It's going to be a long fall for all us poor children stranded without fake I.D.s , what with the closing of Studio 420 and the Velvet Elvis and RKCNDY. Unless you can tolerate the 12-year-olds with pacifiers currently infesting the party scene, there is no choice but to stay home and wait until things get better. And so I offer three ways, short of heroin experimentation, to make the slow season more livable.

There is always the herbal exit, which, though it's anti-social and unproductive, has never really done me wrong. An eighth and a good pair of headphones should leave you in sedated lethargy, provided you have the right music. Tricky's new album, Juxtapose (Island), a collaboration with vaunted master of the green DJ Muggs from Cypress Hill, should be suitably stoner-friendly. Prince Paul's The Handsome Boy Modeling School, with guests like D.J. Shadow, Mike D., and Thom Yorke, might be millennial excess like last year's U.N.K.L.E., but it might also be a chill-out. And for a sunnier but still seriously depraved trip, you could always download Brian Wilson's lost album, Smile, on MP3 (http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~annew/) and hear the Beach Boys make animal sounds and fake an orgasm.

Speaking of sex, you won't get carded invading other people's orifices, and you don't have to leave the privacy of your parents' home. I always need music when I have sex, if only as an excuse not to say stupid porno things like "Suck on it, baby." And although I can technically function to the sounds of nearly anything not written by Paul McCartney, the right soundtrack will drastically enhance the experience. For romantic make-out sessions, nothing can compare with Smokey Robinson's new album, Intimate (unless you can stomach Barry White, which I can't. He makes me feel dirty). For darker and scarier sex, Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile (Nothing) is slated for release later this fall. Iggy Pop never fails for raw, fast action, and his Avenue B (Virgin) is sure to leave you sore.

For those sad folks who have neither drugs nor sex (I currently count myself among your ranks), not all is lost. There are simple pleasures in life, like sitting alone on the green grass staring at the sun, and MCA's Hank Williams Jr. compilation, 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection, will replace your emptiness with a warm ache until your future is full again.

And so this is how it shall be, until a meteor shower kills all the bouncers and we run free from club to club. All you jaded twentysomethings, in between bitching about Seattle and going home unhappy, lift your drink and remember this: It could be much much worse.