Hey Bartender Page #4

wanted to punch him.

And everything has

been mechanized.

You can get, you know, your

soda out of a gun.

You know, you can get your

sour mix in a packet.

There's no fresh

ingredients available.

Downtown bars, in the

nineties, were DJ based.

A good bar had a good DJ.

It was more of a party culture,

more of a drug induced culture.

People would go out and just

drink to get drunk.

They would just drink a lot.

We want it fast.

We want it now.

We don't want to take our

time. We're not worried about

fresh squeezed juices.

It was just bad, I mean

I tasted it now and then

and I thought this is

drinking? These are cocktails?

I want nothing to do with them.

For a long time bar tending was

looked down as basically a uh

a lower skill, lower class job.

So nobody thought of it as a

craft profession anymore.

Nobody thought that's

where they'd like their son

or daughter to end up.

None of us started out

to be bartenders.

Not one person I know.

And also most of the people I

know were desperately trying

to get out of it.

As was I.

I started going to college and my

idea was that I wanted to do pre-med.

I wanted to make a difference

in people's lives.

I wen to architecture school.

English and religion.

Neuroscience.

I went to University of AME.

and I studied finance.

I went to the

University of Wisconsin

I have a masters of the electrical studies

from Harvard Divinity Schools, so...

Uh, I was an actor. I want

dot work twice a week and uh,

you know and make my rent.

Of course going to school for

theatre, being an actor

you can't help but people,

Oh you should get a job in the

service industry, that's just

what you do.

In the bar business we do get a lot of

"What are you gonna do when you grow up?"

You could be a doctor.

You could be a lawyer.

You could go to work for a

big insurance company.

Or I can be a bartender.

No.

Yeah, it's hard, I mean how

do you tell your parents that

you're gonna be a bartender.

Forget about the degree that

you paid for.

I'm gonna stand behind the

bar and pour booze all night.

One of the great sayings

in the industry is

You don't find the industry,

the industry finds you".

I've always said that bartenders

are rockstars that couldn't be

bothered to learn instruments.

Yes, there's a great correlation

between being in show business

and being in the

restaurant business,

which obviously, over the

past thirty years

has become show business.

A wonderful bartender knows

what that person is coming

They figure it out. And you

provide it for them.

Alright, this guy might be

looking for a job.

This guy might be looking

to get laid.

This girl's looking to

meet her husband.

You know, you're putting all

these needs together.

Hey, Jeremy.

Uncle Phil, may man.

You pay me later, okay?

Depending on the night, I

come in at five or six.

I come set up. I come in with

my bow tie off. I tie it up.

I come and I shake hands with

everybody in the bar.

And then the night progresses.

It turns into a war zone by

about 630, 7o'clock.

You never know what's gonna happen

in the service industry, ya know?

The nights that you

expect to be busy

are generally not busy.

And then there's those slow

nights where you might have

gone out a little too much

the night before.

And you're just looking to

kinda get through the night

and those are the nights it

gets handed to you.

a five minute time to step behind

the bar with the bartender

you'll know what it means.

It is so intense.

There's just a crazy

adrenaline rush.

Of the dance, you know that

you do behind the bar

with other bartenders.

When it starts getting

really, really busy

and-and you get into the

weeds. I can totally

understand how athletes

talk about that zone.

There can be this almost,

kind-of euphoria.

Where you are in that rhythm

and everything is just-

and you can feel your barback

behind you and the other

bartenders.

Their body language changes, you see

them moving, dancing around each other.

Nobody's hitting anybody.

And at that point they might

have been on their feet for

like six hours.

Or seven hours already.

When you're working with your

teammates, it's kind-of almost

In the sense that everybody

is working towards a goal

Everything slows down and you

start moving in this

incredibly choreographed way.

It's multi-tasking and

trying to put on a show at

the same time.

And not look like you're having

a good time, even if you're

three deep and in the weeds.

Okay this is-I live here.

Starting in high school, this

is my best friend, Chris.

This is a little place that...

is very significant in my life.

That's where I had my

accident, my injury.

So uh, eight years ago,

this is it. This is the...

This is the alley where it

all went down,

where my military career was...

shortened.

And uh, I got three plates

in my head.

I don't know if this place is

open anymore.

Started out here. And I ended

in that alley back there.

Uhm, I still-I still am

dying to know...

exactly what happened that

night, uhm.

I was involved in an

incident, uhm...

at a bar, believe it or not.

With uh, my brother, he uh...

He gotten into some sort of

fight and I was there.

Uhm, I just been home. I was

ready to go to Okinawa.

Shortly from there, we were

gonna go to Afghanistan.

I got a call from my brother

one night after partying.

At a bar in our hometown.

Kind-of a shittier area.

Shitty place where terrible

people hang out.

I uh, don't quite recall what

happened but I know it

revolves-I remember this much.

That is revolves around... uh.

Somebody hitting on someone's

girlfriend.

I think it was my brother

hitting on someone's girlfriend.

Stupid stuff, you know?

Childish stuff.

some other guy shoving him

and me intervening.

And...

I know I took a blow to the

head, I took a fall and a

blow to the head.

Several of them.

Whether it be in an alley or

outside the front of the place

but head on concrete.

Head on curb, just getting

stomped in.

I had most of the damage done

on the right side of

my head here.

About the temple.

Uhm, I had a crack in

my skull up top.

Basically they had to do

emergency surgery on me,

they told my parents that

it was over.

And to, to uhm, basically...

make plans for arrangements,

For my funeral.

I went through several years

of like, brain rehab.

I had cognitive problems.

Cognitive issues.

Memory loss was...

It's so... just knocks you right back down,

like here I was...

A hero.

Me thinking I'm a hero.

And all of a sudden to be below

the bottom of the barrel.

I literally was... I died in a

bar. And reborn in a bar.

Dushan almost gave me tickets

for tonight.

He was but I had to work,

you know.

We were once the "it".

I mean Friday nights, you

couldn't get into this place.

And I don't think it has

anything to do with

increased competition, I

think it has more to do with

just a changing of views,

where we used to strive

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