Raskin's Rhetoric

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2012-01-23T10:42:00.000-08:00

In case anyone is looking for Raskin's Rhetoric, I've moved my blog to Wordpress. The link is http://www.bennyraskin.com/.

Thanks to blogspot for getting me started.

Benny

Notes From Behind The Bar: Douche Bags, Zombies and Regrets

2011-11-15T15:01:00.001-08:00

If he was the lead in a Saturday Night Live sketch, Loren Michaels would say tone it down. He was over six feet tall with broad shoulders. He was sporting a frosted-tipped buzz cut, tattoos covering his bulging arms and a cross the size Jesus of Nazareth carried up Golgotha. His snap-buttoned shorts-sleeved shirt was open to mid-chest and it was covered in rhinestones. The jeans had matching stones forming a fleur-de-lis on his back pocket and his boots were reserved for linemen. In a word, he was a joke.

He and his cronies had rented the main VIP section of Keys On Main for Saturday night and they became some sort of homo-erotic mess. He was with a dozen other guys that dressed as if the thirteen of them raided an Affliction mall store. The women with them looked like damaged goods with shirts stretched over fake boobs, too much make-up and half a scoop of brains. It was a mess of people with too much money and time spent in tanning beds, gyms and in front of the television. I probably could have counted on one hand the amount of books read by the entire group that didn’t have “Twilight” in the title. They couldn’t identify a state capital but they knew when the H&M store opened. They were blissfully ignorant. All they cared about was drinking the world’s shittiest champagne and grinding on each other.

I mock them because they annoy me. I make fun of them because my life at 37 is waiting for a group of them to open their bottles of champagne and give them approving fist-bumps as I take their money. I’ve cultivated some sort of vacate stare when taking their orders so that I can blind myself from the atrocities of their lives. They have diluted their existences to some sort of amalgamation of reality TV and self-deception that I secretly admire. It must be an amazing moment to look in the mirror at any given point in the day and think without a shred of irony that “you are the shit.” They have surrendered fashion for form and don’t seem to be slowing down. They are the antitheist of the Occupy Movement and they aren’t going home to escape the cold at their parent’s house—they’re multiplying. They value consumption over community and they are the absolute worst to pour drinks for.

We have all cultivated a look. How we dress and act is not an accident. It is result of the amount of years you’ve been alive and all of the influences upon your life. I am the product of books, pop culture, music, sports and movies that I have consumed through the years. And so are you. If I had to describe my style, I would summarize it as REI meets IFA. Because I favor form over fashion as well as being chubby and liking plaid, dressing as if I was a roadie for Pearl Jam has served me well through the years. Moreover, I never get judging eyes because I have cargo shorts and a cowboy shirt on. My BMI might put me in an early grave but at least it allows me to live in comfort most of the time. Throw a beaten baseball cap on and I am ready to hit the streets. I own a handful of suits for formal occasions but I have been lucky for most of my adult life to be able to dress in casual clothes and still make a living. The aforementioned swarms of D-bags don’t have the luxury of dressing in less than five minutes. By the time they’ve finished working on their hair, I have finished my second Highball and I am already halfway to the bar.

In the end, what do I care? It’s not like I am going to be hanging out with this posse of tools socially. I am merely the instrument in their weekend of depravity. I think what bothers me about this new homo Douchebagous is that they are not going away. It seems like every weekend the droves of homo D. are increasing in both numbers and intensity. Scary stuff. It’s bad enough that I have to pour drinks for these tool bags but I am also a fellow citizen with these people in my beloved Salt Lake City. If I thought for one moment these people voted, I’d be packing my family up and moving to Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Speaking of zombie-like behavior, has anyone been watching The Walking Dead? We have been on a cable TV hiatus for the summer and recently went back to our slave-master Comcast. Do I regret it? Not for one minute. I was able to catch up with AMC’s zombie apocalypse series and I am absolutely riveted. I think ever since I saw George Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead, I have been hooked on undead films. I think what draws me to zombie movies is the question of how would I react if for some reason the world went into some sort of apocalypse. As a chubby guy, I automatically assume I would be in the first wave of the infected but it is still exciting to think of how you would act if the world went to Hell in a handbag. It is a very intriguing idea. What I like about The Walking Dead is that it is told through normal folks and not steroid-addled super-soldiers.

With that said, I have noticed with frequent regularity kids and adults in Salt Lake dressing up as zombies and walking through the streets. During the summer, I was working a rare Sunday evening at Keys On Main when Salt Lake hosted a zombie walk. There were over 2,200 people dressed up as pieces of society crumbling and they came streaming down Main Street in their bloody best. We were open because there was a Sunday concert at Gallivan Center but before the rush of the concert goers we saw the pack of self-imposed undead. They were awesome. Costumed in fake blood and shreds of clothing, they limped down Main Street with gasps and shreds of clothing. It would have been amazing if for the fact that the general manager of the club, Brandon Isenhour, hadn’t cleaned the windows before the zombie walk. They streaked bloody hands left spotches that left the Keys staff in stiches as they passed by.

I brought up The Walking Dead and the zombie walk for one reason: what are the legal ramifications for beating the snot out of somebody dressed as a zombie as they pretend to bite you? The one thing that I take from all the zombie movies is that those who don’t react are quickly converted into the undead. If you see a zombie and don’t smash their brain in, you are assured to be converted into one of them instantaneously. I brought this up because earlier this year, I had to kick some guy out of the bar that was threatening to bite me. It was during St. Patrick’s Day and he somehow slipped though the bar. He was severely mentally handicapped and confined to a wheelchair. The St. Patrick’s Day party was a zoo at Keys On Main—we were completely understaffed, we didn’t have enough Jameson and the Guinness was pouring way too slow. In the thick of the fight, this guy in the wheelchair had gotten into the bar and was making his way from table to table finishing off any drink he could get his hands on. We were so busy that we never noticed the guy. It wasn’t until somebody complained about him that I got involved.

You always have to be sensitive to people with disabilities and, initially, I thought he was just some poor soul that never got a fair shake. We often forget that just because somebody is disabled that they can still be an asshole. I went over to him to ask what the problem was and he had a very difficult time speaking. Imagine Christy Brown from My Left Foot but with a twelve pack of beer in him. I told him in the loud bar that he is not allowed to drink other people’s drinks and that he needed to go. He resisted and I tried to wheel him out the door. Even though he was confined to a wheelchair, he had that crazy monkey strength. He was kicking and pulling at me and trying to grab my face to bite it. Now, I have broken up a lot of bar fights and been involved in more than a couple physical altercations (the vast majority of which leaving me worse for wear) but I have never been in a fight with a guy in a wheelchair and never did I think that I would be losing. It took every ounce of strength I had to drag his chair out of the bar with him swinging wildly trying to bite me. After I finally got him out, I kept thinking it would be my luck to become Patient X, the first infected zombie in the fall of humanity. Needless to say, the gentleman has been 86ed.

On a completely unrelated note, I had my very first professional massage this week. Want to know the difference between a masseuse and a massage therapist? Massage therapists go to school to learn the physical nature of the body and how to address pressure points to alleviate stress and pain from the body. Masseuses rub your body and give a blow job for an extra $25. I made the mistake of calling my massage therapist a masseuse at the wrong moment. She was doing some sort of Josef Mengele maneuver with her elbow in the small of my back when I called her a masseuse. In one moment, my world became a universe of stars as my head in the padded donut-hole pinpricked with the type of pain reserved for gunshot victims or guests host of “Jackass.” She gave me a look that said, “Do I look like I work in a Ukrainian massage parlor or give handies for some sort of Korean child-trafficker?” I quickly apologized as she huffed and got back to work on my back. How are Swedes such pussies when it comes to Nazis and Nazis when it comes to massage tables? The idea of a “happy ending” was the furthest thing from my mind as she dug her elbow into my back like a Steven Seagal movie. I have never had a professional massage before and I am still trying to figure out if I liked it. When I got home and took a shower, I saw that my back was covered in the beginning of welts and bruises reminiscent of a caning or a stop in Helga’s House of Bondage. I think the next time I strip down to the buff and let some loose cannon Swede go to work on my body, I am going to take a muscle relaxer and drink a couple of beers. I would probably get the results I wanted with a baker’s dozen PBRs. The end result of the sports massage is a couple of shoulder blades that are bruised to Hell and twice as sore as I was when I walked in. I never had felt my age until I tried to roll out of bed and limp to the bathroom to throw up after a massage.

Starting your mid-life crisis at 37 years old is never good. Starting it poor is even worse. Not poverty-level poor or deficient in family and friends or even experiences but the kind of poor that doesn’t allow me to buy a sports car or take a year off to write the great American novel. I figure with my lifestyle, body-type and being predisposed for accidents (remember me getting hit by a car, getting cellulitis or watching the Cardinals win the World Series?), I figure I’ll make it to 74 before a massive heart attack takes me. Besides, who wants to get old? Granted I wouldn’t be leaving behind a good looking corpse today but the last thing I need is a Taft-sized coffin in thirty years.

I think my mid-life crisis is a combination of a lost opportunities and time. Time is inevitable. It is always moving and we’re getting older every moment. I think the hindsight of lost opportunities is what depresses people. I am lucky. I only have two regrets in my life: one, I wish I played high school football. I think two-a-day practices would have been good for me and participating in a major team sport would have created a lot of memories. Second, I wish I joined the military right after college. I spent four years spinning my wheels after college, I might have well of joined the Navy and sailed the world during that time. I often get asked if I regret selling The Woodshed and I say never every single time. The experience of running my own club in Utah was exhilarating but exhausting. I tip my hat to anyone who can make a go of it in Salt Lake.

I think I remember when I decided to sell the bar. It was the fact that I couldn’t pay my bills or go into legal trouble with the state. Those things could always be out maneuvered. It was the fact that I developed a bar that was dependent upon live music to draw people into the club. Musicians are the worst people on the planet (sorry Keys On Main piano players but I think even you guys would agree that you are a bit demanding) and trying to run a business off the dependability of musicians is a poor business decision. Trying to run your business off of people who support live music is just a dumb business decision.

My favorite story from The Woodshed relating to musicians and patrons happened in September 2007. As the baseball post-season was shaping up, I hosted a DJ at the club for a Friday night. It was one of those great nights at The Woodshed were everything miraculously came together with little work. It was pulling teeth to get the entertainment into the club, stocking the bar with enough products to sell, ramping up the staff for a busy night and finally getting people to show up. I probably didn’t say it at the time but thanks to Matt Jones for putting the evening together. It might not have been one of his shows but he definitely set up enough successful nights with insufficient thanks. As the room got progressively busier and more and more people showed up, the large windows in the front of the club became covered in condensation. Between the sweat of the people dancing and the coldness of the early autumn evening, the windows became completely translucent.

The San Diego Padres were in a dog fight to make it to the post-season. In fact they had a play-in game against the Milwaukee Brewers to make it to the play-offs. It didn’t work out for them and they were denied when Tony Gwynn Jr. hit the go ahead run for the Brewers. Devastating. There was a customer in the bar who was a huge San Francisco Giants fan and he wrote a large SF on the front of the windows. The condensation held the SF for all to see but I was too busy to go wipe it down. The night eventually ended and we started setting up for the next night’s show. Tired, I didn’t even consider washing the windows before leaving for the evening.

On Saturday night, we were hosting some sort of vegan/punk/hardcore show. Not my cup of tea but it usually drew pretty well. Here’s a secret about Vegans: if they had enough iron in their blood, they would be the scariest people on the planet. For people that don’t eat animals, they certainly drink enough PBR, smoke enough cigarettes and cover their bodies with enough tattoos. I could make the argument that it is healthier to eat a McRib every now and then than spending hours in a tattoo parlors puffing butts and drinking cheap beer but it would fall on deaf bolted ears. Once again, the club was packed but this crowd was a little more intense than the night before. The show was in full swing, the room was packed and I was slinging drinks. Around 11 o’clock, this diminutive hipster woman came up to me and demanded to speak to me in private. Fearing the worse, we went out front. She demanded an explanation on what was on the window. I looked at her confused and asked what did she mean? She emphatically pointed at the large center window in the front of the club and told me she has never been more offended in her entire life and what kind of club was I running. I was dumbfounded. I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. I asked the people in front of the club to step aside and I knew instantly what the problem was.

There was a swastika on the front window.

Somehow, the SF from the night before had been converted into the symbol of the Third Reich. For the first time in my life, I yelped. I darted into the bar, hopped on the stage to the anger of the band playing and frantically wiped the distorted SF away. If there was ever a moment where I knew I wasn’t cut out to run my own club, this was one. Forget all of the legal and tax problems I had for three years—inadvertently advertising my bar as a skinhead club might have been the final straw. So if you wonder if I regret selling The Woodshed, the answer in an empathic no. As much as I complain about pouring drinks for douche bags and their dates, there is no way I wouldn’t have been found hanging by my belt if I had to continuously deal with trivial things like tax commissions and swastikas. Instead of looking backwards, I am always looking towards the future and trying to avoid wasting time and opportunities. I figure we’re all going to have some sort of Albert Brooks Defending Your Life moment when we die and I don’t want to get sent back to Earth in the body of some sort of Affliction shirt wearing idiot.

Ben Raskin works at Keys On Main Wednesday through Saturday. Follow him on Twitter @BennyRaskin or follow his Tumblr feed. Become a fan of Behind The Bar on Facebook.

Lessons Learned From Roadhouse and Cocktail

2011-11-03T02:52:00.000-07:00

Before opening The Woodshed, I used to joke to myself that the only employee handbook I would ever have would be two DVDs. One would be a copy of the 1988 classic, Cocktail, starring Tom Cruise, Bryan Brown and Elisabeth Shue. The other would be the stunning 1989 masterpiece, Roadhouse, with Patrick Swayze, Sam Elliott and blah, blah, blah. I figured between these two movies, there isn’t any topic relevant to running a club that wasn’t addressed in one form or another. Clearly, Cocktail would provide the necessary insight to the in’s and out’s of pouring the best drinks and how to fall in love with spoiled trust fund midgets in Jamaica (for the record, Elisabeth Shue is 4’5”—read her IMDB page). Roadhouse would give all the necessary information for how to eject somebody from the bar and deal with petty despots running small towns. I knew that in opening The Woodshed in Salt Lake City I was going to be splitting time between throwing roundhouse kicks and stealing the hearts of fallen debutants.

Imagine my disappointment when I found out that the most important thing you need to run a business is a good Excel spreadsheet and solid financials. Man… I was bummed when I found out that doing Tai Chi and smoking a couple of packs of Marlboros wasn’t the best way to run a bar. You’d think making outrageously heavily poured drinks while reciting barroom poetry would be the key to a successful saloon but I was really off the mark. I am starting to think that the reason why I had to sell my bar was the fact that I was taking my business management cues from a Tom Cruise movie from over two decades ago. Jesus! What was I thinking? I would have been better served if I glimpsed at Wall Street or I don’t know, hired an accountant.

Of course I’m making a joke. I could have had Cocktail or Roadhouse on a loop and I never would have been able to learn enough not to run the bar into the ground. It seemed more like an academic exercise thinking about these two movies being the basis of the most disturbing employee handbook ever written. Can you imagine what the sexual harassment part of that book would look like? It would be roundhouse kicking and skinny-dipping intense.

I worked this Wednesday night and it was slow. It was the kind of slow that makes you walk the building wondering what you’re going to steal to make the night less of a disaster. My first instinct was to take one of the pianos but I realized I’d be cutting my nose to spite my face. In fact, my boss might actually go looking for one of the baby grand piano. I settled on a club sandwich and some time in front of the television. The aforementioned Roadhouse was on AMC and I got comfortable. I had to split time between pouring a draft beer for the random straggler and making time with my sandwich. Roadhouse is absolutely the best movie about bouncers in small, shit-kicking towns who fall in love with medical doctors all the while practicing Tai Chi and keeping the local town bullies at bay. I know Terms of Endearment has key information regarding door work but for my money, I prefer Roadhouse.

I must have seen Roadhouse 53 times. It’s not that it’s a good movie or that the story holds up or the characters are believable or there’s any shred of realism in the film. I like Roadhouse because it’s Jeff Healy intense and there’s a lot of nudity. There. I said it. I think I just summarized why Roadhouse made $30 million dollars when it had 25 cents worth of story. Anyway, there I was last night, eating a sandwich, drinking a club soda and watching pre-cancer Patrick Swayze’s character, Dalton, dispense wisdom from his NYU philosophy degree. I am so tired of the diploma mill known as NYU providing such nuggets of wisdom as: “All you have to do is follow three simple rules. One, never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. Two, take it outside. Never start anything inside the bar unless it's absolutely necessary. And three, be nice.” It’s the kind of knowledge that can only be found in a dozen fortune cookies. I’ve recently learned that Dalton went to NYU because he couldn’t get into the University of Nevada Reno. NYU was his safety school. Don’t believe me? Seriously, look it up on IMDB.com.

Anyway, as I was watching the movie for the 54 time in twenty years, I noticed something that I have never seen before. Those of you that haven’t seen Roadhouse, SPOILER ALERT: I am going to give away a couple of crucial plot points that might make the movie unwatchable. Moreover, what is wrong with you? I am sure the movie is streaming on Netflix right now. If you’re in financial distress, I’ll be happy to loan you my copy providing you leave a deposit. Nonetheless, I saw something that I have never seen before. Halfway thought the movie, Dalton was at the back of the Double Deuce receiving the liquor order when a truck full of town thugs intercepted him. The bad boys told the delivery driver to hit the bricks or there would be trouble. Dalton tells the driver to take five as he got ready to settle the thug’s hash. The driver had a handcart loaded up with four boxes of liquor that he put down. In 21 years, I never looked at the labels on the box. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the driver was wheeling in three boxes of Tia Marie and a case of Drambuie.

For those who didn’t learn to drink by invading their grandparent’s liquor cabinet allow me to let you in on a secret. Tia Marie is a coffee liquor. It is a cheap knock-off of Kahlua. Drambuie is a Scotch liqueur that has two purposes: to mix with Scotch for a Rusty Nail or getting teenage girls drunk. I think I found out why the Double Deuce was in such financial straits—they were basing their drink menus off of cocktails reserved for 70 year old widows or post-pubescent women. Of course they had to hire Dalton to be a cooler! The entire bar was loaded on overly sweetened cocktails while listening to a blind bluesman. I actually owe the writers of Roadhouse an apology for wondering why there were so many ultra-violent bar fights every night. If on any given night at Keys On Main the bar was filled with patrons loaded on coffee liqueur and Drambuie, I think we’d be doing more than moping the floor at the end of the night—we’d be sweeping up teeth.

It’s funny when you finally have perspective on a situation and can make the right decision. If I was approached by the owner of the Double Deuce to turn his club around, I think the first thing I would suggest to him would be cut your Tia Marie order in half and focus more on beer specials. Hillbilly types seem to enjoy beer and it is less likely to get their blood boiling then if they have been drinking carafes of Scotch liqueur all night. I bet you cut your pool cue violence down to an acceptable level by the end of the first night by simply switching from Mind Erasers to Coors Light. Frankly, I get way too bad of a headache after my fourth White Russian and there is no way I would want to listen to Jeff Healy with a belly full of cream-based cocktails.

I am sorry to report that Tom Cruise knows as much about running a bar as he does about slam poetry. I really want to love Cocktail but the movie is so chockfull of clichés and stereotypes that I am more likely to believe him as a fighter pilot or a Christian than as a bartender. Can you imagine if you visited me at Keys On Main and I made you suffer through 14 stances of poetry before I poured your gin and tonic? You’d take your business down the street even if I was quoting T.S. Elliot’s “Wasteland.” Cruise’s character in Cocktail is such abominations that he’d be lucky to barback for me much less work the service well. The cocktail waitresses at Keys On Main would eat him alive if he tried that cutesy malarkey of spinning backwater wisdom instead of pouring the God damn drinks.

I hope they reboot the Cocktail franchise and cast a Justin Bieber-type actor to play Brian Flanagan. I’d like to play Bryan Brown’s character, Doug Coughlin, and fire him after the first night. As I drank my shifties doing the money and paperwork, I would pontificate what sort of back alley fellacio Flanagan had to perform to make enough money to make rent. Look, I am no angel and bartending is a hard job. Justin Bieber doesn’t have the chops to gun sling and I don’t see how a song can make everything right. If that was the case, every bartender in America would be a Muppet. And the last time I checked, most bartenders might be furry, soft and have a hand inside of them but they are not Canadian. I am tired of illegal immigrants like Bieber coming into this country and taking all of the good jobs.

Well, I think we learned a lot about movies and pouring drinks. I think my take away as I am getting ready to go to bed is that Heaven is richer and we are poorer with Patrick Swayze dead. Sam Elliot has the best voice in the world. Tom Cruise doesn’t know his way around a back bar and Justin Bieber should be deported. I don’t know if writing a column at 3:30 in the morning after a couple of hard ciders and 1000mg of ibuprofen is a good idea but I do know that I am glad I sold The Woodshed. Bartending and writing for a living is a Hell of a lot more fun than running a bar. My hat is off to anyone that can make a go at it and I am not in the business of interfering with those that are trying to beat the odds and run a successful business. In the end, my only advice is that there is no situation a roundhouse kick can’t make better.

Ben Raskin bartends at Keys On Main Wednesday through Saturday. Follow him on Twitter @BennyRaskin or follow his Tumblr feed. Become a fan of Behind The Bar on Facebook.

Dia De Muerte: Notes From Halloween

2011-11-02T15:03:00.000-07:00

Hope you had a good Halloween.

I did. For the first time since we’ve moved into the house, I was home on the 31^st of October and was able to hand out candy with Erin. We spent Monday night carving pumpkins, eating BBQ, drinking whiskey, watching the new Pearl Jam documentary, PJ20, and handing out mini-candies to the neighborhood kids. Pretty good was to spend an evening. It was fun having kids knock on the door and threaten tricks if we did not provide treats. It’s a goofy social contract: with their parents looking on from the street, kids promised not to do serious property damage to our home if we give them candy. The Mafia calls this protection. I call it being a good neighbor. Every time I answered the door with a hollowed-up out Jack-O-Lantern filled with Reese’s, I could help but think that every parent in Sugarhouse should be sending me a thank you card. If it wasn’t for childless couples in their mid-thirties, their children’s Halloween would blow.

I didn’t wear a costume on Monday. My contribution for Halloween was putting down my Highball when I answered the door. Besides, after the fiasco I went through this last weekend, I didn’t feel like getting into character again. I am a fan of dressing up once a year for Halloween. Too often in college, I would wear a costume for a party and find that outfit making it into the regular rotation of suits I would wear throughout the year. I once made the mistake of wearing a tunic from a convenience store one year in college and I think I just threw it away last week. For the record, dressing up like a 7-11 employee was both my best and most racist costume I have ever worn. Nowadays, I figure the best costumes are the ones you can only wear on Halloween. If your costume doesn’t draw the attention of law enforcement outside of October, you probably didn’t put enough effort into it for the Halloween party.

My Incredible Hulk costume was a hit. At least my mother thought so. For work, the staff at Keys On Main were encouraged to dress as superheroes. I was initially disappointed that I had to wear a themed costume with everybody else. I have been cultivating a clown costume for the last five years that looks like it was hand-delivered from a white panel van driven by John Wayne Gacy but in the spirit of the evening, I elected to follow suit and dress up as a superhero. I was a veracious reader of comics as a kid. I loved the Marvel banner. I collected closets full of X-Men, Punisher and Daredevil comics. It was easy to fall into the comic universe and escape into Stan Lee’s universe growing up in Las Vegas. When it’s 110 degrees outside, who wouldn’t want to stay in an air conditioned house and read about mutants, vigilantes and blind lawyers? My favorite was Daredevil. I liked him because he could hold down a job and kick the stuffing out of any of NYC’s criminal underbelly. With 10 years of reading comics, you would have thought it would have been a cinch to pick my costume. It would have been if I wasn’t the size of a beer refrigerator in the garage. Given my girth, I was relegated to two choices: The Hulk or Ben Grimm’s the Thing. We talk a lot about prejudice with people of color, gender or sexuality but why does it seem that any time a guy is caring around a couple of extra pounds, he has to be some sort of bulky freak? Where’s the Al Sharpton for chubby guys? Given the pressure I was under from my co-workers, I picked Bruce Banner’s alter ego.

In terms of putting the costume together, it was a piece of cake. I found a pair of salmon colored shorts wore my Red Wing work boots and used an old dress-shirt. I went to Wal-Mart and bought a 55-gallon drum of green grease paint. The only real struggle I had been going to Pip’s Costume Store in Sugarhouse and buying a bright green wig. I was going for a Lou Ferrigno’s Hulk and needed a wig to pull the outfit together. I waited until the eleventh hour and went to Pip’s to find a sea of adolescences simultaneously loitering and shoplifting. I am not a big fan of crowds. It’s not agoraphobia but rather a general distain for people not moving with purpose. The store was packed with kids literally spinning in circles. I was able to push myself though the crowd and find the right wig. I got into a serpentine line to cash out and waited as the future of America texted and spit in the face of both decency and commerce. Instead of trying to get a wig to put my costume together, I probably should have hit a pull-up bar and put down the nachos for a week to get into character. Lou Ferrigno would probably cry if he saw how I disgraced his beloved Hulk.

I covered my amble body with globs and globs of green paint. It took forever. Imagine painting a barn with a tube of toothpaste. The club had a decent night but it certainly wasn’t our busiest Saturday night. I think we were competing with too many house parties. Nonetheless, it was fun seeing all of the costumes and watching people enjoy their Halloween. We were able to get out of there at a decent hour and I was able to take a Silkwood shower when I got home. I brought a couple of beers into the shower and scrubbed my body until the bottom of the tub looked like a crime scene. You never know how good it is to be clean until you’ve been smeared with body paint for seven hours. It’s the equivalent of going on a cross-country bus trip in terms of how gross you feel. No matter what I am doing for Halloween next year, I made a personal promise to myself that I would not be dipping my body in paint. Leave that to the guys with washboard abs.

Speaking of fitness, I am back to boxing. Three months ago, my boxing gym, Fight 4 Your Life, closed when the owner, Tom McClelland, moved to New York City. I was bummed. I had become really disenfranchised with going to 24 Hour Fitness. Felt too often at 24 that people were there to look at themselves in the mirror and to hook up. The music was always too loud, too many beefcakes grunting and never enough instruction. I stumbled into Fight 4 Your Life and immediately found a home. It smelt like work. Tucked in a warehouse, it was raw space with the ring in the center of the room, heavy bags lining the walls and weights stacked into a corner. The classes were an hour long with 30 minutes of cardio followed with a half-hour of boxing instruction. Even in the height of my rugby playing days, I never received a workout like the one I got from Tom’s classes. I learned to skip rope, wrap my wrists, throw a combination and learned the value of a push-up. Had he not closed his doors, my Hulk costume might not have been such an embarrassment. I enjoyed the classes because you pushed yourself for 60 horrible minutes and left feeling like you’ve really accomplished something. I lost a bit of weight but mostly felt like I was getting into shape for the first time in a long time.

When he closed his gym, I checked out fitness-wise. I started double-downing on my portions, drinking like I was on shore-leave and not really doing much of anything. I went to a variety of other gyms in town trying to find something similar to Fight 4 Your Life but I really didn’t feel like joining a Muay Thai gym. Sure, I liked kung-fu movies growing up but I didn’t much feel like buying a gi and bowing to a sensei. I don’t know if it was the jingoism talking but I’d rather look like John Goodman than join a karate dojo. Just not my style.

That’s why I was excited when my friend, Heath Haraki, took a big chance and opened up his own boxing club in Salt Lake. Located 75 West Bower Street (2225 South), Heath was able to get most of Tom’s equipment and re-open the gym. He is calling it Lake City Fitness and it is fantastic. Minus the ring, Heath was able to recreate Fight 4 Your Life and the best part is that Heath will be the trainer. He was teaching a lot of the classes towards the end of the old gym and Heath does a great job. His classes are really organized, fast and compact. That’s the polite way of describing it. Heath is a ruthless slave master who runs you ragged with an assortment of medieval exercises that should be reserved for Navy SEALs or Demi Moore. It is still broken in to two parts with the first half cardio and second boxing but the reality is after the first 30 minutes, I’m ready to take a shame cry in my truck with a bucket of chicken. Nonetheless, I totally support Heath’s new club and I am encouraging anybody interested in getting into shape to check him out. At $65 a month, you’ll avoid all of the tool-bags from 24 Hour Fitness and get a ridiculously good workout. My goal for the next two months? Lose enough weight to see my knee caps and I think Heath is the man to help me. Send him an e-mail at lakecityfitness@yahoo.com if you have any questions.

