YOU POOR SUCKER . All those nights you spent eating cup o' soup, sucking down rotgut, and dreaming of your next paycheck while flipping between those three network TV channels ... if only you'd known you could have been stealing cable. Better yet, if only you'd known Camper English, SF nightlife writer (and sometime Bay Guardian contributor) and general cash-poor man-about-town.

Bars and Clubs: What inspired you to write Party Like a Rock Star?

Camper English: Well, I guess I've been partying club trash since I started going out to Chuck E. Cheese's teen night in the seventh grade. And with the exception of a couple of years during the dot-com boom, I've always been poor. So after I became a freelance writer, I realized that the "write what you know" mantra was actually applicable to my situation. I know the most about being a dirt-poor, eternally adolescent drunk, so I wrote a book about that.

B&C: Name three of the best club-life scores you achieved in San Francisco using tips outlined in your book – and elaborate on how you achieved said scores.

CE: Gosh, you know, all my best hookups come from just being friendly and getting to know people. Once you're friends with the bartender, door person, manager, promoter, or whoever, you're all set. So the best piece of long-term advice is just to make friends with everybody rather than throwing around attitude. But I'm sure you're looking for specifics here.

So let's see. Over the years I've often flyered for several different promoters – putting stacks of flyers in stores and handing them out to people in clubs. You can just e-mail the promoters for a party you like and ask if they need any help in exchange for admission and maybe some drink tickets. That's labor-intensive but easy.

Second, the best discount in town is a student ID from City College. You can get one if you sign up for even something like a yoga class (which will be cheaper than going to a private studio for those three months), and then it's good for discounts on everything from movies to museums to theater to food to beer on college nights to travel. Because City College classes are so cheap, it pays for itself. That said, you can get one without taking a class if you pay for one, then cancel it before the drop date.

Third, and this may be unique to San Francisco, you can haggle at the door to clubs. If it's, like, an $8 cover but there are four of you, see if they'll let you in for $25 instead of $32. The club still makes money, and all of you save a little.

B&C: In chapter two ("Getting into Clubs for Free") you list 13 "signs that a club will suck from the line outside" and another 9 "signs that a club night will suck from the flyer" – and only a measly 3 "signs a club won't suck." Does this mean that chances are around 7 to 1 we'll end up at a shitty club on any given night if we're not careful?

CE: Ha! On Friday nights it's more like 9 to 1 if you want to avoid places jam-packed with Marina-trash weekend warriors in pink fedoras and dudes in vertically striped dress shirts. Good parties are always harder to find than bad ones, but once you have a favorite couple of DJs or party promoters, it's easy to follow those people around. I think my problem is that I like too many different scenes, so I'm like, "If I go to just one acid house night this week, it better be the best one happening."

B&C: Many of your tips for struggling clubgoers are legit strategies for going out on the cheap, such as signing up for e-mail lists and entering contests, linking your booze consumption to happy hours and drink specials, and simply asking promoters, musicians, and DJs for free entry to shows. Plenty of others, however, involve lying, cheating, impersonating, or otherwise perpetrating some kind of scam at the door. Do you ever worry that a giant posse of SF bouncers, promoters, and DJs is going to hunt you down and beat the crap out of you – or worse, bar you from the SF club scene?

CE: That would suck! But no, I don't think this book will cause clubs' door staff to have to deal with any more assholes or scammers than they already do, nor is it going to run any club or bar out of business. And speaking from personal experience, when you sneak into a party for free, you tend to celebrate by blowing your savings at the bar and end up just as broke at the end of the night. There's a reason why, despite my intimate knowledge of how to save money on entertainment, I'm still a dirt-poor, adolescent drunk. I compensate for my individual savings with a huge volume of consumption. Let's get wasted!