- 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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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
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
HALL OF FAMERS (The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly)
Today’s post is quite a bit lighter than last week’s. It’s about one of my favorite pastimes behind the bar — spotting nominees for The Hall of Fame. There’s been a HOF in every place I’ve worked, and typically the … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
7 Comments
RUNNING LATE . . .
This week’s post will be short. I was running behind anyway, then one of our bartenders wanted to switch our Weds/Thurs shifts to attend a concert. A full post is coming next week, but in the meantime here’s a short … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
5 Comments
