There are things I learned as a bartender, and chances are you will too, that changed the entire way I view the world around me. I’m not just talking about the fact that, in America at least, the great and mythic cocktail known as the Martini is usually nothing more than vodka or gin in a fancy glass with a vegetable on a stick attached for good measure. No, what I am talking about is unlocking some of the most important, eye-opening secrets of mankind you can imagine.
Hog shite, you cry? Well then, let’s dance shall we? Here’s a good first example of secret bartender knowledge for you.
SECRET BARTENDER TRUTH #1: There is no such thing as an ‘Adult’.
There, I’ve said it and its fucking true. ‘Oh, well then what the hell are all these things in suits and SUV’s moving to and fro around me, blocking up the freeways and grocery cue’s? WELL THEY’RE NOT BLOODY ADULTS, I WILL TELL YOU THAT!!!
Now, before anyone goes all Orson Welles-listener on me, let me explain.
Growing up in this society you are told, shown, and constantly reinforced with the idea that after a certain age you will become this magical creature we call ‘An Adult’. You’re a kid for only so long with endless days of play and imagination, but then suddenly you are in school and year after year you are being ingrained with this idea that you have to start looking forward to the future, when you become this magic ‘Adult’ - the supposed pinnacle of what ‘we’ as ‘beings’ are meant to become. Childhood, even the play, is really only a way-stop in the striving for this ultimate state of being, and so effectively useless. We are supposed to cram all of our hopes and dreams into eleven years or so and then start sweeping up the toys and doing ‘important’ things, because ‘Adults’ are responsible; they bring home the bacon, make the tough decisions and never act like children. ‘Adults’ know that dreams are for the young at heart and in fact the ultimate evolution is to realize just how you can fit into the paradigm of the world around you and contribute.
Right? Have I got this at least close to the mark?
Well, it’s all bullshit. A myth. A fairytale.
Remember that as a bartender I had an older crowd. This was my advice to you, to seek this same kind of a situation for factors listed in one of the diatribes below. If you do this you will see in no time that there is no such thing as this fictitious animal. People act like teenagers (read: ID, or kicking screaming pleasure-principle) regardless of the fact that they have reached a certain age and acquired responsibilities such as careers, homes, cars, families, debt, etc. If this ‘Adult’ does exist at any point it is for those who graduate from the ‘education’ or ‘training’ phase of their lives into the ‘real world’ (another biting myth we are crammed with for most of our young lives) and try to act according to those stringent mores and modes in order to cast off their past and remake themselves. But for most, this does not last and a few years after settling into the 'desired' routines of 'Adult' life they revert..
I always likened the bar, especially on nights with music, to a high school cafeteria that served booze. People would run around and goose each other, cheat on their dates, pound a drink when no one was looking, dance like a moron, start fights, do drugs, yell and scream at one another, sneak away to smoke a cigarette so their wife didn’t find out, make out, fondle and sometimes more depending on how dark their particular corner was (I DO NOT envy housekeeping, I will tell you that). Now tell me that any of those people, no matter how they act during the day, could be classified as an ‘Adult’ according to even just part of this list? I mean, the occasional slip-up is going to come, but when it’s night after night, week after week? Uh-ah.
Now, don’t get me wrong, this is not to say there is anything wrong with this. I myself am not an adult and I have never wanted to be, nor will ever want to be one. It’s always been more important to me to grow and change, as opposed to this idea that after a certain point I just automatically cross some invisible finish line and find myself all grown up and on the other side of Childhood’s End. However there is a danger to believing this will simply automatically happen and so consider this merely a warning for those who may be reading this believing in what they’ve been told. Put another way, if you think you don't have to steer the boat, that it will reach land on its own, you are doomed to ride the open seas for the rest of your gull-pecked days.
In order to do this job you have to be inducted, and in order to be inducted you have to learn the secret truths. Not only learn them to say them, but learn them to apply to the rest of your life and especially your gig, so as not to waste it. Now what are you waiting for, go out and serve those kiddies Scotch and Bahama Mama's!!!
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Thursday, May 8, 2008
'And you may ask yourself, how did I get here???'
How does one become a bartender? Many ways, but this is how it happened to me, in full, long-winded, parenthetical-ridden widescreen confessional.
......
What percent of Americans go to bars? I’m talking on a regular basis here? Who's got a favorite pub? Look at the U.K. That’s a pub culture. It’s practically the glue that holds their communities together.
Drinking is a way of life.
How could you live this life and not have something to cling to; an ‘out’, some avenue behind conscious thought. Something to make the very air that you breathe tingle against your arms and make even the littlest junk feel oh so important.
I’m a bartender and I say everyone has they’re vice. It’s my job (and pleasure) to serve it to you, and its my very great pleasure to read you these stories from my vantage point and amuse you, sicken you, and straight up bewilder you. So please, proceed, laugh, cry, yell, scream, but definitely, pour yourself a drink and raise a toast to those who sow it all together.
…………………note: this was penned sometime within the first year or so I started.................................
I walk out of KARL’S on 95th St. at 2:22 in the morning and it’s unseasonably warm for Chicago. A nice thunderstorm wind is blowing everything around in that electric kind of way that comes with the first signs of spring. I’ve got a buzz and two Hacker Pschorr’s to go and have to pause just before I get to my car. This is the kind of weather that connects me to this physical plane. In this kind of weather I fell in love, found The Cure, lost a friend, left the country, fucked, made love, jerked off, snorted coke, recorded an album, beat some ass and drank a beer. My keys in my hand, I remember what it was like when I worked a regular job…
Six years through college working at a certain Unfulfilling Packaging Service and when I received the chance to jump gigs and start bartending I took it. One of my best friends, Sonny, had been holding down the gig as assistant weekday bartender at a local Southside hotel’s posh restaurant for almost three years. When impulses of change brought him looking for a new job the woman he worked with, Eye* as we will call her, started looking for his replacement she set her sights on me. I had gotten to know Eye quite well in the three years I visited my friend (hrmph, free drinks, ahem) and she saw me as a nice and easily moldable understudy. Looking back on it now all I can say is thank God! I sucked it in, embraced the fear of change and walked in to my supe at the Package Service and gave my two weeks. Then I took the next two nights off to train behind the bar. I had worked in a factory setting for six years at that point and hardly considered myself a people person, so I had to find out what I was in for.
I trained the next night, Tuesday, and went home happy. It’s not too bad. It always sucks to be the new guy on the block, not knowing where everything is and what not, but this was actually fun. Pour drinks, chat with regulars, etc. I shyly found myself thinking maybe I was more of a people person than I had previously given myself credit for.