And now a word about a word. Last week at the end of the shift, I was sitting around with a skeleton crew of the staff and we were talking about second jobs. One of the cocktails said the best second job one could get was a “retarded phone answering” job. I don’t know if it was the hour of the night or the fact that I am exhausted from hearing the word “retard” thrown around loosely but I said that that word offended me. It is funny calling somebody out for their language considering I have a self-imposed Tourette syndrome. I swear a lot and I have a pretty sacrilegious sense of humor. I like offensive language and I love profanity. A lot. I think this column is one of the few places that I don’t use curse words. I do this mostly out of the fact that bad words look particularly ugly on the page. In the real world, however, I love using potty language. I usually tune out when somebodies starts talking to me and doesn’t drop an F-bomb within the first ten seconds. Moreover, I like racy jokes. I justify this by honestly believing that everybody is equal. I think I do a pretty good job of looking at the world through Martin Luther King Jr. glasses. Behind the bar, I treat everyone equal until they do something that demands that I treat them elsewise. Like Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, there is no racial bigotry here. Everyone is equally worthless or special depending upon what kind of mood I am in. I know that in the gay community, guys call each other the F-word and African Americans use the N-word amongst themselves. I disagree with that but unless it directly impacts me, I choose to let them keep it amongst themselves. Perpetuating a hurtful term in a group is their decision; I would just rather not hear it.

“Retard” or “retarded,” on the other hand, is just hurtful. It isn’t limited to a race or creed, so people use it freely without consideration for what it means. It doesn’t have the impact of the F-bomb, C-word, T-word or the rest of the alphabet soup of slurs and therefore doesn’t get corrected very often. For me, the word conjures an image of a poor kid with Down syndrome who never really had a chance. The hard R of the word makes it sound harsh and I can’t stop thinking how harmful the word is when people really listen to it. Retard means to make slow but most people use it as a synonyms for slow, stupid or dumb. Outside of talking about fire retardant material, I usually can’t see much use of the word. I guess I could come up with one scenario to use the word: You’re drink service will be retarded if you choose to use the word retard around me. It’s funny what offends us. I think it is usually the tone which people use while saying something offensive. Cool guys versus creepy guys get different ropes to hang themselves with creepy guys getting very little. Something said by Chris Rock will always sound better than the guy checking you out at Harmon’s although I can’t imagine Harmon’s hiring any loud mouth, uppity cashiers. I don’t think I can change the world but I am offering fair warning: drop using the R-word around me. I have enough phlegm in me at any time for you to regret ordering a drink from me.

Halloween is a year away and I am finally getting the last of the hard to reach dye off of my body. I hope that I can go back to the simple pleasures of wearing a terrifying clown suit next year. Maybe I’ll give the Hulk another shot but the bowls of undistributed candy won’t make that any easier. Who knows, maybe I can go as a sexy Hulk next year.

Ben Raskin can be found bartending at Keys On Main Wednesday through Saturday. Follow him on Twitter @BennyRaskin or his Tumblr feed. Become a fan of Behind The Bar on Facebook.

Trick Or Treat: The Four Rules of Halloween Costumes

2011-10-25T14:00:00.000-07:00

When my only two customers are middle-aged white guys in golf shirts drinking Johnny Walker Black on the rocks, she was definitely a ray of sunshine. It was a slow at the club last week. I could offer a handful of theories why it wasn’t busier but it just came down to the fact that nobody came in. It happens. Not every night is Marti Gras and you need the bad weeks to appreciate the good ones. Notwithstanding not making any money, it’s fun working slow nights. I get to talk with guests without having to yell over the pianos and sometimes I can make as much money shooting the bull than running drinks for a full club. My two guests were paunchy out-of-town businessmen who were more interested in pile-driving cocktails than talking to me, so I spent the majority of my evening keeping their glasses filled with Scotch and reading my book. The evening was a bust and I was watching time go backward waiting for last call. I figured the night was going to be completely unremarkable until she walked in.

She was about five and a half feet tall but the four inches of black stiletto heels made her seem taller. She wore a mini-skirt that had as much fabric as a cocktail napkin and a form-fitting blouse that was open to her navel. Her short bob haircut was dyed platinum blonde and she had a series of decorative skin piercings along the top of her spine. The most remarkable thing about her was she had perfectly straight and white teeth. A younger, most immature and hornier Ben Raskin would have easily fallen victim to her charm immediately. By all accounts, she was sexy and completely aware that every eye was on her in the bar.

I never got her name but if I found out it was Cinnamon, Jade or Sierra I wouldn’t have been surprised. She looked like she would have been completely comfortable with a stripper pole in her hand and that she has never heard the word “No” before. She was on the arm of a tool bag of a guy in bedazzled jeans and a T-shirt stretched over tight muscles. While her escort disappeared into the bathroom, she approached one of the business guys at the bar and told him to buy her a drink. Sweet Lord, she sounded just like Jennifer Tilly. Her voice was in a register reserved only for dogs to hear. I asked her what she wanted and she said the strongest drink in the bar. No problem. I poured her a shot of Wild Turkey 101 and added it to the corporate credit card. She warned everyone that she could drink everyone in the bar under the table and we should be careful. Sounded like a wager. Thank God, Johnny Electric walked in shortly afterwards to answer the challenge.

I don’t mind hustlers and the businessmen didn’t care about buying her drinks. They were too busy looking down her shirt to care how much she ordered and frankly, I was bored. Her boyfriend was fussing on his cell phone and probably needed a reprieve from her for a few moments. She was telling the guys the finer points of growing up in Payson Utah and I couldn’t help but think one thing: she was the daughter of a LDS bishop. Nobody dresses like that unless they get not enough or way too many hugs from their father. I sincerely hope my judgment about her is wrong and she is busy at Huntsman Cancer Institute curing baby cancer or dolphin AIDS but I am certain she isn’t. More than likely, she was some girl from a shit-kicking small town taking advantage of being young and beautiful. Oh, did I forget to mention that she was completely annoying.

Everything that came out her mouth reeked of an insanity that only self-centered people can get away with. Having never been told to shut up and get back to work, she was free to act as if the world owed her a favor because she was dealt a great genetic hand. I would have put up with her because she was keeping the guys entertained but when she told me to “Chop, chop” with her drink, I told her to hit the bricks. You’re allowed to be a hussy in my bar providing you remember who’s in charge. I made it abundantly clear she wasn’t welcome here anymore. I shushed her away like I was scaring off a raccoon with a broom from a garbage can. She protested but eventually left. At least a raccoon has the self-respect to know when it’s not wanted.

The take away from this woman visiting the bar was that she was wearing a costume. There is no way that was her normal uniform. She put more effort into that ensemble than I have in my previous 37 outfits. Halloween was a week away and yet she was dressed for a costume party anyway. The fact that she looked like she just slid off of a lap dance convinced me she considered her outfit to be appropriate for the evening. Maybe if we were busier but considering it was a ghost town, she really could have benefited with a sweater. I couldn’t help but think that if I ever saw my girlfriend in that outfit, one of two things has occurred: she just got hired at Golden Trails or she is leaving me.

So, with Halloween this weekend, I want to lay out my guidelines for a successful Halloween costume. Too often people make the mistake of my stripper friend and dress willy-nilly for the ghoulish parties they’ll be attending. It is not enough to dress up as a sexy fill-in-the-blank when bobbing for apples and carving pumpkins. You’re not in junior high anymore. You need to have a solid costume and here are the rules to make sure your Frankenstein are a Mary Shelley not a Mel Brooks.

Be Easily Recognized. There is nothing worse than getting to the party in your costume and have everyone come up to you and ask, “So, what are you supposed to be?” What does this mean? It means the average person needs to be able to identify your costume even if they have two cups of jungle juice in them. It takes very little imagination to cut out a couple of eyeholes in your bed spread but at least everyone knows you are supposed to be a ghost. Five years ago, it seems like every fifth costume was a variation of Captain Jack Sparrow. Lame? Yes. Easily identifiable? Absolutely. Dressing up like Austin Powers or a witch doesn’t crack the sound barrier in creativity but at least everyone knows who you are. Taking a bunch of shag carpet pieces and wrapping your body is a great costume if you are trying to be my grandmother’s basement floor but if you’re supposed to be Chewbacca, better wear a name tag.

It was great when we were kids and could go to a Safeway and buy an all-in-one suit that told the world that you are Spiderman or Wonder Woman but as adults, we need to burn a few calories to get a decent costume. The only thing worse than the guy who refuses to dress up for the Halloween party is the numb-nuts who throws on a latex goblin mask and tries to pass off as a costume. There is nothing wrong with raiding your closet and put together a cowboy outfit at the last minute but putting on a three-piece suit and telling people you’re a serial killer is stupid. I don’t care if serial killers look just like us but if you know you’re attending a costume party make sure you put something together. I have always favored wearing a clown suit. Clowns can be spotted across the room and it is usually the scariest thing in the room.

Be Able To Drink Without A Straw. The real reason those latex mask are a horrible costume is because it is damn near impossible to get booze into your mouth without a crazy straw. What’s the point of spending $12 on a mask if you have to keep raising your costume onto your head like a welder’s mask? I will not speak for the rest of you but isn’t the point of going to a Halloween party is to get absolutely blotto, binge eat on candied apples and pass out before you hand out all of the Halloween candy? Any successful costume requires, scratch, demands that you are able to get liquids into your body without some complicated mechanism. The aforementioned Jack Sparrow costume is a dud but there is nothing stopping the wearer from downing a mug of grog while dancing to The Monster Mash. Also, you can’t wear some weird glove or have too many props prohibiting you from shot-gunning cans of beer or Jell-O shots. Fellows, there are going to be a lot of feisty ladies dressed up as a sexy flight attendant and you’ll won’t be making any mile-high clubs if you’re hauling around a bunch of swords. When putting together your outfit make sure you can both carry booze and easily get it into your mouth.

Be Able To Take A Leak. I wish I could speak for the ladies on this point but for the guys, you need to be able to go to the head and not have to make it a complete production. Imagine if you will, you’re at the party, knocking back cocktails and beers and you’ve reached the point where you need to break the seal. If you have to ask a friend to go with you to the bathroom, you have definitely picked the wrong costume. My clown costume is great because I am easily recognizable and I can drink a baker’s dozen worth of brews. However, when it’s time to take a leak, I look like the child molesting clown that I am with my suit around my ankles at the urinal. I imagine for women, this is something that they have been dealing with their entire life and have the forethought to wear something that doesn’t involve a team of production assistants to get them in and out of. I have always thought that the best costume would be dressing up like the Boris Karloff’s Mummy. It definitely fulfills the first two rules of costumes but I would imagine it would be easier to get a camel through the eye of a needle than to take a squirt in that outfit. The Mummy might be Rubik’s Cube of costumes. With that said, unless you plan on wearing a pair of Depends or get a catheter, make sure you can use the restroom.

Be Able To Take A Cab. This is a new rule developed by my friend, Aron Murray, and I have quickly adopted it to the Halloween costume rules. We were discussing the first three rules of any successful costume and Aron added that function definitely needs to be a part of the costume. We were talking about the great costumes we’ve seen in the past and the one that I always liked was a guy dressed up as Death. He was about nine feet tall with huge flowing robes. He was wearing painter stilts under his suit and had to duck under door jams to move around. It was an awesome costume but there was no way he was hopping in a Yellow Cab at the end of the night. Huge, bulky suits might look great but you don’t want to be bumping into everybody the entire night. You’ll be spilling everyone’s drinks and generally be considered a nuisance for the entire night. Chances are you’ll be breaking one of the first three rules if you can’t take a cab. I can’t imagine standing eye-to-groin with somebody in a bathroom. Seems unsavory.

Per usual, I will be behind the bar on Halloween. I throw Halloween up there with New Year’s Eve and St. Patrick’s Day for the gross amount of rookie drinkers out there. It is a really tough night to work and it doesn’t help that I will be dressed as the Incredible Hulk for the evening. I won’t have the tools of the trade that I usually need to do my job. Compounded with the fact that everybody shows up to the club with seven drinks in them, it usually makes for a perfect storm for a rough night. When I wear a shirt and tie behind the bar, people treat me serious and tip appropriately. When I look like a green minstrel show, I don’t expect to people to listen to me or that I’ll make a lot of money. I like the fact that my costume is The Hulk because if I ever get behind slinging drinks, I can just roar out, “Hulk mad! Hulk smash!” This mentality probably won’t work very well if I have to layer a drink or shake a Martini. Having my entire body painted green will be cool at the end of the night when I am taking a Silkwood shower at home drinking a beer (shower beers are the best) but I am nervous about leaving a bunch of costume make-up on customer’s drinks. One of the drawbacks to this line of work is that I miss Halloween parties at friends’ houses and that stinks. In the end, it’s just part of the job. Most people will be hosting parties this weekend but Halloween actually falls on Monday so I will be able to dress up and hopefully scare the crap out of any kids trick-or-treating at my house.

We try to hand out good treats on Halloween. Because there are so few kids in our neighborhood, I try to double-down on the candies—no sense in keeping a ton of candies in a bowl throughout November. I love handing out the treats to kids. If I have to hand out a trick, I’ll probably have to find that girl from Payson.

Ben Raskin bartends at Keys On Main Wednesday through Saturday. Follow him on Twitter @BennyRaskin or follow his Tumblr feed. Become a fan of the Behind The Bar page on Facebook. Send all e-mail questions to benj.raskin@gmail.com

Lions, Clowns and Friars

2011-10-19T13:39:00.000-07:00

I am a die-hard Detroit Lions fan.

Actually, that’s not true. I have been a fan of the Lions since August when I finished reading George Plimpton’s Paper Lion (Lyons Press, 1966). I have never been a big football fan. I didn’t play in high school and I never really caught the football fanaticism in college. Fantasy football seems equally complicated and nerdy. I guess I would be a bigger fan if there was a sports book in town but considering how things are going with the congressional redistricting I don’t think Herbert and company will be letting us lay parley cards in the near future. I decided after 37 years, I was going to follow the NFL religiously and to do that, I would need a team. In considering my options, I realize that I was going to be limited at best with what team to support. I immediately discarded the Denver because there is a metric-ton of Bronco fans in Utah. You can’t throw a rock in town without hitting somebody in an orange and blue jersey. I am certain Bronco fans in Colorado are decent, tax-paying citizens with families that love them: here in Utah, they seem a little meth-y, under-educated and dirty. Imagine raccoons with Kyle Orton jerseys on. After that soul-searching, I settled on Detroit on the strength of Plimpton’s book. In addition, I liked how Axel Foley looked in a Lion’s letterman jacket, the fact that my father was born in Detroit and I wanted something in common with Kid Rock and Eminem.

Imagine my shock when I came home on Sunday to find out that my beloved Lions took their first loss of the season against the 49ers. To say I was devastated would be an understatement. Actually, to say that would just be factually incorrect. I haven’t watched a game all year. I was flying back to SLC on Sunday from a homecoming weekend in Reno and didn’t even look at the scores until Monday. I am sure Detroit will circle the wagons and beat the snot out of Atlanta next week but I probably won’t be watching. Not having time, interest or cable will make it hard to be a die-hard Detroit Lions fan.

I did get to see a football game this last weekend at homecoming. I went back to my alma mater to watch the student athletes of the University of Nevada beat New Mexico State like a redheaded stepchild (49-7). An aside: does the DCFS have any statistics on the amount of child abuse amongst redheaded stepchildren? I was going to compare UNR beating of the Lobos to a rented mule but I don’t know where to get a rented mule. Do they even rent mules anymore? As a public service, if you have a redheaded stepchild, stop beating the kid. Nonetheless, going back to Mackay Stadium and watching the festivities was fantastic. I graduated from Nevada in 1996 and haven’t really been back in 15 years. It’s funny how some of your memories get altered with time. Reno remained as dumpy as ever but UNR looked amazing. They built a dozen new buildings and the campus would give even the U of U a run for its money. When I went to school there, I honestly thought I was attending a cow college on the strength of its agriculture and mining departments. It didn’t help that Downtown Reno was two blocks from the student union and the Circus Circus clown loomed over the quad. I loved every minute of my college experience but the amenities were thin when I went to school there. In walking around campus, I couldn’t help but think the value of my degree skyrocketed.

Speaking of Circus Circus, is there a more disturbing themed casino in the world? Fear of clown is called coulrophobia (Coulro- is derived from Greek for ‘stilt-walker’). Fortunately, I don’t have a fear of clowns but I do have a fear of bed bugs and salmonella and my hotel room was chockfull of both. If I ran a hunter’s light over the bed spread I slept on it would have made a German bukkake film set look a NASA clean room. There was a mistake in the room reservation, so I was left with a smoking room in an antiquated hotel. If there anything worse than spending 48 hours on the 22^nd floor of a dangerously filthy Reno hotel room where multiple Denver Bronco fans were conceived? I could have seen past all of the dried human dander and fluid in the room if I could have simply cracked the window. Unfortunately, at 22 floors above Downtown Reno, there was no way Circus Circus management would risk littering Virginia Avenue with coulrophobic hotel guests. Every piece of art in the building had a dusting of John Wayne Gacy. Apparently, the clown theme works. The hotel was booked to capacity and the carnival midway was packed with runty kids trying to win cheap Chinese made stuffed animals.

The upside to being at Circus Circus was they had a sports book and I was able to check the lines for the World Series. I am not particularly excited about this year’s series. Unlike football which I could take or leave, I love baseball. For my entire life, I have been a San Diego Padres fan. I love the Pads! If I could have three wishes, I would wish for a never-ending hoagie sandwich, a catch with Tony Gwynn and a lunch date with Tony Gwynn to eat said sandwich. Chances are Tony would wish for my third wish too. When Gwynn went to the Hall of Fame, my girlfriend never saw a picture of Tony. I talked about him incessantly my entire life, so when she saw him for the first time she commented two things: “Oh, he’s black and he’s fat.” Thanks, Hon. I like the fact that the greatest contact hitter since Ty Cobb looked like he just polished off a plate of carne asada. It gave me confidence as a fat kid growing up in Las Vegas that one day if I ate not just my vitamins but everything else in sight that I could retire with a career batting average of .338, 3,141 hits and be a first ballot hall of famer. With Indiana Jones, Tony Gwynn has been my boyhood hero and it was awesome growing up with a team where I knew number 19 would be out in right field and batting second.

The real love of the Padres came from my Grandpa Tom. Tom Devlin was a lifetime baseball fan that passed his love of the game to me. He had season tickets to the Padres, first at Jack Murphy Stadium (it was never Qualcomm to me) and then at Petco Park. His seats were four rows above the visitor’s dugout along the third-base side. There was no better place to watch a game. From our vantage point, you got to see the mechanics of the pitcher deliver the ball to the plate. You could see, hear and smell everything. My grandfather was very generous with taking me to games and letting me talk throughout the entire time. He was always good for a Coke and a hot dog at every game. As memories go, getting to sit next to your grandfather at a professional baseball for almost 30 years ranks pretty high. We rarely made it through an entire game. I’ll never forget as a kid leaving during the eighth inning to beat the traffic and drive back to El Cajon. Sitting in the front seat of his truck, I relished listening to the game being called as the dashboard lights illuminated his face as Grandpa slightly smiled or frowned depending on how the Padres were doing.

With that said, this year’s World Series stars the Texas Rangers against the St. Louis Cardinals. I think the majority of America (outside of those in Texas and Missouri) were rooting for a Brewers/Tigers series and I am no exception. The Cardinals have had San Diego’s number for years and who likes Texas? How can any Democrat root for the Rangers considering that George W. used to be an owner? I am not looking forward to looking at Bush’s dumb mug for every Texas home game as he clumsily throws peanuts into his mouth. God help us if he gets to throw out a first pitch. The problem is that I like Texas’ manager, Ron Washington. African Americans are painfully underrepresented in head coaching positions in all sports. Wash’s skin color has nothing to do with the success he has had in managing back-to-back American League Champions. The guy is a real talent and true gentleman. While at Oakland in the 2000s, he was instrumental in making Billy Beane’s Moneyball work in coaching Scott Haddeberg to play first base. Remember how much I love the Padres? I have a soft-spot for the A’s—Grandpa Tom played for Connie Mack’s AAA team before WWII. I think Wash is an aggressive manager and that makes for good baseball. The problem is that he works for Texas and I can’t support a league that doesn’t make the pitcher swing a bat. Thank God the NL won the All-Star game or we would be watching designated hitters factoring excessively into the series. The Cardinals are managed by Tony La Russa and he is a salty SOB. He looks like Pete Rose on a bad day and knows how to win. I got to meet La Russa at a baseball card convention once. My take-away from meeting him was that he smelt like Aqua Velvet and anger. If I played for him, I would be terrified of him renting a mule to take his anger out on me.

Nonetheless, I don’t think the Cardinals pitching staff have what it takes to beat the Rangers. I am picking Texas in six.

I’ll be bartending my first shift tonight since getting back from Reno. I did work last night but I didn’t get behind the bar. I managed the club for last night’s karaoke show because my friend and co-worker, Brandon Isenhour and his partner, Jennifer, had a baby yesterday. Jackson Keys Isenhour was born at 6:33am weighing in at seven pounds and six ounces. Mother and son are doing great. It’s funny getting to that age when your friends are or becoming parents. Brandon already has had practice with his son, Dalton, and if he and Jennifer raise Jackson half as well as Dalton, they are certain to have a wonderful son. I am assuming the middle name has a connection to Brandon and Jennifer meeting at Keys On Main. I think it will be a fitting reminder of when they met and the beginning of their family. It’s a good thing they didn’t meet at a Burger King, however, Jackson’s middle name could have been Whopper.

Working the door last night, I marvel how door guys can do their job. It takes real discipline to not open-hand slap every third person coming through the door. The night started with a real curious experience. A couple came in with their infant son in one of those three-wheeled strollers. I told them very apologetically that I can’t let the baby in. They threw their hands into air with a dramatic flair reserved only for stage actors or karaoke enthusiasts. The husband started this Walter Sobchak routine of it’s not like I am going to let the baby sing karaoke or he was going to buy the baby a beer. He just wanted to come in and sing with his family. I appreciated his situation but I was bond by law not to let somebody without ID into the club. It’s not just the law but it’s bad for business to prop an infant on the bar while Mom and Dad do a duet of “Summer Loving.” I would imagine rearing a kid could drive anyone to drink but next time, hire a babysitter. If I had a kid, I would hate for one of his or her first memories to be Papa belting out “Don’t Stop Believin’” with a Miller Lite in his hand.

Last thought: Utah is redistricting the congressional seats in an insidious fashion. With the 2010 census, we picked up an additional seat and the state legislature is gerrymandering the state to guarantee being a Democrat is tantamount to a mermaid or unicorn. I get that to the victors go the spoils but how the legislature pulled some honest-to-God eleventh hour vote is ridiculous. You know why it smells fishy how they voted along party lines around midnight on Monday? Because it smells like a week-old fish hidden under a passenger seat! It reminds me of the guy who doesn’t smoke in front of his wife because she’ll be mad he is smoking again. It’s not against the law for him to smoke but the fact that he goes and hides behind the garage to puff a butt makes it seem wrong. Utah Republicans have to know what they are doing is ethically wrong because they are passing this law behind the garage. The fact that we couldn’t have a week of debate for citizens to raise concerns with how the state is being divided isn’t against the law but it definitely suggests that they are terrified of getting caught smoking again. Contact Governor Herbert and tell him to veto this law. Utah will always be a red state but it doesn’t have to be a bully. A little more open government never hurt anyone except those afraid to look their fellow citizens in the eye. I disagree with how the state is run but I have never been ashamed of it until last Monday. Republicans, be a man and light that Pall Mall in front of your wife. You’ll get your districts providing we get our two-bits in.

Go Lions!

Ben Raskin can be found bartending at Keys On Main Wednesday through Saturday. Follow him on Twitter @BennyRaskin or follow his Tumblr feed. Become a fan of Behind The Bar on Facebook. Any e-mailed questions can be sent to benj.raskin@gmail.com

The Number Game

2011-10-11T14:19:00.000-07:00

I am four deep at the bar. My shirt is soaked through with sweat, beer, cocktails and people’s spit yelling at me to get them a drink. We’re running dangerously low on glassware and I am almost out of ice. The mound of fruit cut for garnish is quickly disappearing either in drinks or people’s greedy hands. I am having a hard time seeing the swarming crowd in front of me because my glasses have so much filth on them you’d think I was watching a porno from the 70s. The floor is a swamp with broken glass, trash, melting ice and plastic cups. The neatly choreographed dance between my barback and other bartender has fallen apart as we frequently crash into each other. I am darting between the beer taps, my well and the register cash-n-carrying for the umpteenth time the same guy ordering a beer and shot. I have two thoughts going through my head. One, is this the first time these people have ever stepped foot in a bar and two, why didn’t I go to law school?

The crowd is rowdy and wearing U of U gear getting ready for Saturday’s game against Arizona State. Over the noise of the dueling piano show, it’s a deafening roar of people demanding JagerBombs, Long Islands, bottles of beer and cocktails. In reality, what they’re really yelling for is my attention. I am the gatekeeper to their booze and they are pissed the bar is filled to capacity. We could have had ten more bartenders and it wouldn’t have changed a thing. The only way to take care of this group of vandals was with a fire hose filled with AMFs.

I casually look at my watch and let out a quiet sigh. It’s only 10:30? It’s two and a half more hours until last call and I don’t see the swarm of people slowing down anytime soon. On the upside, my tip bucket has finally reached the point where the cash is flowing over the side and the signed credit card slips are piling up along the left side of the register. It’s going to be a great night providing we can somehow keep up this pace until 1 o’clock.

It is organized chaos. It’s not like going to a Jazz game where they have a serpentine line for beer. Guests push to the bar and fight for our attention. To remedy this I am big fan of playing the Number Game. The Number Game is when I assign numbers to people in what order who I am going to serve them. It’s like going to the butcher shop and taking a little paper number. Now serving #12: what are you drinking? When customers take a deep breath and pull their head out of their ass, it works like a charm. The problem is that most people don’t have enough KY to get their head in a position for me to take a drink order. Instead of a molecule of discipline, people just scream like Barbara Crampton for Coors Light. The lack of order makes every night really challenging. It doesn’t have to be that way but it is and the day that I start wishing for people to act rationally at the bar is the day I dust off that LSAT score.

In all honesty, all I want to do is to get everybody drunk and take as much of their money as possible. I am in the business of getting people sloshed and business is good. To think for one moment that I am not trying to move as fast as possible to get your drinks is both insulting and idiotic. You might not be the problem but your fellow customers sure are. Every time someone cash-n-carries for a single draft of beer, I am being put into the weeds simply because it takes way too much time to ring up one drink. And I love how people think that they are doing me a favor when they casually tell me go and cash out like they’re some sort of Caesar giving the order to slay a gladiator. It always makes me smirk in disbelief that some sort of 23 year old hussy thinks she is queen of the castle when she tells me cash her out after her single shot of vodka. Two things, Sweetheart: one, drinking straight vodka at a bar means you are a whore and two, find somebody with cash to buy it for you. Waving me away with the back of your hand is more dismissive then pistol whipping me.

And when did people’s club clothing become a cross between urban camouflage and a circus clown? I long to live in a world where everybody dresses like Don Draper or at least are applying for a job with him. I hate to sound like Old Man Raskin but when did having a fly fishing lure woven into your hair with shotgun applied make-up constitute fashion? How am I supposed to take anything you say seriously when you look like you came back from the future with a bolt through your ear and a T-shirt that is covered in chain link and a pit bull? I like the fact that on the weekends I know what I am going to be wearing: something black over black jeans. It must be terribly distressing to look into a closet filled with high school musical costumes and trying to find the right ensemble for a night of clubbing. I think it goes without saying that the nicer your dress shirt is the faster I am going to be taking your drink order. The guy in the sports coat with a date in a skirt is going to be served before the guy with a shirt that reads: “Five Dollar Foot Long.”

My favorite guests on Friday were these two couples. The guys were carbon copies of each other with swollen biceps squeezed into Affliction shirts (I wish I was joking) with harlots sporting fake boobs squeezed into even tighter tube tops. The alpha dog greeted me with a punishing fist bump that should be reserved for heads of state or Ray Lewis. They ordered three JagerBombs and a shot of vodka. I poured the drinks and put them down in front of them in quick order. As the alpha dog’s girlfriend paid for them with a credit card, Rich Wyman, one of the piano players, started playing Buckcherry’s “Crazy Bitch.” The bar erupts in a euphoric eruption as I put the girl’s card and receipt in front of her. As I was doing this, she seductively dances to the song with her friend and slides her tube top down showing me and everybody else in the 801 area code her humongous fake tits. What did I do? The same thing you would have done. I looked. As she danced for a six Mississippi, she pulls her top up and snaps at me, “You getting an eyeful, Dick?” Now, bartending does have its advantages over other professions: free drinks, cash money and the chance to meet some interesting people. But when did I become the Peepin’ Tom when you flash a bar with over 600 people in it? I guess I don’t have to tell you she was the one who ordered the shot of vodka.

In the thick of the fight, I was able to find a pace that could keep up with the demand. It’s a precarious dance to keep things moving when you are completely overwhelmed with the amount of customers we get at Keys On Main. The job demands that you think on your feet and problem solve on the fly. I was doing well until I hit a big hick-up. Her last name was Green and she drank a Mexican Quinceañera of tequila. She ordered a baker’s dozen worth of shots for her and her friends. When she finally closed out (she was one of the good ones who actually started a tab), she left my bar only to return 15 minutes later to close out. I told her that she already closed out. She told me no and I said yes. Instead of looking through her possessions to see if she had her receipt, she told me that I was a liar and a bad bartender. Well, she was half-right. Even though there was a wall of customers screaming for drinks, I stopped everything, leaned over the bar and said in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, “I am way too busy to lie about closing out your credit card, Green. You need to check your purse, your pockets and your bra for your credit card. I closed you out and I need you to shove off.” Tequila brings out the demon in people and she was no exception. She said repeatedly that she didn’t have her card until she fumbled through her bra only to find her Visa. Instead of apologizing to me, she flipped me off. I would have been mad at her except I figured her Saturday would be one long day of an icepack on her head followed by dry-heaving into a toilet.

