away zombies in House of the Dead 4. There is an arcade that does a quick and tidy job of causing sensory overload, and upstairs is the bar, with flashing blue lights and drink prices fixed at the Times Square standard.

On my first attempt at entering Barcode, I was turned away because of inappropriate attire. Apparently this is a semi-formal arcade. I returned, donning all black so that I would blend in seamlessly with security, and advanced on the escalator. A large bouncer stopped me, but only to force a free three-dollar game card into my hand. I did my best to make it last, but sadly it did not, as some of the best games in Barcode cost three bucks a pop. Defeated and bitter over my low score on Crazy Taxi, I made my way up to the bar, plopped down, and started sucking down the cheapest drink I could stomach, which turned out to be a five-dollar gin and tonic, made with well gin. For those of you who don't know, 'well' means cheap in a bar. Several drinks and fifty dollars later, I heard the unmistakable sound of the bartender announcing last call. 'This can't be,' I thought. 'This place is supposed to be opened twenty-four hours.' Well, that's partially true. The arcade is open all the time, but the bar closes at four like all other bars and opens again at eleven. Dejected, I staggered outside to get some fresh air.

As I walked, I remembered a couple things I learned in Bartending School: it is illegal for a bar to remain open around the clock in New York City, or to sell alcohol before noon on Sunday. Of course, I could have gone to any number of after-hours bars that only bartenders go to, and to tell the truth, I did. (However, I am not going to tell you where they are. If everyone knew where they were, they wouldn't be special anymore.) Instead, let's pretend I went somewhere else, somewhere that solves all of our problems: Cleo's.

Staggering dejectedly into Hell's Kitchen, I ended up on Ninth Avenue just below 46th Street, staring into a dimly lit bar. It was beckoning me to enter, and enter I did. If you go, don't let the rainbow flag on the wall or the scary old men crouched over the bar put you off. Cleo's is one of the greatest finds in the city for daytime drinking. The proprietor of Cleo's, who is not, oddly enough, named Cleo, has done as much as he can to circumvent the NYC blue laws. The bar closes for one hour a day, between five and six in the morning, except on Sunday when it closes from five to noon. And sure enough, you can find the bar as sparsely filled at six am as it is at six pm. Plus, the drinks redefine affordable.