- 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 FEW GOOD MEN (Famous cocktail napkin notes)
The idea for this week’s post comes from comrade-in-arms Scribbler50, author of one of my favorite blogs, Behind the Stick. I got this email from Scribbler the other day: “Hey, Mike, I just read something in the New York Daily … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
11 Comments
BAR FIGHTS
I had to think it over before putting up this week’s post. Will anyone be interested in bar fights? “I’m certainly not,” Colleen said. (Colleen is my best friend. She looks over everything I write and I often rely on … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
12 Comments
MY FAVORITE BLOGS
From time to time as I’m writing these post, I take a break and check out other blogs. There are millions of them. Seriously, I mean there are literally millions of blogs to choose from (and I have to thank … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
11 Comments
A CONNECTED GUY
There’s a lot to love about this job. Behind the taps on a busy night, the dance floor is packed and everyone is having a blast as the band rocks out on the stage. Drinks are flying out over the … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
5 Comments
THE CHOCOLATE STARFISH (and other bits and pieces)
This blog came about when I started to sift through all the cocktail-napkin notes that I’ve accumulated over the years. My goal — to transfer the more worthy scribbling to one very large computer file. That first day, sitting at … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
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