I probably looked like a whirling dervish behind the bar. Spinning from customer to customer, I put Green in the rearview mirror and moved forward. Fortunately, most of the drinks are your basic orders: bottles of Miller Lite, gin and tonics or kamikazes. I am very dramatic when I am going to take a customer’s order to make sure that there is no confusion whose turn it is. I point with my entire arm and bark, “What are you havin’?” Hopefully they have a general idea and if not, they at least can give me an idea of what they would want. If you find yourself in my bar on a busy night, avoid asking what is my favorite thing to make. I’ll just pop open a bottle of Bud Light. I would stay clear of asking me what I would drink because you’re going to get a shot of Jameson and a bottle of Pacifico. Don’t try and tell me about a summer vacation to the Florida Keys or about the time your Aunt Dee was making mojitos with cucumber and dill. Avoid complaining about Utah’s liquor laws because I will tell you I won’t argue or agree about the parameters I need to follow to keep the bar legal. And at all costs, don’t ask what we have on tap. Some 6’7” guy on Friday actually asked me what we have on tap when his face was less than six inches from the taps. When I go to a new bar, I take a beat and check out my surroundings. Beer taps have this interesting thing called a label on them usually describing them to a tee. You need to be elastic when you’re in a busy club. They might not have what you want but I am certain there is something in the neighborhood of what you can drink to make the night less than a complete disaster.

Now a word about tipping. I am going to let you in on to a very, very dirty secret. You don’t have to tip. You also don’t have to go to the bar. Tipping is as much a part of the bar experience as risking driving home drunk. You’re going to do both. My general rule for tipping is that I throw down a buck per drink. Even though I make my living by gratuities, I don’t expect more than a $1 a drink. It’s fair and it usually works out to 20%. The old cliché of not having money to tip but money to drink doesn’t pass mustard with me. There are repercussions if you choice not to tip. For starters, don’t think for one moment that me and every other bartender worth their mettle doesn’t keep some tipping scorecard in their head when dealing with a busy crowd. If you don’t want to tip then start a tab. At least with a tab, you can wait until the end of the night to stiff me. When you are cash-n-carrying and I can judge your level of commitment to me getting you loaded. And under no circumstance tip anything less than a dollar. Tipping 50 cents on a drink does nothing unless you’re going to leave me a time machine so I can go back to the 1950s to buy a cup of coffee. Coins are an appropriate tip when they are Sacagaweas but keep the pocketful of nickels and pennies for a barista. I don’t need them. And under no circumstance ever give me a verbal tip and your business card when signing your check. A verbal tip is something along the lines of “that was the best service I have ever had.” Verbal tips only count when they come with an Andrew Jackson. You can’t put gas in your truck or groceries in the fridge with a verbal tip. Multi-level marketing hucksters are the kings and queens of verbal tips. I guess when you’ve based all of your financial decisions around a pyramid scheme you forget what it’s like to work for a living.

My friend Blake Perez told me that I am not a good writer but that I am just lucky enough to work at a club that provides a lot fodder for great stories. I think he is right on both counts. Writing is hard but bartending is even harder. I am usually a physical wreck come Sunday. The hours are long and the window to make money is short. We are only busy for four hours a night and that’s when the dueling piano show is on. No show, no dough. I think with all of the bars closed in Salt Lake City, Keys On Main has become the last large club in the Valley. People want to come to our bar because it is a very cool place. It’s classy, the entertainment is top-shelf and the drinks are reasonably priced. It’s a good place to throw a drunk on and hit on people of the opposite sex. I think what Blake was talking about is the 10% douche bag count at the club. Much like my column, the 10% idiot count takes up 90% of my energies when I am bartending. Nobody wants to read a story about a respectable group of young men enjoying shots and tipping appropriately. If that was the case, I might as well rename the column, Behind The LDS Curtain: Tales of Boring Things with Boring People. The vast majority of my guests are super easy to deal with and usually a joy to take care of. Is it my fault that the people I constantly bring up wear Affliction gear and hang out with hoochies?

Four deep at the bar is how I want to spend every one of my nights and so do you. When I am four deep at the bar, you know that you are in the right club and you have a chance to have a great night. I don’t know what you’re looking for but I think you’re going to have a better chance of finding it with me than any other bar in Salt Lake City. Yes, we are not Las Vegas but we’re the closest thing to it in Utah. But don’t think for one moment how you act in my bar is not how you’re supposed to act any other busy club. Know what you want, pay for it, tip and shove off. Let’s keep the bar four deep not six.

Ben Raskin bartends at Keys On Main Wednesday through Saturday. Follow him on Twitter @BennyRaskin or follow his Tumblr feed. Become a fan of Behind The Bar on Facebook.

Learning To Drink Whiskey

2011-10-05T13:48:00.000-07:00

I went to college at the University of Nevada Reno (UNR). It is pretty common for kids growing up in Las Vegas to head north and kids graduating high school from Reno to go to UNLV. UNR was awesome. Until meeting Erin, it was the best years of my life. From writing for The Sagebrush, playing rugby, interning at the state legislature, travelling, running for ASUN president, working at a Greyhound bus station, barbacking and getting a degree in political science, going to UNR was the best decision in my life. It was a chance to take advantage of affordable in-state tuition and still move away from home. I spent the first two years in the dorms (Lincoln and Nye Hall) and moved into the soon to be labeled Rugby House for my third and most of my fourth year. It was a dumpy bungalow across the street from Mackay Stadium’s parking lot and we took full advantage of the house for every home football game.

While my time in college might not have been productive, I was very busy. Between spending time in the classroom and the school paper, travelling on the weekends to rugby tournaments and working at a variety of restaurants, I always had something going on. I had a great circle of friends, teammates and co-workers. I was learning something new every day and I loved living in Reno. It was a cool town with an edge. The best way that I can describe it today is if Salt Lake City and Las Vegas had a one-night stand and accidently had a baby, her name would be Reno. The Biggest Little City in the World was close to Tahoe, offered all of the advantages of casinos (cheap drinks and buffets) and was filled with enough rednecks to toughen up a chubby kid from the Vegas suburbs. Name another college that has a 90-foot clown less than two blocks from the college president’s office? I went to the Harvard of the West and if I had to do it all over again, I would choose the University of Nevada Reno every single time.

It was a full life with the exception of dating. At first, I used to rationalize that I didn’t have time for a girlfriend. It wasn’t until I was going on my third year of college did I realize that I had absolutely no game. I was cursed with no bank account, no wardrobe and questionable hygiene at best. It also didn’t help my chances when I alienated half of the potential dating pool by writing a column calling sororities organized whorehouses and labeling anybody from Northern Nevada a gapped-toothed redneck. The rare girl that reluctantly went out with me was in for an evening at a dirty spoon called The Gold ‘N Silver Inn and drinks at The Beer Barrel. I was the anti-Don Juan. I couldn’t figure girls out to save my life. I was awkward, nervous and covered in sweaty palms. It didn’t help that I didn’t have a car and she would often have to give me a ride. It didn’t stop my enthusiasm for asking girls out but I became a lot more accustomed to coming home alone and hoping into a cold shower.

However, it wasn’t always my fault. I remember this one time during the summer of my fourth year that I took a girl out. Instead of shoveling a $3.99 breakfast down her neck, I took her to a restaurant that actually had napkins. We went to a movie and got a drink later and things were working out really well. So well, in fact, that she wanted to see where I lived. We drove back to my house only to find my roommates plastered. Across the street from the house, there was a carnival in town and they were giving away free tequila. My date and I went to check out the amusement rides and food stands when we came across the free booze. I was aghast. She was ecstatic. We ordered two and I let her finish my shot. I could barely put it into my mouth without heaving. We spent the rest of the night riding the Tilt-A-Wheel while she kept slipping away for another free shot.

I eventually got her back to my bedroom but it wasn’t under the conditions I was hoping. She passed out on her belly with her head over the side of the bed. She spent the rest of the night and most of the morning horking up all of the free booze. What did she drink? It was a strawberry-flavored, creamed based tequila called Tequila Rose. Simply put, it’s not just the worst liquor on the planet but yet another reason I couldn’t get laid in college. I felt like even when all of the stars were lining up with me, I still couldn’t close the deal because my date looked like she just slipped into a diabetic coma. People say they often remember their first fill-in-the-blank moment. Well, to this day, I remember my first and last Tequila Rose. All the worst, I remember how it smelt going in and out of a young, confused co-ed.

There was a time in my life when I couldn’t drink whiskey. It was called in utero. In truth, it took a little bit of practice to be able to put down a shot simply because you’re not supposed to be able to knockback shots of bourbon like Richard Burton at age 19. My best friend in college, Fitz Whaley, used to give me a lot of garbage because I couldn’t shoot Jack Daniels. He had the calm drunkenness of a Jack Kerouac when we went out and was able to slowly slurp down a horsechoker of Jack like it was mother’s milk. Whiskey burned and tasted like fermented wood. I knew there was something nefarious in whiskey when upon ordering one, I instantly became nervous. I was afraid of barfing all over the bar and looking like a wet rag in front of my friends. Furthermore, I knew even at a young age, no good comes from being able to chug Old Grand-Dad and there were some skill sets that I didn’t need to have that early in life. It wasn’t until taking that girl out for free Tequila Rose and bumper cars did I start to re-evaluate how bad that super sweet booze was for you. I made a vow to myself to stop ordering Kamikazes and White Russians after watching her make the walk of shame out of my bedroom.

It took time but I developed a taste for whiskey that can only be satisfied with whiskey. Big glasses of jungle juice with fourteen types of fruit schnapps and Everclear became absolutely disgusting when I started to have the self-esteem to drink something decent. I know why I used to like flavored liquors. It is because my palette hasn’t been deadened enough to enjoy a Scotch. Drinking a bunch of Cactus Juice coolers was the only way I knew how to cope a buzz without getting sick. I wanted to catch a drunk like the next guy. The problem is that the next guy was somebody drinking a boat drink in the middle of the winter in a desert. The day that I put down the Apricot Brandy and hoisted a Jameson was a good day.

That is not to say that there isn’t a place for these kinds of drinks. I have made a good living slinging drinks that seem to belong in the parking lot of a high school prom as oppose to a nightclub. I might be wary of flavored liquors but in lieu of having the actual mixers to recreate the flavors, why not use the artificial flavors? It is vastly easier to use Stoli Vanilla then to cut and press fresh vanilla beans. Citrus vodka and soda is quicker to make than squeezing the contents of a bushel of lemons. And Watermelon? What the Hell does watermelon even taste like? Metaphysically, watermelon taste like summer. In a bar, watermelon taste like a fermented Jolly Rancher. Good watermelon is a ripe red color that is firm, crisp and sweet. Watermelon liqueur, on the other hand, is a pale pink that mimics the flavor of raspberries and vomit. If it wasn’t for the full catalog of flavored Absolute, Bacardi, Stoli and Grey Goose, I would never make a drink for a guest that they liked.

The problem with most drinkers today is that they don’t like liquor. Cocktails were invented a hundred years ago because the liquor being distilled tasted like something out of a drained radiator. You needed to mix it with fruit juices or sodas simply in order to choke it down. Booze was wood grain alcohol cut with water and a variety of agents to help mask the horrific taste of the bathtub gin. Fortunately for us, the 21^st Amendment was ratified and distillers are able to make products that don’t lead to blindness. The problem is that they tend to make only stuff that should be served at a carnival. Cream-based, strawberry-infused tequila have their place but it’s not in my life. That potential train wreck has left the station years ago and I am not in the business of trying cinnamon or black cherry-flavored whiskeys or rum. Regardless of gender, at the club, people tend to drink things that are sweet and palatable. It has to be smooth or they would rather not drink at all. Granted, the majority of drinks that I pour are draft beers, glasses of wine and standard drinks (i.e. vodka and tonics, Long Islands, rum and cokes, etc.) but we do serve a lot of drinks with questionable flavors: cherry, melon, pear or grape. Too often, it seems that we’re just putting an ever increasing sized funnel down our neck and drowning it with sugary crap. In an era where booze has never tasted better, the vast majority of my guests are insisting upon a drink that is described as a Tall, Strong and Fruity: filled with brightly colored liqueurs that leave your teeth gritty and your bottom aching.

The problem is that I work in Salt Lake’s largest club and the volume of business we push through the club doesn’t allow us a chance to handcraft cocktails per order. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: the guests want something that is cheap, delicious and will get them drunk. We just want to sell as much as possible. I am probably not helping my cause by continuing to pour out AMFs at such a rate that my left arm is stained blue most of the time. I am a turn-and-burn bartender that values speed over creativity. So, even when I am given the challenge of making a really interesting drink, I often fall short because either I don’t know how to make it or know what goes into it.

For example, we were slammed on Saturday and this young guy in a tweed jacket had been patiently waiting for his turn. When I finally got to him, he ordered a Hendricks and tonic. Hendricks is a small batch cucumber-infused gin made out of England. For my money, it is simply the best gin on the market and probably my favorite liquor after Maker’s Mark and John Powers. It mixes well with soda or tonic and is simply delicious over ice with half a lime. It’s the kind of drink that makes me want to recolonize India, ride an elephant and wear a lot of khaki. As I was reaching for the Hendricks from the back bar, he asked me if I had any cucumber or ginger. I told him I didn’t and he graciously said it was okay. He would just have it with some tonic. I thought of two things: one, he’s right. We should carry cucumbers and ginger for fresh made cocktails. We’re a relatively fancy bar with a wide variety of liquors. Why aren’t we focusing on making drinks that are both creative and refreshing? Two, doesn’t this hipster piece of shit see that I am busy and I don’t have time to muddling every third drink?

I think what bothers me about making these craft cocktails is the fact that we are limited in how to make them. Because we haven’t committed to this style of bartending, it makes little sense to do a half-assed job of it. It is impractical to have a full kitchen behind the bar with fresh herbs, house-made mixers and matching flavored liquor for each Berg-ed bottle. Utah’s liquor laws limits how much hooch we can pour and often it requires some pretty interesting ingredients we don’t carry. I think we are the rule as oppose to the exception with our drinks. It is really hard to set the bar high when customers don’t make it easier for us to start exploring new techniques and styles of drinks simply because they act as if they have never been in a bar before. Why waste walnut extract in a Manhattan if your guest has never tasted whiskey before? It is infinitely easier to float a Midori on top of a margarita and tell the customer that it is Green Iguana and I created it just for you. Maybe it’s time for me to start celebrating the 3.2% Bud Light draft and a JagerBomb as the official drink of Utah. They’re easier to pour than a muddled Old Fashion.

I left Reno in 1997 and haven’t returned with the exception of attending my sister’s graduation from medical school. It is a distant memory but still my fondest. I miss drinking at the Beer Barrel, Little Waldorf, The Breakaway and Big Ed’s Alley Inn. I missed getting my teeth kicked in every rugby game I played and above all, I miss the friends that I met during college. It was a formative time and one that I often use as a measuring stick for any other experience. I am going back to Reno for The Mudshark’s reunion show on the 14^th of October and attending UNR’s Homecoming. I am excited. I am looking forward to meeting up with old friends and putting down some drinks. Tequila Rose isn’t in my future but I’d be a liar if I said that I am not a sucker for Stoli’s Raspberry and lemonade. There are limits to my hypocrisy…

Ben Raskin bartends at Keys On Main Wednesday through Saturday. Follow him on Twitter @BennyRaskin or follow his Tumblr feed. Become a fan of Behind The Bar on Facebook.

My Own Private Utah: Tales of Booze, Underwear and Germans

2011-09-27T13:43:00.000-07:00

He was 6’5” tall, shirtless, wearing cargo shorts and sandals. With long shoulder length sandy hair and full beard, he would have fit in perfectly on the boardwalk in Ocean Beach with his lean surfer-like physique. However, he was in the middle of my bar being told by my doorman, Aron, to either get his shirt back on or to shove off. It wasn’t even 9pm yet and the bar was filling to capacity. I came around the bar to help get control of this guy when I saw him pushed Aron. We hooked him and dragged him kicking and screaming out the front door in quick order. Shaken, I returned to behind the bar and was asked by my fellow bartender, Rebecca, what happened. I told her it was nothing except for the fact that we just 86’ed Jesus Christ from the bar.

Saturday night had snuck up on us and we were digging in for a busy night. Downtown SLC was buzzing with activity after the Salt Lake Undie Run. Across the street from Keys On Main, at the Gallivan Center, more than 3,000 people gathered in their tighty-whiteys, bras and panties to try and set a Guinness World Record. But more than that, they weren’t just running to set a world record. They were running to send a statement that Utah isn’t as uptight as most people think. Watching all of the scantily-clad participants walk past the bar, I couldn’t stop thinking that we need to seriously solve all of the world’s problems because I am getting tired of running 5Ks. Of course Utah is uptight and conservative as people think it is. Think I am wrong? They didn’t have the Undie Run in Provo. I like the idea of the streets being lined with half-naked people trotting around in their unmentionables. It is a vast improvement over the clans of Juggalos and gaggles of Polygamists that gather along the streets but if you want to send a real message: hold the run in La Verkin. I’d be interested to see how many people would show up in Manti in their BVDs to protest the conservative nature of Utah. Nonetheless, it was a hoot watching the flood of joggers in their skivvies heading south along Main Street.

Utah is pretty uptight but it makes for the best substrate for some of the wildest things I have ever seen. If a bunch of stuffed shirt Mormon Republicans weren’t running the state, who would give two shakes that a very large group of half-dressed people were running from the capital to the Gallivan Center? No Chris Buttars, John Valentine or Michael Waddoups? No Undie Run. I know Buttars would appreciate that. There is no way he could run the ¾ of a mile to the Gallivan Center without a sports bra. The two messages that seemed to dominate the conversation during the Undie Run was Utah’s drinking laws and not permitting same-sex couples from marrying. Our liquor laws stink but there is no way most of the people participating in the Undie Run didn’t use any liquid courage to get ready to put on some of those outfits. With my body image, I would need to knock back a bottle of tequila and buy a bag of birdseed to put on a banana hammock. The only run I ever do to show opposition to Utah’s liquor laws is to the liquor store Monday through Saturday. My social protest is to always have a bottle in the liquor cabinet.

The people running for same-sex marriage were going down a rougher road. Currently, only six states allow same-sex marriage in America and I can’t imagine Utah filling their ranks anytime soon. I think the state is inherently homophobic but thankfully, Salt Lake City gets it. Domestic partnerships recognition in the county is not just fair but a step towards equality that all people deserve. Gays and lesbians are our friends, family and neighbors. The fact that heterosexuals are threatened by gays marrying is a black eye for this country and 100 years from now, history won’t be kind to those that actively ban their desire to be treated the same as everyone else. I can think of ten reasons why gays should be allowed to marry: one, they are tax-paying citizens who live legally in this country and are entitled to all of the benefits that citizenship offers all of us. Two through ten: so they will shut the fuck up about wanting to get married. There are a lot more important things we need to work on in this country than worrying about same-sexes marrying. The NBA is still in a lockout and we need our best people to get the players and owners to come to some sort of agreement. The fact that I can’t stop staring at the muscular hunks walking around in their boxer briefs is a small price to pay to have a complete NBA season.

Needless to say, there were a lot of things happening on Saturday and ejecting the Lamb of God from the bar was the perfect calm before the storm. We had been busy all week and I made the mistake of wishing the night was over before it began. The key to bartending is working clean, fast and deliberate. You need to know where everything is at all times and be able to reorganize in the middle of a busy shift. I try to put on an air of confidence behind the bar but in reality, I am acting like Raymond Babbitt in my head. We were running a promotion for Jack Daniels birthday with $5 shots of his Single Barrel bourbon. The bar was decorated in silver and black streamers and tons of promotional posters. The piano players had a mound of swag to giveaway and the staff was all dressed in a JD T-shirt. Sounds simple enough but I am such a creature of habit that I immediately hated having to wear the Jack shirt and use the new napkin holders. Before you think I started banging my head into the bar yelling that it was three minutes to Wapner, I was able to pull myself together. I am a fuddy-duddy to change. I like having everything in its place and to the chagrin of those working with me, I often change my mind in the middle of a shift. To that, I apologize to all of my co-workers for being a neurotic mess.

The night started with a thunderclap. In an instant, the bar was filled to capacity. It was the normal cast of characters with birthday parties, bachelorettes, anniversaries and company get-togethers. Add the unusual element of a large percentage of the crowd wearing their underwear and I knew we were going to get our asses handed to us. The drink of choice on Saturday was the Lady Gaga (strawberry and coconut rum with cranberry and pineapple juice). We probably poured 200 of them. My favorite moment of the night was when this urban cowboy with a thick plug of tobacco in his lip ordering a Bud bottle and a Muumuu Galaxy. It took us a beat to figure out what he wanted. His special lady friend sent him to the bar for a Lady Gaga and he somehow forgot what he was supposed to bring back. In the end, he just wanted something to shut his wife up with. And gay people aren’t allowed to marry?

You know it’s a good night when the bar is filled with half-naked protesters and angry, drunk, old Germans. After spending the last weekend in Zion, I had had a compacted ass-full of Germans. If we had been listening to a Rosetta Stone on the drive down I would have been able to tell them to look out on the trail and get the Hell out of my bar. It’s a shame that Germans take more advantage of our national park system than we do. In the sea of customers, four middle-aged Germans were able to belly up to the bar and start belittling me. I guess back in the Deutschland, treating the bartender like Poland is the best way to get a drink. Demanding Coronas and shots of Jagermeister, it was the Zimmerman Telegraph all over again. There’s nothing scarier than a big mustached man barking in broken English that he and his colleagues need more Jagermeister. I was easily seven people deep at the bar and my time was being completely monopolized by guys would have turned me into a lampshade sixty years ago. They were oblivious to the other guests in the bar and kept slamming the bar whenever they needed another drink. It was both annoying and terrifying. The only thing keeping my head above water was the fact that they were ordering simple drinks. Popping bottles and pouring shots are the easiest drinks to make. Moreover, they had a tab and I was racking up a big drink ticket. I only had to endure the goose-stepping jerkoffs for an hour. They signed their tab and bid me a Guden Nacht with a tip of four dollars on $96. For the record, WWII is only 66 years ago. It’s never too late to remind the Krauts who won the war and re-firebomb Dresden again. So it goes.

Not every customer was a decedent of Nuremberg Trials. Some were homegrown terrorists. I had a striking, large man in a MMA T-shirt and jeans. He made Brock Lester look like Ryan Seacrest. He was the size of a refrigerator and drank beer with reckless abandonment. Slamming drafts and shots of whiskey, he wanted me to explain to him why he can’t have a double. When I am slow, I will spend all night dissecting Utah’s liquor laws but when the bar is packed, the music pumped and customers screaming drink orders at me, I am not giving a doctoral thesis why you can only have a single. Outside of his choice of fashion, I think the guy’s problem was two-fold: he was alone at Keys On Main. I work at a great club but it isn’t much a singles joint. People move in packs and lone wolves tend to have difficulty meeting new people. When you don’t have anyone to talk to, the bartender naturally becomes your friend. Second, I don’t think a man of his stature is accustomed to being told to calm down and wait your turn. I’m built like John Candy circa Summer Rental and he probably thought that I was ignoring him. He angrily demanded his tab and left this:

I am not in the business of ignoring people. I am in the business of prioritizing my customers so I can serve as many people as possible. I might not be able to pour you a double but bringing Ron Paul into this? Not cool. Should we have had five more bartenders? Maybe but we were putting out so many drinks that if somebody had to wait literally one minute (sixty seconds) for a bottle of Coors Light, I can live with them being frustrated. The real problem of the night is that nobody brought any cash. Everyone was paying for their drinks with a credit card. If they had started a tab like the Germans, I would have been able to move faster but when I have to cash-n-carry every single transaction I become a slave to the credit card machine. If you ever want to know why the bartender who is moving smoothly, quickly and efficiency isn’t getting to you at Keys On Main take a look to the people on your left and right. One of those knuckleheads is demanding to pay for a single drink on a credit card because they’re afraid to start a tab. If you are unable to start a tab because you have the short-term memory of a Golden Retriever, bring cash to the bar. You become the problem with service when the bartender has to run your card every round. Women are bad but men in their early 20s are the worse. I think it’s a combination of not having any money and thinking there is suaveness in dominating the bartender’s time. The only people who were exempt from my wraith on Saturday were participants in the Undie Race. The last thing I wanted to put into the register was a pube-covered twenty. For these people, I graciously accept credit cards all night.

One of the things that I am particular proud of at Keys On Main is that we offer a very respectable selection of wine available by the glass. Most clubs just offer two selections: red or white. We have a nice collection of varietals and I have been told the wine is pretty tasty (that shows my knowledge of wine when I use the word “tasty” to describe it). They are appropriately priced at $6 per glass and we usually give a good sized pour. My biggest problem with wine service is making sure the glass itself is clean before I pour a Pinot Noir or Sauvignon Blanc into it. When did women’s lipstick develop the staying power of acrylic enamel? Getting lipstick off of a wine glass is harder than getting lacquer out of a shaggy dog. I say enough is enough. If you insist on wearing three layers of lipstick, you are now officially required to use a straw when having a glass of Cab. If I have to hire a scrum of barbacks to sandblast the glassware to remove your make up, you are not allowed to place your lips on it. The next step is pouring it into plastic cups and none of us want that.

The entire night was a sea of waving hands, screaming voices and chaos. I constantly checked in with Becky to see if she needed help but she held her head above water the entire night. A natural gunslinger, Becky put the night in a chokehold. We hit speed bumps throughout the night: running out of glassware, ice and garnish but were able to recover with the help of all of our co-workers. The back of our bar looked like a swamp with all of the trash and water that didn’t find the garbage can. Bartending takes on an almost violent note when you were as busy as we were. Customer service is cranking out drinks not making the guest feel warm and fuzzy. If I was working a cigar bar, my behavior would have been completely out-of-line but in Salt Lake’s busiest club, jabbing a finger into somebody’s chest and asking what they want becomes the modus operandi. To do anything less would be bad service.

I poured right till 1am. That miraculous moment of last call finally came and I was pouring the last drinks of the night and closing out the last tabs. The last tab of the evening belonged to a well-dressed woman nursing her eighth Michelob Ultra. She was arguing with her friend on where they were going for food when her friend demanded to help finish her beer. She took one of my cocktail shakers and poured half of the beer into it. She raised it to her lips and promptly spit up across the bar. The last drink I had shaken out of that cocktail shaker was a Pickled Weenie: tequila and pickle juice. I almost horked when I smelled the glass. Trying to keep her composure, she started to eat maraschino cherries like bar pretzels and turned a shade of green reserved for cocktail olives. The lesson learned here is to know when to say when and don’t touch the bartender’s equipment.

I was covered in sweat and the remnants of the evening. I could have squeezed out my shirt and sold it as a Kamikaze if I had to. My arms were dyed blue from the Curacao and my glasses looked like I was hit in the face with a bag of flour. My knees were sore and my lower back felt like I was hit with a 2x4. You would think it was a horrible experience but it was why I love bartending. I love the flow and speed of the job. It involves massive amount of problem solving while keeping your cool. The bar was overrun with every sort of person in the Salt Lake Valley and I think we did an exceptional job is making sure everyone had a fantastic evening. Sure, I felt like I just got down wrestling a drunken grizzly bear for five hours but at that moment, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else for a living.

I think if people want to know that Utah isn’t as uptight as it is perceived, they should try working the service industry for a period of time. You don’t need to go for a run in your panties to know that Utah is pretty amazing place and there are some nuggets of coolness that can’t be found anywhere else in the country. Take it from me: I kicked Jesus out of the bar and I still had a great night.

Ben Raskin can be found bartending at Keys On Main Wednesday through Saturday. Follow him on Twitter @BennyRaskin or follow his Tumblr feed. Become a fan of Behind The Bar on Facebook.

Remembering The Narrows

2011-09-21T13:02:00.000-07:00

I was surprised how much had changed.

I suppose this is an odd thing to say about Zion Nation Park considering that the area surrounding the Virgin River is well over 150 million years old. We were down in Southern Utah for a much needed weekend retreat. Our friends, Matt and Kat, had invited us to stay with them at their St. George condo and to make day-trips into Zion National Park for a series of hikes. I was excited to have a couple of days off from Keys On Main and to revisit Zion after a 25 year hiatus. I love my schedule and the work at the bar but I was beginning to fall into some bad habits at the club: namely, I started to hate every single person who walked through the doors. I needed a break and when the opportunity to go hike Zion came up, I jumped at it.

