LAST CALL

by Mike Dunphy
METRO: NYC
FRONT OF THE HOUSE
LIQUIDS
NUTS & BOLTS
BACK OF THE HOUSE
LAST CALL
 
I am standing center stage at a local comedy club, looking down over the crowd. My eyes wander to the back of the room at the bartender who's flipping liquor bottles back and forth behind his head. Thankfully, the crowd is intent on viewing me, rather than him. However, I notice his showmanship, and I realize what makes him good-confidence. The key to selling yourself in any industry is confidence and this guy has it.

I couldn't help but think that there are only a few industry jobs where tossing the tools of your trade around your head is acceptable. I can't ever remember any episode of "ER" where George Clooney was tossing scalpels behind his back just before he pops a patient open. I don't remember ever going to church and seeing the priest roll the communion bowl down his arm, while simultaneously flipping the wine chalice over his head. (If he had, maybe I would have attended more.) Yet, ironically, both seem like worship, although-for many of us-the praying begins the morning after we visit a bar: "God, if you make the room stop spinning, I'll never drink again."

But you do. Drinking with a favorite bartender can be like being in a bad relationship. You know he or she is going to hurt you, yet you always go back.

Bartenders are like rock stars. (Some bartenders believe that a little too much.) There they are, the center of attention with people in all directions shouting out to them like some form of drunken paparazzi-"drunkarazzi"-booze and ice shrapnel flying in every direction, order after order, no pen, no paper, just drunken demands followed by the dollar tip. I bartended a few years in college and having to deal with drunken customers on a daily basis was too much for me. I chose to do stand-up-and cook- instead. I glance once more toward the bar and make eye contact with the bartender. "Never again," I think to myself. Bartenders are a different breed.

I finish my set and make my way to the bartender. I order a beer and kid with the guy "not to flip this one." I ask him what he thinks makes him a good barkeep. He tells me it's the same for him as it is for me: "timing and a sense of humor."

The essential tools for anyone in the restaurant field are timing and a sense of humor. Most bartenders-like most line cooks-possess one or both of these skills. But having to deal with the constant flow of customer problems, complaints and personal baggage is enough to drive anyone to drink. The bartender is the psychologist, the mixologist and the person you turn to when you want to change your mood. After thinking about all the expectations that are placed on the lonely bartender, I realized that there isn't enough alcohol in the world to get me behind a bar again.