The Shoulders I Stand Upon
Big Mike Phillips
Wow. We did it again, made it to another year of life – and it’s 2024. It seems mind-blowing to many of us who were born before the 1990s, especially those like me who were born in 1957. As a kid, 2024 seemed like a lifetime away. So, to live to see it, is a true blessing and I must say I’m full of gratitude to see myself still learning and manifesting to better my life to its fullest. I pray that all of you are blessed and grateful for the good life coming your way. I do pray that our world will stop all the hate and start to find peace in each other.
I was talking to my friends Morgan and Benny one afternoon telling them old stories of funny things that had happened with customers in the bar business and some of my own personal unexpected happenings that have stuck with me after all these years. If you don’t mind, I’d like to share a couple of them with you.
My first bartending job, which many of you know, started on Christmas morning in 1989 at the Brass Rail, making it 35 years this Christmas that I started working as a bartender in this community (and yes, I am back working behind the bar at The Rail on Friday and Saturdays for happy hour).
While working at the Brass Rail back then, I met an older man who also worked there who we called “Old Man Joe.” Joe worked for Lou and Carol Arko for many years. He was a hard man to get along with or get to like you, but for some reason he and I got along decently.
One afternoon, after he had finished counting the banks from the day before, he sat at the bar with a Bud Light and told me a story of something that had happened to him as he was bartending the day shift, which I thought was funny.
Back in the 1970s when the Brass Rail was across the street from where it is now, on the corner of Fifth and Robinson avenues, (the northwest corner where Chase Bank now sits) was and still is to this day, a two-story wooden building. The Brass Rail was on the ground floor and there were two doors to get in and out of the bar, one was on the Robinson Avenue side and the other on the Fifth Avenue side. In those days, the bar opened at 6 am.
One morning, Joe had just opened the doors for the day when a very intoxicated man came in on the Robinson side of the bar and sat down. With a loud voice he yelled, “Hey bartender, make me a spicy Bloody Mary.”
Joe went down to the end of the bar where this man was sitting and said, “No, I am not going to make you any kind of drink; clearly you have had way too much to drink already. Why don’t you take yourself across the street to the Chicken Pie Shop (which also sat on the corner of Fifth and Robinson, where the Starbucks used to be), get some coffee and something to eat, sober up, then we can re-evaluate if you have sobered up enough to have another drink.”
Well needless to say, this was not what that customer wanted to hear from Joe, so he got up and, in his slurred voice, yelled at Joe, “F@%k YOU” and then proceeded to stumble out the door that he had just come in. Not really realizing where he was, he turned left onto Fifth Avenue and then entered the door on the other end of the Brass Rail and started yelling “Bartender make me a spicy Bloody Mary.”
OK, now Joe was beside himself, went up to the intoxicated man and said, “I just told you I was not going to make you a drink until you sober up, so go across the street, get some coffee and some food, and only then I will see if you are sober enough to have another drink. So, I must ask you to leave now.”
The man got up off his stool and looked Joe dead in the face and said: “F@%K YOU, you work in every f@%king bar in this town, where the hell am I supposed to get a drink then?”
I think he finally went across the street and decided to have coffee and breakfast instead, sobering up so he could continue to drink, because in his mind no bar would serve him. LOL
Years later, I was bartending at Rich’s Night Club, and I loved working in this new and very fast-paced environment. After several years, I was able to earn the right to which bar station I wanted to work at, and on this particular Friday night, I was working the first bar as customers entered the back room to the dance floor. I remember those days so well, I had so many loyal and wonderful customers, many I knew what their drinks were and often had them already made when I saw them entering the back bar. I would just hand their drinks over other people to move my line along faster.
It just so happened that this Friday night a short, middle-aged man, wearing fake gold-plated jewelry got right up to my bar – to those who knew me back then, know I would be taking orders, making drinks, collecting money, and giving out change as fast as I possibly could, while still acknowledging every single person who came to me to make their drink. Well, this middle-aged man was very upset that I did not stop everything I was doing by the time he got to my bar to take his order, when I finished up with my customer before him, I said, “Hello, how are you? Thank you for waiting, what would you like to drink?”
Then out of nowhere he says to me: “I need you to listen and listen good, I will only say this once, I want a Corona with lime, and then I want two shots of Courvoisier, pour the two shots in a cordial glass, but only charge me for one shot.” I looked at him as if he was crazy and said, “I’m sorry it doesn’t work like that, if you order two shots, I’m charging you for two shots.” As I began to put his Corona on the bar with a lime, I also poured his two shots and then put a well glass in between the shots, then poured the two shots in the well glass. I mentioned to him we did not have cordial glassware there at Rich’s. Then I said, “That will be $17.50, please.”
OMG, he became furious with me, cursing and yelling that I was a stupid and uneducated bartender, and that he made more money than I would ever see in my lifetime compared to him. I replied, “All that money you make, I need $17.50 of it, please.” Catching me by total surprise, he picked up the shots I had poured into the well glass and threw it in my face. As soon as he did that, my amazing barback, Eddie, jumped over the bar and grabbed him, pushing him toward the door.
In those early days at Rich’s, the first several years that we were open we didn’t have any security working in the bar, so when any employee was in trouble, we all jumped the bar to help our fellow coworker.
We needed to get this crazy guy out the front door, which we did, and then we stood there to make sure he left. We watched him walk down the street yelling back at all of us and then he got into a beat-up Ford Pinto. He then drove right up to the front of the bar on University Avenue, jumped out of his car, leaving the door open and the keys in it as it was still running, and ran up to the sidewalk yelling at us that we would all be fired, and he would own the bar the next day.
Meanwhile, many of you reading this may remember Euphoria Coffee Shop next door to Rich’s, a haven for underage gays and lesbians at the time. We found out later he had been asked to leave there as well for harassing a young Latino boy. While this crazy man was yelling at us about how he would soon be the new bar owner, this same Latino boy that he had harassed earlier happened to be leaving Euphoria, saw him making a fool of himself, saw his car running, and ran over, jumped into his car and stole it right in front of everyone. We were rolling in laughter. Now he is telling us to call the police. Someone yelled out, “You’re going to own the bar, you call the police tomorrow.”
Poor guy, I think in his mind he really did think he was going to own the bar … how I have no idea, maybe he was going to sell his Ford Pinto? We all went back into the bar to take care of our wonderful customers for the rest of the night. (No fake gold jewelry was damaged that night. Thank God.)
It never pays to be nasty or mean to your bartenders, or anyone, for that matter, especially if you want a drink, thinking you are better than they are.
Those individuals that tried that with me never got a drink out of me if they treated me like that. I would just tell them flat out to go to another bartender. Overall, these many years, I have been honored to work with so many great, talented people in the bars, I have learned a lot from many of them and become lifelong friends with several of them over the years. I have always tried to do my job as best as I could as a professional to make sure all our guests had a good time. Remember to be kind to one another.
Thanks to all my wonderful, loyal, generous customers, because of all of you, I have been able to make a good living and make San Diego my home. Thank you. Come see me from 4-8 pm Fridays and Saturdays at The Rail.
I pray that all of you have an incredible 2024 and that you are always grateful for all the good that comes your way.
These are the shoulders I stand upon.
–Big Mike Phillips is a local photographer, bartender, and longtime LGBT activist and fundraiser. You can reach him at [email protected].
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