Next night was Wednesday, a busy night on the south side of Chicago. Hump day as it is commonly referred to. All your raging alcoholics and socialites cringe half in anticipation, half resignation to having two days left until the weekend. The hotel has a live band, a two-piece called Lake Street who play Wednesday nights (Fridays and Saturdays as well) and cater to entertaining the best and brightest of the local middle-aged adventurers. As I walked in the door for the first time in uniform Sonny flags me down.
“Sink or swim buddy, tonight’s gonna be a rough one. Eye just called in sick for the first time in, like twenty years so it’s just you and me man. I’ll split my tips even with you but you're gonna have to try to keep up, okay?”
“Fuck.”
How I made it through the next couple of hours I don’t know. I did okay but there was still an acceptance issue between some of the regulars and me. Eye’s been here a long time. Sonny’s just gained acceptance at three years. Everyone is nice and interested in me, but that's where it stops; they don’t want me pouring their drinks or taking their money because I don’t know the routine. And it was busy as shit on top of it. I mean we were two or three deep at some points. Drinks literally flew from our hands, and there was no time for delicate social introductions, compensations or explanations.
Sink or swim.
By the end of that night, when Sonny counted out the tips there’s something I didn’t expect. He hands me my half and when I count it back I find that there’s almost as much in my hands now, after one ten hour shift, as there would be after one week at the Service.
Sonny quickly interrupted my astonishment.
“Eye’s going to be out tomorrow night as well. Look, I know you’re supposed to go back to your other job tomorrow, but I could use you and …”
“Dude you don’t even have to say another word. Let’s go get a drink at one of the four O’clock bars, eh? We need to celebrate my promotion in life.”
So this is the funny thing right? It’s like quitting smoking. It’s tough at first and then time lapses and all of a sudden you’ve got the hang of it. Not just that, you’re situated. You crash and stomp like a drunkard through a museum and you fuck up orders and accidentally say the wrong thing and feel like shit and then all of a sudden there’s someone else whose new and they’re looking to latch onto anyone they can for help with the little things and BOOM! You realize you can help them because now you have all the answers to all those same questions you had when you were the new guy, because you’re not the new guy anymore.
.......
Yep, that's how it happened.
........
*obviously all names have been changed to protect yada yada yada.
......
What percent of Americans go to bars? I’m talking on a regular basis here? Who's got a favorite pub? Look at the U.K. That’s a pub culture. It’s practically the glue that holds their communities together.
Drinking is a way of life.
How could you live this life and not have something to cling to; an ‘out’, some avenue behind conscious thought. Something to make the very air that you breathe tingle against your arms and make even the littlest junk feel oh so important.
I’m a bartender and I say everyone has they’re vice. It’s my job (and pleasure) to serve it to you, and its my very great pleasure to read you these stories from my vantage point and amuse you, sicken you, and straight up bewilder you. So please, proceed, laugh, cry, yell, scream, but definitely, pour yourself a drink and raise a toast to those who sow it all together.
…………………note: this was penned sometime within the first year or so I started.................................
I walk out of KARL’S on 95th St. at 2:22 in the morning and it’s unseasonably warm for Chicago. A nice thunderstorm wind is blowing everything around in that electric kind of way that comes with the first signs of spring. I’ve got a buzz and two Hacker Pschorr’s to go and have to pause just before I get to my car. This is the kind of weather that connects me to this physical plane. In this kind of weather I fell in love, found The Cure, lost a friend, left the country, fucked, made love, jerked off, snorted coke, recorded an album, beat some ass and drank a beer. My keys in my hand, I remember what it was like when I worked a regular job…
Six years through college working at a certain Unfulfilling Packaging Service and when I received the chance to jump gigs and start bartending I took it. One of my best friends, Sonny, had been holding down the gig as assistant weekday bartender at a local Southside hotel’s posh restaurant for almost three years. When impulses of change brought him looking for a new job the woman he worked with, Eye* as we will call her, started looking for his replacement she set her sights on me. I had gotten to know Eye quite well in the three years I visited my friend (hrmph, free drinks, ahem) and she saw me as a nice and easily moldable understudy. Looking back on it now all I can say is thank God! I sucked it in, embraced the fear of change and walked in to my supe at the Package Service and gave my two weeks. Then I took the next two nights off to train behind the bar. I had worked in a factory setting for six years at that point and hardly considered myself a people person, so I had to find out what I was in for.
I trained the next night, Tuesday, and went home happy. It’s not too bad. It always sucks to be the new guy on the block, not knowing where everything is and what not, but this was actually fun. Pour drinks, chat with regulars, etc. I shyly found myself thinking maybe I was more of a people person than I had previously given myself credit for.
Next night was Wednesday, a busy night on the south side of Chicago. Hump day as it is commonly referred to. All your raging alcoholics and socialites cringe half in anticipation, half resignation to having two days left until the weekend. The hotel has a live band, a two-piece called Lake Street who play Wednesday nights (Fridays and Saturdays as well) and cater to entertaining the best and brightest of the local middle-aged adventurers. As I walked in the door for the first time in uniform Sonny flags me down.
“Sink or swim buddy, tonight’s gonna be a rough one. Eye just called in sick for the first time in, like twenty years so it’s just you and me man. I’ll split my tips even with you but you're gonna have to try to keep up, okay?”
“Fuck.”
How I made it through the next couple of hours I don’t know. I did okay but there was still an acceptance issue between some of the regulars and me. Eye’s been here a long time. Sonny’s just gained acceptance at three years. Everyone is nice and interested in me, but that's where it stops; they don’t want me pouring their drinks or taking their money because I don’t know the routine. And it was busy as shit on top of it. I mean we were two or three deep at some points. Drinks literally flew from our hands, and there was no time for delicate social introductions, compensations or explanations.
Sink or swim.
By the end of that night, when Sonny counted out the tips there’s something I didn’t expect. He hands me my half and when I count it back I find that there’s almost as much in my hands now, after one ten hour shift, as there would be after one week at the Service.
Sonny quickly interrupted my astonishment.
“Eye’s going to be out tomorrow night as well. Look, I know you’re supposed to go back to your other job tomorrow, but I could use you and …”
“Dude you don’t even have to say another word. Let’s go get a drink at one of the four O’clock bars, eh? We need to celebrate my promotion in life.”