Loading gear, food, beer, wine and liquor into the truck, we headed south to St. George. Our plan was to hike Angel’s Landing on Saturday and tackle The Narrows on Sunday. Bookended with two nights of boozing and eating, our four day trip had all the makings of a great adventure. Our last outdoor adventure outside of Salt Lake City was in Moab last year, where we decimated Arches National Park. Camping alongside the Colorado River, we were able to hike every trail in Arches minus Klondike Bluffs. The weather was horrible (blazing hot with unbearable wind bursts) but Erin and I had a wonderful trip. In addition to seeing some of the most iconic images of Utah, we learned a lot of what not to do on camping trips. My biggest takeaway? I don’t need to ever drink a pint of Sunny Brook Blended Whiskey. Ever.

This trip was different. The only camping we were doing was in the casita at the condo. We had all of the necessary equipment for both hikes, plenty of water bottles, food and good hiking shoes. Our friends had rented us river hiking boots and hiking sticks for The Narrows. There was no bargain basement whiskey on this adventure—only premium tequila for post-hike margaritas. We had planned the trip down to the last detail including where we were going to watch the Utah/BYU game that night in St. George.

I have been to Zion NP twice before. The more recent trip was a friend’s wedding that allowed us only a little bit to hike the very beautiful but not very challenging Emerald Pools. A short 3-mile round trip hike to the waterfalls and crystal pools was probably the best the wedding party could tackle considering the well placed hangovers with the majority of the group. My first trip to Zion, however, has been ingrained into my memory and will never be erased. I was 12 years old and living in Las Vegas. My Boy Scout troop had planned a trip down The Narrows—a perilous 16 mile hike down the Virgin River over slick river rocks. The vast majority of the hike is in knee-deep, swift moving water over bowling ball-sized basalt rocks with no escape in the 1,300 foot gorge walls. The walls of the canyon are overwhelming both in their natural beauty and inherent danger. Flash floods and falling rocks could easily turn any hike deadly.

As a kid, I was very excited about the hike. I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into. I blindly signed up for the hike thinking it was going to be a quick jaunt down a river followed by campfire S’mores and sing-a-longs. Moreover, my mother had bought me one of the coolest things of all time: a framed hiking backpack. Stretched over an aluminum frame, it was a clunky pack with space for a sleeping bag and a couple of water bottles. I was told prior to the hike that I would need to make sure that everything was sealed against the water in case I fell into the river. I spent the nights prior to leaving for Zion wrapping and rewrapping my limited gear in Ziploc and garbage bags. I even test my wrap on my heavy cotton sleep bag by throwing it into the swimming pool. I was ready for anything that a chubby, suburban kid from Las Vegas with limited outdoor experience would encounter. Simply put, I was ready for nothing. My mom had given me a Subway sub for my lunch and dinner and I think I had a couple bags of candy for snacks. My water supply was carried in a washed out gallon milk jug and I was wearing Chuck Taylors. My backpack weighed as much as I did and I had no idea how I was going to get dry at the overnight campsite. Yet, my enthusiasm outweighed by caution and I figured as long as I didn’t lose my pocket knife, I should be fine.

We caravanned to Zion and camp outside of the visitor’s center the first night. Waking up early to a meal of sausages and biscuits, I figured there was no challenge that could not be bested. Sausages often have that effect on me. To get to the top of The Narrows, we took a shuttle through the Zion-Mount Carmel Tunnel to Chamberlain Ranch. From such a humble building, we began our trek through The Narrows. It was smooth sailing at first. We didn’t have to wade through the river yet and I was still comfortable with a belly full of sausages and the confidence the hike would be over before it began. The scenery was breathtaking. Even for a Vegas kid, it was hard to not recognize how jaw-dropping lovely Zion is. Between the Ponderosa Pines and Junipers, the trail was lined with all sorts of wildflowers, shrubs and cactus. It was exciting to be on my own, far away from friends and family, and hiking quietly in the most beautiful place I had ever been.

I wasn’t very close to my fellow scouts. I was a member of a predominately LDS Boy Scout troop and being the odd guy out, I wasn’t as active as the rest of the guys. I figured if I could go on hiking trips and participate in the weekly meetings to play games, I could do without the church related activities they did the rest of the week. Besides, I didn’t want to go to church on Sundays or be a Mormon. Out on the trail, it made no difference nobody really talked to me. I was moving along at a good clip and really enjoying my experience. For the first day, we hiked halfway down The Narrows, sporadically dipping into the water to cross particular portions of the trail. We made it to the campground around dusk and set up for the night. I ripped open all of my gear, putting on dry clothes and ravaging through my Subway sub. I don’t remember when I went to sleep but I am sure I slept like a log. I was tired from hiking and not resting much from the night before.

I woke up early and stated repacking my stuff. While eating whatever candy I had left, I figured since I didn’t need to worry about my stuff being dry, I sloppily loaded pack. We had a little under eight miles to hike down the river and I mistakenly thought the worst was behind me. We set out early and I quickly realized that I had made a fantastic error. Sure, I didn’t need to sleep in a dry bag but I certainly didn’t need to hike the rest of The Narrows with a water-soaked sleeping bag. My already heavy backpack became unbelievably heavy after my first slip into the river. My sleeping bag turned into a sponge holding half of the Virgin River as I gingerly scampered across slick river rocks.

Instead of taking in the natural beauty of Wall Street with its various color-changes under sheer cliff walls, I was grimacing into the river trying not to fall for the umpteenth time. Every step became a challenge and I was falling dangerously behind. I was sloshing through the water all the while my bag became increasingly heavier. I didn’t have any friends, sausages and any idea how much further I had to hike. Minutes turned to hours and I was constantly slipping into the Virgin River, banging my shins and becoming soaked to the bone. What should have been the most beautiful stretch of river turned into a sea of tears as I tried desperately to maintain my composure through the most physically agonizing trip I had ever been on. Miraculously, I knew that I was getting close to the end of the trail when I started seeing hikers from the bottom up intersecting me and telling me it was just a little bit further. It felt like a cruel joke because every turn in the river just led to another bend. The walls of the canyon prohibited having any sense of when the trip was over. For the last hour, I constantly contemplated throwing away my beloved backpack and just limp to the van. Sure, I wasn’t molested by my Boy Scout scoutmaster but I would have traded a little diddling to be back in the van heading home. Fortunately, I didn’t have to make some sort of Faustian deal to get out of the river. By nightfall, I had made it to the Temple of Sinawava. Saturated in river water, blood and self-pity, I was happy to be done and ready to go home. The adventure of a lifetime had been a miserable experience.

I am happy to report my second trip through The Narrows was much better. Instead of sliding across rocks in Converse, we had rented river boots with neoprene socks. We only hiked from the bottom up but we were able to cover the three miles to the beginning of Wall Street in great time. The change in my attitude and level of preparation was dramatic. Instead of stifling tears, I joyously bounded through the water and chased down every turn. We were in great spirits the entire time. My only complaint about our hike through The Narrows on Saturday was we didn’t have the foresight to leave a couple of beers in the truck for the drive home.

Our trip to Zion wasn’t without hardship. While nothing compares to my first time down The Narrows, my ascent to Angel’s Landing was a bear. If I had to surmise my ability as a hiker, I would compare it to an old dog that has the spirit but not the legs to climb a mountain. Angel’s Landing is by far the most stunning hike in Zion and the most treacherous. After climbing a couple of miles through switchbacks to Walters Wiggle, we made it to the base of Angel’s Landing. To get to the top of Angel’s, you have to climb a half mile along the ridge lined with protective chains. I was beat but I made it to the top. The view was spectacular and I even saw a California Condor gliding through the vast canyons. Amazing.

In the end, it was a much needed vacation. Big thanks to Matt and Kat for being gracious hosts. It was nice taking a break from work and getting out of Salt Lake. One of the best parts of living in Utah is that there are so many natural wonders to explore. I think sometimes we forget that Utah is absolutely amazing. If you think I am wrong, ask the army of Germans who invade Southern Utah and take full advantage of all of our national parks. Four days in Zion is enough for me to sling drinks for the next four months.

Ben Raskin bartends at Keys On Main Wednesday through Saturday. Follow him on Twitter @BennyRaskin or subscribe to his Tumblr feed. Become a fan of Behind The Bar on Facebook.

Snoop Dogg Missed His Flight

2011-09-13T15:39:00.000-07:00

After all these years in the public spotlight, I would have thought that Snoop Dogg would be more responsible. After partying in Las Vegas the night before, he was unable to catch his plane and ended up cancelling his concert at Gallivan Center last Thursday. I was aghast when I got to work. Main Street was crawling with every form of stoned white trash from a 200 mile radius. It was a weird combination of people wearing too much cheap gold jewelry, football jerseys and over-sized baseball caps. The women dressed like it was a cattle call for back-up dancers for Snoop’s next video: ridiculously short cut-off jeans, low cut shirts and make-up that looks like it was applied with a shotgun.

I opened early to try and corral a couple of the concert goers. As I was unlocking the door, a mad dash of visibly anger people stormed to the bar. Snoop Dogg’s inability to make it to Salt Lake in time had a devastating impact on his fans. They flopped down at the bar, demanding shots of tequila and cold, cheap beer. Cursing his name, they couldn’t understand why he couldn’t make it to the show. I told them that I was surprised too. I had recently saw, Soul Plane, and I couldn’t figure out why he didn’t just fly himself up to Utah. They were not amused. For two hours, the bar was flooded with customers and they were trying to drink Snoop Dogg up to Salt Lake. I try not to revel in other’s misery but as a result of Snoop cancelling, he had successfully ruined two girls from Burley Idaho night. They had driven down the three hours to SLC in their whoriest costumes and were expecting a night of gin and juice. Instead, they sat quietly at the end of the bar, gently crying into their pints of Bud Light as their mascara ran down the sides of their chubby cheeks. Damon Runyon couldn’t make that up.

It’s been a rough week. Starting with Snoop’s show cancelling and ending with me covering Monday’s shift, I had been in a sour mood. The first rule of bartending is that if you don’t want to be there, don’t. Customers feed off of your energy and if your mind is somewhere else, they will put you through the ringer. The problem is that being in a bad mood is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy—the harder you try to snap out of it, the more you slide down the rabbit hole.

It doesn’t get talked about enough but bartending is a taxing exercise. I am on my feet for a good eight hours a night. I am not able to take my dinner sitting down or have two 15 minute breaks during my shift. Need to take a leak at 11 o’clock? Better hold it because the bar doesn’t shut down because you have a small bladder. The volume level is high, the lights are dim and the energy of the room is draining. It’s hot, physical and demanding. Customers don’t care how uncomfortable you are when they order a drink. Complaints come in not the other way out. All they care about is how fast, cheap and good what they order is. Alcohol transforms even the calmest most mild-mannered secretary into Tawny Kitaen after a couple of Red Bull and vodkas and the guy who came in looking like Don Draper usually leaves looking somewhere between Tank Abbot and Gary Busey. Even on the best nights, the room always feels like it is on tilt with the possibility of something disastrous coming around the corner. Stretching, aspirin and Gold Bond Powder become your best friends on a Saturday night. It’s hard missing out on weekend parties and activities (I don’t remember the last poker night I went to), not being able to take my girlfriend out on a Friday night and going to bed at 4am because I need two hours to calm down after slinging drinks for seven hours.

But it is a good job. It’s the apex of the working class. The money pays the bills, the work keeps me mentally sharp and the nights I spend behind two feet of concrete bar become fodder for columns and future customers. I like setting up the club, preparing my mise-en-place and patiently waiting for the rush of thick-fingered, rookie drinkers. There’s no better moment than looking throughout the club and quietly muttering to myself that I am ready to pour drinks for the 101^st if they happen to come through the door. Every night behind the bar is chockfull of potential. I guess what bums me out is when nights are squandered with customers who seem to go out of their way to put me into a tailspin. Subconsciously, they are playing a game of chicken with me to see who will tell the other to “fuck off” first. From rattlesnaking me, slapping the bar and yelling my name, it’s a juggling act of slinging drinks and smiling through gritted teeth as middle-aged, first time Utah drinkers try to see if they can get the upper hand on me. The problem is that those guests who are troublemakers compose less than 10% of the business but command a massive 90% of my energies. The date night couple who know what they want and know how they are going to pay for it are not the problem. It’s the self-important knucklehead who wants to know why we don’t carry his grandmother’s homemade apricot wine (true story) that makes me check the want ads when I get home.

If pouring drinks was like feeding coal into a furnace, I’d be the Casey Jones of bartenders but the work is delicate and requires a great deal of knowledge and finesse. It involves engaging the guest, figuring out what they want, pouring it properly and making them feel good about spending more money on a drink than the cost of a Happy Meal. I can pour as fast as anybody in Utah but people’s indecision makes for a metric shitload of speed bumps throughout the night. That’s the challenge of the job and trying to drive over those speed bumps at full speed all night, every night is the goal of every barkeep. What made this week so difficult was there were more speed bumps thrown at me than on a deaf kid’s street.

The single biggest thing that I can’t control at the bar is what people order. It is measurably easier to pour a shot of Jim Beam than to make a blended daiquiri. Hell, opening a bottle of beer is quicker than pouring a draft. I might suggest an alternative drink to try and save time but at the end of the day, if I have the ingredients I’m making what you order. I like being challenged with different drinks and learning about new cocktails. The problem is that I am hyper-vigilant about the next guest’s drink thereby making me to try and steer people into something that is quicker to make. If there were nobody else in the bar, I’d be happy to make Mojitos until we both thought we were in Cuba. However, this week, I didn’t have that luxury. The bar was packed and they were thirsty. This week was one long series of blended, shaken, muddled, layered, sugar-rimmed diabetic-fest. I don’t remember making so many Lady Gaga’s (strawberry & coconut rum with cranberry and pineapple juice) ever and I don’t remember having to play the always appreciated Stump-The-Bartender game so many times.

I had three guys who looked like they just got back from an elk hunt who were ironically trying to drink every girly shot in the bar. Providing they just drank what I poured for them, there were no problems. It’s when they got on their cell phones and started coming up with their own shots did we run into a massive speed bump. Out of nowhere, they ordered three Scooby Snacks. Cream based drinks suck. Suck, suck, suckidy suck suck. I don’t know if it because I have always considered milk products to be tantamount to liquid beef or because cream fills the channels of my bar mats leaving me some semen-colored mess I have to look at for the balance of the night. It’s gross, super-high caloric and dangerously low in alcohol. I’m sure Ben and Jerry sell a higher proof ice cream than a Scooby Snack. The problem is that girls and guys who can’t shoot whiskey love Copper Camels, Creamsicles and Buttery Nipples. More than that, Scooby Snacks are one of those, “Oh, what is that?” drink. The spigot of Scooby Snacks was turned on by these knuckleheads and I found myself in the weeds all night shaking a bunch of cream and Midori for anybody who saw the pale green shot.

As bad as it is making drinks you dislike, there is nothing worse than somebody wanting a Lincoln-Douglas style debate when the bar is three people deep. I had a group of photographers who came in on Friday who would have thought all I had to offer was a bucket of diesel and tonic water. They were in town for the Dew Tour and were testy probably because they weren’t allowed to nurse off the beer taps like a new born calf. They were pissed because all of the tap beer was 3.2% and they didn’t know how to order a double. There are ways to get a double in my bar but you need to know how to order it. While some of them happily ordered vodka and tonics, the balance of them grimaced at our good selection of beer with discontent. I love it when people think the beer is too weak but they don’t have the stomach to do a shot of Maker’s Mark. I tried to find some common ground with them by offering them one of our Squatter’s Hops Rising. I thought a 9% double IPA would be the ticket but after ordering them, they complained that they were too strong. Instead of admitting that they really wanted was a Shirley Temple, they began to complain about the influence of Mormons in the state and their inability to get what they want in a bar. How Brigham Young got brought into the conversation is anybody’s guess.

What bothers me more than anything is when some ne’er-do-well from Virginia or Timbuktu starts telling me that it is different from where they’re from. Really? Utah isn’t like North Carolina? I would have the living tar kicked out of me if I went to Orlando Florida and raised a stink that they didn’t have a Tabernacle Choir or a Wasatch Front along the drive to Disney World. What kind of myopic dumb-sticks are populating this country? Does everyone’s collective IQ drop by 25 points the moment they travel into the 801 for the first time? How can titans of industry and young Turks transform into sniveling babies crying for their bottle the moment they enter my bar? Verbally pistol whipping Mormons while you anguish over the size of your cocktail doesn’t do anything for me. I am more likely to ask you to leave then double up on your drink. Furthermore, you don’t have a black-belt in complaining about being in Utah. I do.

There isn’t a prerequisite for Mormon bashing if you live in Utah. I consider it more of a hobby than a lifestyle. However, asking me to beat down my fellow citizens just because they pray to some sort of weird Space Jesus while you’re ordering Ketel One and sodas isn’t part of the job description. The most dangerous fight to break up is the one between two brothers—they’re more likely to turn on you the second you intervene. For me, that is my relationship with Mormons. I have lived with them for the majority of my life and much like a rattlesnake handler, I know how to safely handle them. Yes, they are weird. No, I don’t randomly bash them because they make it hard to get a double at the bar. Sure, they have horns, multiple wives and won’t be allowed into normal Heaven when they die but they are still my co-workers, neighbors and occasionally, friends. Here’s the deal, out-of-towners: you don’t live here and you haven’t burned enough calories living in the Deseret Empire to adequately bitch about the role of the LDS Church and Utah’s liquor laws. Spend more time in Salt Lake City than a weekend ski vacation and maybe I’ll listen to you carp on our state politics. Until then, put a cork in it, enjoy your drink and watch the show.

Customers like this make the night so douchey one would think that Nickelback was the house band. I hate it when I want to open hand slap every fourth customer. How am I supposed to kick my sour mood when even the Jack and Coke you ordered isn’t what you want? Booze isn’t the only thing that I am selling from behind the bar. I am also selling a good time and for the love of God, how come most people can’t meet me in the middle? Do people really have such well-placed blinders that they can’t see that they are not the only customers in the bar? It’s challenging enough to keep up with the flow of the night without some pseudo-travel writer trying to rank the best bar experiences in the country. Yes, Utah is limited in its selection of booze and how it is served but it doesn’t mean that you can’t get drunk. Think I am wrong? Look to the guys drinking Scooby Snacks out of a woman’s slipper.

See what happens when Snoop Dogg misses his flight? I never thought West Coast rap would have such an impact on my life. Instead of a carefree weekend of pouring vodka and cranberries, I was in the dog pound the entire time. Sorry about that. Something I constantly remind myself of when I am having a bad shift behind the bar is that last call will always come. It might be too early for out-of-towners but it will eventually become 1 o’clock. A couple of days away from the club reminds me how much I love bartending and I start ramping up to get back to slinging drinks. Something I never forget, however, is that pouring one gin and grapefruit juice is enough. Contrary to popular opinion, gin and juice isn’t a very good drink.

Ben Raskin bartends at Keys On Main Wednesday through Saturday. Follow him on Twitter @BennyRaskin or his Tumblr feed. Become a fan of Behind The Bar on Facebook.

Behind The Zion Curtain

2011-09-06T17:43:00.000-07:00

The Zion curtain is being redrawn in Utah and a lot of people are not happy about it. Recent changes to the liquor laws in Utah are going into effect soon and none more offensive than the Zion curtain. For those of you who live outside of Utah, the Zion curtain is a screen, barrier or opaque piece of glass that prohibits patrons from watching alcoholic drinks being made. Found in restaurants, the Zion curtain makes sure that children don’t hear the clinks of martinis being made or draft beer being poured. It separates bartender from his customers and hides him in a closet to make your drinks. According to State Senator, Michael Waddoups: “Listening to the shaking of drinks and the sights can make drinking attractive. That’s one of the reasons that restaurants should not look like a bar.” He’s afraid it will encourage underage drinking and overconsumption. Unfortunately, I hate agreeing with the uber-conservative senator from Taylorsville but the sight of a drink being made is very attractive to me.

I first discovered the Zion curtain a decade ago when I moved to Salt Lake and was a bit confused by it. I didn’t understand why there was so much separation between the customer and the bartender in restaurants like TGI Fridays or the Olive Garden. In the end, however, it didn’t matter: I still got my mug of beer or glass of wine. It seemed like a lot hoops to jump through in order to get a drink but providing I got what I wanted at the end of the parlor game I played with the restaurant, I didn’t care. Some people did and they petitioned to have it removed a couple of years ago. It didn’t make a lick of difference to me. Whether my gin and tonic was made in front of me or in a dungeon by a buck-toothed gimp, I didn’t care unless they forgot my lime wedge.

Utah is different and that’s a good thing. It’s not supposed to be New Orleans or Las Vegas. Hell, it’s not even supposed to be Cheyenne or Denver. There is a unique history and charm to this place and what positives it offers to its citizens and visitors isn’t detracted by having to have your cocktails made behind a screen. I think people should be more outraged on how bad the food is at a Chili’s than not being able to watch their margarita being made. The best restaurants in Salt Lake don’t do table side bartending and the fact that there isn’t traditional bar service at most restaurants shouldn’t cause boycotts from eating out. To those opening restaurants in Utah and don’t think the rules apply to them, give me a call sometime and I’ll tell you about the three years I ran The Woodshed. They take booze service in Utah serious even if it feels like a kangaroo wrote the laws.

There are about four inches of rules and regulations determing liquor law in the State of Utah. I wish I could whittle away all of these laws into three: don’t serve people under 21 years of age, make sure everyone pays for all of their drinks and make sure the sale taxes are paid to the state. There. In 28 words, I just solved all of Utah’s liquor problems. Now that this is behind us, let’s move on to fixing the real problems we face in this state: employment, social services, protecting the environment and ending the NBA lockout.

The problem is that nobody can leave well enough alone. I disagree with the majority of the liquor laws in Utah as much as the next drinker (providing the next drinker likes Irish whiskey and cold, cheap yellow beer) but I knew the laws when I got into the business. Utah is different than other states in the Union because they have this pesky, loud population called Mormons that do not like hooch. Mormons are buzz-kills and they want to make sure the rest of us are miserable because some golden plates read through a peep stone said no doubles, happy hour or ladies night. In their defense, they were here first and they run the state in one form or another. Utah is a Mormon state but not a 100% LDS providence. The will of the community should be reflected in the laws but knuckleheads like Senators Waddoups and John Valentine of Orem are way over their heads when they start making laws about liquor. If you can’t shoot whiskey, you sure-as-shit shouldn’t be making laws about it. You should have had something to drink stronger than Dimetapp when making decisions regarding alcohol sales in a state that prides itself on tourism.

All of this Zion curtain talk doesn’t impact me at Keys On Main. Our liquor license allows us to pour drinks as if, wait for it, we’re a bar. As far as I am concerned, it is these kinds of debates that make people from other states think that Utah is chockfull of radical bomb-throwing polygamist. We’re the second-coming of Carrie Nation with anti-saloon leagues popping up on every corner. It’s a shame that every time we make national news it’s because of some crack-pot liquor law or high profile kidnapping. However, if we are going to be the laughing stock of the country let us at least fight about something that would make a real impact in the state. Here are a handful of things that I would like to see changed in Utah’s liquor law and culture in my lifetime.

Full strength beer on tap. For the life of me, I can’t believe at one point in time I actually defended 3.2% beer. Sure, Utah brewers make delicious tap beer and I am not faulting their efforts but I am certain that they have brewers that can easily re-fit any brewery to make full strength beer. The real impact of not being able to serve full strength beer on tap is that there is a de facto prohibition on beers that we can sell. Because Stella Artois doesn’t make a 3.2% version of their beer, there is no way I can legal pour a draft of Stella at Keys. Most beers made throughout the world could never be poured in SLC simply because they don’t meet the arbitrary 3.2% standard. It’s a shame because a lot of beers available both in a bottle or tap have different flavors. Newcastle in a bottle tastes like sea water. Newcastle on tap tastes like heaven. It is laughed out loud funny how stupid this rule is. If you don’t think people can’t get drunk off of 3.2% draft beer, don’t visit any bar in Utah at any time. The vast majority of over-served patrons are hammered off of beer. They just push their bladder to the limit every time they hit the club.

Selling cold beer at the liquor store. They sell full strength beer in bottles and cans in Utah but you have to go to a state run liquor store to buy it. That’s fair. It’s inconvenient but at least I can still buy Pacificos and Sierra Nevadas. But here is the bitch in the bunch, they don’t sell it refrigerated. They are sold out of cases in the middle of the liquor stores at room temperature. Huh?!? What are they afraid of? That I am going to pop the top off a Labatt’s at the cash register and go driving around town looking for under-aged children to molest? The guys in the white panel vans who need liquor courage to do this don’t need cold beer. Guys like me who like to pick up a six-pack on the way to a family barbeque do.

And while we’re at it, how come they can’t sell a six-pack of Coke and an eight pound bag of ice at the liquor store? Would it kill the DABC liquor stores to sell smokes, a Penthouse and a bag of Cheetos? It’s ridiculous that you can’t buy cups or mixers at the liquor store. Its back to Mr. Panel Van: do they really think we’re making margaritas in the car for the long drive home? Those who drink and drive are going to do it anyway and making me drive to three places to get everything I need to make a proper Manhattan at home just makes me want to open one of those warm beers for the drive. If liquor stores are operated for profit, they should maximize their profits by offering secondary products that people who willingly purchase. Think of how much time I would save if I could buy a carton of Kools, a handle of vodka and a Barely Legal in one stop? Hours.

Clean up the liquor store at 200 West & 400 South. Since we’re talking about liquor stores, how come the busiest liquor store in the State of Utah looks like something out of Berlin in 1945? By volume, this is the busiest liquor store in the state, yet I feel like I am in the movie Blade Runner any time I go on a beer run. I’d feel safer buying a bottle of Jameson from a camel trader in Beirut than going to this liquor store at night. Of course out-of-towners have a bad impression of how we sell our package liquor when they have to step over drunks, winos and panhandlers to get a bottle of merlot. As a rule of thumb, if my mother can’t go to a place unescorted without me loaning her a .38 Special then she’s not going. For the record I want to be perfectly clear on this one point: “Mama, you are not allowed to go to the 200 West & 400 South liquor store alone. We’ll go together or you’ll have to do without any Dewar’s White Label.” Sweet Pete, have you ever seen the liquor store on a Saturday night around 9:30? It makes the Gathering of the Juggalos look like an open air bible study class. Shoppers are frantic trying to get enough booze to survive till Monday. The Store is painfully under-staffed with surly cashiers and distracted cops more interested in nabbing shoplifters than protecting them on their way to their cars. It smells like wet garbage all the time and it’s filled with the worst representations of the state. They have built a couple of nice stores in town but isn’t it time we have a superstore in downtown Salt Lake that doesn’t require a shirt made from Kevlar and a can of pepper spray? I’ll buy your warm beer. I get it that you don’t sell ice. In return, can you let me buy my booze in an environment that doesn’t make me regret my purchase?

Public transportation past last call. Keys On Main is located in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City and is directly across the street from the Gallivan Plaza TRAX stop. So, those who want to avoid drinking and driving or finding a parking spot should be able to take TRAX home to the club. But when the last train leaves at midnight and the bar doesn’t close for another hour, what good does it make for taking TRAX? For every dollar that liquor sales put into Utah’s general funds, they can’t run buses and trains to at least 2am? How about those in the service industry who are dependent upon public transportation? I know trains and booze are not directly related but think how much better things would be in SLC if you could hit the clubs, party all night and get home safely without ever getting behind the wheel of a car? How much better would the roads be? Less DUIs and the cops could focus on stopping real crime in the city. What I like most about this argument is that it is a chance for the legislature to think about problems in the community in different terms. In taking a new approach to making Salt Lake more hospitable for locals and visitors, I think we could eliminate a lot of the imagine problems this state suffers from.

Too many laws, not enough thought. My ultimate suggestion is for both sides of the liquor debate to take a deep breath and count to ten. Every single year, the liquor laws in Utah are debated and changed—sometimes for the better, other times for the worse. A lot of the time, it feels like they are fighting over the rules just for the sake of fighting. They squabble over the rules the same way Bighorn sheep act during a rut. Well, enough is enough. I am calling upon a three year moratorium for any changes to the laws. Just like any good whiskey needs to age in an oak barrel before being drinkable, Utah needs to stop making ticky-tacky changes to the laws every twelve months and really determine the direction they want for booze in the state. And the same goes for the lobbyists petitioning the State Legislature to turn Utah into Nevada. I support the work of the Utah Hospitality Association (UHA) but if left to their own accord, I can’t help but think they want to turn SLC into Marti Gras. Granted, the laws in Utah are goofy but we’re still able to pour drinks, buy bottles of wine and do shots. Utah is very conservative but that hasn’t stopped me or the thousands of people I serve every week from getting drunk. Both sides of the debate need to get some perspective of the impact of their actions have upon the sale of alcohol in the state and there is no way to get this perspective when everything is in constant motion. The state legislature needs to stop tinkering with the liquor laws if only to observe the impact of their decisions. Selfishly, legislators should stop making laws for three years just to annoy the hell out of the UHA. Nothing irritates an annoying child than ignoring them.

