SCORE! BOARD

An eXile staffer-of-color scores, contracts gonorrhea, at Downtown

Believe it or not, there are some people who go out to bars and clubs for reasons other than just to get laid, none of them good ones. To go dancing, for example… or perhaps to enjoy a relaxing evening out in the company of good friends.

If you are one of these sad people, then know that the eXile does not like you. Sure, you may on occasion find some useful piece of information within the pages of our Bar-Dak nightlife section, but we certainly did not have your interests in mind when we created it. Rather, we were thinking about people much like ourselves… respectable, upstanding members of society who rightly believe that the only good reason to dance in public is so as to be able one to pick up drunken sluts… who believe, in short, that the only reason even to go out drinking in the first place is to pick up these very same drunken sluts.

Obviously then, the most important (and, frequently, the only) factor we take into consideration when reviewing a new nightlife establishment is the quantity of easy, drunken sluts one can reasonably expect to find there on any given night. Likewise, it is precisely this information that we have always sought to provide to you, our valued reader. And if we do say so ourselves, we think we’ve done a pretty good job of it. Like proud parents, we’ve always taken a certain satisfaction in your sexual accomplishments, however sordid.

Clearly though, this is no time for resting on one’s laurels. If Moscow’s mojo has been in noticeable decline for some time already, then the so-called “stability” of the Putin era has brought about nothing less than a crisis in the city’s sexual attitudes. Where at one time, a barely legal teenage girl would be only too happy to get fall-down drunk and go home with the first disgusting slob to pay her the slightest bit of attention, nowadays young Russian females harbor any number of unrealistic fantasies about what a “date” should be like: meeting in a beautiful park and watching the sun set together; talking for hours and enjoying each other’s company; going to a “nice” restaurant in the guy’s car (he opens the door and helps her out); enjoying the meal and still more conversation; going out dancing at a nightclub; the guy making her feel beautiful and important like no one before; her head spins; she feels like she is flying; the night ends with a single kiss and dreams of meeting again the next day.

No matter how misguided and delusional these fantasies may be, they are nevertheless a reality that the eXhole club-goer must now deal with on a weekly basis. And since times have changed so drastically, we here at the eXile have decided to make a change as well—one that, we hope, will take at least some of the unpleasant guesswork out of getting laid.

Now that spring has sprung and “Snapper Season” is officially open, we proudly present the Score! Board: a biweekly rundown of EXACTLY WHERE eXile staffers have gotten laid during the two weeks since the previous issue’s publication.

Here’s how it works. We have divided all of the bars and clubs in our guide into a Western and Eastern Conference based on their geographical locations within the city (the dividing point being an imaginary north-south line running from the center of the Kremlin). In each issue, we will detail the results of any “Scores” (scoring rules are described below) occurring in the previous two-week period and print standings showing the top 7 or so season-to-date leaders in each conference (the complete standings will be available on our web-site). At the end of the “Regular” Snapper Season (i.e., in the issue following Moscow’s first recorded snowfall— presumably some time in September or October) the first-place clubs on each side will be crowned conference champions, and will then go head-to-head for the overall championship during the following two-week period.

Scoring Rules

Although the Snapper Season will run more or less concurrently with the American baseball season, the scoring is based on the much more valid sport of football. American football, obviously.

The primary goal of the competition is to reward those locations where one can easily pick up and score in the very same night. Therefore, every time an eXile staffer gets laid with someone he or she met that night will earn a Touchdown (7 points) for the club in question. If this encounter also results in a sexually transmitted disease for the lucky eXile staffer, it will be worth a total of 8 points (sort of like a touchdown with 2-point conversion).

Of course, you can’t always close a deal in one night. Sometimes you have to be happy with a phone number and arrange to meet subsequently— for a “date,” perhaps. Any such “date” resulting in a successful sexual encounter will earn a Field Goal (3 points) for the club where the initial contact was made. Unconverted Phone Number stats will also be kept; these will not count toward a club’s point total, but can come into play as a tiebreaker. As in football itself, the purpose of the large disparity in points between the two scoring plays is too encourage one to take chances for a Touchdown rather than settling for a Field Goal.

Prostitutes. Sure, this may seem like a cheap way out, but in some cases it is simply the right thing to do. Therefore, scoring with a prostitute will count as a Safety (2 points). Obviously, prostitutes picked up off the street or called from Personal ads will not be counted.

For the purposes of the competition, a successful scoring encounter will be defined roughly as any vaginal or anal penetration or prolonged mouth-genital or hand-genital touching.

The results will be based on the actual experiences of all eligible eXile staffers (i.e., anyone whose name appears in the masthead). Any staffers who are out of Moscow or otherwise ineligible or unable to play (if they’re in prison, say) for the entirety of any given two-week period will be placed on “injured reserve” for that issue.

And so then, without further ado, here are the Score! Board results for the opening round of Snapper Season, covering play during the period of April 5-18, 2001:

	Touchdown	VD	Field Goal	Prostitute	Phone #	Total Points
[Eastern Conference] (No eXile staffer scores yet recorded.)
[Western Conference]
Hippopotam	7	1	0	0	0	8
Downtown	7	1	0	0	0	8
Metelitsa	0	0	0	2	0	2
Voodoo Lounge	0	0	0	0	2	0
Injured Reserve: Matt Taibbi (impotence); Ilya Shangin (1-issue suspension for repeated drunkenness); Edward Limonov (suspended by league indefinitely); John Dolan (whereabouts unknown); John Heisel (sent down to AAA in Illinois).