So this is the funny thing right? It’s like quitting smoking. It’s tough at first and then time lapses and all of a sudden you’ve got the hang of it. Not just that, you’re situated. You crash and stomp like a drunkard through a museum and you fuck up orders and accidentally say the wrong thing and feel like shit and then all of a sudden there’s someone else whose new and they’re looking to latch onto anyone they can for help with the little things and BOOM! You realize you can help them because now you have all the answers to all those same questions you had when you were the new guy, because you’re not the new guy anymore.
.......
Yep, that's how it happened.
........
*obviously all names have been changed to protect yada yada yada.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Money in the pocket...
Okay all You prospective bartenders, here's a serious part of the conversation, so listen up. When You get a gig in the service industry You ALWAYS HAVE MONEY IN THE POCKET. This is one of the most amazing and useful aspects of the job, and even if you have a day that seems solely populated by busloads of customers from hell, with the help of your regulars by the end of the night, or at the very least the next day, you will be counting the money and remembering why exactly it is you deal with douche bags who say things like, 'this Virgin Pina colada isn't strong enough' or 'you didn't make this Cosmo right, it tastes like booze'. Really. Seriously. Truly.
However, as with most aspects of life on this tempestuous planet of ours, what is the GOOD thing is also, in some why, the BAD thing. Oh yes my children, I can hear you now:
"How can having money in the pocket be a BAD thing?"
Let me explain.
I used to go to this liquor store on 65th and Cicero every Wednsday night after work. I always hung with friends after work on Wednsday, and when I hadn't planned ahead and needed to acquire beer at 2AM this was a pretty good ticket. It was a shitty little hole in the wall on the Southside of Chicago, the kind of place where there are always these bum-ass looking motherfuckers with filthy clothes and filthier beards hanging out looking at the porno magazines readily on display in a spinner rack on the floor.* Scum hole that it was this particular posion shop had two things working in its favor. 1) It sold until 4 AM and, 2) it had a pretty decent beer selection. GOOSE ISLAND, HOEGARDEN, BASS, etc. And actually, the third thing it had going was a friendly staff.
But wait, here's where the issue comes in.
So let's say you get your gig, your working late and you start frequenting a place like this. The more you come in the more the guy behind the counter starts to recognize you. You're not a vile retard like most of his customers so you maybe start a little bit of conversation here and there. If you're not careful you start thinking of him as an okay guy, dropping your guard and forgetting that he's working in a dead end job, in the middle of a shit neighborhood, and you're walking in every week with a couple hundred dollars in your pocket.** Maybe you're not a cynic who thinks the human race is, by a , a festering sewer, and pretty soon it seems perfectly natural that the guy is asking you about what you do, as, in my case at least, I was coming in in uniform (those cheesy tuxedo shirts and black slacks really do make you stick out like a sore thumb next to filth-Henry at the spinner rack). From here he might wait a couple weeks before he asks how you do over there, you know, money-wise, as if he's innocently exploring career options (yeah, sorry, that teardrop tattoo is pretty much gonna count you outta any of these gigs in this town at least). You see what's going on here?
YOU HAVE MONEY. YOU ARE A TARGET. When I realized this I quickly jotted the lesson down and put it under my pillow, then stopped going to the place.
Now, I know its paranoia, but I've always said a healthy dose of paranoia is a good thing. It will keep you alive and out of stupid situations. And these situations can really catch you unaware. Let's talk about another one.
If you are a single guy and you are a bartender, you will be looking to score. END OF STORY. To go a bit backwoods vernacular for a moment, 'There ain't no innocence in this gig, and if there is when you come in it will get wrung right the fuck out of you.' You're surrounded by decadence and it wears off. Your job, if you want to survive with an unscathed soul and face, is to play, but keep your fucking head on straight while you do so. That being said, here's another warning.
Bartending one night a beautiful blonde comes in and sits down by herself. Orders a drink and sits there. Now after a couple months of this you learn to temper the predator's eye with common sense - why is she alone? Girls don't often come into bars by themselves, especially ones that look like this, so THERE MUST BE A REASON WHY SHE IS ALONE. I go about my business serving people, watching all my regulars and some dopes I don't know go up and talk to her. They all buy her drinks, she accepts every one, and they all cycle off as it goes nowhere. Eventually she tells one of my reg's that she's interested in me. Now, the first thing I think is, 'why?'. I start talking to her and eventually find she's pretty cool, but suspicion lingers. Closing time comes around and she asks me if I want to go for drinks at a 4 AM place. I cautiously say I know of one, and after my closing duties we take off.
The whole time at the other bar she's getting drunker and drunker and so am I. However, I continually avoid ordering us shots even though she's mighty gung-ho about the idea. Need to keep one foot out of oblivion, see? After a while she starts talking about taking me back to her place and all I can think about is how she came into my bar, scoped out what kind of business was going on, how many regulars I was friendly with, how many drinks I bought her, how many more I bought her with money I earned that night with my tips. Be mighty convenient to scope out a bartender, make him think with his dick and bring him back to foreign turf where someone could be waiting to hit him over the head with a length of pipe and then the two of them could take the money in his pocket.
Again, paranoid? Maybe, but the situation warranted it, to avoid the possibility of trouble. Besides, if they're that into you, your bed is as good as theirs, eh?
.......
So the idea here is to recognize that like ol' Spidey said ' with great power comes great responsibility', only in this case its more like 'with great money comes great opportunity to get fucked'. When you start making that dough watch your ass because there are all kinds of freaks, weirdo's and junkies out there to who $200 is worth setting a trap for.
........
*I tell you, nothing like pouring drinks all night and wandering into a seedy liquor store at 2:15AM only to see bizarro santa claus reading Club International, the spittle hanging from his lower lip like one of those slimey hand truck stop toys and the clerk hurrying to put up a fraudulent 'OUT OF ORDER' sign on the door before old man claus can sneak off with Ms. Herpes November and rub a quick one out before returning to his full time job of walking up and down Cicero Avenue.
** Leave it in the car? In this neighborhood? Nope. Better off on your person where you can defend it.
However, as with most aspects of life on this tempestuous planet of ours, what is the GOOD thing is also, in some why, the BAD thing. Oh yes my children, I can hear you now:
"How can having money in the pocket be a BAD thing?"
Let me explain.
I used to go to this liquor store on 65th and Cicero every Wednsday night after work. I always hung with friends after work on Wednsday, and when I hadn't planned ahead and needed to acquire beer at 2AM this was a pretty good ticket. It was a shitty little hole in the wall on the Southside of Chicago, the kind of place where there are always these bum-ass looking motherfuckers with filthy clothes and filthier beards hanging out looking at the porno magazines readily on display in a spinner rack on the floor.* Scum hole that it was this particular posion shop had two things working in its favor. 1) It sold until 4 AM and, 2) it had a pretty decent beer selection. GOOSE ISLAND, HOEGARDEN, BASS, etc. And actually, the third thing it had going was a friendly staff.
