- 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
STILL PICKING UP AFTER NEW YEAR’S EVE (My shift on January 1st)
“Hey, are you going to put the game on?” he asked. The tone of his request made me stop and turn. I was on my way to the other end of the bar, two pints of beer in hand, when … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
8 Comments
A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES (My New Year’s resolution)
Normally I’m not big on the New Year’s resolutions — haven’t bothered with one for the last 10-15 years, and I’ve never written any of them down. (Certainly never posted one on the web for everyone to see.) This year is … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
13 Comments
THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT
“Are you OK?” Colleen asks. “I’m fine,” I tell her, phone at my ear. “Maybe I’m just coming down with a cold.” It’s Wednesday afternoon and I’m already five days late with this week’s post. I have the time off … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
14 Comments
COUPLES (Behaving badly)
I wish they would leave it at home. But, of course, they don’t . . . They hit the bars, the clubs, the nightspots — for most customers, each night out is a short vacation. Everyone’s looking to relax and … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
5 Comments
A LETTER FROM JOEY
“You can’t post something like that,” Colleen said, “It just sounds too weird.” I generally listen to Colleen. She’s my best friend and one of the brightest people I know (graduated with a 3.8 from Suffolk University.) As we talked … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
9 Comments
