- 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
FUBAR (and then a beautiful moment)
Sunday, 10/13/13, 12:18 A.M. It’s never good to leave a bartender working alone on a slow night. There’s too much opportunity to think. You keep glancing at the clock, again and again. You might listen to one of your customers, … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
3 Comments
THE PROMISE OF SEX
Everyone knows there’s a lot of sex in the restaurant business. It’s a promise that lures big crowds to the pick-up joints. Even in a quieter place, anytime there’s drinking involved you’ll usually find at least some sexual undertones. And … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
6 Comments
IN VINO, VERITAS
In wine, truth? Well then, there are some people who probably shouldn’t drink — or at least they should learn when to drink, and when to stay sober. Let me be clear, I know how it feels at the end … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
5 Comments
DOG EATS DOG
I have to change the names and the exact location in this next post. Let’s just say it happened in a very busy bar, in a small town where I was living at the time. I worked at a pub … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
5 Comments
THAT FORMER EMPLOYEE IS WORKING … WHERE?
Johnny D’s has its share of outstanding alumni — people who have worked at the club, and then moved on. One of our doormen worked weekend nights while attending law school. He graduated and is now a Massachusetts State Trooper. … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
6 Comments
