The Chase Away Guy!

You know talking about bars and hanging out made me think of a type that you always ran into in the bar. We used to call them "The Chase Away Guy!"

He was the guy who would hit on all the chicks in an inept and sleazy way that would make them uncomfortable to the point that they would get up and leave. Now some women could stand up for themselves and would tell him to fuck off. But some of these guys would only get more aggresive when that happened and we ended up having to bounce them out of the bar. What would suck would be that if I was in a joint that didn't have a bouncer. If there was a board as the bartender as often or not they would be a friend of mine and they would ask me to tell the guy to leave. I mean what the fuck? I am just there to enjoy a drink. But I was usually the accountant for the bar and in with the in crowd so they looked at me as management. Or at least their friend who had to help them out.

One day just around this time of year I went out drinking with a friend of mine who was going through a divorce. He was still living in the same apartment with his wife so he never wanted to go home. So he would call me at my job and say "Lets go out for a few drinks after work." "I am working until midnight." "No problem I will meet you then." He wouldn't take no for an answer. I was single and ready to mingle aand I was always ready to chase down some poon so I was up for hanging out until four in the morning and then going in to work the next day. So I told him I would meet up with him at around eleven.

We decided to go to this joint on Second Avenue which was owned by the same guys that owned a joint on Atlantic Avenue where we used to go all the time. We figured maybe there would be a bartender we know working there because they worked in both places so we would get some god buy backs and shit. So we walk in and there is this girl with bunch of tattoo's that we had never met before. It was a Saturday night and it was Valentines Day. So there was me and my friend who was crying about his fuckin' divorce and two Russian douchebags at the other end of the bar who were hitting on the bartender and the waitress who was Russian as well.

Anyway this bitch keeps coming over and chatting us up. She found out that I knew the owner and the other bartenders like Dimitri who also worked there so we knew the same people. It's the shank of the evening and she comes over to complain about the Russians. She goes "I got to get rid of these guys... they are really out of line....so how are we gonna get rid of them." I look at my friend and he looks at me. "What do you mean we white man?" She goes "Com'om help a girl out. I mean what kind of loser doesn't have a date on Valentines Day?" I look at my friend and he looks at me. "We'll be right with you." We threw a fin on the bar and walked out. We took a cab back to Brooklyn and he met his future second wife that very night.

But there is a moral to this story. Every bar has a chase away guy. A guy who is so annoying that you don't want to go to that bar anymore. So if you own that bar....well you should keep that guy under control.

Otherwise people are gonna find another place to hang out.

Just sayn'

Rememberance of Things Pabst.

There used to be a bar called Toomey's on the corner of Degraw and Court Street that was around the corner from where we lived on Tompkins Place. It was an old school local saloon. A bucket of blood where the Irish guys in the neighborhood used to go to get their load on. You could go and get a growler of tap beer for about three dollars. That was basicly a pot with a lid on it or a bottle if you were a hotiy toity lace curtain mick that they would fill from the bar and you would bring home for the men to have with dinner. Or maybe just while they were watching the game. When I was kid you could go in and pick it up for your Da and no one would think anything of it. You would bring in the pot, get it filled, the bartender would put it on the tab and you would bring it home. And you would pick up a couple of packs of Lucky Strike while you were at it. Nobody thought twice about it.

It was a different world.

Remembrance of Things Pabst.

St. Paddy’s day makes me think of the bars gone by. The ones I used to drink in that are no longer with us. They all had a season or five but then closed or were sold or lost their lease or some other bullshit and you had to move on to the next one.

The hardest drinking bar I was ever in was called “The Quiet Man” and was on 45th St between 5th and 6th Avenues in New York. It was one of the first bars I ever adopted as my “local” as it was on the block of my office. I used to go to lunch there pretty much every day and for a drink after work every day. In this bar pretty much everyone who was there was a stone alcoholic. The owner, the bartenders, the waitresses and most of the customers were hard core old school drinkers. The owner Eddie had a John Wayne fantasy. He named his bar after the movie the Quiet Man and had photo’s and posters and memorabilia all over the joint. The Parade started there every year back in the 1980’s when the Troubles were at their height and he always had a huge crowd. He was an ex cop so he used to get the cops as well.

Now the bar had been in trouble for a long while because the landlord wanted him out to sell the building and he didn’t have a lease. Or they were trying to break his lease or something. So he wasn’t paying his rent or his taxes or anybody other than the liquor and beer companies and the food purveyors. It was a Wild West kind of existence.

My buddies used to meet me there on a Friday to get smashed and we would gather up whatever stray waitresses and bar flies that were still around to go out on the town. But weirder stuff would happen during the week. Like I told you it is the snowy days in February or the roasting days in July that determine if a bar is going to make it. I would come in after doing taxes all day on a cold February night to see if I could get something to eat. But the kitchen guys had left. The bartender would go, “You’re fooking hungry you guinea, go into the kitchen and make something for us why don’t ya.” So I would cook some burgers or steaks or maybe pasta or something and we would eat and drink till around four in the morning. Then I would jump in a cab and be back to work for 9am the next day. Fit as a fiddle.

It’s great to be young.