- 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
Category Archives: Life on a Cocktail Napkin
SCARIEST THING I’VE SEEN IN A BAR (and other bits and pieces)
Today’s post is about three unrelated incidents that happened years apart in different bars. I’m not sure why each of them crossed my mind this week. 1.) A bartender’s comeback . . . The Lark Tavern was mobbed, three deep … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
13 Comments
WHEN GOOD PEOPLE LEAVE . . .
Here’s a short clip of what Johnny D’s looks like on a busy night. (Booty Vortex was playing; video by Mojo.) Next busy show, there’ll be one person missing. It seems that in this business, just when people become really … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
7 Comments
DIRTY TRICKS behind the bar
This blog generally has a positive outlook. I try to stay focused on what I find interesting, and funny . . . let someone else write about the negative stuff in our … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
22 Comments
IN THE MEANTIME . . .
It’ll be a short post this week. I had planned to write today about “DIRTY TRICKS behind the bar,” but I’m now weighing how much I should say, . . . and about whom. Back next week with that post. … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
3 Comments
THE GREATEST BARTENDER LINE (And Kenny’s Easter Bread)
(This post is about two things that happened at Johnny D’s over Easter weekend.) MY FAVORITE LINE . . . If you read last week’s post, you know about my decade-long search for an elusive bartender’s comment. I’m pleased to … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
13 Comments
