- 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)
- A PAIR OF LADIES’ PANTIES . . .
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- Life on a Cocktail Napkin has over 30,000 page views per month. 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
Category Archives: Life on a Cocktail Napkin
THE NIGHT HAWKS
Like everyone else, I have an alarm clock. Like everyone else I hate when it goes off, and all I want is to continue to lay there in bed. I hate it so much that my snooze-bar has a finger … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
10 Comments
“STUPID TUESDAY” (And something new from David Hayden)
I’m taking a week off from our usual posts. Typically I write about the bar life — free beer, naked women, lousy tippers, and patrons over-indulging. I like stories about gangsters and strippers, or those who just behave like them. But … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
13 Comments
SECOND CHANCES IN A BAR
It’s a bar room tradition with a long history. It’s such a part of this business that some establishments include a reference in their name — The Last Chance Saloon, Second Chance Bar, and Heinold’s First and Last Chance (still … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
16 Comments
NAKED LADIES, and The Writing on the Wall
From the swankiest nightspot . . . to the seediest, run-down tavern in America, every restaurant or bar has rest rooms. So it’s not surprising that most bartenders have at least one good tale about their establishment’s facilities. I remember … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
14 Comments
New Post Coming Saturday
This week’s post will be a day late — so in the meantime I thought I’d throw in this quick update on someone who’s leaving Johnny D’s. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Oliver Simosa has been a … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
4 Comments