But wait, here's where the issue comes in.
So let's say you get your gig, your working late and you start frequenting a place like this. The more you come in the more the guy behind the counter starts to recognize you. You're not a vile retard like most of his customers so you maybe start a little bit of conversation here and there. If you're not careful you start thinking of him as an okay guy, dropping your guard and forgetting that he's working in a dead end job, in the middle of a shit neighborhood, and you're walking in every week with a couple hundred dollars in your pocket.** Maybe you're not a cynic who thinks the human race is, by a , a festering sewer, and pretty soon it seems perfectly natural that the guy is asking you about what you do, as, in my case at least, I was coming in in uniform (those cheesy tuxedo shirts and black slacks really do make you stick out like a sore thumb next to filth-Henry at the spinner rack). From here he might wait a couple weeks before he asks how you do over there, you know, money-wise, as if he's innocently exploring career options (yeah, sorry, that teardrop tattoo is pretty much gonna count you outta any of these gigs in this town at least). You see what's going on here?
YOU HAVE MONEY. YOU ARE A TARGET. When I realized this I quickly jotted the lesson down and put it under my pillow, then stopped going to the place.
Now, I know its paranoia, but I've always said a healthy dose of paranoia is a good thing. It will keep you alive and out of stupid situations. And these situations can really catch you unaware. Let's talk about another one.
If you are a single guy and you are a bartender, you will be looking to score. END OF STORY. To go a bit backwoods vernacular for a moment, 'There ain't no innocence in this gig, and if there is when you come in it will get wrung right the fuck out of you.' You're surrounded by decadence and it wears off. Your job, if you want to survive with an unscathed soul and face, is to play, but keep your fucking head on straight while you do so. That being said, here's another warning.
Bartending one night a beautiful blonde comes in and sits down by herself. Orders a drink and sits there. Now after a couple months of this you learn to temper the predator's eye with common sense - why is she alone? Girls don't often come into bars by themselves, especially ones that look like this, so THERE MUST BE A REASON WHY SHE IS ALONE. I go about my business serving people, watching all my regulars and some dopes I don't know go up and talk to her. They all buy her drinks, she accepts every one, and they all cycle off as it goes nowhere. Eventually she tells one of my reg's that she's interested in me. Now, the first thing I think is, 'why?'. I start talking to her and eventually find she's pretty cool, but suspicion lingers. Closing time comes around and she asks me if I want to go for drinks at a 4 AM place. I cautiously say I know of one, and after my closing duties we take off.
The whole time at the other bar she's getting drunker and drunker and so am I. However, I continually avoid ordering us shots even though she's mighty gung-ho about the idea. Need to keep one foot out of oblivion, see? After a while she starts talking about taking me back to her place and all I can think about is how she came into my bar, scoped out what kind of business was going on, how many regulars I was friendly with, how many drinks I bought her, how many more I bought her with money I earned that night with my tips. Be mighty convenient to scope out a bartender, make him think with his dick and bring him back to foreign turf where someone could be waiting to hit him over the head with a length of pipe and then the two of them could take the money in his pocket.
Again, paranoid? Maybe, but the situation warranted it, to avoid the possibility of trouble. Besides, if they're that into you, your bed is as good as theirs, eh?
.......
So the idea here is to recognize that like ol' Spidey said ' with great power comes great responsibility', only in this case its more like 'with great money comes great opportunity to get fucked'. When you start making that dough watch your ass because there are all kinds of freaks, weirdo's and junkies out there to who $200 is worth setting a trap for.
........
*I tell you, nothing like pouring drinks all night and wandering into a seedy liquor store at 2:15AM only to see bizarro santa claus reading Club International, the spittle hanging from his lower lip like one of those slimey hand truck stop toys and the clerk hurrying to put up a fraudulent 'OUT OF ORDER' sign on the door before old man claus can sneak off with Ms. Herpes November and rub a quick one out before returning to his full time job of walking up and down Cicero Avenue.
** Leave it in the car? In this neighborhood? Nope. Better off on your person where you can defend it.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Regulars
Rule number one: TREAT YOUR CUSTOMERS GOOD, TREAT YOUR REGULARS AS IF THEY WERE ROYALTY.
Seriously, these are the people that not only are going to make the biggest impact on your financial status, but also, well, they're the ones who are going to make your job enjoyable. In my years at the hotel I had regulars that came and went. Some died, some moved and some just stopped coming in. The latter would of course always make you wonder occasionally about their livelihood. To this day even from this side of the bridge of several years and 3000 miles I consider many of them good friends and I look forward to, even in unlikely cases, seeing them again.
Now, regulars can also be assholes (see previous post). Unlikely? Maybe. You'd think that the factor that adds up and makes one return again and again to an establishment would be the repore they develop with the other people there. In some cases this might be someone who gets along with some of your other regulars but just doesn't like you* or it may be that they are just the kind of asshead that, being powerless in their own lives they need a place where they can go and cause ill will and conflict (plenty o' them out there). Either way, my advice on this type of regular is idealistic in nature, but still, it goes like this: DON'T GIVE THEM THE BLOODY SATISFACTION. They are looking for, yearning for the conflict, the confrontation, the bullshit. Do you know how funny it is to watch these type of people not get what they're after? Oh, its hard to do, because there will be times that you are busy and under pressure and feel like shit and the last straw will be some jag-off** like the aforementioned Quarters showing up. But if you can go zen, and manage to deny the maggots there detritus, oh, its a joy to watch their own frustration build and erupt, consumming them and making them look like an asshole to that many more people around you as they escalate their attempts at cracking your cool.
*If this is the case one thing you should NEVER do is try and either tell your good regulars about your problems with the asshead or even worse, try to enlist their opinion and sway them against him. That side of the bar is that side of the bar for customers - it can only lead to trouble to get mixed up in that kind of thing.
**Just wanted to stop for a minute and share a reflection on this wonderfully strange curse word: Jag-off. Doesn't get nearly enough credit as a rough, best-when-barked in a gruff angry voice of disblief curse. Say it with me now. C'mon, out loud: Jag Off. Nice! Par it with 'fucking' in front of it or 'shit heel' behind it for an extra flavorful slur!!!
Seriously, these are the people that not only are going to make the biggest impact on your financial status, but also, well, they're the ones who are going to make your job enjoyable. In my years at the hotel I had regulars that came and went. Some died, some moved and some just stopped coming in. The latter would of course always make you wonder occasionally about their livelihood. To this day even from this side of the bridge of several years and 3000 miles I consider many of them good friends and I look forward to, even in unlikely cases, seeing them again.
