- 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.
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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!
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Category Archives: Life on a Cocktail Napkin
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
* * * * * * * * * * Undercover narcotics cops, and some mafia wannabees. A tall, mysterious blond woman who wants to be tied up and spanked—it’s a different world behind the bar. Fresh from a small … Continue reading
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DANNY (sample chapter)
(In the 1970s, I was still in my twenties and tending bar at The Lark Tavern in Albany, NY. I also volunteered one overnight each week at a neighborhood hotline and crisis center, Refer Switchboard, half a block from The … Continue reading
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BLINDFOLDS AND BINDINGS (and then a big step)
(In this sample chapter, I’ve finally met a young woman that I had noticed since moving to Albany. She walks into The Lark Tavern one night, and we start dating, staying one night at her place, and the next date … Continue reading
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THE BRUTAL LESSON (last sample chapter)
(Paul and Sonny are two undercover narcotics cops, friends of our bar manager, Marty. They become regulars at The Lark Tavern, and in this sample, they step in to help Marty out of a jam. This true story was originally … Continue reading
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JOHNNY D’S IS CLOSING . . .
As Johnny D’s is about to close, a lot of us who worked there have been called for interviews. The club’s upcoming exit made the front page of The Boston Globe. It’s a big deal in this city … Johnny … Continue reading
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