It’s time for another Beer Summit. Senators Valentine and Waddoups need to swing by Keys On Main to have a beer with UHA President, Trenton David, and Piper Down owner, David Morris. In a perfect world, over pints of Guinness and Shirley Temples, I am sure they could come to some sort of agreement. Part of my job as a bartender is to settle arguments and I think when presented with both sides of the dispute, I can come to a decision. This probably won’t happen but I would still love to pour those drinks.

Ben Raskin can be found behind the bar at Keys On Main Wednesday through Saturday. Follow him on Twitter @BennyRaskin, his Tumblr feed or become a fan of Behind The Bar on Facebook.

(Montana) State of the Union

2011-09-03T14:35:00.000-07:00

School is back in session and that’s good for business. The summer doldrums are over and the city’s storefronts are covered in large ‘U’ paintings. The days are shortening and the nights are getting cooler. It’s the best part of the year. For such a horrible winter, wet spring and mediocre summer, I am ready to get to fall and the best part of living in Utah. My summer had highs and lows. We were able to get the yard and garden into great shape this year. It’s amazing what you can do when you sell a bar—you finally have time to clean up your house. We did some hiking, ate some great barbeque, rode bikes and hung out with friends. On the downside, I had a wandering catalytic converter problem, got hit by a car and suffered through every Twilight Series concert. Bartending was good this summer but I owe that mostly to out-of-towners and bachelorette parties. I am ready to get back to pouring drinks for locals. The worst the weather, the better the business. Bring on the fall and bring on the college students.

Like the sparrows returning to San Juan Capistrano, the bars see a wave of college students with recently cashed UHEAA loan checks. They’re healthy, fashionably dressed, happy to be 21 and drinking in a bar with their friends. The weight of the school year is still a week away and the beer is cold enough for them to forget that college is hard. Even though they cash-n-carry every transaction, they are pleasant enough and it is relatively fun enough slinging drinks for them. I have enough grey in my beard to good-naturally taunt them for not having cash or talking out of their asses. It’s a fun position to be in and I’ve seen it for the last ten years. With the exception of having to recreate some cocktail they had on vacation or deal with customers who have been hitting the Car Bar (drinking in their vehicle), it’s a good time of the year.

I debated calling this column, “Don’t worry about Tyler graduating,” because there is an endless stream of Tylers to replace him. It seems like every other customer is named Tyler, Josh or Matt. For the ladies, they run in packs of Jessicas, Ashleys and Brittanys. Every parent in 1990 should have stopped taking their cues from Friends and 90210 when naming their kids. They also should have taught their kids how to communicate. If we dug up Ray Charles and plopped him in the middle of this pandemonium of parrots, all he would hear would be an audible tsunami of “Dude!” and F-bombs. He would have considered his reanimation as being equally a crime against nature and very annoying.

There’s a difference between bartending in a club and a bar. Clubs are fast-paced, loud and fluid. Bars tend to be places where you can hunker down and drink in the company of friends and often the bartender. Slow play versus gunslinging. Slow play is working the bar, talking to all of the customers, getting to know your regulars and generally looking like Coach from Cheers. Gunslinging is turning your ball cap backwards, pouring as quickly as possible, yelling at your guests to “shit or get off the pot” and trying to turn as many customers as possible. I prefer slow play but I’ve made my living as a gunslinger for a long time. Keys On Main is a gunslinger bar on Fridays and Saturdays and if it’s a good week, I don’t get a chance to slow play at all. If it’s a great week, I get to do both.

Thursday was one of those nights. It was the home opener of the University of Utah’s football season. The Utes have recently joined the reformatted Pac-12 and the excitement of the possibilities was buzzing throughout the valley. The Utes had drawn a sacrificial lamb in Montana State for their inaugural game in the Pac-12 and every Utah man, woman and child was awaiting the slaughter. You couldn’t have thrown a rock and not hit somebody wearing a red Utes shirt. Trust me, I know—I threw a dozen rocks on my way to work. I was told that I was allowed to wear University of Utah gear to work on home football games. Instead, I elected to just wear my normal weekday uniform on Thursday of cargo shorts and black Izod. I am a Utah man in zip code only. My allegiance is to the University of Nevada and you can’t have two mistresses.

I’m not a huge football fan. I always preferred baseball. I never played football in high school and I wasn’t particularly interested in watching it as a kid. Growing up in Las Vegas, I was much more interested in looking at my father’s parlay cards and making my picks. At the end of the day, all I cared about was wins/loses. Football was academic, pure and simple. I cared more about a team covering the spread than who won or lost. Because Las Vegas is such a transient town, there was a strip mall bar that supported every team in the league. I always wondered how you support a team when your town supports all of them. Al Davis had moved the Raiders to Los Angeles when I was in high school and I associated the ubiquitous black and silver jerseys at high school with gangster rap. What can I say? I was a wuss growing up. When I went to college at Reno Nevada, I became a Wolf Pack fan simply because I had school spirit and I liked drinking in a parking lot. Tailgating trumped sitting in the student section at Mackay Stadium. After graduation, I stopped watching football with the exception of the Super Bowl or if I was fighting a Sunday hangover. I found fantasy football less healthy than heroin and since living in Utah, I preferred spending my Sundays up in the mountains or puttering around the house.

However, I do know where my bread is buttered when it comes to game day. And on Thursday, I knew it was going to be with the Bobcats of Montana State. It goes without saying, Keys On Main is not a sports bar. Hell, we don’t even get ESPN on the television. Before they moved the TRAX transfer station from Gallivan Plaza to Courthouse, we used to get people leaving Rice-Eccles on their way south to Sandy but the days of people pre-loading at the club before a game are essentially over. I knew we’d be awash in Montana State fans by the end of the night because we are located to all of the downtown hotels. For somebody without a dog in the fight, I knew that I was going to have a chance to pour a lot of drinks.

Montana State is located in Bozeman and from their citizen’s mouth to God’s ear, it is heaven on Earth. I’ve never been there before but I can imagine it being beautiful. What parts of Montana I’ve been to is jaw-dropping majestic. After Alaska, I always consider Montana to be the last frontier in the Americas. My impression of the average Montanan is burly, jean wearing, hard drinking and fiercely independent with a dusting of cowboy poetry. They’re tough without arrogance. When you live in a state that occasional gets August snowfall it’s bound to toughen you up. Glacier National Park is amazing and Missoula is a great college town. You can't get a better beer buzz than in West Yellowstone and their borders protects a large part of the United States from Canada. America would be better with more Montanas and less Floridas.

The boosters from Bozeman arrived in a slow trickle but quickly became a flash flood. They were decked out in yellow and black T-shirts, Montana State hats and smiles from ear-to-ear. Utah might have beaten them 27-10 but Montana State took it to the Utes in the second half and they came to celebrate. The point spread was 28 ½ and Utah looked pretty beatable in the third and fourth quarter. The Bobcats won the moral victory of surviving the Utes and their fans were at Keys On Main to rejoice Montana State’s solid showing. I went from to not having a soul in the bar at 10pm to having a mini-Bozeman in the blick of an eye. They drank Miller Lite and Coors Light like it was going out of fashion and took their Crown Royal with water. The piano players quickly realized that it wasn’t going to be a normal night. The show became less dueling piano and more like saloon minstrel. They played their catalog of standard tunes while the Montana State fans swung dance and took shots of Jim Beam.

I got the same sort of complaints when they first came into the club: your beer is fake, can’t get a decent drink, how come I didn’t have to join a private club and so on. I try to be diplomatic with the customers but their T-shirts told me that they weren’t going to become regular guests. I took my cocktail shaker and banged my cocktail spoon against it like a chuck wagon bell and told them the deal. With a captive audience of about 30 people, I told them how we were going to do it this Thursday night. Order what we have, paid for what you order and don’t complain about Utah. Complaints against my club would result in getting kicked out. They nodded in unison and I iced the cake by telling them that for one night, Keys On Main was a Montana State bar. They roared in approval and the party began.

They were a really fun group of people. Even though I had my back against the wall pouring beers and shots (hey Utah, take a note: they drank shots of whiskey not Red Headed Sluts), I had time to switch between gunslinging and slow play. I traded jokes with the group and talked about the football game. I didn’t get a chance to watch it but they filled me in on every detail of the second half. There was a pure sense of pride as they talked about their team. They were genuinely proud of the Bobcats accomplishments and were elated on how well the game ended. Moreover, they weren’t sore losers. For every pro Bobcat comment someone wished the Utes the best of luck in the Pac-12. It was a special kind of night. Sure, they were drunk and were on their way to installing a well-placed hangover for the seven hour drive back to Bozeman but it was innocent and fun.

I think what I liked most about them is that in a way I was one of them. I grew up in the suburbs of Las Vegas but I really came of age in Reno. When people ask me where I am from, I always say Nevada because I like having roots in both the northern and southern parts of the state. Live in Reno long enough and you pick up some hick habits. And maybe that is what I liked about them. We’re all hicks. We all live in the intermountain west. I figure people from Northern Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Western Colorado and Montana are all pretty much the same. There is both good and bad folks in this part of the country. I believe that we share a lot of the same values and characteristics. In one form or another, we all think of ourselves as a cross between Kit Carson, Picabo Street and Robert Redford.

My favorite moment of the night was at last call. They had been drinking like demons for a couple of hours when I took the last order of the night. I poured 15 plastic cups of Bud Light for the remaining guests in the bar to drink while I started cleaning up. They paid for it on a dozen different credit cards (I guess they have more in common with the average U of U student than I thought) and got to work downing the last beers of the night. One guy who had been jawing my ear off all night about our liquor laws gave me a going away fist-pump and proceeded to palm four cups of beer. He was heading to the door for the long walk back to the Grand America Hotel. My door guy, Aron, stopped him and told him that he couldn’t leave with an open container and he would have to drink his beers in the bar. The guy was incredulous. He couldn’t believe that he wasn’t allowed to leave with beers. I was impressed not because of his limited knowledge of state law but that he actually could carry four beers from the bar to the door. My max is three plastic cups and how the Hell was he going to be able to drink them on his five block walk without spilling them all over his shirt? I was half-tempted to let him try. He begged and pleaded but Aron held strong. He begrudgingly went back to the bar and polished them off over the next hour.

The last straggler left right at 2am. We locked the doors and returned Keys On Main back to a University of Utah bar. The bar looked like a bomb went off and we cleaned for the next hour before heading home. It wasn’t my best night. I might like Montanans but they’re mediocre to okay as tippers. Quantity over quality saved my night but it was one of those rare nights I would have bartended for free. I met a wide group of people from Bozeman who travelled a long distance to support their team. They came from all walks of life: nurses, students, miners, writers, insurance salesmen and college administrators. A real mixed bag. My favorite customer of the night son was beginning his freshman year at the University of Nevada and we talked about the pros and cons of going to school in Reno. I told him that my time in college was the best period of my life and I hope his son has a similar experience. Time in college is the best and I am looking forward to the upcoming weeks to sling drinks for U of U students. It’s a good period in one’s life and I hope a handful of them recognize it.

I started writing a column my senior year in high school when Mr. Wright convinced both the principal and my parents that instead of expelling me for inappropriate school essays I should work for the student newspaper. I guess submitting a story about losing your virginity to your 11^th grade English teacher isn’t that hot of an idea. The first story Mr. Wright published of mine was about collecting butterflies in a field across from the football practice field. See, I told you I never really liked football. I won columnist of the year for Clark County my senior year and I took this recognition to college. At Nevada, Marcel Levy gave me a weekly columnist spot for the school’s paper, The Sagebrush. Under Marcel’s tutelage and prodding from my fellow columnist Matt Black and best friend, Fitz Whaley, I wrote Raskin’s Rhetoric for four years. I enjoyed every deadline and every moment in the Sagebrush offices writing about the nuances of college life. There’s nothing better than having a release valve to write about whatever you are thinking about during the best years of your life. But for one reason or another, when I graduated I stopped writing.

It took meeting a reporter from The Salt Lake Tribune, Bill Oram, to remind myself how much I enjoy writing. He introduced me to the wonders of Twitter and from there I stumbled onto Blogger. Blogger reminded me of what it was like being the Sagebrush offices even though I was sitting at my desk at home. It’s funny how things can take you back. I started writing this column as a way of talking, discussing and sharing everything I see from behind the bar. Life as a bartender is a rich mine to pull a lot of observations.

I have been trying to publish a column out once a week but it's really hard to find time to write. Life has a way of getting in the way of the things that you enjoy doing. Moreover, I realize that to be serious about talking about life in Utah and pouring drinks for a living, I need to honor a couple of things. For starters, thank you to everyone who has read the column. I am seriously appreciative of every download and for every comment made by the readers. Every single comment, both positive and negative, has made it all worthwhile. I realize that I am long on story and short of grammar checking but I will work harder to edit the columns before I post them. Second, I need to be more regular with my postings. Starting next week, I will be putting out two columns a week starting on Tuesday and Friday. The Tuesday column will always be about the previous week’s shift at Keys On Main or other aspects of bar life in Utah. Friday will be about anything that tickles my fancy. I would like to have a format to talk about other aspects of my life or things that are impacting us in Salt Lake City. Finally, I started a Tumblr feed to start posting pictures of all of the knuckleheads and bozos I pour draft beers for. Sometimes more can come from a photo than writing about it.

I don’t expect to ever get paid one plug nickel for writing this column but if you like what you read, please tell a friend. I am really appreciated at the number of readers and I will try to keep bringing the funny from behind the bar. If you have any questions or ideas for stories, please comment and I will get back to you. Making Manhattans, Mojitos and Martinis is easy. Writing is hard. Let’s try and see if we can make writing a column as easy as muddling an Old Fashion.

Ben Raskin bartends at Keys On Main Wednesday through Friday. Follow him on Twitter @BennyRaskin, check out the Tumblr feed or become a Facebook fan at Behind The Bar.

No Time For Backup

2011-08-23T13:07:00.000-07:00

I slid across the hood of my squad car and withdrew my sidearm. It was 300 to one. I kept thinking it was pretty good odds. The Fraternal Order of Police was having a convention in Salt Lake City and Keys On Main was getting the brunt of the business. There were over 5,000 out-of-town cops wandering the city and they were in search of strong drink and action. Descending upon my bar like a pack of mad dogs, they proceeded to drink me out of house and home in no time. A sea of men flashing their badges demanding service awaited me the moment I opened the doors and I quickly rethought my odds. Thursday night wasn’t going to be won—it was going to be survived.

When I am behind the bar, I like to think of myself as the sheriff of the club but I had a roomful of people who would quickly disagree with me. I was treated as if I had a gram of heroin and a zip gun in my sock. They had short-tempers, loud voices and dead eyes. The drink of choice was bottles of Coors Light and Miller Lite because they weren’t going to get suckered into drinking that wussy 3.2% beer (the joke was on them—both of these beers are 3.2%), Seagram’s VO, sweet vodka-based drinks and for some reason, a lot of Apricot Hefeweizen. While their body types ranged from fit-to-fat, short-to-tall, donut-to-diet in one form or another, they all sort of dressed the same. They were all wearing some casual uniform of a graphic T-shirt from one of their local bars or a collared golf shirt, cargo shorts and loafers without any socks. At the height of the night, when I had a chance to look up and survey the room, I was instantly reminded of Ralph Stedman’s drawing of the narco-convention from the second half of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

My two takeaways from the night were that cops are cheap and loud. They act like a ditzy blond who wants everything bought for them and have a voice register that only bartenders and Labrador retrievers can hear. The fact that as a group they could yell my name for five straight hours is only matched by their love of cheap, cold yellow beer. I work alone behind the bar on Thursdays with only my trusted friend and colleague, Aron, minding the door and helping me with dishes. I knew that the night was going to be brutal after the previous evening. They came in force and threatened to come back. It felt like they brought reinforcements.

Now, before some SWAT team kicks in my door and arrests me on a trumped up charge of libel, I want to go on record that I like cops. With the exception of rapping along to an NWA song, I rarely speak begrudgingly of police officers. I view them as partners with the community and an essential tool to keep crime to a minimum. I honestly think that the overwhelming majority of police officers are decent, honest and intelligent enforcers of the law. Moreover, it is essential to have a good relationship with the police if you are operating a business that sells alcohol and every single encounter I’ve had with cops at the bar has ended positive. Sure, there are a handful of knuckleheads on the force but find a profession that doesn’t have a couple of buffoons.

I like a man in uniform and so do you. Tell me you’re not strangely fascinated with their Batman-esque utility belt filled with guns, tazers, handcuffs and batons. Even the mostly grossly obese police officer looks good in their uniform. Squad cars are cool providing you’re not in the back of one and there is no vehicle more badass than a Harley-Davidson Road King Police Special. Even plain clothed police are cool with their sidearm tucked tight into their side and a badge hanging off their belt. We love John McClane, Riggs and Murdock, Dirty Harry Callahan, Popeye Doyle and Barney Fife.

With that said, I don’t hang out with cops socially. I have only a handful of police officer friends and I am usually oblivious whether or not somebody is a cop when they come to the bar. This certainly wasn’t the case last week. Instead of polite conversation about where people are from and what can I get for you, I was told three things upon immediately greeting someone: I am a cop; Salt Lake has a lot of homeless people; and you’re drinks suck. So much for what can I get you?

The vast majority of the police were from Connecticut, Oklahoma, Ohio and Kentucky. There were a couple of stray dogs from other districts around the country but these four states composed the majority of the business. They formed intensely segregated groups around the bar choosing only to mingle with members of their own state. They were practicing the drink buying game that bar owners love and bartenders hate. They were buying rounds for their tables but were suffering from sticker shock when I would drop a $54 bill on them for each round.

Those who were without a state ordered as if it was their first time in a bar. Even though the bar is filled with intoxicated patrons, beer taps, bottles of liquor and wine, they looked at me as if all I sold were beaver pelts and radiator hoses. Without exception, this was the sequence of service. They would wait impatiently for me to get to them as I was struggling to keep up with their fellow patrons, have absolutely no idea what they wanted to drink when I got to them, tap the bar nervously as if I forgot what they ordered and finally fumble through their wallet looking for a $3 or $7 bill to pay their tab. Once again, know what you want, know how you’re going to pay for it and shove off. The last thing I need is to play eye-hockey with you after I dropped your drinks off.

You can’t have a real bar story unless there is a woman. Fortunately for us, we had one. It started with a very simple question: What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything? The question was asked to a statuesque redheaded woman who probably stood a shade under six feet tall. She was fair-skinned, skinny and had tight curly red hair that went down to the middle of her back. By all accounts, she was a pretty woman. She drank Strongbow Dry Cider and shots of Jameson. I was surprised when I carded her that she was only 23 years old. She had an “old soul” about her: confident, strong and free-spirited. She sat at the end of the bar and struck up a conversation with one of the Connecticut police officers. She had a major disadvantage when she walked innocently enough into the club: she happened to be on a road trip from LA back to Connecticut. She never stood a chance. The cop, trying to be coy, asked her what the meaning of life is. Failing to get the right response from her, he asked me and I responded, “42.” I was quoting Douglas Adams and I happened to answer correctly. She immediately shouted that my answer was bullcrap and I agreed. The point of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is bullcrap but it still makes for a great read. Instead of rolling with the punches, she took this opportunity to challenge the police to a drinking competition. I don’t think I need to tell you how this ended.

I know for a fact that the most popular beer in the United States is Bud Light but surprisingly enough, the cops had a strong disdain for it. They’re drink of choice was Coors Light and Miller Lite. After two straight days of drinking us dry, we eventually got to the end of these beers. This is when pandemonium was introduced into the bar. Grown men who carry a badge and a gun for a living were dragged to their knees in shock and disappointment. I honestly thought that the room as a whole was going to walk out but they bit the bullet and moved to Bud Light bottles. But for Bud Light ordered, there was a glance shot at me that read, “I know he’s holding out on me. I’d love to get him into a windowless room.”

Here’s a little bar math for you: what do you get when you have 300 cops in a bar? 300 concealed weapons. No matter how bad things got, no matter how much I wanted to open-hand slap every fourth customer, I knew that there was a .38 Special strapped to their ankle. For the next five hours, they were drinking with the reckless abandonment. I would have tried to slow them down but they were armed and dangerous and on a mission. And the worse of the bunch were drinking things that I wouldn’t have touch back in junior high. For as tough and gruff as they were trying to be portrayed, they sure drank a lot of Apricot Hefeweizen. I want to put a particularly fine point on this observation: they drank a lot of Apricot Hefeweizen. Sure, Squatter’s makes a fine fruit-flavored beer but after a couple of gallons of it, I would be so sick I don’t think I’d have the strength to beat a confession out of a suspect. Moreover, they really enjoyed drinking one of our house drinks, The Lady Gaga. The Lady Gaga is made with strawberry-infused rum, Malibu coconut rum, pineapple and cranberry juice. Granted, this is a tasty drink but my idea of a police cocktail is a mug of Irish whiskey and a cigarette. The fact they were killing boat drinks in SLC on a Thursday night made it hard for me to take them serious.

Contrary to what most people think, I really like our dueling piano show. I think the guys playing the piano are incredible talented and I am well aware that without the show, I wouldn’t have the good problem of having a roomful of drunk cops. I get asked every night if I get tired of the show and I answer honestly that I rarely hear the show. I am usually so busy that I don’t get a chance to listen to the music. Sure, like most people who hear Billy Joel, Elton John, Journey and Bon Jovi four nights a week, 52 weeks a year, I get tired of some of the same songs but for the vast majority of my guests, it is the first time they’ve seen the show. Just because I’m tired of “Benny and The Jets (for the record, Benny in this song is a girl),” doesn’t mean I have to act put out that they play it every night. Moreover, on occasion, something special happens on stage. I get a front row seat to an incredible experience and get to witness something that has never happened before.

On Thursday, such a thing happened. For a brief moment, I actually had caught up to all of the cops. Everyone had a full drink in their hand, the dishes were washed and I had a chance to catch my breath. Grapping a drink of water, I heard the opening riff to one of my favorite songs, Elton John’s “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues.” I can’t help but think it might be Elton’s best song and his rendition with Mary J. Blige is the saddest most gut-wrenching version I have ever heard. I looked quickly up to the stage to watch one of the piano players begin belting out a great song when my vision was blocked by the tall redhead. She was sauntering across the stage seductively, tousling the hair of the Connecticut cops and gyrating to the song. Before the first verse was even over she had successfully turned the most powerfully emotional Elton John song into a poll dance. Slapping the stage with her hand and whipping her hair back and forth, she did everything short of stripping down to pasties before the end of the song. Needless to say, she was quickly cut off after that dance.

When they weren’t drinking 3.2% beer, tall strong and fruity cocktails and Apricot Hefeweizen, they were knocking back Seagram’s VO. I honestly believe after pool tables nothing has caused more fights in a bar than Seagram’s VO. It is the perfect combination of rotgut and shame in a bottle. The last real fist-fight I got into occurred almost ten years ago when I got too drunk on Seagram’s VO and Coke and decided to take on the entire door staff at the old Port ‘O Call. With a belly full of cheap charcoaled-flavored whisky, I told an army of meatheads that if they’re looking for trouble they just found it. They dragged me outside and beat the stuffing out of me. Ever since then I have always called Seagram’s VO Fight Sauce. The hair on the back of my neck always stands on end when somebody orders one and I caution the cops Seagram’s VO is known to bring out the worst in people. It fell on deaf ears.

Per usual, once a VO and Coke hits the tables, the room becomes a madhouse. The inmate running the asylum was an officer from Kentucky. He was squat and rude. With bad tattoos, a flat-top haircut and no sense of humor, he had finally become the focus of my disappointment with the room. For three straight hours he had done nothing but bad-mouthed Utah, Salt Lake City, Keys On Main and our state’s liquor laws. He was bitching about not being able to get a decent drink in this state and was telling me for the fifth time that back in Kentucky, he wouldn’t have to spend a dime on his drinks because he was a police officer. I’m an immigrant to SLC and I have chosen to make it my home. For better or worse, I live in Utah and the last thing that I will tolerate is some hateful tiny-tike from Kentucky bitching about my community. He came up for his umpteenth VO and Coke and I told him that if he makes one more snotty comment about SLC, he’d find himself out on the street.

Incredulously, he stood back and went to my doorman, Aron, to complain. Aron listened patiently as the cop complained about everything. I could see Aron breathing calmly and sizing up this whiner. Figuring enough is enough, I went over to them when I heard the cop tell Aron that there is eight of them and only one of him. Did he just say that?!? Did he just threaten us?!? Are we going to be going fisticuffs with a bunch of cops?!? In the span of one breath, I envisioned the bar exploding in violence not unlike the moments before the shootout at the OK Corral. Granted, the odds were stacked a little bit higher against us than 8 to 2 when you factor in that the fact that almost everybody in the bar is a police officer and I’m sure they still like a good hog-whipping even while on vacation. He brushed off of Aron and sat down. I looked bewildered at Aron and he gave me a knowing smile that yeah, he just threatened us. Fortunately, calmer heads prevailed but in one brief moment I thought I might be living every skaterat’s fantasy of beating up a bunch of cops without fear of getting arrested. They would have made mincemeat out of us. Still, something had to be done. When he came back to the bar for his umpteenth+one VO & Coke, I told him he’s had enough. You haven't lived until you've cut off a cop in a bar and told his friends that he is 86ed.

Through everything, we made it to closing time. At one o’clock, I was trying to tell them that I am done serving. Cinderella becomes a pumpkin at one in Utah. And it wasn’t like there wasn’t adequate warning. The piano players called out “Last Call” no less than three times and I was putting the bottles away as quickly as I could as the witching hour approached. Utah law mandates that all alcohol needs to be locked up by one o’clock and that there is no more service after that. You are given an additional hour to finish what you’ve ordered but there are no more drinks poured after the booze is secured. For people who work in law and order, you’d think that I was running some elaborate joke on the police. They honestly couldn’t believe that Utah’s last call was a full hour earlier than their state.

Instead of manning up and take their party back to their hotel room, they started negotiating with me. If they negotiated people off ledges as well as they did for beer, I would hate to walk on their city’s sidewalks. I told them that I have rules to follow and shame on you trying to make me break them. I asked for their badge number because I wanted to file a complaint. Once again, no laughs. What bummed me out more than anything was the fact that there were a bunch of smuggled beer and mini bottles in the bar at the end of the night. When we were cleaning up after all of the police officers had shoved off, the bathroom garbage cans was filled with empties that we don't sell. Even cops smuggle booze into bars.

My war cry in the middle of a busy shift is “Wrecking Ball!” I came up with it about a year ago when I stared down a bar full of customers and jokingly told them that the only way I know how to bartend is like a wrecking ball. Anytime I get a better than average tip, I yell out “Wrecking Ball!” as both a thank you and a warning to the other bartenders that I am stuffing the tip bucket that night. Well, on a night like this, I guess 4% became a wrecking ball when your customers carry a badge. When I was doing the money at the end of the night, I think I finally knew how Rodney King felt. I know they’re civil servants but after five hours of getting my teeth kicked in maybe they could have helped pay for my dental work. I honestly believe that Mormons are better tippers than cops and that’s saying a lot.

As far as I am concerned, Salt Lake City PD and the Utah Highway Patrol are cool. These people deserve a beer on the house for what they do for the community. And in fairness, most of the cops in the bar on Thursday were decent enough but a bad glazed donut can ruin the box. I guess when you’re so accustomed to getting what you want without question hearing “No” from a bartender can really put you in a tailspin. I’ll let them in next time providing they check their gun at the door and ease up on the Apricot Hefeweizen.

Ben Raskin bartends at Keys On Main Wednesdy through Saturday. Follow him on Twitter @BennyRaskin or become a fan of Behind The Bar on Facebook.

The Cackle of Bachelorettes

2011-08-18T12:26:00.000-07:00

I’ve never met her before but I suspect she has a good job. She is probably a professional with a college degree. She may even have an office assistant, an assigned parking spot and a per diem when she travels. She probably knows how to manage a small business, teach a classroom full of 4^th graders or do double-entry bookkeeping. She probably has an older brother that is her best friend and she still loves her parents. She has had the same friends for 20 years and she’s been a good friend through it all. She votes and walks her dog every day. By all accounts, she is a good and decent person. Somebody that you would want to know or have your daughter grow up to be.

Tonight, she’s dressed in her sluttiest cocktail dress, wearing a veil, covered in costume jewelry, has a hooker-amount of make-up on and is wearing a sash that reads: Bachelorette. For one night, she puts down the business planner and Blackberry and picks up the Don Magic Juan chalice. Her friends follow suit wearing stickers that read, “A hard man is good to find,” and force feed her shots throughout the night. They’re covered in suckers, enveloped in cheap perfume and hosting a variety games ranging from getting free drinks to making out with the door guy. They’re loud, demanding and absolutely unstoppable. They’re like a glacier covered in glitter and bullhorns. It’s a cackle of broads on a mission and they will not be denied.

When I quit bartending, I am probably going to regret how much time I have spent gently pouring shots in cock-shaped glasses for drunken wrecks while they are yelling, “Ashley is getting married!!!” Because I work in Utah, most of the girls having their pre-wedding party are named Ashley, Lindsay or Jennifer and to the eight readers of the column with this name, I apologize about lumping you into the drunken wreck category. However, I have poured more Wet Pussies and Copper Camels into penis-shaped shot glasses than any man in Salt Lake City and I think I’ve earned the right to generalize.