Now, regulars can also be assholes (see previous post). Unlikely? Maybe. You'd think that the factor that adds up and makes one return again and again to an establishment would be the repore they develop with the other people there. In some cases this might be someone who gets along with some of your other regulars but just doesn't like you* or it may be that they are just the kind of asshead that, being powerless in their own lives they need a place where they can go and cause ill will and conflict (plenty o' them out there). Either way, my advice on this type of regular is idealistic in nature, but still, it goes like this: DON'T GIVE THEM THE BLOODY SATISFACTION. They are looking for, yearning for the conflict, the confrontation, the bullshit. Do you know how funny it is to watch these type of people not get what they're after? Oh, its hard to do, because there will be times that you are busy and under pressure and feel like shit and the last straw will be some jag-off** like the aforementioned Quarters showing up. But if you can go zen, and manage to deny the maggots there detritus, oh, its a joy to watch their own frustration build and erupt, consumming them and making them look like an asshole to that many more people around you as they escalate their attempts at cracking your cool.
*If this is the case one thing you should NEVER do is try and either tell your good regulars about your problems with the asshead or even worse, try to enlist their opinion and sway them against him. That side of the bar is that side of the bar for customers - it can only lead to trouble to get mixed up in that kind of thing.
**Just wanted to stop for a minute and share a reflection on this wonderfully strange curse word: Jag-off. Doesn't get nearly enough credit as a rough, best-when-barked in a gruff angry voice of disblief curse. Say it with me now. C'mon, out loud: Jag Off. Nice! Par it with 'fucking' in front of it or 'shit heel' behind it for an extra flavorful slur!!!
Sunday, March 23, 2008
A bartender’s bartender (interloping definitions and meanderings)
I have long been a bar person, but not just any kind of bar. Shortly after becoming of legal drinking age my good mate Brown introduced me to two bars that have coloured my perceptions of every joint I’ve entered since. The first was the Rocking Chair Lounge in beautiful downtown Orland Park, one of the more ‘affluent’ (read yuppies, a mall, and for a long time no blacks) suburbs on Chicago’s Southside. In such a surrounding, the Rocking Chair was a bastion of working class sensibility to my otherwise violently cynical visage.
The second, Karl’s Pub, is still standing today and remains my favorite drinking establishment in the world. Why? What make’s Karl’s so special? The people. And that’s that. As I told my younger sister when she turned twenty-one and then again my younger cousin on the same occasion, you can go to all manner of bars and they’re looking for a good time but by nature they are really only as enjoyable as the people there. You could go to the wickedest club in Los Angeles or Rome, Italy for that matter, and if it’s filled with unfriendly, mean or stupid people you WILL NOT have a good time nor a strong desire to return, unless of course you are either a sadist or a person studying human behavior for its own sake. If you are studying human behavior and you find a bar filled with these kind of people, you should probably apply for a job there, because as I’m sure I will reiterate many times here, there is no better place to learn the psychology of the human animal than from the unique vantage point offered serving people intoxicants.
Speaking of pubs and clubs, a large part of this issue of what makes a bar good is obviously personal taste. What I like, you might not like, and vice versa. So how do people find out what they like? How do you look at the phone book for your area, surf through the names of all the drinking establishments possible and pick something to try? Well, for many it’s by what type of bar they are. Let’s go over some of the different genres, if you will, eh?
Bar – This is an obvious general term for an establishment that serves liquor, beer and/or wine for consumption on its premises. The term probably originated as slang by outsiders from the days when public drinking establishments required membership and non-members were ‘barred’ from joining in. This was in contrast to our next division,
Pub – shortened slang for ‘public house’, the opposite of the membership required bar, anyone could drink in a pub. Internally ‘bars’ and ‘pubs’ all have their own layout, specialty and design, but the distinctions between the two exist only in the long ago day that their patronage was different. It is common knowledge that Britain tends toward the use of the word ‘pub’ while ‘bar’ is a slightly more American use for the same basic type of establishment.
Clubs – A club does not necessarily serve alcohol, but most do, unless they market themselves to minors, in which case non-alcoholic beverages often accompany bad dance music. Of course this implies that only minors listen to bad dance music and if you’ve been to only a couple of clubs in your life you can probably atest to this as not being the case. No, bad dance music is a non-discriminating tribulation of modern society and it is my belief that when in the hands of alcohol-swilling adults it poses an even greater threat in that the prefix ‘bad dance’ shifts from an adjective to a verb.
Clubs usually have themes and it is in this way that they target market their clientele and gain a regular following. For instance, just in case you have been living under a rock (as I often would like to) there are Goth clubs with their pseudo-vampire clientele, there are Strip clubs, where, depending on which gender they market to, members of the opposite sex dance naked for show. There are gay clubs and leather clubs, dance clubs and rock clubs and all other manner of themes you can probably imagine. I have even come across ‘fight clubs’ in my day – a bar that houses a large boxing arena and people decide who in the crowd they wish to beat, if the other party is game (which they almost always are – I mean, imagine the social pressure) both sign wavers absolving the club of any responsibilities and then they fight for the amusement of the other patrons.
Taverns – essentially just another word for a bar, although in some areas the distinction of ‘tavern’ is bestowed by tradition or legal license, the term is more closely related to the days when ‘taverns’ were the same or similar to ‘Inns’. Think medieval days when road weary travelers needed places to stop along their arduous journeys in order to replenish themselves with food, beverage and a place to lay their head for rest.
………………..
So there you have it. Distinguishing for yourself what the various monikers of potential hang-outs and watering holes may have in store for you will help you narrow down your search for the kind of place where you can get down to business and do what it is you are traveling there to do, relax, meet people, party and have a good time!
Once again I’ve segued away from myself though. How did we get to this mock encyclopedic listing anyway? Oh yes, my favorite watering hole, Karl’s. As I was saying before my digression, Karl’s is my favorite because of the people. The barkeep on Monday (not Tuesday) and Wednesday through Friday is Dee and since the very first time I walked in Karl’s and sat down she has been one of the nicest people I’ve ever known. And the same can be said for the clientele. I love a place where I can go catch a buzz and read or talk all manner of interesting topics with intelligent people. For me, from the perspective of my experiences, that’s Karl’s.
