Last Wednesday’s Whisko was just any other Wednesday night rager at the bar on S. Water Street: drinks, dancing, townies, lots of leather, etc. The game-changer? An opportunity to tweet to win a trip to Vegas was thrown into the mix.

Enter Catherine Gross ’13, a Brown student with serendipitously good luck. She’s not a usual Whisko patron, but after spending the day in New York at some “really fun and not-at-all stressful job meetings,” which, in reality, were neither fun nor not-at-all stressful, her friend’s ”Wishco tonight?!” inquiry was surely welcome. She originally had planned to spend the night in the city, but then the Vegas gods intervened—she decided to come back to the glorious PVD on a whim. “As I’m not a freshman girl, I don’t frequent the ‘Co, but something of the YOLO-variety took over and I grabbed the Acela back for what I thought would be a pretty standard night at the Whiskey Republic: dancing and late-night Spicy Withs.”

And yeah, sure, it would have been pretty standard…until she learned of that night’s Vegas contest. [Read more →]

Update: Our original report cited a source stating that the Judiciary Committee would vote on this bill on Wednesday, and that if passed the law would go into effect “immediately.” It turns out, however, that the whole State House won’t be getting to it tomorrow. Whisko is safe (for now).

According to this press release, the Rhode Island House Committee on Corporations will consider a bill that would ban 18+ nights at clubs in Rhode Island on Wednesday. No one under 21 would be allowed in a nightclub that serves alcohol. If the Committee is on board, we could be on our way to Whisko-free Wednesdays. We’ll see soon.

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lol Poll. This just in: 94.2 percent of Rhode Islanders rated the state’s economy as “not so good” or “poor” in the Taubman Center’s February poll. Nobody saw that coming. Just like nobody anticipated Governor Chafee’s approval rating of 25.5 percent. But in more encouraging news, 60.4 percent of respondents from the same poll were in favor of same-sex marriage, citing “equal rights” and “personal choice” as reasons for their view. All in all, people did not express much confidence in the state government, with only 16.7 percent of those polled expressing “a great amount” or “a good amount” of confidence in the ability of state officials to “make the correct decisions for (Rhode Island’s) future.”

Cool cats. The International Cat Association is reconsidering hosting their annual cat convention in Providence in future years, due to a dispute with the state environmental police over cat health certificates. Police officers asked the cat organization to display health and rabies certificates during the recent pet show and some cat owners were so upset that they left the convention, the ProJo reported. Well ain’t that just the cat’s meow? They must really think they’re the cat’s pajamas to storm out like that.

We’re vertically challenged. We may or may not be able to reach books on the top shelf of the stacks in the library; we may have to strain our necks to talk to you, and we definitely field too many questions about whether or not we’re sure that we’re not actually legally midgets. But we put on our wedges and hold our heads high—at 4’11’’ (Meredith) and 5’1’’(Georgia), what we lack in size we make up for in heart… and in our undying love of our perpetual fun-sizedness.

As the token shorties, we have very specific roles to play within our respective social circles. We willingly take on some of these roles ourselves, while others are bestowed upon us by our friends. Here’s how we shawties live it up in a world full of (relative) giants:

We’re your best arm rests. After hours of holding his/her drink in while conversing with other party goers, our friends’ arms inevitably get tired. We’re right at your elbow level, and we’re totally convenient. Rest your arm on our heads, our shoulders, whatever is more comfortable. Your temporary arm pain is relieved; we get some quality snuggle time (OK, that’s generous) and rack up lots of friend points in the process. It’s really a win-win situation.

Wednesday night (n.): A weeknight when Hannah does something out of her comfort zone to make a clean break from the tedium of her otherwise boring life.

How it’s used in the show: “[i]t’s a Wednesday night, baby, and I’m alive!” declares Girls’s leading lady Hannah Horvath, smacking her yellow-mesh-clad chest, post-coke bender.

It’s a sentiment not unfamiliar to many Brown students. While Hannah’s crazy Wednesday night out was intended for (semi-questionable) writing inspiration, Brown students have historically been using this day of the week as a way to blow off some steam. There are few better ways to give the finger to your studies and responsibilities than by getting a little drunk and/or dance-y at your bar of choice. It seems the majority of Brown students flock to South Water Street’s “Whiskey Republic,” affectionately referred to as “Whisko” in memoriam of the beloved previous tenant, “FishCo.” As far as we’re concerned, Thursday morning classes don’t exist.

We’re not advising you to get drunk every Wednesday (or to participate in drug-related debauchery, Hannah Horvath style) so much as we’re suggesting that you take a little break and do something for yourself. This can be as simple as cooking dinner with some friends, going to an extra-long yoga class, or catching up on your favorite TV series. [Read more →]

Tonight, hundreds of scantily clad college students will converge on a small waterfront bar. I could use any amount of witticisms to describe this monumental moment, but you know what they say: a picture is worth a thousand words — but a GIF is worth a million. Will the sequence below roughly describe your night? One can only hope.

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Paging Captain Obvious: we live in a bubble. What bubble that is depends on the person you speak with, but I want to talk about the Brown Culture Bubble, a place where we are PC 24/7, overly sensitive, and gender is a spectrum, not a binary. To us, that type of language doesn’t faze us. Binaries, hegemonies, SPG—those are all just words we throw around over chicken fingers at the V-Dub.

This past weekend, I traveled to our nation’s capital to visit a friend at her college. I was too excited by the idea of being a tourist, visiting free museums, and looking for clues with Nicolas Cage to think about what it would be like to visit another school—one that is nothing like Brown—and what a culture shock that would be.

First thing I realized: not everyone is liberal. It’s no secret that most students lean to the left at Brown. So I probably overstepped my boundaries a bit when the first presidential debate was brought up, saying, “Ugh, Romney spoke well, I guess… that bastard,” just a couple of minutes after introducing myself to my friend’s friends. They ignored my comment. The silence was uncomfortable. I did some damage control, explaining how I’ve become a “raging liberal” since I’ve moved to Providence, and we all shared a laugh. Supplementary lesson: kill ‘em with laughs! Awkward jokes are the best!  [Read more →]

The Walk of Shame is ten times longer from Keeney…

Last Friday, I was dragged along by my friends to the soccer game. Now, I don’t pay attention to foot-games, so as I sullenly zoned out (what color uniforms do we wear again?). I couldn’t help but eavesdrop on the conversation of the sophomore girls seated behind me.

“I’m so super excited to be going out this weekend! Oh my god, I’m gonna get so wasted.”

“Yeah, I haven’t gotten laid in forever.”

“Oh my god, just be careful. You don’t want to hook up with a freshman.”

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Ahh. We’ve survived a week of classes. It’s been a rough week, especially for the froshies. We trekked through the thunderstorms, sat in humid classes, smelled like wet dog, and ended our days completely confused and frustrated with our academic futures. Time for bed?

Naaah, let’s just go and get blackout drunk.

Enter Whiskey Republic, formerly known as Fish Co., the hole-in-the-wall sports bar located on the waterfront of Providence on Wickenden Street. You may have gone last week. You may not remember going last week. But this is the first real Whisko—the one with less people and shorter lines. The one that we’ll all enjoy.

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