- 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
BY THE SKIN OF HER TEETH
Here’s something that might amuse those of us who work in restaurants and bars — although it will probably offend just about everyone else. It’s a real-life story about dodging a complaint bullet, and getting away with something when you’ve … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
6 Comments
A TALE OF TWO WORMS
Here’s two stories about my least favorite industry type — the low-living (slimy) restaurant worm. I won’t say where the following incidents took place, but they both happened a long time ago, and definitely not where I work now . … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
4 Comments
“BOOM-BOOM” (Pauline; Part II)
(Click here to read Part I) Pauline and I continued to get together in our irregular way–once a week, then maybe not again for a month. Then back to once a week, or at least every couple of weeks. Once … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
9 Comments
“BOOM-BOOM” (Pauline; Part I)
I was back to strictly bartending again . . . this time at an Italian restaurant in Boston’s North End. For the last two years I’d been working 60-70 hours a week as a GM — working so much that … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
9 Comments
DON’T READ YELP!
Below is a real-life case study of a Yelp! review — first the reviewer’s lengthy and numerous complaints, and then a look at the facts. Unfortunately for the reviewer, everything happened to be recorded on camera . . . ). … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
13 Comments