Keys On Main is the perfect bar for bachelorette parities. We do a fantastic job of accommodating these parties with our tables, drinks and entertainment. There is nothing better than listening to the dueling piano show introduction when one of the guys asks if there are any bachelorette parties and hearing the room roar in anticipation of Ashley getting on stage. As difficult as bachelorette parties are, they make for a quick and interesting study of a “Girls Night Out.”

This last Saturday was the biggest concentration of bachelorette parties we’ve had all year. It made sense considering that summer was coming to an end and so is the wedding season. In setting up the reservations on Saturday, we knew that we were going to be behind the eight-ball the moment we opened the doors. We were already short staffed on Saturday and were using two new bartenders to get through the night.

I was excited to get the night over with. I had already worked the previous three nights and had been incredibly busy. It had been a good week up to that point and I was looking forward to a couple of days off. I know I have nobody to blame but myself by putting the cart in front of the mule but I was still motivated to get the show on the road. Saturdays are double-edged swords for me. They are always the busiest night of the week. People come out of Saturdays expecting a great night and there is a lot of pressure to provide them with it. Just because you’ve spent the previous three shifts fire-man carrying drunks out of the club, yelling at people for taking their shirts off and mopping up exploding toilets doesn’t mean Saturday’s guest deserve any less of an experience at the club.

The people started slowly trickling into the club around eight o’clock. Per usual, it was a mixed bag. There were out-of-towners spending their last night in SLC in the club. There were conventioneers, birthday party revelers, couples on date night, college kids from the U of U and the greater part of West Valley City spending the evening with us. The D-bag count was at its normal level of high to very high and the hoochies left their underground bunkers for evening and flocked to the bar. It had all of the makings of a crazy night.

The first shot across the bow was a textbook example of a bachelorette. She was dressed in an old wedding dress that was two sizes too small and she had enough booze on her breath to start a campfire. I asked her what the occasion was and her three friends in tow yelled (and I am not kidding): “Ashley is getting married!!!” I asked what she wanted and I swear that I could not understand a word she said. It was like she had a mouthful of marbles and her demand for a “dime entator” fell on confused ears. I asked her friend what she wanted and she told me that the bride-to-be was from Scotland. Wonderful but what does she want? Her friend told me that they wanted a round of Mind-Erasers. Great, Robert of Bruce was already compounding the injury to her noggin with a chugger of Kahlua, vodka and soda water.

I didn’t have much of a chance to take in the movable feast. We had a full bar, the piano show had started and the steady flow of customers into the bar had turned into a geyser. Even though we have enough booze and mixers to make well over 10,000 drinks, I would argue that I essentially only make about five—six, if you count pouring Bud Light drafts. People love their vodka and tonics, Red Bull and Vodka and their AMFs. It’s unfortunate that vodka has become the national drink. 200 years ago, George Washington was distilling his own whiskey and consuming two bottles of Port a night. The Civil War was fought and won on a belly full of corn mash. And now, beefy guys filling out Affliction T-shirts with a wafer-thin blonde on their tattooed arm are complaining that their Red Bull isn’t cold enough for their little drinks. America was tougher when a belt of bourbon chased with a bourbon on the rocks followed by a carafe of bourbon for the ride home was the drink of choice. Think I am wrong? Tell me Mad Men isn’t the coolest show on TV.

I think it’s funny that the most popular shot for a bachelorette parties is the Blow Job. Before you through your Kindle across the room in disgust, let me tell you about the shot. In a standard shot glass, I pour a single ounce of Bailey’s Irish Cream and then top it off with a dollop of whipped cream. Sounds simple enough but you have to drink the shot without using your hands. The ending result is a table full of women covered in whipped cream and 300 extra calories. I like it when a drink resembles the name. The aforementioned Mind-Erasers does exactly that. I find myself mocking Mobile’s economy and cultural history after a couple of Alabama Slammers. I guess that’s why most of the people in the bar are disappointed when a round of Blow Jobs hits the tables.

The simplest things can make or break a night. Nothing slows down or ruins a perfectly good night behind the bar like running out of ice or not having enough glassware. Breaking a glass in the ice is the eternal sin of bartending. Sometime things are slowed down behind the bar due to the bartender struggling to remember how to make a drink or the dishwasher breaks down. More often than not, if you want to know why you’re waiting for your seventh Red Bull and Vodka, don’t look at me. Look to your right and left and tell your fellow customers to learn how to act in a bar.

It is ridiculous that when you finally get my attention in the sea of people yelling at me, you have absolutely no idea of what you want. If this column teaches you one thing I would hope it is this sequence of events. Know what you want and know how you’re going to pay for it. That Stoli and soda with lime and two shots of Jaeger are still mine until you give me the $15. Have you credit card in your hand or get your money out of your wallet. Meet me halfway. In the time it takes for me to pour three drinks, you can open your clutch and give me your money.

The biggest cliché of the rookie drinker is when asked if they would like to start a tab and they tell me that they can’t because they’re afraid they are going to forget their card. My Lord! What kind of amateur drinker obtains complete amnesia after a couple of drinks? This statement means that you probably shouldn’t be in the bar in the first place. Does this mean you are so wildly irresponsible that you can’t remember to close your tab out after three Blue Moons? I am not familiar with a lightning fast credit card machine that closes you out in the blink of an eye. Credit card machines are slow and I’ve timed it at the bar. It takes 27 seconds to run a credit card. And when I am running your card, your fellow patrons are shooting daggers at me for not getting to them faster. Grow a pair of balls, trust me to not lose your card and start a tab. If you can’t do that, be a man and pay for your drinks in cash.

Bachelorettes are notorious for being time burglars. Five scantily dressed girls came up to the bar and demanded shots. I asked what did they want and they listed five different shots: Lemon Drop, Gummy Bear, Kamikaze, Purple Hooter and Grape Popsicle. All five are shaken and all of them require a moment to make. In a perfect world, they would have ordered five shots of tequila but who am I to ruin her special night? I lay out the glasses and start pouring the drinks. As I got the first three made, the bachelorette grabbed her drink and shot it. I finished making the other two and she wanted another Gummy Bear. I begrudgingly made her a second drink. They took their drinks and turned their backs to me. My Lord. I yelled at them that they owned me $36 and they gave me a look that would revival Medusa. First off, they assumed they were on the house. Second, they didn’t know who was paying for what. And third, they were all paying separately. They gave me five different credit cards and I went to go ring them up. When I returned to give them the slips to sign, I made the mistake of charging the bachelorettes drinks on another girl’s card. She started to read me the riot act until I told her to put a sock in it. First off, she should pay for the bride-to-be’s drink and two, you can’t get indignant with me when you’re paying with a Hello Kitty credit card. A Hello Kitty credit card has the same gravitas as a Sponge Bob Square Pants backed Visa.

Bachelorettes order their drink via committee. They don’t know what they want and I think that is pretty scary considering that they are going to be married in less than a week. I think this is endemic in Utah with people getting married so young. People in their late 20s or early 30s don’t act as if what they order will be their last chance of freedom. Getting married at the same age that lets you into the bar seems like a bad idea. When I was 21 years old, I could barely take care of myself. The chances of me being at best a mediocre husband was a longshot. I can’t imagine what is going through their rum-filled head as their friends dance on stage to Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.” Hopefully, they recognize the irony of getting their last hurrahs out of the way to a song that details an abusive relationship.

Sometimes I mistake a bachelorette party with a Girls Night Out (GNO). Initially, they are very similar but in talking with a GNO, you find out that they are a lot more put together. They’re going out to enjoy each other’s company and keep the D-bags a full six feet away from them. They don’t order like drunken pirates and don’t haggle over prices. They want what I think all of us want—a little bit of fun on the weekends. Maybe you have to go through your bachelorette phase to enjoy the GNO. Lord knows after drinking a baker’s dozen of Long Islands through a penis-shaped straw you might just want a relatively quiet night out with the girls.

Nonetheless, enjoy your night out, Bachelorette. Drink, dance and scream your head off for the night. Come in dressed to the nines and leave with your head in a garbage bag. I hope your friends hold back your hair and hold your purse when you’ve finally have enough. Hopefully, this is a once in a lifetime experience for you and I want you to get home safely. You’ll be entering a new phase of your life and I hope this chapter doesn’t include you paying for your drinks with a Hello Kitty credit card. Get a Dora The Explorer. You’ve earned it.

Follow me on Twitter @BennyRaskin or become a fan of Behind The Bar on Facebook.

Save My Bacon

2011-08-15T12:21:00.000-07:00

I sold The Woodshed on the 2^nd of November in 2009. It was a bittersweet day. For almost three years I was running my first bar at the expense of family and friends and I was mostly running the bar into the ground. I might have known how to make a Fuzzy Navel and a Perfect Manhattan but I didn’t know the first thing about operating a business. Mixing drinks is easy; paying taxes, doing pay-roll, keeping up on licenses or keeping the lights on is damn hard. Moreover, if you think the Utah liquor laws are bad, try running a bar in Utah. Utah doesn’t have a great drinking culture and the people regulating alcohol for the state have never had anything stronger than a Shirley Temple.

I made mistakes every day and to my chagrin, I made the same mistakes over and over again. I was a horrible businessman and I should have had the foresight to recognize that there is a humongous chasm between making a martini and making a business work. I did whatever I could to keep the doors open and in the process I hurt a lot of people that placed their trust in me by lying and manipulating anybody to make it just one more day. I felt like I was running a rattlesnake farm and chose not to keep any anti-venom on property. Things had gotten so bad at The Woodshed for me that I went and got a day job at ARUP Labs as a specimen processor.

The wheels had fallen off the wagon.

I had reached rock-bottom in October of 2009 and knew that I needed to get out. I placed an ad online and prayed that I would get an offer. I knew the bar had potential—it just needed somebody with more horse sense that I had. Immediately, I received a lot of interest and I had two very serious offers. After weighing the two offers, I went with the current owner because he vowed to keep my staff on for three months. After everything I put my people through, the last thing I wanted to do was hand out pink slips when I handed over the keys. The new owner turned out to be a good man and he has done a good job running The Woodshed since taking over.

I signed the papers on November 2^nd and was relieved to be done with an ugly chapter of my life. I was free from running the bar and I still had my job at ARUP. I felt as if a weight had been lifted off my chest and replaced with a considerably lighter one. After signing the papers, I remember driving home trying to figure out where I was going to take Erin out for a celebratory dinner. However, pulling into my driveway I saw a squad car in front of the house and a police officer talking with my girlfriend. What should have been the happiest day in recent years was marred by an ugly violation: somebody broke into our house and wiped us out.

It could have been a lot worse. Our dog, Samson the Beavergoat, wasn’t hurt and they didn’t trash the place too bad. The house was disheveled not destroyed. We lost computers, electronics, money and my Fender Stratocaster but our dog wasn’t harmed and they didn’t smash any of our windows. We were getting ready to start the next phase of our life and this happened. So, we did what everyone does after an intrusion: we put in a security system, beefed up our locks and installed a moat.

Bummer. Major league bummer.

For the first time in ten years, I wasn’t working the holiday season behind the bar. I became a Johnny Lunchbox for the first time since working as an electrician in Las Vegas. I was working a nine-to-five and finally getting to spend time with my family. I needed it. I was a wreck. Three years of running The Woodshed by myself had taken a toll on my heath and I need this time to repair any of the damage that I created with my poor judgment. I had high blood pressure, I was over-weight, I was drinking too much and I was irrationally angry. In a word, I was depressed. I needed time to reconnect with my home life and do something that I hadn’t been in years: be present.

I started going back to the gym, put down the bottle and started sleeping for the first time since forever. During the heyday of The Woodshed, I was working in the morning at ARUP, driving straight to The Woodshed and managing or bartending till 2 in the morning five nights a week. I was sleeping around four hours a night. I was tired in a way that destroyed any opportunity for to take any pleasure in anything. It was a miserable way to live and in selling the bar, I finally had a chance to get a little rest. In looking back, I think it was very possible that I could have keeled over at any point from a heart attack.

Selling the bar saved my life.

I finally had a decent holiday season with Erin. I was still in the hangover from running The Woodshed but I was getting my feet underneath me. Yet, something was missing. I loved being home and not having the phone ringing at all hours of the night from creditors looking for their money but I didn’t feel good about where my life was. Erin has always been supportive and she knew what the problem was immediately. She knew I hated my job at ARUP and that I missed bartending. She kept pushing me to find a job that I liked and I eventually got out looking for a bartending job.

The problem was there was nothing out there and if there was, nobody wanted anything to do with me. I don’t blame them either. Why would you hire some ex-bar owner after a couple of months of selling his business and put him behind your bar? The last thing any owner wants is somebody second guessing every decision they make and trying to convert their club into an amalgamation of somebody else’s vision. I made phone calls and dropped applications off at every club I wanted to work at with no luck. Because it is a Small Lake City, everybody knows each other in the bar scene and the only chance to get hired is word of mouth. I guess how I acted during The Woodshed years didn’t help my chances of getting any shifts in the near future.

In the end, I got hired at Keys On Main on a whim. I had worked at The Tavernacle for over five years when I left to open The Woodshed. Even when I had my own club, I always thought of myself as a Tavernacle guy. The owners at Tav were instrumental in getting my doors open and I have always been eternally grateful for their support and friendship. However, when I asked for my old job back, they weren’t able to help me out because they already had a full-staff. Sheepishly, I called the owner of Keys On Main and asked if he needed any help. I told him I was only looking for a couple of nights a week and I was willing to barback or watch the front door. I just needed to get back into the bar scene again. He told me to hold tight and he was going to call me back in 15minutes.

During that quarter of an hour, I felt nervous and excited. I was embarrassed that I called The Tavernacle’s competition but I needed the work. I got a phone call back and was told that I can start on the next Friday behind the bar. Wow! I found out later that I had called at the absolutely perfect time: my boss was in the middle of firing a bartender when I interrupted him. They were getting ready to put an ad in the paper to replace him when I called.

This was a year and a half ago. I have been bartending at Keys On Main for four nights a week since that fateful phone call and I have never looked back. With the exception of the hours, I love everything about my job. In truth, I wish I could make the money that I do by working that foreign nine-to-five shift but that is the trade-off to working a great club. Initially I was nervous about getting back behind the bar but I got my bartending legs back pretty quickly. I learned the culture of Keys On Main and I hope that I have been a solid addition to the staff. I like being the lead bartender and working with my co-workers on problem resolution and customer service. There is a litany of problems that come up in the bar business that no other field has and I enjoy being a part of the on-goings of the club.

I could make the argument that I have seen more dueling piano shows than anybody else in the State of Utah. For seven years between The Tavernacle and Keys On Main, I have seen four piano shows a week. I’ve probably have seen more piano shows than even the piano players. I get asked this question a lot: “Don’t you hate hearing the same music every single night?” and I have to answer in all honesty, “No.” Sure, I hear a lot of the same songs but the majority of the time, I am too busy pouring drinks that it is just background music at best. Moreover, just because I have heard Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” for the 300 time doesn’t mean the people in the club have. Moreover, every now and then, something special happens on stage to remind me why I work at the best club in Salt Lake City. Be it a new tune or the piano players developing a new bit, bartending at Keys On Main is about the anticipation of something about to happen. It is very exciting and makes for a great place to work.

Bartending in Salt Lake use to mimic the parable of the ants and the grasshopper. Unlike the ants that work all summer to survive the winter, in Utah I use to have to work all winter to get through the summer. It was seasonal work but that is not the case anymore. For the last two summers at Keys On Main, we have been getting busier and attracting new customers ever night. What this translates to is good money in a super fun environment. Because we are situated by the Gallivan Center, the Salt Palace, the TRAX stop and being in the heart of downtown, we always have new customers coming through the doors. Because of the success of the bar, I was able to leave my job at ARUP. Working at Keys On Main saved my bacon and has allowed me to spend more time with my family, in the boxing gym, writing and developing a sense of pride in what I do.

With that said, Keys On Main is growing and I need people to grow with me. Myopically, we thought that this summer was going to be slow and it turned out not to be the case. We have been operating with a shoestring staff for the last three months and we are going to need experienced cocktail waitresses, barbacks and bartenders to join our team. We have been running ads on KSL and Craig’s List but that hasn’t brought in the right applicants. We’re looking for people who can commit to working Fridays and Saturdays and want to learn to work in a super-high energy club.

I am Salt Lake’s premier bartender not because I can make the best Bacardi Mojitos or Cadillac Margaritas but because I work with the best people. From ownership to managers to bartenders to cocktails to doormen to piano players, I am able to shine because I work with the best. I call it the Harry Stamper Phenomenon. Surround yourself with good people and you have a chance to excel. Right now Keys On Main is transitioning to our busy season and we need applicants. Come down to 242 South Main Street and fill out an application after 7pm if you want to work with the best. No phone calls and don’t ask for an application after ordering a drink. Most people don’t interview well with beer on their breath.

The Woodshed years are slowly closing behind me. I still have a couple of loose ends to mend but everything is better since I started slinging drinks at Keys On Main. I don’t miss the stress of making everything work and I am happy to find a balance between work and home. I like my place in the main well, meeting customers as they come through the door and pouring them drinks. If only the hours were a little bit better.

Follow me on Twitter @BennyRaskin or become a fan of our Facebook Fan Page at Behind The Bar.

When The Circus Comes To Town

2011-08-03T14:08:00.000-07:00

I was setting up the bar last Thursday afternoon preparing for a busy night. The night before had been busy with a large group of salesmen from McGraw-Hill in the bar. Wednesday night had been a scouting party for Thursday’s evening of debauchery. When you think of McGraw-Hill, you probably think of every textbook you have ever used from K-12. When I think of McGraw-Hill, I think I’d better cut extra fruit because they drink like bastards. The bar math is simple: (out-of-towners + team building workshop + poor impression of Utah’s liquor laws) x corporate credit card = a bar full of drunks screaming “Piano Man” for five hours.

I was still recovering from getting sideswiped by a car. I was super-sore and I haven’t spared anyone from my non-stop whining about Utah drivers and my lack of heath care. My elbow has healed up pretty nice but my right knee still looks like raw hamburger. I forget how taxing bartending is on my body because I am so busy and don’t have time to notice. For nine hours, I am on my feet moving, bending and lifting all the while talking with guests, pouring drinks and trying to keep my silent judgments to myself. I never have a chance to take stock of my body until I am doing money at the end of the night. By that time all I want is beer and Motrin.

Setting up the bar is a time consuming enterprise. It involves pulling out all of the bottles from the cabinets, filling ice bins, cutting fruit, stocking beer and cleaning. Berg counts need to be made, banks double-checked and tables organized. I spend a lot of time fielding phone calls and making reservations for the weekend. It takes about two hours. I call this time “putting make-up on the pig.” After applying enough mascara and lipstick, I turned the neon lights on and opened the doors.

It is traditionally pretty slow in the club from 7pm until the dueling piano show starts. The real draw of the club is the two guys on stage banging out the all-request show. I usually get a handful of people waiting to catch Trax, grabbing a quick drink after work or wondering in trying to use the bathroom. Thursday was different. I had a pretty full bar the moment I opened the doors. They were a combination of people going to Pioneer Park for the Twilight Concert Series, German tourist visiting our National Parks and construction workers. I slung drinks and ran plates of nachos from the kitchen. It had all of the beginnings of a great night until these two guys came strolling into the bar.

They looked like they were 14 years old but their ID’s said they were 23. I told them that we didn’t have a cocktail waitress and that they would have to order from the bar. They told me that it wouldn’t be a problem and asked if they could put together a couple of tables. No problem. After helping them set-up four tables in front of the pianos, I asked if they would like anything to drink. They asked what non-alcoholic drinks we had when a smile stretched across my face. Oh boy, Mormons! Better warm up the blender for virgin piña coladas! I told them Coke, Sprite and Diet Coke. The kiss of death came when they asked if we offered free refills. In a brief moment of weakness, I said yes providing you bring me the glass. I should live to eat my words.

My complaints regarding Mormons are limited to the State Legislature and inside of the club. Nobody put a gun to my head when I moved to Salt Lake ten years ago. I moved here on my on my own volition and to complain that there are a lot of Mormons in Utah is like complaining there’s a lot of Catholics in the Vatican or Muslims in Mecca. For better or worse, they came here before us and it’s their city. Nitpicking the LDS influence in Utah simply indicates you don’t understand the history of the state.

I love having them as neighbors. I just hate have them setting policy in the legislature and ordering mock-tails from me. But I figured, how bad can it be? It’s just a couple of soda pops, right? The problem was that they were needy and asked too many questions about bar life. This wouldn’t have been a problem if they ordering booze but for some reason I am less apt to talk about Salt Lake’s drinking culture when you’re slugging back Sprite for an hour. I still had a bar full of customers chugging beer and they were slipping off my to-do list.

As we were getting closer to showtime, the bar was filling up and I was starting to move. Just as the piano players were getting ready to hit the first chords of the night, a line of people started entering the bar. If a flock of crows are called a murder, a cluster of whales a pod and a gathering of owls a parliament, let’s call a group of LDS males a Circus of Mormons. With that said, the circus came to town on Thursday night.

Both the McGraw-Hill party and the rest of the Circus came through the door at the same time. In one moment, I went from busy to slammed. The book peddlers congregated around the bar and ordered a series of beers, whiskeys and mojitos. Mojitos are the time-burglar of drinks until a corporate credit card is handed over to me. Once I get that AMEX in my hand, we can all pretend we’re in Havana for the evening. The Circus, on the other hand, was a little more difficult.

There were about 20 of them which sat in front of the pianos. I went out to the table to take a drink order and you would have thought it was the first time they’ve ordered a drink from somebody other than their mother. After listing the non-alcoholic drinks to every single guy, my patience was wearing thin. How entitled do you have to be to think that you can monopolize the bartender’s time while you are struggling between cranberry juice and lemonade? Of course, in every Circus there are going to be a couple of “bad boys.” These are the guys that order a can of Red Bull with the moxie of a young Mike Tyson. What should take 30 seconds drags on to an agonizing quarter of an hour simply because they don’t know how to act in a bar and they don’t think they should have to pay for anything. It should be noted that you’re not allow to play the babe-in-the-woods routine with me if you are going to oscillate between being a hardass and super-sensitive.

After running trays of soft drinks to their table, I asked them what the occasion was. They told me that they were having a bachelor party. I almost hit the floor. The success of Keys On Main is that it appeals to a large group of people. We are able to cater to a wide-breath of guests and I think we do a really good job of entertaining a diverse group of people. With that said, if I ever have a bachelor party and my best man takes me to Keys On Main, I will punch his mother in the mouth. A memorable bachelor party involves going across a state line, strippers, booze, a squad car and maybe a goat. Having my friends getting me on stage so that they can sing “My Ding-a-Ling” to me doesn’t cut it.

Somehow, I was able to fall into a strong routine between running to the circus tent and back to the bar to knockout a round of peach mojitos, 7-n-7s and Coors Lights. The book dealers were getting their swerve on. They were making quick work through our drink menu and trying every combination of mojito we offer. They were an interesting group of people. In talking with most of them, I discovered that there wasn’t a single person who wanted to sell textbooks for a living. Every one of them fell into the book business after another avenue of work closed. As a whole, they were decent people. Individually, however, there were some doozies.

There were two women fighting for the top podium spot for batshit crazy. One woman with saddleback hips, bad bangs and a voice like a banshee was screaming “Donna Summers!” the minute she walked through the door. She bellied up to the bar (literally) and ordered a Patron and dill. Thinking she meant the herb dill, I told her we didn’t have any. She pouted for a moment and told me that her favorite drink was a shot of tequila with a chaser of pickle juice. Oh! You mean a Pickled Weenie? Yeah, we got those. I ran back to the kitchen and filled a squirt bottle up with brine. For the next three hours, she ordered rounds of Pickled Weenies and became increasingly louder. To be fair she already had the volume of a Mack diesel truck. Somehow through the over-priced tequila and pickle juice shots, she was able to yell Donna Summer’s name at levels mimicking a shuttle launch. If I drank a quart of tequila and pickle juice, I would be horking for the next three days.

Her competitor was a pleasant middle-aged woman from Redding California who was disappointed with our one-ounce pours. She was complaining that I wasn’t making her rum and Cokes correctly. I might not know every drink in the Boston Bartender’s Guide but I have mastered the rum and cola a long time ago. In trying to figure out how I was making them wrong, she told me that the bar she drinks back home make the drinks better because she can’t taste the carbonation from the soda pop. I apologized but I told her that in Utah we are limited by our shot size. She told me that she had gastric by-pass surgery and she can’t have too much bubbly water. Incredible, you get elective surgery and it’s now my problem that you’re ordering drinks you can’t have? That’s like somebody who is lactose-intolerant ordering a cheeseburger and then getting bent out-of-shape when it comes with a too thick of a cut of cheddar cheese on it.

I would have chalked her up to nuttier than Jimmy Carter’s poop if she didn’t ask me what my favorite baseball team was. I told her it was the San Diego Padres. She leaned in and asked if it wasn’t the New York Yankees. I told her no and that I hated the Yankees for what they did to the Padres in the 1998 World Series. I hate the Yankees not because of their bottomless checkbook—I hate them because they swept the Padres. I asked her why she loved the Yankees. Was it because you’re from New York? No, she had never been to NYC before and that she loved them because of Derek Jeter. She likes the Yankees the same reason why my mother likes the Minnesota Vikings; Mom likes the colors purple and gold. I would have let it slip except every time she wanted another drink instead of asking for a rum-and-coke, she would howler: “Jee-tah!”

What the Circus and the book people had in common is the absolute astonishment of what we didn’t sell. Keys On Main isn’t the Monty Python cheese shop sketch. We actually have a humongous selection of drinks and food. If for some reason we aren’t carrying the one item that you had your heart set on, you have two options: order something else or clear out. Bitching that we don’t carry Diet Dr. Pepper or Blackberry schnapps shouldn’t be a deal breaker from you having a good night. My role as the bartender is to find something that you will enjoy. However, when I have a full bar and you want to have a Lincoln-Douglas style debate about why I don’t carry Fat Tire Beer or Fanta Grape Soda, you will be detracting from the other guests and acting like an imbecile.

The night raged on. The Circus ran me ragged with refills and the book peddlers were dropping like flies. If they had been the only groups in the bar, it would have been tough but I had so many other guests that I was dripping in sweat and wearing down. Mercifully, we got to last call and I sent them packing.

You can’t choose your customers. You get who comes through the door. It’s a crapshoot and I like gambling. Sure, I would love to bartend for an ATM machine that orders Miller Lites and tips $20 bills all night long but customers come in all types. On Thursday, I got both ends of the spectrum. The McGraw-Hill people drank like warriors and tipped like the Mayan calendar was for real. The Circus? Not so much. Somehow I scratch out a living in between these two groups of people and that how it goes. There are no perfect customers. However, I am always appreciative of everyone who comes through the door. I have always said that I would rather go to the library over the circus any day.

Follow me on Twitter @BennyRaskin or become a fan of Behind The Bar on Facebook.

Ass Over Tea Kettle

2011-07-27T12:51:00.000-07:00

I got hit by a car on Tuesday night.

More specifically, I drove my bicycle into the backend of a grey Pontiac Sunbird while riding to boxing. I was heading north on 900 East when outside of the Smith’s in Sugarhouse, some guy pulled into the parking lot, cutting me off and sending me ass over tea kettle into the street. I crashed into the backend of his car when he quickly swerved into the parking lot. For one brief moment I was airborne. The impact of the collision forced me into the air heading over the truck of his car. Fortunately, my penis and testicles were able to halt any further flight by slamming themselves into the stem connecting the frame of my bike to the handlebars. I skidded to the ground and slid on my left elbow and right knee before coming to a stop. I laid there dazed on the asphalt for a moment before I pulled myself and my bike to the sidewalk only to watch the driver pull through the parking lot and speed away east on 2100 South.

Jesus! Is there anything in that Smith’s worth running a bicyclist over for? As I tried to regain my composure on the side of the road, two thoughts went through my head. First, my good friend, Johnny Electric, drives a Pontiac Sunbird. Was Johnny trying to run me over for some previous slight? Second, I really need to get my truck fixed. Since having my catalytic converter stole a ten days earlier, I had been without a car and was relying on public transportation and my bike to get from Point A to Point B. I was waiting to get it fixed but after being the victim of a hit-and-run, it became very apparent to me that I am a truck guy not some 118 pound hipster kid pedaling a fixed-gear as my primary means of transportation.

I winced on the sidewalk for a few moments and took inventory of myself. My hands, knees and elbows were skinned up but I was alright. I didn’t hit my head and miraculously kept all of my teeth in my mouth. I was beaten up but still in one piece. I straightened out my handlebars and decided to go to boxing. I figure nothing at Fight 4 Your Life could be as bad as what just happened to me.

What a way to cap the last week.

I had just gotten through the Pioneer Weekend in Salt Lake City. Pioneer Day is a statewide holiday commemorating the original Mormon pioneers, led by Brigham Young, who bravely crossed the country pulling handcarts, settled in the Salt Lake Valley and displaced its native occupants. Marked by the largest parade west of the Mississippi River, fireworks, BBQs and gatherings, I like to think it is the one day of the year that everyone is Mormon. Think that’s ridiculous? Then why is everybody Irish on St. Patrick’s Day?

