- ABOUT THIS BLOG
- Everyone has done it – you’re in a bar, looking for a scrap of paper to write a woman's name and phone number on, or just want to make a note to yourself so you don’t forget something. You grab a cocktail napkin.
- (In the TV series The West Wing, a political consultant decides that Jed Bartlet – played by Martin Sheen – should run for President. He takes a cocktail napkin and writes down the slogan, “Bartlet for America.”)
- I work in bars. Over the years, I’ve accumulated enough of my own cocktail-napkin notes to fill six liquor bottle boxes.
- Here are the people and stories that wound up in those notes -- real-life characters like Jackie Rabbit and Maude the Broad, the narcotics cops Paul and Sonny, mafia guys, some shameless tramps and one suicidal young man. You'll meet an old-time boxer who wants to take me into the gym to teach me his trade, and a woman who thinks God is on the stool next to her, urging her to have one more whiskey and ginger. It's life behind the taps.
Popular Posts
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Recent Entries
- LIFE ON A COCKTAIL NAPKIN, the book—a story of the joyous, free-spirited, and sometimes unsettling early years in the life of a city bartender in the 1970s— is now available on Amazon
- DANNY (sample chapter)
- BLINDFOLDS AND BINDINGS (and then a big step)
- THE BRUTAL LESSON (last sample chapter)
- JOHNNY D’S IS CLOSING . . .
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Check out the stories you’ve been missing in our Archives (below). And my sincere thanks to all of you who have visited here!
Archives
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Blogroll
Author Archives: MikeQ
A WEEK OFF (and a request for help)
Sorry, but there’ll be no regular post this week. It’s late Thursday night, and I’ve got nothing ready. I blame it on working on taxes, training a new bartender, . . . and falling behind on just about everything else … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
9 Comments
REVEALING ENCOUNTERS with famous athletes
First, let me tell you what this post will not be about. This won’t be a “bartender for the stars” kind of thing — how I made their drinks and became their best friend. I’ve met lots of celebrities and … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
14 Comments
FUN BARTENDER/SERVER VIDEOS
It was late Saturday night when bartender Jeremy Newcomer used his IPhone to show a short comic video to our barback Craig “Chombo” McKoene. I’d seen the video before on one of the sites listed on my blogroll, and that … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
11 Comments
FREE BEER; Part II (A moment in the sun)
At some point, I imagine every blogger wonders who’s out there reading. How many unseen visitors are dropping by? Do they glance at the first few sentences and then move on, or do they stay for a while and continue … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
15 Comments
SOMETIMES A GUN MAKES ITS OWN POINT
I have to thank Beta Phi Epsilon frat brother Harry Waller for reminding me of the stories posted this week, and last (Free Beer.) He stopped into Johnny D’s a while back with his wife and brother-in-law. Harry and I … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
10 Comments