Putting Manilow-branded Wines to Good Use

Pete and I work with mentoring college kids in various ways throughout the year. Where you have college kids, you have drinking games. When kids get used to you, they start spilling the details of the more elaborate ones. Pete's favorite when he was in school was "Smurf". (Remember the Smurf cartoons? Where every other word - be it noun, verb, whatever was "Smurf"?) The one rule was drink every time you hear the word "Smurf". Pete's very vague and fuzzy recollection of the game was "You don't realize how much those little fuckers say "smurf" until you play."

So now that the not-quite-adults are out of our hair for the summer we have a bit of time on our hands to reflect. When you watch Barry's concert videos as much as we do (remember The Littlest Fanilow is the boss of our house here...) or if you are fortunate enough to see a bunch of shows in Vegas, you start noticing bits that are show staples and are very frequent.

So - let's make a drinking game out of it! Since Barry has lent his name to a wine brand, the drink of choice should be obvious. This should work for either videos or live shows, so bottoms up!

Please add rules as they cross your mind! And those of you who have stage seats at upcoming shows, I double-dog DARE you to play this during the show!

• Every time Barry mentions Brooklyn, drink once.
• Every time Barry mentions a relative's name (Aunt Rose, Grampa Joe, etc) drink once.
• When one of the backup girls slithers all over him during a song, drink once. Twice if it's all three of them at one time.
• Drink twice if Barry is singing something romantic to the women in the front row and "accidentally" runs across a guy and recoils from him. Drain the glass if it's Kye.
• Drink twice if some nutjob tries to jump the stage. Drain the glass if it's a guy.
• Drink once if some broad tries to hand Barry her hotel room key.
• Drain the glass if he wears that god-awful yellow plaid sport coat at any time. (You'll need it.)
• Drink twice if the lady he picks to dance with is displaying maximum cleavage legally allowed by non-stage-performers in the State of Nevada.
• Drain the glass if Barry does a full-on crotch grab. (That's not a rule, you'll do it automatically.)
• Drink twice if Barry inserts a "deep cut" from one of his records that he hasn't performed in his show for at least 10 years.
• Drink for each couple (gay or straight) you see slow dancing in the audience while Barry peforms. Toast them first. :-)

Are there any other rules?

1st new one: Drink once if Barry throws around something in Yiddish. Make someone else drink if you can translate it for the goyim.