From the prospective of the bar culture in Salt Lake, Pioneer Day tends to be one of the worst weeks for business. It’s a good weekend to get out of town, host parties or stay the Hell away from the crazies who line the street the night of the parade. I have been bartending for eleven years in Salt Lake and it is absolutely the worst week for customers…unless you’re lucky enough to have a convention in town. Just because locals stay out of the bars during this week doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good time to host a convention.

One of the things that I enjoy about bartending is that I get to see and interact with people for no other reason that they want to get drunk. I am able to witness so many interesting things from behind the bar because people do and say interesting things when they have been drinking. It is the best seat in the house even though from this seat, I have to muddle Mojitos, blend Daiquiris and layer B-52 shots. Even though I made enough money last week to buy five catalytic converters, I don’t know exactly what the convention was. I know that they dealt with rental cars and insurance agencies but that is the extent of it. If I had to guess what they did by the way they acted, I would have guessed they dabbled in human trafficking or multi-level marketing.

They came in waves. From Wednesday to Saturday, I had this huge swing of guests coming into the bar. It has been my intention to write this column as a straight narrative but this last weekend demands that I highlight three experiences.

The Australians Or How Dumb Do You Think Americans Are? The first couple through the door on Wednesday was this middle-aged group from Queensland Australia. They were in the used car business and were in town for the convention to try and sell their stock to one of the large rental agencies in this company. They were dressed conservative, wearing suits minus ties and drinking copious amounts of Dewar’s White Label on the rocks. I don’t expect a single red cent from Australians. After Mormons, they are some of the worst tippers on the planet. I don’t mind not making any money off of them; I just wish I could understand a single word that they say. It’s a weird singsongy accent that is too high pitched with too many colloquialisms and I am sick and tired of American women swooning over them.

They were a decent group of people until one of the members asked me why American trucks don’t have more floodlights on them. I told him that only hillbillies and suburban housewives driving Hummers had them. He asked if hitting deer were a problem in Utah and I said maybe in the mountains but I am not nervous about driving down State Street and hitting Bambi. He them goes on to tell me that in Australia they have a problem with kangaroos and that their cars have floodlights to protect their vehicles. Before finishing his thought, he asked me the Mount Rushmore of stupid questions: “You do know what a kangaroo is?”

If I had to summarize my thoughts on the culture and icons of Australia, I would list the following as being inherently Australian: Yahoo Serious, Crocodile Dundee, Steve Irwin, throw a shrimp on the barbee and kangaroos. In fact, if you were to ask the first 4^th grader what they think about Australia, somehow that conversation gets to kangaroos.

I asked him if he knew what an elephant was. He smirked and went back to his group. I think it would be awesome that at the age of 37 I was first introduce to an elephant. How cool would it be if someone brought you to a zoo and said that four-ton beast with a prehensile trunk, large ears, ivory tusks and huge body was an elephant? I have a hard time not smiling when I see an elephant today; could you imagine what it would be like to see an elephant for the first time later in life?

Head For The Rockies. I hate Coors Light. It tastes like club soda. It’s the only beer that thinks its drinkers are so stupid that they need to have a “Cold Zone” strip to tell them when it is cool enough to drink. Coors Light drinkers are notorious for drinking a dozen bottles of beer and becoming increasing annoying after every one of them. They pout and turn their nose up to any suggestion of trying another equally shitty light beer. I have no beef with Coors drinkers. Any beer that can spawn one of my favorite movies growing up, Smokey and The Bandit, can’t be all that bad. Coors Light drinkers tend to be bad beer snobs.

Case in point this weekend: I had this guy come to the bar and ask that I make him a red beer. Red beers are light beer and tomato juice. They are not the worst thing on the planet and in fact, they make a decent hangover cure. I believe there is a list of breakfast alcoholic drinks and they are reserved for the AM hours: Mimosas, Bloody Marys, Prairie Oysters and red beer. Ordering any of these at midnight, in a packed bar, is a quick way to get on my bad side. I went to pour the ¾ pint of Bud Light off the tap when this dillweed shouted: “Hey! I want Coors Light!”

Here’s the problem: Tomato juice masks any flavor of whatever beer you’re using for a red beer. Second off, not having Coors Light on tap makes me us a bottle and that is only 12 ounces. I was trying to hook the guy up with more beer and less tomato juice. I told him what’s the difference? I explained that you can’t tell the difference and you’re paying more for less, so just have the Bud Light. He looked me square in the eye (and rarely does anyone ever look me square in the eye) and said: “Let me ask you something. Does Bud Light have the Rocky Mountains on it?”

Well, shoot. He had me there. I poured the beer into the glass, topped it off with tomato juice and made a point of pouring every single red beer he ordered later with Bud Light. I believe the customer is always right until they raise their voice to me.

3.2% Beer Is Indefensible. I’ve turned the page on 3.2 beer. For a very long time, I had defended Utah’s practice of selling a lesser alcohol content beer on tap and made it well know that we should celebrate the fact that Utah is different. Well, on Thursday, I had to rescind my position on this. It was the very beginning of the night and I only had a handful of customers in the club. Sitting directly in front of my well, were these two businessmen from Tennessee. They were drinking Ketel One and sodas and were complaining about the strength of their drinks. I told them that we pour an ounce per drink even though the state allows us to pour up to 1.5 ounces. They were giving me a hard time but if you bartend in a club that gets a fair amount of out-of-towners it is nothing new.

I went into my bit with them that you should celebrate the differences between Utah and the rest of the country. Part of the appeal of living in Salt Lake City is that it isn’t Las Vegas or New Orleans. I told them that I thought last call was a good idea (you need to put a cap on a night and she isn’t going home with you anyway) and that the beer they make in Utah is quite good. We talked about the value of travelling around the country and how the differences between home and the road make for great experiences. They both agreed with what I was saying and then asked: “Then why is the draft beer only 3.2%?”

They didn’t call it near-beer or fake beer. They simply wanted to know why we sold a lesser strength beer than the majority of the nation. I fumbled for the right words and in that instant, I knew that they were right and I was wrong. 3.2% draft beer is stupid. The DABC actually puts up enough loopholes that allows me to sell some of the most God awful drinks in the world but I can’t have Stella or Newcastle on tap? The best new beer in Utah is the Hops Rising from Squatters. Can you imagine having that on tap? It would be amazing. My shift beer would actually be one beer not seven glasses of Bud Light. If given the choice between full strength beer on tap (illegal) or selling shots of gin with a 151-proof rum floater (legal), which one would you rather have? Better yet, which one would you prefer I sold?

Utah is an unique place. I think that is why I love it. It is unlike any other place in the country. Because I am in the bar business, I spend a lot of my time defending it but what I should really be doing is praising it. Even though some jerk-off ran me over with his car (you’re not off the hook yet, Johnny), I still love living here and I love being behind the bar. Bar life brings out the best and worse in people and I have a front row seat for all of it. Between the Coors Light, Kangaroo talk and defending our liquor laws, what makes living in Salt Lake so great is the fact that everybody else in the country thinks this place is so weird.

In the end, maybe it’s the rest of the country that are the weird ones.

Follow me on Twitter @BennyRaskin or become a fan of the column on Facebook.

The $700 Movie Ticket

2011-07-18T15:14:00.001-07:00

Thanks to the opening of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 2, my screening of Super 8 on Friday was a ghost town. I drove my 1999 Toyota Tacoma down to Century 16 on 3300 South to catch a rare afternoon movie. I used to love going to the movies but the responsibilities of home and work makes sitting down for a couple of hours in the middle of the day both difficult and decadent. Parking in the large parking lot, all I could see was a flood of kids and parents dressed like wizards, carrying home-made wands and wearing mismatched capes.

Those of us who grew up on E.T., Goonies, Stand By Me and Close Encounter of the Third Kind will easily relate to Super 8. Set in a small town in Ohio during the summer of 1979, it’s about a group of junior high kids trying to make a zombie movie when they witness a terrible accident. Scared of both their parents and the authorities, they try to make some sense of what they witnessed and what is happening to their town. It is directed by JJ Abrams and produced by Steven Spielberg. So, if you loved Lost or Jaws, there is a good chance that you’ll like Super 8.

I walked out of the theater elated. I hadn’t seen a cool summer movie since Zombieland and was already planning on buying the DVD when it comes out. I had about 90 minutes before I had to be at work, so I quickly walked out into the sea of cars and found my truck. I opened my door, fastened my seat belt and started the engine.

Brraff-buff-buff!!!

Instead of the familiar hum, I was met by this gravelly explosion. Jesus! I quickly turned off the ignition and jumped out of my car. I felt like Lefty Rosenthal from Casino. I thought my car was going to explode. For one brief moment I thought I was back in the movie and the aliens were attacking my car. It honestly took me a moment to collect myself after the unfamiliar roar of my truck. I looked under the hood and everything looked to be in the right place. It wasn’t until I checked the exhaust system did I realize something was horribly wrong. There was an eighteen inch gap between the exhaust pipe and the extension pipe.

Somebody had stolen my catalytic converter.

Some miserable thief had climbed underneath my truck with a cordless reciprocating saw, cut through my exhaust system and stolen the catalytic converter. In broad day light, somebody brazening slid underneath my truck and hacked off the most expensive part of the under-carriage of my vehicle. All somebody needed was two minutes, a Sawzall, a pair of snips and an unmanageable meth problem.

I weighed my options and decided to drive my car home. The second that I got on the road, I knew that I had a serious problem and was regretting my decision. The performance of my truck was dramatically diminished and it was roaring like something out of the Indianapolis 500. I usually only get looks from people of the side of the road when I have my dog, Samson, hanging his head outside the window. On Friday, I was getting looks because they thought the second coming of the apocalypse was coming.

Mercifully, I made it back to the house without the engine seizing or total hearing lose. It wasn’t until I got home did the entire experience finally sink in. How the hell was I singled out? I felt like I would have a better chance of getting hit by lightning then my catalytic converter being stolen. I like to wrench on cars but I am in no way a mechanic. I enjoy popping the hood and staring at the engine with a beer in my hand and make random motions as if I actually knew how to change out a carburetor. In all of the years that I have been working on my truck, I never once paid any attention to my catalytic converter. Laying on my back in the garage, I looked up at the exhaust and saw the gap where the converter should be mounted. All of the cuts were made smooth leading me initially to believe that the people responsible for this were professional thieves.

This wasn’t the first time that I have been a victim of theft. On the 2^nd of November, 2009, what should have been the happiest day of my life; somebody broke into our house and cleaned us out. I had just finished signing the papers on selling The Woodshed when I came home to a distraught girlfriend, trashed house and scared dog. They stole all of our iPods, computers, money and my guitar.

You don’t lose your faith in humanity when something like this happens; you just lose your trust in strangers. Instead of just having to lock the doors when you leave for work, you now need to double-check every window, deadbolt every door and set the alarm. I honestly believe that we were targeted for a home invasion. People probably suspected that I was paid in gold bullion and my house was filled with liquor and cash. Instead, they found a humble home and took every valuable of ours. The Tacoma, on the otherhand, was a victim of opportunity.

I called the cops and made a police report. South Salt Lake PD was responsive only in that they gave me a case number. Strike one! I then called the insurance company and filed a report. Unfortunately, I only carried liability and collision. Incidents that occur when the car isn’t moving are covered by comprehensive which I didn’t carry. Strike two! Contacting Century 16 only resulted in them telling me that you park in their lot at your own risk. Strike three! You’re outa here!

Work at Keys On Main that night was trying. I was testy the moment I walked in through the door. To be successful behind the bar, you need to leave your problems at the door. Complaints come your direction, not the other way. I was irritated for a variety of reasons but mostly because the last thing I wanted to do was manage a bar and pour drinks for people who were celebrating the end of the week. My co-workers were supportive but what could they do short of passing the hat?

People’s reactions varied for two reasons: one, I don’t think they knew where a catalytic converter is located and what it does. The catalytic converter is mounted on the underside of the car below the passenger seat. It links the exhaust manifold to the muffler. It is used to reduce pollution causing emissions from the engine. Two, why somebody would steal a catalytic converter? Sold to scrap yards, catalytic converters can fetch $60 to $100 for the precious metals inside of it. The catalytic converter is able to reduce the amount of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons because it is filtered through a screen composed of platinum, palladium and rhodium.

Show of hands: has anyone heard of rhodium before? If I said Rhodium was north of Zimbabwe would you argue with me? Probably not. Platinum, palladium and rhodium are some of the most valuable metals on earth. Palladium trades for about $800 an ounce, platinum around $1,800 an ounce and rhodium clocks in around $2,000 per ounce. For comparison, an ounce of Meth cost about $800 which is what I suspect my catalytic converter was stolen for.

Scrap yards buy catalytic converters for pennies on the dollar but the ease in which you can remove one from somebody’s truck is absolutely frightening. In less than two minutes, somebody can easily work their way through a large parking lot boosting converters in the time that I waited for popcorn.

Speaking of which, all of my future popcorn purchases will be done at any other theater than Century 16. Century 16 is the crappiest theater in the valley and a hotbed of property crime. The managers running the theater couldn’t give a damn that cars are being broken into and have done absolutely nothing to curtail the crime on their lot. The manager that I spoke to after my car was vandalized was a ball of vapid mess. She said emphatically said that the theater has no liability and people park in their lot at their own risk. Completely devoid of empathy, she sealed the deal with my permanent boycott of her theater. Century 16 will never receive another dollar from me and I implore the readers to ban Century 16 until they at least install cameras on their lot. Considering the reputation of Century 16, I know this won’t happen anytime soon. This is the same theater that somebody left their infant in the car when they went to go see The Dark Knight and only some passerby had the wherewithal to report it.

The bitch of the bunch is that my truck is a POS. After everything that I have been through with this truck, the last thing I wanted to experience was one more major repair. It has been repossessed, survived three accidents and undergone a dozen jerry-riggings that’s gotten me through the last six years. The stereo hasn’t worked in five months, the air conditioning is more of a suggestion and there are rips in the upholstery. It smells like a thousand fast food meals eaten on the run and it is covered in dog hair. Yet, through it all, it’s the coolest thing that I have ever owned. It’s the kind of truck that begs to be driven in the mountains, haul trash to the dump and help friends move. It naturally drives to Home Depot. It has been indispensible setting up our home, getting the gardens planted and giving me the freedom to go for a drive. Moreover, there is no place better to drink a beer than off the tailgate.

Do you know how many Long Island Ice Teas I have to pour to replace my catalytic converter? Probably 2,000 and that’s what I am going to do. I am not going to let some meth-addled jerk-off(s) from South Salt Lake to take away my ability to drive. The Methamphetamine Anti-defamation League can suck a lemon. I know one of your members stole my catalytic converter and I just deputized myself. If I catch somebodies feet hanging out from underneath a car in a parking lot, I will be investigating and slapping on the bracelets. How good would it be to say in all honesty that you are making a citizen’s arrest?

If I catch you stealing somebody's catalytic converter that is exactly what I will be doing.

Follow me on Twitter @BennyRaskin or become a fan on Facebook @ Behind The Bar.

Bitten By My Own Snake

2011-07-14T15:09:00.000-07:00

Do you know what a rattlesnake is?

I am not asking about Crotalus atrox, a legless reptile that lives in the Southwest of the United States with a poisonous fangs and a castanet at the end of their tail. I’m asking about a middle-aged woman with too much makeup, age inappropriate clothes and a lifetime full of regrets shaking a glass filled with ice to get the bartender’s attention. Unlike the snake, however, rattling your glass at the bartender might result in you getting bitten.

Last night was one for the books. I am behind the bar the bar Wednesday through Saturday at Keys On Main and the beginning of my week is traditionally the slowest night of the week. That’s a good thing. It gives me an opportunity to set the bar up for the next three nights. Contrary to what most people think of bartending, it is a pretty monotonous job. I spend most of my time cleaning, stocking, organizing, preforming maintenance and waiting for somebody to come through the door. Because of the nature of the club, most guests don’t arrive until the piano show starts thereby giving me a chance to drink club soda and Tweet (hey, follow me @BennyRaskin).

I equate it to the calm before the storm. I am invariably busy once the show starts at 9pm and I make the most of it after I am done setting up. The only downside to having such a large club empty once we open the doors is that the first guest feels like a loner loser coming in to get a beer and is forced to ask a dumb quesiton. Even though the door is open, the neon lights are lit and I am standing behind a bar filled with potent potables, they always ask the same question: “Are you open?” That’s where the second part of bartending comes into play. 90% of bartending isn’t pouring drinks, it’s talking.

Of course we are. It takes a lot of guts (or the shakes) to be the first one through the door. Fortunately for me they know their two options for entertainment: watch TV or talk with me. Either way, as far as I am concerned it is show time. I have a lifetime of watching bartenders on TV to know what to ask. Where you from? What brings you to Salt Lake? The key to be able to talk to anyone from behind the bar is to have read the newspaper and the box scores from the day’s previous games. If you read the local rag, in my case, The Salt Lake Tribune and a USA Today, you should have no problems striking up a conversation. Throw in a little basic geography (“Allentown? Isn’t that outside of Philly?”), local trivia (“Yeah, Brigham Young is buried right up the street.”) and a dusting of Utah’s unique liquor laws (“No doubles but there’s ways around that…”) and you should have no problems entertaining anyone until they start banging out Billy Joel.

On average, most guests are cool. They get it. They’re usually one-and-done or have a little dinner before heading out. On occasion, they’re a bit snarky wondering why we’re not busier even though we just opened the doors three minutes ago or bitchy because we don’t sell Fat Tire or Yuengling but for the most part these are some of the best customers of the night. It’s just beer and cocktails with an occasional shot and a lot of talking.

Wednesday started out this way but somewhere along the way to the forum, everything went to Hell. Uncharacteristically, I had a full bar when I opened the door. There was a wide breath of business men, college students, conventioneers and people waiting for TRAX sipping beers and talking amongst themselves. I moved from right to left, refilling drinks, wiping down the bar and chiming in occasionally. It had all the makings of a great night until “They” came in.

“They” were a group of five people with Utah driver licenses, gold cards and Appalachian sensibilities. It was two women and three guys I would loosely describe as men in their mid-40s and they were on a mission. They came to drink. I knew they were looking to get into trouble when the first thing they asked me is if I sold Canadian Host. For those who don’t know what Host is, the best way I could describe it is to refer to their website which lists one of its positive attributes of Canadian Host as its “1.75 L size features an easy grip to handle.” It’s bourbon-flavored paint thinner. Instead they settled on Southern Comfort and Coke and lots of them.

They were caricatures of bad customers. They were demanding, ill-tempered, sweaty and completely oblivious to the other guests in the club. Bartending is a contact sport but they were treating the night like a MMA fight. If it had just been SoCo and Cokes all night I would have been okay but eventually they discovered our drink menu and opened up a barrel of monkeys:

What’s a Mojito? I didn’t know you had a blender? It’s Britney Bitch is a dumb name for a drink. Did you know Red Bull is made with cow sperm? Instead of pineapple juice can you make it with Kool-Aid? Why do you have a drink called Bohemian Rhapsody? Are you sure you don’t have Canadian Host?

They treated our drink menu the way a gorilla treats a piece of Samsonite. Dragging their fat, liquor soaked fingers over every drink on the menu all the while mouth-breathing like a dog waiting for a Milk Bone. I tried to make a suggestion to them to help facilitate their order but I was met by deranged, bloodshot eyeballs that screamed nobody tells me what kind of Mojito to order! My father used to tell me what kind of drink I should have and I hate him. The old axiom of monkeys and footballs came to mind. They eventually settled on Rock Coconut Mojitos and sent me away with the wave of their hand.

The best way to put me into a tailspin is to order a series of time consuming drinks and ordering rounds of muddled Mojitos is a pretty good ways for me to cry Mayday. We make our Mojitos with fresh mint, limes, granulated sugar, simple syrup, rum and club soda. Making one takes time but knocking out a table full of them requires a scrum of bartenders. Mojitos have a way of becoming a self-replicating drink. While a guest is waiting to order, they see me muddling away and decide they would rather have a Mojito over the bottle of beer they came up to get. Rack ‘em up! No drink sells itself better than a Mojito.

Mojitos are only bad because of the time consideration but they are far from my least favorite drink to make. If I had to list my least favorite cocktails to make, it would include any drink that includes half-n-half, Butterscotch Schnapps, Irish cream or requires to be blended. Guess what I did for the next two hours? If you guessed pouring Jack-n-Cokes, you’d be wrong.

They worked their way through our new drink menu damn near causing me to have an aneurism trying to remember all of our new drinks. If it’s a classic cocktail like a Manhattan, Singapore Sling or Pink Lady, no problem. I know the cannon of American bartending. But if it is a Lady Gaga, Snaggleberry Surprise or Upside-down Screaming Orgasm, I might need to consult my smart phone. Between the Mojitos, new drinks and the Kentucky Headhunters playing “Stump The Bartender,” I was beginning to lose my cool.

They wouldn’t have been a problem if they were the only customers in the club. But like a Chinese Elm, these backwater inbreds had this invasive characteristic of sprouting up new patches of equally demanding hillbillies in the bar. As the night progressed, we became increasingly busier. Every time I looked up, there was a new swarm of self-entitled knuckleheads yelling for our drink specials and wondering where the Canadian Host was on the liquor shelf. I was falling behind with the volley of orders and only surviving by muscle memory and sheer will. It’s not that making the drinks is difficult—it’s taking the order, making the drink, delivering it and getting the money all the while putting on a confident face that is hard. The hordes of screaming maniacs don’t make it easy but nobody said bartending is a cakewalk of a job.

This is the job. You can’t take it personally. Working in bars is volatile simply because anytime you add alcohol, people act irrationally. It’s the nature of the business. While certain nights are easier than others this one was becoming pretty difficult. Even though I had reached a point in the night where I was flowing through our guests, knocking out Flamin’ Dr. Peppers, Irish Car Bombs, Stingers, Grasshoppers and any other madman drink I eventually hit my breaking point. One of the ladies in the group got up from the table, walked to the bar and shook her empty glass at me.

Did that bitch just rattlesnake me?

I was in the middle of making another round of Mojitos for her table (by my count, their fifth round) when she rattled the ice in her glass right in front of my face. I have pet-peeves like everybody else. I don’t like being mauled when I am bartending, I don’t care what bar life in Florida is like, don’t disrespect my co-workers and do not rattlesnake me. I didn’t mind making rounds of Miami Vices or Scooby Snacks but waving a glass in my face is where I draw the line.

What do you want? You want another Mojito? I’m making you another Mojito. Put the glass on the bar and go back to your God damn seat. She was dumbfounded. The last time somebody spoke to her that way, she was probably getting hog-tied and thrown in the back of a squad car. She was acting like a Pentecostal Christian: handling a snake, speaking in tongues and soon to be drinking strychnine. The whore of West Valley City piled enough crap at me and I was ready to throw it back at her. She did an about-face and returned to her table. For the rest of the night she eyeballed me but I didn't care. I knew that no matter what else happed throughout the evening her morning was going to be worse than my night.

Mercifully, I made last call. No matter what happens, it always eventually becomes 1 o’clock in Salt Lake City. I dropped checks off at the WVC and was surprised that even though they acted like Dudley Moore in denim they actually tipped pretty well. The rest of the room slowly cleared out and I was left to the task of cleaning up this pig sty.

The mark of a professional is keeping your cool throughout the night no matter how bad things get. Granted, I was muttering every four letter word under my breath, smiling though gritted teeth and spitting in every fourth drink (gotta love those odds) I was able to keep my composure the entire night. It was a busy Wednesday and that’s good. It’s better to run your ass off instead of sitting on it all night long. And for money, let’s just say thank God for quantity as oppose to quality. In the end, you can’t choose your customers. You just endure them.

Notes From Salt Lake

2011-07-10T11:41:00.000-07:00

If you ever want to feel as if your life has completely fallen off the rails and you’re in a holding pattern, try pouring drinks for an Annapolis graduate USMC Captain with four combat tours whose father was an astronaut in an empty bar. His name is Jeff and he was sitting at the club by himself nursing a beer and eating a quesadilla. Son of Bob Cabana, veteran of four space shuttle missions, Jeff is a bulldog of a man with a blond short cropped haircut, thick arms, piercing blue eyes and a soft smile. Sporting a large wedding band and a sensible wristwatch, Jeff and I talked for almost a half hour before the next guests came into Keys On Main. With his resume, we could have talked about anything ranging from space exploration to America’s role in the Middle East. Instead, you want to know what we talked about?

My hops garden.

I have always had an interest in gardening and this year I tried growing hops for the first time. I have been gushing about the success regarding my hops to anybody within ear’s drop and Jeff happened to be my next victim. Instead of directing the conversation towards something he might have a better grasp on, he asked questions and listened. As conversations from behind the bar go, this has been one of the better ones that I have had in a while.

Too often the first thing people want to talk about at the club is Utah’s liquor laws. And invariably, it is always hostile. Out-of-towners usually have two impressions about Salt Lake City. First, they are blown away by the natural beauty of the city. With the Wasatch Front, the wide roads, old homes and landscape of the city, people are awestruck by Salt Lake. I was. When I moved here from Las Vegas, the only images I had of Northern Utah were from the movie Fletch. And that was based in Provo. Salt Lake isn’t a great city but it is a damn good one. Given a choice between Phoenix or Detroit, there is no choice. Salt Lake wins on climate and scenery alone. Given a choice between New York City or San Francisco, once again there is no debate. SLC wins on affordability. First time visitors to Utah usually have preconceived notions that are shaken after a couple of hours walking around town.

Second, out-of-towners can’t believe that you can get a drink in Salt Lake. What makes this all the funnier and pathetic is that they are asking this while they are standing right in front of the beer taps. While I cast a large shadow, there is no way that I am blocking the entire wall of bottles behind me. It is absurd that people walk into the bar, present ID, see two full bars filled with liquor, beer and wine and still have to ask if they can get a drink. Starting today, when asked if we have booze my new answer is no. We’re putting on a production of Barfly.

I think this is what I liked about Jeff. Probably because he has travelled the world, he knows not to ask simply asinine questions the second he sits down at the bar. He wanted food and drink. After discussing the hops for a bit, the conversation invariably moved towards bar life in Utah. I told him that the most significant event in Salt Lake’s bar scene is the fact that Port ‘O Call closed a couple of years ago. In the diaspora of Port shutting their doors because of eminent domain from the federal government, the customers that used to visit downtown now need a reason to come to the city. In the wake of Port closing, there has been a rash of new clubs opening throughout the valley: Dick-n-Dixies, Bourbon House, Gracie’s, the remodeled Bar X, The Green Pig and The Beerhive. I think they are all decent spots but they all seem to have the style. There is nothing particularly unique about them. They all share the combination of exposed brick, dark stained wood and high-backed chairs. This is not a criticism of these bars. It just seems weird that after Salt Lake’s most popular club closes, the explosion of new bars all are carbon copies of each other.

I think this is endemic of the problem with the drinkers in Utah. Our native drinkers don’t like drinking. Sure they like getting drunk but they don’t enjoy drinking for the pleasure of drinking. It’s all about drink specials, what’s cheap and how large. I don’t fault them for this. I think the majority of my customers and those people who go downtown to drink are younger and not as well off financially. When I was younger, I used to drink the special simply because I only had so much money.

Last weekend, we were one of the stops on a pub crawl. The only question that I fielded was what was our drink special? A quick note about pub crawls: bring cash and don’t tell me what the other bar is doing. When 250 people come through the door, the last thing I want to do is run your credit card for a $3 pint of beer. I think because people don’t enjoy boozing the way they did even ten years ago, bar owners just have to provide the same experience and hope that their club becomes the next spot.

The noodle-scratcher regarding this is how different is Utah from the rest of the country. Like Jeff, I have travelled extensively throughout the US and I really don’t think that we’re as different as people make us out to be. If you remove Las Vegas from the equation, it really feels like sixes. Sure, there are better pours in other states and maybe last call comes a little bit later but in the finally analysis, it pretty much all feels the same.

What I love about being behind the bar is for a few hours every night I get to meet and talk with interesting people. The pouring drinks part of the job is fun but the real enjoyment is interacting with strangers as if we had known each other for a very long time simply because I am the bartender. I get to breakdown that fourth wall very quickly because that’s part of the job description. Keys On Main is a great fit for me because I get the best of both sides of the job. When we’re busy, it is gun-slinging bartending that values speed over intimacy. When we’re slow, I get to draw a club soda and hold court with a captive audience. It’s a lot of fun and sometimes, pretty profitable.

Maybe in the end, my life isn’t on hold. In comparison to Jeff, I think most of us have fallen short of our potential. He is a pretty extraordinary guy and maybe that’s where it benefits me. I get to meet folks like him frequently and that makes my job pretty damn cool.

And Henry Makes Three

2011-07-01T15:00:00.001-07:00

While cleaning out the south garden at my house, I discovered this really interesting type of rock. They were cylindrical, ash white and brittle. I was prepping the soil to plant a variety of draught-resistant perennials and I wanted to make sure the soil was clear of any rocks and debris. For about 30 minutes, I kept finding these little dried out stones and was wondering what kind of rock they were. It wasn’t until I crushed one in my bare hand did I realize these were no average rocks.