This is what you need to have in your corner if you’re a bartender or waitstaff. It’s like ‘homebase’ where you can recover after your own shift pouring drinks. Clubs tend to have industry nights, and that’s when they have special prices for ‘tenders and wait staff. But while this can come in handy from time to time, do you really want to go to a club to unwind after work? If you do, then that’s all well and good, but if you’re like me and prefer a little more mellow most nights after slingin’ poison and dealing with drunks, find a tavern with good people on both sides of the bar and relax. And for god’s sake, if you’re in the business I shouldn’t even have to tell you this, but treat your waitresses and bartenders right, okay? In my experience, other than it being the right thing to do, there is a kind of slippery Magick to bar life, and one aspect of that is a direct correlation between the way you tip and the way people tip you.
You’ve been warned.
The second, Karl’s Pub, is still standing today and remains my favorite drinking establishment in the world. Why? What make’s Karl’s so special? The people. And that’s that. As I told my younger sister when she turned twenty-one and then again my younger cousin on the same occasion, you can go to all manner of bars and they’re looking for a good time but by nature they are really only as enjoyable as the people there. You could go to the wickedest club in Los Angeles or Rome, Italy for that matter, and if it’s filled with unfriendly, mean or stupid people you WILL NOT have a good time nor a strong desire to return, unless of course you are either a sadist or a person studying human behavior for its own sake. If you are studying human behavior and you find a bar filled with these kind of people, you should probably apply for a job there, because as I’m sure I will reiterate many times here, there is no better place to learn the psychology of the human animal than from the unique vantage point offered serving people intoxicants.
Speaking of pubs and clubs, a large part of this issue of what makes a bar good is obviously personal taste. What I like, you might not like, and vice versa. So how do people find out what they like? How do you look at the phone book for your area, surf through the names of all the drinking establishments possible and pick something to try? Well, for many it’s by what type of bar they are. Let’s go over some of the different genres, if you will, eh?
Bar – This is an obvious general term for an establishment that serves liquor, beer and/or wine for consumption on its premises. The term probably originated as slang by outsiders from the days when public drinking establishments required membership and non-members were ‘barred’ from joining in. This was in contrast to our next division,
Pub – shortened slang for ‘public house’, the opposite of the membership required bar, anyone could drink in a pub. Internally ‘bars’ and ‘pubs’ all have their own layout, specialty and design, but the distinctions between the two exist only in the long ago day that their patronage was different. It is common knowledge that Britain tends toward the use of the word ‘pub’ while ‘bar’ is a slightly more American use for the same basic type of establishment.
Clubs – A club does not necessarily serve alcohol, but most do, unless they market themselves to minors, in which case non-alcoholic beverages often accompany bad dance music. Of course this implies that only minors listen to bad dance music and if you’ve been to only a couple of clubs in your life you can probably atest to this as not being the case. No, bad dance music is a non-discriminating tribulation of modern society and it is my belief that when in the hands of alcohol-swilling adults it poses an even greater threat in that the prefix ‘bad dance’ shifts from an adjective to a verb.
Clubs usually have themes and it is in this way that they target market their clientele and gain a regular following. For instance, just in case you have been living under a rock (as I often would like to) there are Goth clubs with their pseudo-vampire clientele, there are Strip clubs, where, depending on which gender they market to, members of the opposite sex dance naked for show. There are gay clubs and leather clubs, dance clubs and rock clubs and all other manner of themes you can probably imagine. I have even come across ‘fight clubs’ in my day – a bar that houses a large boxing arena and people decide who in the crowd they wish to beat, if the other party is game (which they almost always are – I mean, imagine the social pressure) both sign wavers absolving the club of any responsibilities and then they fight for the amusement of the other patrons.
Taverns – essentially just another word for a bar, although in some areas the distinction of ‘tavern’ is bestowed by tradition or legal license, the term is more closely related to the days when ‘taverns’ were the same or similar to ‘Inns’. Think medieval days when road weary travelers needed places to stop along their arduous journeys in order to replenish themselves with food, beverage and a place to lay their head for rest.
………………..
So there you have it. Distinguishing for yourself what the various monikers of potential hang-outs and watering holes may have in store for you will help you narrow down your search for the kind of place where you can get down to business and do what it is you are traveling there to do, relax, meet people, party and have a good time!
Once again I’ve segued away from myself though. How did we get to this mock encyclopedic listing anyway? Oh yes, my favorite watering hole, Karl’s. As I was saying before my digression, Karl’s is my favorite because of the people. The barkeep on Monday (not Tuesday) and Wednesday through Friday is Dee and since the very first time I walked in Karl’s and sat down she has been one of the nicest people I’ve ever known. And the same can be said for the clientele. I love a place where I can go catch a buzz and read or talk all manner of interesting topics with intelligent people. For me, from the perspective of my experiences, that’s Karl’s.
This is what you need to have in your corner if you’re a bartender or waitstaff. It’s like ‘homebase’ where you can recover after your own shift pouring drinks. Clubs tend to have industry nights, and that’s when they have special prices for ‘tenders and wait staff. But while this can come in handy from time to time, do you really want to go to a club to unwind after work? If you do, then that’s all well and good, but if you’re like me and prefer a little more mellow most nights after slingin’ poison and dealing with drunks, find a tavern with good people on both sides of the bar and relax. And for god’s sake, if you’re in the business I shouldn’t even have to tell you this, but treat your waitresses and bartenders right, okay? In my experience, other than it being the right thing to do, there is a kind of slippery Magick to bar life, and one aspect of that is a direct correlation between the way you tip and the way people tip you.
You’ve been warned.
Friday, March 21, 2008
What You don't do...
...when you walk into a bar, and I can't stress this enough and that's why I'll underline it with profanity, what you do NOT do when you walk into a fuckikng bar is piss off the bartender. Some would say, 'no shit, that's common sense,' but since when has common fucking sense had ANYTHING to do with the real world?
There was one customer, we used to call this guy Quarters. Wanna guess why? This guy would come in every weekend for the band, sometimes on Wednsdays as well (the mid-week band night) with his pig-ugly woman, what I can only assume via the similarities in facial abnormalities was her sister, and then the sister's boyfriend*. These were the most obnoxious people EVER (I'm probably going to say that every time I describe an obnoxious customer, get used to it. Maybe I should hold a contest when this is all written and done and you readers can email in and vote for who you think is the most obnoxious, then I could tally the results, fly back to Chicago and staple a certificate to that person's forehead. What'dya think?). I mean, they would sit at the bar and make out, tell you to 'shoo fly' if you happened to be anywhere near them while this occurred, exchange and inspect 'adult novelty books and items' at the bar, like they had to try and flaunt the fact that their decrepit asses were getting laid - UGHHH! It makes me sick just thinking about it. Quarters was known to have a generally disrespectful presentation to anyone in the service industry. He'd bark out commands instead of requests. He'd finish his drink and pound on the bar to get your attention. He'd holler "YO! Bartender!~ Can I get a Fucking drink down here or WHAT?" across the bar.** They'd order appetizer platters, mixed drinks, martinis, pina coladas, ALL AT IN THE SAME SITTING. Or the sister's boyfriend, he'd just drink tap white zinfindel most nights (yes, I said it, it's not a lie, we had bad white zin on a tap at this bar. You know where the flow originated? a BOX of wine, several hundred feet away in our walk-in cooler. It was hard enough to keep the beer lines running fresh over all that distance, what do you think already shitty wine must have tasted like? Here's a hint - a once watched it drive a grown man to tears).
