- 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
THANKSGIVING BREAK
I’m taking a break from the blog this week, after working an extra shift at the club last night — Sarah Borges played; it was a great show. I’m on the bar again tonight (Thanksgiving), and working through the weekend. … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
4 Comments
TWO SHORT VIDEOS
Friday will be our new day for updates, but here in the second week of that schedule, I’ve already fallen behind. I’ve got nothing ready, and there’s only an hour left before work. So, for this week’s post I’m putting … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
7 Comments
HALLOWEEN MADNESS (Again) . . .
Booty Vortex has become a Halloween tradition at Johnny D’s. It’s a rocking time with some of Boston’s best musicians working it on stage. It’s a night of disco/funk, dancing to the old tunes like “Disco Inferno” and “Lady … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
6 Comments
SOMETHING DIFFERENT . . .
I’m taking a day off from the bar stories. We’ll be back later this week with a more typical post, but for now this space will be used for some great photos by my cousin Jack McAllister, two poems from … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
4 Comments
GUNSHOTS! (And the annual Workers’ Compensation audit)
Yesterday afternoon was chewed up by our top-to-bottom bar cleaning, and now the annual workers’ comp audit for the club is waiting on my desk. I’m on a break here, trying to piece together a post for this week. But, … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
9 Comments