They were cat turds.

After the prerequisite amount of dry heaving, I got back to work with gloves on. Some feral cat had been using my garden as a litter box and I paid the price for not setting my dogs to attack mode. It’s funny how some random disgusting moment can bring back one of my fondest memories. I had just finished my first year at the University of Nevada Reno and was set to go home back to Las Vegas for the summer. Instead of heading south immediately, I was going to take a ten day road trip with my sister, Tee, back to her school in Eugene Oregon. I bought a bus ticket to Davis California, where we were going to drive up to the University of Oregon and spend some time together before she finished her first year.

By all accounts, it sounded like a good idea until you get on the bus with nothing more than a backpack filled with junk food and a Tom Robbin’s novel. Cell phones were non-existent for the criminally poor in 1993 and we only had a general idea of where we were going to meet. By shear lunacy and luck, I ran into her outside one of the dormitories on UC Davis’ campus. Not having any money for a room, we drove around looking for a place to camp out eventually deciding on a grove of shrubs hidden behind a maintenance shed. Trying to get comfortable, Tee said the place smelt funny. I told her it should—this is where cats go to screw. Laughing ourselves to sleep, we spent the next week catching up on the first year we had spent apart from each other.

Tee was born Elizabeth Raskin thirteen months after me. She got her nickname, Tee, from me because when I was three, my front four teeth were pulled out because they were rotting out of my head. Too much grape juice and not enough Colgate. Not having teeth to train my tongue to pronounce soft syllables, saying Elizabeth came out at best as “Eh-wiss-ee-beat.” Mercifully, I eventually just called her “the” baby and “the” became Tee. It became her moniker until she entered medical school.

It took time for us to become friends. Tee was so draw-dropping smart as kid that she skipped the second grade and joined me in the third. Very quickly I learned what it was like to be the slow Raskin. When she was learning how to speak Spanish, I was learning not to eat paste. Eager, smart and driven at an early age benefitted Tee in so many ways. There was nothing she couldn’t do. Athletically gifted and smart, she ran circles around everybody. I was a lisping, stuttering fat kid who pretended to be a combination of Indiana Jones and Tony Gwynn while Tee was trying to cure cancer. Not the easiest way to get out of the gate as a kid.

It was stressful having this girl savant in the house. It became bad enough for me that after the 6^th grade, we went to separate junior high schools. At Garside, I grew a little more confident with myself while Tee continued her excellence at Hyde Park. I think the three years away from each other bonded us together. Not burdened with competing with her, I was able to put down the jar of paste and get to work. We started talking with each other, supporting one another and becoming friends.

Having a sister like Tee did the opposite of discouraging me – it drove me. Without Tee in my life, I would never have considered going to college. Having a little sister that excelled at anything she attempted forced me to take harder classes in high school. She was a pace car for me to follow. I knew I wasn’t going to beat her but I worked hard not to get lapped by her. And somewhere in this dynamic a friendship developed. We were taking a lot of the same classes, hanging out with the same people and spending a lot of time together. I can remember sitting at the kitchen table in high school, our books spread out and trying to finish our homework and spending the entire night making fun of our classmates. These were the best times.

Along the way, we started getting into trouble with each other. We “borrowed” my mother’s car to go to Pasadena to help decorate for the Tournament of Roses. Taking a small detour home, we drove to Tempe AZ to watch Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Red Hot Chili Peppers play. We’d sneak out of the house and cruise the Vegas Strip, go to friends’ houses and run rampant at the local golf courses at midnight. We started listen to music together, trading books and talking all of the time. She became my co-conspirator, confidant and best friend.

I think that is what made graduation so challenging. I was off to Reno and she to Eugene. For the first time in years, we weren’t going to be side-by-side and I was just as nervous about this as attempting school. We said our good-byes and promised to keep in touch. I can’t put too fine of a point on this one fact: cell phones were not as readily available and affordable as they are now. We would burn through pre-paid phone cards and rack up incredible phone bills talking as if we lived across the street. My mother paid the brunt of these bills and to her, I am both indebted and thankful.

So, when I had the chance to hook up with Tee after my first year, I jumped at it. Getting dropped off at a Greyhound Bus Station in Davis with only a miniscule drop of hope that we were going to find each other was enough incentive to take the trip. In the end, it turned out to be a great trip and a needed reprieve from college.

Time moved on and so did our relationship. I found my voice at Nevada and Tee was on the fast track to medical school. After graduation, we both ended up back in Las Vegas. Of all places, she was accepted to UNR’s School of Medicine and she asked me for a last hurrah to help her move up to my old town. I rented a U-Haul van and trailer hitch for her beat-up Honda Civic. We were leaving in the middle of August and I was nervous about the truck overheating hauling her car. Driving as slow as we could through the Nevada heat, I spent the entire drive with an eye on the thermometer. I probably should have kept a better eye on the fuel gauge. About 45 miles outside of Goldfield Nevada, we were on the side of the road, taking her Honda off the hitch and sending Tee off to fetch gas with less than an 1/8^th fuel in the lifeboat.

I stayed with the truck in the Nevada desert to protect it from thieving cars. For a couple of hours, I waited in the dark for Tee to return. Remember no cell phones? Well, that definitely comes into play when all you see are rattlesnakes and the cast from The Hills Have Eyes. She eventually returned, we put a couple of gallons into the U-Haul and coasted into Goldfield on fumes. One of the worst road trips I have ever been on is now one of my favorite memories.

Tee went on to med school and I went to Salt Lake. Once again, we were on our own but we still had long phone calls and occasional family vacations. We stayed in touch as best as we could but life has a way of getting in the way. Tee went her way and I went mine but I have never forgotten those great and wild times we had together. We went on adventures that we shouldn’t have and came back barely scathed. We did it not because it is right but because at that moment even in frightening youth you know that life is fleeting. There are only so many chances to do something with limited danger that seems so incredibly stupid in retrospect. Seizing a moment to do something barbarically idiotic is amazing and when it is done with your little sister, it is incredible. Tee and I have had hundreds of great adventures ranging from absconding my grandmothers car in San Diego to go to Sherman Oaks to see Guns ‘n Roses play in a bowling alley to logging countless nights at the kitchen table talking about anything and everyone.

We used to joke that the only guys she could date were professional athletes, U.S. Senators or astronauts. In the end, she did better than that. She met her husband, Ryan. Ryan is equally dynamic as my sister is. He is a school teacher, amateur astronomer, brewer of bio-diesel and a winner of an episode of Fear Factor. You couldn’t have scripted a better couple. They married a couple of years ago and on Thursday, June 30 2011, they welcomed their son Henry Davis Rettke into the world. Both mother and son are doing great. Incredible! Tee is a mother.

I never thought she would have kids. I never thought that she had the time and I never thought throughout all of those late nights talking about nothing in particular that she would have a son. It is definitely an “a-ha” moment when you think how far we’ve come since that kitchen table in the suburbs of Las Vegas. Obviously, her life is changed forever and in a small way, so is mine. The same person who I chauffeured throughout high school now has to look forward to all of the wonderment of parenthood.

Not that she hasn’t had any practice. And Henry Makes Three is not an accurate depiction of Tee’s family. Ryan has a son from a previous marriage named Jacob. It doesn’t get said nearly enough but one of the nicest things about Tee marrying Ryan is that I immediately got a new nephew. Jake is a great kid and I know he will make a great older brother to Henry.

The best part of Tee’s pregnancy has been the last three weeks. Somehow, we were able to go back in time to those great phone calls and catch up. And like all great friends, we picked up exactly where we left off. Time has only improved our relationship and I think time speaking with her has given more insight to the depth of our friendship.

So, raise a glass to Tee and Ryan and their new son, Henry. My kid sister has a baby boy and I couldn’t be happier or prouder of her. I have had a privileged perspective on her life. From my angle, I have watched a special girl grow up into an amazing woman. Every challenge has been conquered and this new phase in her life will be no exception.

AAA Spring

2011-06-29T11:44:00.000-07:00

It’s never good when your friend tells you to save the part being replaced at the garage because they can be made into swords. The backend of my ’99 Toyota Tacoma has been rattling around for over four months, so like any responsible car owner, I finally crawled on all four and took a peek. Dragging alongside the back right tire was a severed piece of metal from my leaf spring. It had been rattling around and playing a game of matador with my tire. I didn’t know it at the time but I could have ended up as hamburger if I didn’t get this fixed immediately.

I called around town looking for somebody to replace the leaf spring and everyone (and I can’t put too fine of a point on this but everyone) said take it to AAA Spring out on 900 West. After comparing prices, I loaded up my bicycle in the back of the truck and headed out there. Tucked inside of an industrial complex around 2900 South, there was this large warehouse filled with school buses, long strips of metal, aged men in overalls and no air conditioning. It was a hot mess of men torching metal and fashioning leaf springs by hand with nothing more than an anvil and a thousand years of blacksmithing.

Compared to the average blacksmith apprentice, every man in America is a wuss. Short of Navy SEALs, big game hunters and Kimbo Slice, everyman in this country is a dress-wearing girl in high heels and a face full of make-up. These guys work in a pit shaping metal with their hands. Moreover, they know it. There’s nothing worst then some grizzled man in his mid-60s staring you down because you don’t know how to use a forge and anvil. That takes a lot of nerve. It’s not like I was shooting dagger at him because he doesn’t know how to make a Mojito or a Harvey Wallbanger.

Once again, I was reminded how close I was to killing myself and anybody with a four-square block if I continued to drive on busted leaf springs. The shop foreman quoted me a respectable price and set to work on my truck. I could have just sat in the small office reading a magazine but I elected to ride my bike home. Unfortunately, I had my beach cruiser. So, I rode off looking like Pee Wee Herman as the toughest sons of bitches got to work.

If I thought I was anything other than an eight year-old girl at a tea party, I would have taken their glances personally. What I couldn’t stop thinking about was the fact that this shop was universally regarded as the best in Salt Lake City. There was no discussion from all five shops that I called when looking for the best people to replace my leaf springs. From price to quality of work, I was told that there was no other place in town other than AAA Spring to take my truck. Is there any other shop in Salt Lake so generally considered to be the best that there is no discussion?

When I first moved to Salt Lake eleven years ago, I hated it. I didn’t know anybody. I couldn’t figure out the streets. I didn’t know where to shop for groceries, rent a movie or get a burger. Private clubs and sidecars ruined every bar experience and I was still wrapping my brain around why I moved to Mormon Mecca. Unlike a lot of people who move to a new city, I remember the exact date I moved to SLC. It was two days after the tornado. I should have headed back to Nevada the next day. Hell, all of my stuff was still in boxes. It wouldn’t have been that difficult.

Yet, I stayed. Everything that I took for granted in Las Vegas was thrown out the window and I started to compile my best of Utah on a daily basis. I figured out the city, met friends and learned where to get a decent burger (The Busy Bee or The Cotton Bottom). I realized that private clubs were for suckers, our grid system makes driving in Salt Lake easier than anywhere else in the world and Las Vegas wasn’t the healthiest place to grow up. I think what really made the connection to Salt Lake was that I was slowly replacing all of my “Best of Nevada” with “Best of Utah.”

As a bartender, having the Best of Utah at my fingertips is a part of the job. I get asked by every guest so many questions about Salt Lake that I feel I should be working for the Chamber of Commerce. Want the best seafood, I have a place. Want the best movie theater, I got that too. You answer these questions long enough behind the bar and you’ll eventually have a list long enough to suffice any guest.

Little did I know that I would be adding AAA Spring to that list someday. I caught a ride back to their shop, surveyed the work and agreed that it was fantastic. Bands of steel were wrapped together giving my truck the quietest ride I have had in a year. I wouldn’t have known this a decade ago. In truth, I wouldn’t have known what a leaf spring was ten years ago.

Emmanuel Gets a Cellmate

2011-05-30T09:38:00.000-07:00

Brian David Mitchell is not going to enjoy prison.

I was thinking about this at 35,000 feet on an oversold Southwest flight to San Diego last Saturday. My girlfriend and I were taking a much needed weekend getaway to Southern California to catch a Padres game and do some sightseeing. Pinched in the back of the flying cattle-car, I was drinking a hummingbird’s beak worth of ginger ale and eating a thimble-sized amount of honey roasted peanuts. I was painfully uncomfortable. Somehow SWA has made traveling more akin to a prison bus than a passenger plane. Jammed between two women shaped like linebackers, flipping through a Sky Mall and begging for this flight to be over, I remembered that Elizabeth Smart's kidnapper was being sentenced.

I have a small connection with the man known as Emmanuel. My mother’s family’s name is Mitchell and we’re from El Cajon CA—a small town on the eastern edge of San Diego. El Cajon is also the same town that Brian David Mitchell was arrested in February of 2003 for breaking into a church. He was released and eventually made his way back to Salt Lake City. The events following his departure from California eventually lead to Elizabeth recovery and his arrest.

Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped on June 5, 2002 making the following morning a surreal day in Salt Lake. The community was slowly coming off of the post-Olympics high that Utah experienced. I was still working at the Wyndham Hotel when she was reported as missing. They said that a 14 year old girl was taken from her bedroom at night and that volunteers were scouring the area looking for her. Ransom notes came in and the police had a strong witness with a milkman. The father was put through a polygraph. There was a military-effect force looking for her and they had no real leads and no trace of Elizabeth.

I was incredibly skeptical of her abduction. Rich, influential LDS family living in Federal Heights, thousands of volunteers organized to look for her, local and national media attention. The initial reports of her kidnapping smelled fishy. Why Elizabeth? How could a well-off family lose their daughter in the middle of the night? They had a security system and live in the upscale part of Salt Lake City. It felt as if there was something else afoot and her family did not help remove doubts of their involvement. The father, Ed Smart, looked like he was an actor playing the role of a grieving father. He had this I-just-rubbed-my-eyes-real-hard-before-I speak-to-the-media look all of the time. I didn’t believe him when he spoke and felt like he had a hand in her kidnapping.

During the summer of 2002, the Western United States was littered with thousands of fliers seeking information on Smart’s disappearance. I was in West Yellowstone in August and saw the fliers stapled to a telephone pole outside of my motel. Contextually, one could mistake her disappearance with the Lindbergh baby. She had obtained national prominence and her family was making all the rounds on the television asking for Elizabeth return. Unlike other missing persons, there was both a fervor and intensity for finding her. I have often wondered if it had been a 14-year old Tongan daughter living in Rose Park, would the community be so committed to finding her? Would their efforts have achieved the same level of attention? Probably not.

As summer faded, I was busy back at work pouring drinks for hotel guests and conventioneers. Customers at the bar would always bring up the Smart kidnapping and I would relay the known information at the time and gently tell them that there was no way she was going to be found. At the time, I believed that Smart was a part of a sad and tragic list of individuals snared from their lives never to be seen again. That’s what made the news on the 12 of March 2003 so absolutely jaw-dropping.

There are moments in your life that you never forget where and what you were doing when you heard the news and this was certainly one of them. I was in the kitchen at the Wyndham Hotel picking up a tray of food to take out to the bar when the news report came over the radio. I stopped dumbfounded, looked into the cheap clock radio that the cooks listened to and said, “You have got to be kidding me.” No way. There was absolutely no way that she was found. Even more so, there was no way that she was found alive almost nine months later in Sandy Utah. At that point in my life, I was convinced of three things: I was going to law school, I was moving out of Salt Lake and Elizabeth Smart was dead. See how well that worked out for me.

I spent the rest of my shift that day watching television and learning about Smart’s ordeal. When they put pictures of Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, on the screen, I immediately recognized him. Wearing a full length robe and an al-Qaeda beard, I had seen Mitchell multiple times loudly prophesying on Main Street in front of the Trax stop. Salt Lake has a lot of crazies but most of them have the decency to stay at home. Mitchell was dressed like Obi Wan Kenobi and smelt like Chewbacca. The fact that he was hiding in plain sight only added to the strangeness of the kidnapping.

I make it a habit to give the homeless a wide-breath on the streets. That is not to say that I don’t engage my fellow citizens when they speak to me. Like a dog with snarled teeth or a pair of missionaries walking down my street, I tend to stay clear of potentially hostile encounters. Mitchell looked and acted crazy and I wanted nothing to do with him. Prior to and after Elizabeth’s abduction, I had seen Mitchell no less than ten times on the streets, panhandling and preaching his edicts. He made a striking first impression simply because he was so aggressive on the streets.

In reading about Mitchell, the most stunning part of his life is that he has fathered a baker's dozen worth of children. What is it with messianic-types and having a football team worth of kids? There is nothing scarier than hyper-religious, super-libidinous people on welfare with a taste for violence and molestation. Mitchell is a scary dude. The kind of trash a la David Kirsch and Charlie Manson. Locking him up for life is a good start for what he did to Elizabeth. I can't imagine acting as a prophet of God in jail is going to work to his advantage.

With this said, how did he make it into the Smart’s life? Ed Smart used homeless labor around his house. Does this mean that lending a helping hand to those downtrodden folks was the Smart’s downfall? No. But how many times can you expose your family to potentially dangerous people before something horrific happens? Most of us choose not to roll the dice. Ed Smart did and it came up craps. Let’s roll play a scenario and see if anyone besides a self-righteous, criminally-negligent father would say yes to:

“Hey Honey, remember how you wanted me to clean the leaves out of the gutters and weather-strip the windows?”

“Yes! Did you finally do it?”

“No, but I did the next best thing. I found this robed, filthy, messianic-figure in front of the library and he said he would be happy to lend a hand.”

“Eh…”

“Don’t worry. He’s a quiet drifter so we won’t have to worry about him talking with the children.”

“Okay… What’s his name?”

“It’s Brian but he prefers to be referred to as Emmanuel.”

“Well, what is it? Brian or Emmanuel? What does he do?”

“He’s a street preacher for the homeless.”

“In that case, have him come right over. I’d sure like to get those leaves racked.”

Only a dominating maniacal father would put his family in jeopardy with a person like Mitchell. The fact that he defends his actions by assisting the needy is a cop-out. Bringing the wolves to the sheep proves that he was a bad shepherd. No fact can excuse Ed Smart’s role in his daughter’s abduction. At the bare minimum, Ed Smart should be dragged from his bed, hog-tied in the middle of the woods and forced to watch pornography while taking drugs. For the majority of us, this sounds like a welcome retreat from our daily lives. I doubt Eddie would feel the same way.

I honestly believe it was blind luck that found Elizabeth. The cops who discovered her on State Street thought they were bums loitering on the sidewalk. Mitchell had successfully evaded capture for nine months and only got caught because of an accidental encounter with the cops. He had been arrested two times since kidnapping Smart and was slick enough to get out of jail each time. I would have loved to be that police officer who found them. The luck pulling that needle out of that proverbial haystack earns you a weekend at the Rainbow in Wendover.

Outside of the midnight abduction, forced marriage and sodomy, the most upsetting part of the Elizabeth Smart case is the fact that, once again, Utah is being exposed to the national media as being a hotbed of crackpots. Between the polygamy, Jason Chaffetz’s TSA implosion, 3.2% beer and people who actually return $45,000 to complete strangers, Utahns seem to blaze a path of absurdity and the ridiculous. For every Winter Olympics, there is a La Verkin Utah threatening to pull out of the United Nations. For every Coach Jerry Sloan, there is Warren Jeffs. Utah is a lifetime of extremities. And Smart’s kidnapping is just another one of a long list of whack-o people and events that happen here making Utah out to be the craziest state in the Union.

To this day, I still have a lot of questions. Why Elizabeth? Is it a coincidence that she was found NINE months later? What role did Ed Smart play in the abduction? Why would anybody put their children at risk by having a derelict loner do chores? What kind of family makes a child learn the harp? How that Mitchell is was able to afford a summer trip to San Diego when I work two jobs and can only get away for 48 hours? I doubt we'll ever get to the bottom of this. Mitchell sentencing is only one more stop on a deranged and dangerous road. Until all of the facts of this case are brought to light, I refuse to discount any of the evidence of the events revolving around Elizabeth Smart’s kidnapping.

In the end, I guess we’ll have to be satisfied with the results off the last week. Smart is home and Mitchell will spend the balance of his days in a jail cell that is better than the jail he subjected Elizabeth to. Today, Smart looks composed. She faced down her attacker with a bravado reserved only for the heroine of a movie. Her adjustment to the world proves that she is an exceptional person. I would imagine that most people who experienced the horror that she faced would fall into a dark hole that they could never climb out of. Regardless of my distrust of her father and the scenario surrounding her kidnapping, I will have to be satisfied that justice prevailed. However, I wouldn’t be surprised as more information comes to the surface in the future that some absolutely hair pulling madness will cause all of Utah to collectively drop their jaw and question how easily we were duped by this week’s decision.

I hear that prison inmates are very compassionate and understanding to child rapists. Brain David Mitchell is not going to enjoy prison.

Green Street Blues

2011-05-19T13:38:00.000-07:00

On May 3^rd, Green Street had their hat handed to them. Their doors were chained by Trolley Square’s property managers for owing $120,000 in back rent. Unable to meet their responsibilities, Green Street’s 32 year run came to an end with chains locking the doors and their property seized. It’s probably not the way them wanted to end their reign as one of Salt Lake’s last remaining mega-club but in the end, poor financial decisions sealed their fate.

I never liked Green Street. It always felt like somebody else’s club. While they had a nice patio, the rest of the bar felt like two dozen Home Depot projects that never got finished. It smelt greasy and dirty. It had the smell of a wet hamster cage which is fine if you’re not trying to portray yourself as upscale club. I think a lot of factors went into the demise of Greet Street over the last five years and none more damaging than the construction of the Whole Foods in Trolley Square. Closures around the club forced Green Street to try and salvage their best characteristic: a large, open-aired patio. When that was taken away from them, Green Street deteriorated into a thuggish and brutal place. Between the off-duty police officer shooting, gang activity and fights, Green Street went from a fixture in Salt Lake to a dogged violent corner that should be avoided at all costs.

I like dive bars because I enjoy drinking. However, Green Street was never a dive bar. I would compare it to a basement bar build by a fraternity for the sole purpose of blackout nights and seducing sorority girls. To this day, I don’t know if they were branding themselves as a dance club, sport’s bar, restaurant, pool hall or patio bar. Burdened without an identity, Green Street was never able to tailor their business for a specific crowd. As much as I didn't know who they were, I would argue that they didn’t have a clue who they were either. There was always an alternative motive for going to Green Street. People ended up there. Because of this, it became a magnet for customers around the valley who enjoyed fighting and casual rape more than socializing. It drew vulgar and obnoxious guests which was great because it kept these people out of bars that I worked or drank at.

There is a vast difference between Green Street abruptly ending their time in Trolley Square and Port O’ Call closing their doors. When Port O’ Call closed on the March 15, 2009, there was a huge gap left in the nightclub scene throughout Salt Lake City. Even those who didn’t enjoy Port subconsciously recognized that it filled a niche throughout the city. With three different levels, a dance floor, game rooms, good food and affordable drinks, Port was the place that anyone could find what they were looking for. Moreover, it appealed to a wide breath of different customers. Unlike other bars in Salt Lake that cater to particular types, Port had a cavalcade of different personalities and types rolling through their door every night of the week. Their identity was the fact that they clearly did not have a single one. I believe the success of Port was the fact that it was able to accommodate some many different types of guests successfully. Port was able to do so many things well giving it had a broad range of loyal customers. It wasn’t my favorite spot in Utah but it was always a strong option when thinking of something to do for the night.

When I was working at the Wyndham Hotel, Port O’ Call was my first suggestion for out-of-town guests simply because it was the best first option for people not familiar with Utah’s liquor laws. For lack of a better word, Port felt “normal” if such a thing could be labeled as such. I believe that every city has a Port O’ Call-esque club and visitors to Salt Lake could easily relate to this type of venue.

When Port O' Call shut their doors, there was a mad dash of people trying to usurp those guests that didn’t have a favorite place to go. In the wake, two large clubs, Gracie’s and The Green Pig, opened each of which felt like poorly made photocopies of the original. In the end, you can’t recreate 30-plus years of experiences and frame them into new establishments. Port’s walls oozed wasted nights, good times and history. Port O’ Call embodied the expression of politicians, ugly buildings and whores gaining respectability by lasting long enough.

Green Street never had that sort of mystique. Tucked back into Trolley Square, it was always Plan B. While it was spacious and had a lot of televisions for watching sports, Green Street was populated with people ranging from The Jersey Shore to Peyton Place. It was a mixed bag of drunken old men, fraternity styled guys, hoochie-mamas and fellow confused customers wondering how did we end up here in the first place? Green Street always felt like it was the first choice of all of the thuggish types in town and a place where douche-bags felt at home.

During the day, it always felt like I should be somewhere else doing something more important than sipping beer out of marginally clean glasses. At night, it always felt like a fight was going to break out. The bouncers were meatheads, the cocktail waitresses slow and sluggish and the bartenders bad at their job. From a professional standpoint, I always felt like I could brew and bottle beer faster than they could pour a draft. If I wanted a shot, it better be a straight whiskey or I could be there awhile as they scrounge up a Boston’s Bartender’s Guide to learn how to make a kamikaze.

Nothing about the bar was comfortable or welcoming. I could make a laundry list of problems with the bar but I’ll settle on one point: they had bad draft beer. Draft beer is the single reason I go to bars. There is something very unsatisfying about drinking lukewarm beer out of a plastic stein. There is nothing better than a chilled glass filled with ice-cold draft beer. Plastic feels cheap and always seems to impart some sort of foreign taste that is a combination of dish soap and the previous drinker’s saliva. Drinking a stein of beer out of a chipped, faded plastic mug sends a very clear message: you don’t value or trust your customers with glass.

In fairness, I liked the food at Green Street. It wasn’t great food but it was Salt Lake’s best take on what bar food should taste like. I particularly enjoyed their buffalo chicken sandwich. It was equally delicious, messy and revolting. I often joked that when I had my food intervention, this would be this sandwich I would be forced to eat naked in front of the mirror. However, everything that was required to get to that sandwich was a massive pain. My friend, Phil, and I would meet at Green Street for lunch on occasion and I always left scratching my head why we didn’t just go to Crown Burger? Poor service was endemic at Green Street regardless of what time of day you visited the club. I always left strapped with a headache lamenting why I wasted my afternoon there.

The final nail for me about Green Street is that they actually celebrated the fact that Michael Jordan visited their bar. As any Utah Jazz fan will remember, game six of the 1998 NBA Finals was a dagger. MJ pushed off Bryon Russell and made the shot that stole for the Bulls the championship. The fact that Green Street can call themselves a Utah sport’s bar and allow Jordan onto the premises is deplorable. Jazz killers are never allowed in my bar even if they are the greatest of all time. For bouncers who would pat down my mother for weapons, I can’t believe they didn’t stop him at the door and send him packing.

I am still scratching my head how the owners of Green Street fell $120,000 behind in rent. As a previous owner of a bar in Salt Lake, I know firsthand how hard it is to make a go of selling nightlife in Utah. Yet, where other aspects of the club might falter, making sure the landlord was taken care of was always a priority. Not being able to make rent is usually a red flag for other problems the business is having.

The lasting effects of the Green Street Diaspora will probably not be felt for years. In the intermediate time, the patrons of Green Street will have to find their new club and the pickings are slim. Sport’s bars that double as dance clubs and Thunderdomes are pretty thin in Utah. Last weekend, I saw the first stragglers of the Greet Street Refuges. I knew something was afoot when I started seeing Ute football jerseys in May and a rise in Coors Light consumption. I’m able to accommodate a handful of the GSRs but where will the rest of them go? Where can all of those Affliction T-shirt wearing patrons find respite with the limited amount of clubs in Utah? And more importantly, who will have them?

In the upcoming weeks, I imagine this muster of peacocks sporting spray-on tan, frosted tips and bedazzled blue jeans wandering the streets with their trashy Bebe-clad girlfriends looking for some place to knock back JagerBombs and Coors Lights. Like a pack of circus clowns cruising around town in stretch Hummer limos listening to the newest Buckcherry CD, they have a void that needs to be filled. Angry, crazed and self-entitled, this new breed of middle-class posers demand to be looked upon and worshipped. Like Vandals at the gate, they invade new bars seeking pleasures of the flesh and strong drink only to discover that they are not welcome. Unable to adapt, they either die in battle or resign to house parties back in Draper. If you think I am being overdramatic, try and remember what happened when Club Manhattan closed its doors.

In the end, I don’t think it is the $120,000 back rent that closed Green Street. It was arrogance. Arrogance that they could continually put out a substandard product and think the events surrounding their club would not have long-lasting implications. Shootings outside of any club aren’t a badge of honor. It is a glaring indication that they are doing something horribly wrong. Any bar that creates a culture of violence doesn’t need to be in business. The fact that they have been in able to stay open over the last three years is testament to the nerve of the owners and the blind loyalty of their customers. Those who eulogize Green Street are remembering the club from over five years ago. It's unfortunate that the the thuggish and brutal atmosphere cultivated over the last few years will be their legacy.