Quarters would always order shots of Chartreuse, so he could light them on fire and impress his lady friend. I guess he thought this made him look like a bad ass. I don't know about you, maybe my palette just isn't 'cultured' for Chartreuse, but to me it tastes like it looks (the green one at least). Like someone took rotten mouthwash, mixed it with old, untreated pool water, and then filtered that merry combination ever so carefully through their German Shepard's asshole, letting the results collect in a pothole and then submerging the bottle to fill it. Cap that bitch and BOOM! Instant hatred in a bottle.
As they drank, ate, danced (?) and tongue-fucked they would get louder and louder. They'd par off and go out on the dance floor like middle-aged, over weight white people who came of age in the seventies and reached the pinnacle of personal exploration thinking Linda Ronstandt went well with Fondue and Cocaine would and make complete fools of themselves. I mean, here are the people that paid seventy dollars to see Miami Sound Machine at the height of their 'Conga' phase. These are the people that ruined American culture and drove millions of kids in the late seventies to Punk and millions more in the eighties to Satan-metal posturing. I'd imagine their children slipped away on school nights and sacrficed squirrels in the local graveyard, desecrating Baphomet's name just because one of the assholes in a band like Saxon mentioned it in a song.***
All this, and at the end of the night, when the Chartreuse was gone, the lipstick smeared and the hot wing bones left piled high on the bartop and in the ashtrays, do you know what Quarter's left as a tip?
Guess.
TWO FUCKING QUARTERS.
Habitually. Every time. For real. I mean it.
One time one of the other bartenders actually ran after him and said, 'Um, excuse me sir, you left your change on the bar'.
Now, many of you no doubt have had service gigs. This sounds like a nightmare, right? Well, I'd also be willing to bet that there are people out there, maybe people reading this, maybe people the people reading this know or even wait on that do not realize that this is inappropriate behavior. Inappropriate to the people handling the things that you are soon to be consuming, and frankly just downright inappropriate IN PUBLIC, IN GENERAL.
So there you have what not to do. Now I give you 'why'.
Quarters and his friends professed a love for Grey Goose vodka. They ordered it all the time. LOVED the taste of it with cranberry. Guess what? Quarters might have paid the over-inflated price for Grey Goose, but he NEVER drank it. Nope. I believe the brand we used in the well was Barton's. So in a blind taste test, you might say four out of four assholes choose Barton over Grey Goose.
Maybe I should be going to the Barton marketing with this? Oh yeah, the company's probably run out of someone's sister's house, so probably no advertising there.
Gin? Tanqueray? Nope. Barton.
Tequila (and here's where you'd think he'd know the difference, as good tequila, such as the Cazadores he'd order is a world away, no a goddamn UNIVERSE away from the Montezuma he'd get.
Furthermore, guess who never got a clean glass?
I could go on, but use your imagination.
These are the reasons you DO NOT walk into a bar the first time, let alone EVERY SUBSEQUENT TIME, and treat the wait staff there like shit. You WILL pay. They may not be able to laugh in your face, but they will laugh amongst themselves the following week when they here you talking about the terrible diarrhea you had after the last time you went out, and you just cannot figure out why.
....................
*can you still call a fifty-something year old coouple 'girlfriend and boyfriend? I know people who do but their mostly tacky, irritating people who would trade their souls to be able to re-do the younger years they squandered.
**That actually only happened once on Eye and mine's shift, as she had to put up with alot of his shit, but profanity can still get you kicked out of decent establishments you know. Believe me, I know.
***yes, I just dropped a Saxon reference. Deal with it.
There was one customer, we used to call this guy Quarters. Wanna guess why? This guy would come in every weekend for the band, sometimes on Wednsdays as well (the mid-week band night) with his pig-ugly woman, what I can only assume via the similarities in facial abnormalities was her sister, and then the sister's boyfriend*. These were the most obnoxious people EVER (I'm probably going to say that every time I describe an obnoxious customer, get used to it. Maybe I should hold a contest when this is all written and done and you readers can email in and vote for who you think is the most obnoxious, then I could tally the results, fly back to Chicago and staple a certificate to that person's forehead. What'dya think?). I mean, they would sit at the bar and make out, tell you to 'shoo fly' if you happened to be anywhere near them while this occurred, exchange and inspect 'adult novelty books and items' at the bar, like they had to try and flaunt the fact that their decrepit asses were getting laid - UGHHH! It makes me sick just thinking about it. Quarters was known to have a generally disrespectful presentation to anyone in the service industry. He'd bark out commands instead of requests. He'd finish his drink and pound on the bar to get your attention. He'd holler "YO! Bartender!~ Can I get a Fucking drink down here or WHAT?" across the bar.** They'd order appetizer platters, mixed drinks, martinis, pina coladas, ALL AT IN THE SAME SITTING. Or the sister's boyfriend, he'd just drink tap white zinfindel most nights (yes, I said it, it's not a lie, we had bad white zin on a tap at this bar. You know where the flow originated? a BOX of wine, several hundred feet away in our walk-in cooler. It was hard enough to keep the beer lines running fresh over all that distance, what do you think already shitty wine must have tasted like? Here's a hint - a once watched it drive a grown man to tears).
Quarters would always order shots of Chartreuse, so he could light them on fire and impress his lady friend. I guess he thought this made him look like a bad ass. I don't know about you, maybe my palette just isn't 'cultured' for Chartreuse, but to me it tastes like it looks (the green one at least). Like someone took rotten mouthwash, mixed it with old, untreated pool water, and then filtered that merry combination ever so carefully through their German Shepard's asshole, letting the results collect in a pothole and then submerging the bottle to fill it. Cap that bitch and BOOM! Instant hatred in a bottle.
As they drank, ate, danced (?) and tongue-fucked they would get louder and louder. They'd par off and go out on the dance floor like middle-aged, over weight white people who came of age in the seventies and reached the pinnacle of personal exploration thinking Linda Ronstandt went well with Fondue and Cocaine would and make complete fools of themselves. I mean, here are the people that paid seventy dollars to see Miami Sound Machine at the height of their 'Conga' phase. These are the people that ruined American culture and drove millions of kids in the late seventies to Punk and millions more in the eighties to Satan-metal posturing. I'd imagine their children slipped away on school nights and sacrficed squirrels in the local graveyard, desecrating Baphomet's name just because one of the assholes in a band like Saxon mentioned it in a song.***
All this, and at the end of the night, when the Chartreuse was gone, the lipstick smeared and the hot wing bones left piled high on the bartop and in the ashtrays, do you know what Quarter's left as a tip?
Guess.
TWO FUCKING QUARTERS.
Habitually. Every time. For real. I mean it.
One time one of the other bartenders actually ran after him and said, 'Um, excuse me sir, you left your change on the bar'.
Now, many of you no doubt have had service gigs. This sounds like a nightmare, right? Well, I'd also be willing to bet that there are people out there, maybe people reading this, maybe people the people reading this know or even wait on that do not realize that this is inappropriate behavior. Inappropriate to the people handling the things that you are soon to be consuming, and frankly just downright inappropriate IN PUBLIC, IN GENERAL.
So there you have what not to do. Now I give you 'why'.
Quarters and his friends professed a love for Grey Goose vodka. They ordered it all the time. LOVED the taste of it with cranberry. Guess what? Quarters might have paid the over-inflated price for Grey Goose, but he NEVER drank it. Nope. I believe the brand we used in the well was Barton's. So in a blind taste test, you might say four out of four assholes choose Barton over Grey Goose.
Maybe I should be going to the Barton marketing with this? Oh yeah, the company's probably run out of someone's sister's house, so probably no advertising there.
Gin? Tanqueray? Nope. Barton.
Tequila (and here's where you'd think he'd know the difference, as good tequila, such as the Cazadores he'd order is a world away, no a goddamn UNIVERSE away from the Montezuma he'd get.
Furthermore, guess who never got a clean glass?
I could go on, but use your imagination.
These are the reasons you DO NOT walk into a bar the first time, let alone EVERY SUBSEQUENT TIME, and treat the wait staff there like shit. You WILL pay. They may not be able to laugh in your face, but they will laugh amongst themselves the following week when they here you talking about the terrible diarrhea you had after the last time you went out, and you just cannot figure out why.
....................
*can you still call a fifty-something year old coouple 'girlfriend and boyfriend? I know people who do but their mostly tacky, irritating people who would trade their souls to be able to re-do the younger years they squandered.
**That actually only happened once on Eye and mine's shift, as she had to put up with alot of his shit, but profanity can still get you kicked out of decent establishments you know. Believe me, I know.
***yes, I just dropped a Saxon reference. Deal with it.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Welcome, what's your poison???
So, I was a bartender for five years. Ahh, five of the best years of my life. Worked about ten hours a day, three days a week, made more than I made at UPS before that (having been there 6 years by the time I jumped ship, so hourly the big brown was giving me somewhere around $15 an hour, but at three, maybe four hours a night, well...) and more than I make now as a full-time supervisor at a corporate book giant. Imagine that. Yeah, so like I said, five of the best years of my life. So, while it was all happening I kept a log. Not from the beginning, but about half way through the second year I just started writing down random incidents because IT WAS SUCH A STRANGE FUCKING JOB. I mean, really, sex, drugs, maybe not rock and roll, but live lounge bands three times a week, so, you know...
But I digress. So as I wrote this stuff down, more and more I wanted to turn it into a book, or a comic or something. I still tell people these stories all the time and they still laugh their asses off. There's just something about the life of a bartender. For one it makes you into a barfly, and barflys always have stories to tell. But when your on the serving side, you get a special view that no one else in the joint gets - they all see cross sections - you see the whole story. You see everyone come in sober and leave stoned. Or you see everyone come in stoned and leave, well, more stoned. Or in a paddy wagon.
So this is going to be a running attempt at putting these stories down. Hopefully it'll get me a book deal or something. Then maybe Oprah will read it, recognize it for the triumph of human spirit it is (really!) and pimp it in her book club, then I'll get rich and open my own bar. I always said, if I ever had my own bar, two rules: 1) Tuesday, Wednsday and Thursday I'd be behind the bar with my old partner in crime 'Eye'. 2) Every single employee there would get the same start-up speech, "If anyone disrespects you, other customers, gives you shit or just generally acts like an asshole, THROW THEM THE FUCK OUT. Or better yet, call me and I'll THROW THEM THE FUCK OUT.*
There, introductions forthcoming, lets move on to the first entry.
Thanks for reading.
*Yes, I know its somewhat hard to believe, but some people do act like assholes in bars. Hijinks are one thing, but mean-spirited dirtbags who like to pick on those of us in the service industry? Cannon fodder as far as I'm concerned. You'll get a much better idea of who does and doesn't fall into this category as we continue on.
But I digress. So as I wrote this stuff down, more and more I wanted to turn it into a book, or a comic or something. I still tell people these stories all the time and they still laugh their asses off. There's just something about the life of a bartender. For one it makes you into a barfly, and barflys always have stories to tell. But when your on the serving side, you get a special view that no one else in the joint gets - they all see cross sections - you see the whole story. You see everyone come in sober and leave stoned. Or you see everyone come in stoned and leave, well, more stoned. Or in a paddy wagon.
So this is going to be a running attempt at putting these stories down. Hopefully it'll get me a book deal or something. Then maybe Oprah will read it, recognize it for the triumph of human spirit it is (really!) and pimp it in her book club, then I'll get rich and open my own bar. I always said, if I ever had my own bar, two rules: 1) Tuesday, Wednsday and Thursday I'd be behind the bar with my old partner in crime 'Eye'. 2) Every single employee there would get the same start-up speech, "If anyone disrespects you, other customers, gives you shit or just generally acts like an asshole, THROW THEM THE FUCK OUT. Or better yet, call me and I'll THROW THEM THE FUCK OUT.*
There, introductions forthcoming, lets move on to the first entry.
Thanks for reading.
*Yes, I know its somewhat hard to believe, but some people do act like assholes in bars. Hijinks are one thing, but mean-spirited dirtbags who like to pick on those of us in the service industry? Cannon fodder as far as I'm concerned. You'll get a much better idea of who does and doesn't fall into this category as we continue on.
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