Big Mike: The Spirit Life

People seem to think bartenders live a glamorous, exciting life. They meet fascinating people. They hear the most riveting stories. They're seduced by attractive members of the opposite sex.

Maybe.

I spent a year setting 'em up for the Nardini boys at Club Lago in the tony River North neighborhood earlier this decade. Mind you, if a bartender were to live a glamorous, exciting life, River North would be the place to do it.

We had our share of celebs. Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins loved the place. The painter Ed Paschke held frequent dinner meetings at a corner table. Photographer Marc Hauser blustered in on a regular basis. News anchor and television producer Bill Kurtis ate there a couple of times a week.

The elder of the Nardinis, Giancarlo, once walked Kurtis to the door. "I hope you liked it," Giancarlo said. Kurtis turned to him dramatically and, in that famous authoritative, stentorian voice, issued the proclamation, "We love it." Giancarlo scratched his head as he came back behind the bar. "He was alone," the boss said. "Was he using the royal we?"

The restaurant even was featured in a key scene in the movie "Mad Dog and Glory," a Robert De Niro vehicle that was about as memorable as a case of hiccups.

Since it was a good Italian eatery in a trendy district, Club Lago drew its share of sports stars. One night, the head coach of the Blackhawks came in with his wife. Giancarlo, a maniacal hockey fan, almost screamed like a teenaged girl at a Jonas Brothers concert. Patrons and staff were puzzled by the fuss. As a Chicago celebrity, the coach of the Blackhawks ranks between the Recorder of Deeds and the ice cream man. I don't remember his name; for all I know, his wife forgets it too.

Former Bears quarterback Bob Avellini once graced the joint with his business. For the sports-impaired, A Chicago ordinance bars the pro football team from employing competent quarterbacks. Avellini was as pedestrian as any passer in Bears history. Still, customers flocked around him at the end of the bar. Avellini stood as erect as a victorious Roman general charioting back into the city.

Baffled by the idolatry, I pulled aside a fellow named Mr. Darby, one of the most fevered of the flock bleating around the retired jock.

I quietly asked him, "You know that's Bob Avellini, don't you?"

"Of course," he gushed, "isn't it great?"

A brief tangent. That night's Avellini-mania was further proof that Americans value celebrity above all things. If a person is somehow lucky enough to be caught, even briefly, on a television camera, his or her life is deemed fulfilled. To wit: my nice Sheila brought her 12-year-old son to the Barack Obama victory rally in Grant Park on election night. One of the ten bazillion CNN camera crews found the kid and asked him his thoughts. He told the nation that it was an historic occasion. Cut to commercial. The rest of the family hasn't stopped talking about his six seconds of fame since. I expect him to be using the royal we soon.

Back to the point. Despite the romance engendered by caricatures like Billy Goat's in Chicago, the fictional Cheers in Boston, and Joe Bell's from "Breakfast at Tiffany's," a tavern is really nothing more than a church for drunks. I swiftly adopt a local bar in every neighborhood I move into. For the first few months, I'm giddy over my new friends whom I can depend on seeing any night of the week. Like the ideal family, they're always there for me. Eventually, though, I realize that they're not there for me but for the booze. I become disillusioned until I discover a new bar family.

So, where can I go to be surrounded by kindred souls? I haven't the foggiest notion but I continue to look. The only other place in the modern world where people regularly gather and commune is, well, church itself. I can't figure out which is the sillier addiction: god or alcohol.

As for the glamor of a bartender's life, by the time I left Club Lago, I was sick to death of stinking like cigarette smoke and being told what a great guy I was time and again, time and again, time and again. In a bar, a compliment can be nothing more than a verbal tic.

I'd been able to buy both a laptop and a car in cash, though. Paid my rent that way too. Pocketing a thick wad of bills every night is a powerful draw for the profession. Money, like sex, drives us.

Speaking of sex, I never was seduced by a ravishing beauty when I was a bartender. It didn't seem quite fair, capitalizing on the fact that she might have had four cosmopolitans in her. It reminded me of the old Woody Allen line: I never like to play to a roomful of people high on pot - they'll laugh at anything.

Big Mike: Courage In High Heels

Celebrating MLK Day today. CNN is awash in nostalgia. Listened to his August 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial for the ten thousandth time. Nevertheless, every time he rides that crescendo into Free at last, free at last, thank god almighty, I'm free at last! I get goosebumps and my eyes start watering.

This needs to be said: J. Edgar Hoover, this nation's premier law enforcement officer, despised King. Hoover hypnotized his agents into believing King was "dangerous" and a "communist." He called him burrhead as a matter of course. No American president had the guts to kick Hoover out on his loathsome ass.

I remember the Monday after King's assassination. Sunday night thunderstorms had broken an unseasonably warm spell. The rain had cooled off the rioting as well. Still, there was no school that day. Over the weekend, newscasters and city officials had filled the airwaves with warnings for parents to keep their children home for the foreseeable future but my friends and I weren't having any of it. We organized a bike caravan to the forest preserve on North Avenue at the Des Plaines River. It was a good five-mile ride, fairly adventurous for a gang of 11- and 12-year-olds.

We started off with Pollack Julian from up my block as well as Louie LaFemina and Ronald Micci. We pedaled to the home of the tough Lenczyck boys, Danny and Terry. As we waited for the Lenczycks to come down, their younger brother Paulie begged us to let him come along. Danny at first was miffed when he heard this, then he relented. "Okay," he said gruffly to his little brother, "but no high heels!"

Paulie was 10 and never usually wanted to come out of the house. He preferred to stay indoors and walk around in his mother's feathered mules or dress pumps. Once, he answered the door wearing lipstick.

None of us ever teased Paulie for these quirks. Either Danny or Terry would have fattened our lips had we dared. They weren't happy about Paulie's pastime but he was still their brother. Paulie rode with Ronald, whose bike had a banana seat and therefore could fit two riders.

When we got to the forest preserve, Paulie started a fire and cooked us lunch. He'd brought a soup pan, a package of spaghetti, and a bottle of ketchup. When it was ready, we dug in and slurped the spaghetti like the Meryl Streep character in "Defending Your Life." By the time we were finished our shirts and faces were speckled red.

Sated, we leaned back and began discussing - what else? - baseball. The traditional opener in Cincinnati, scheduled for that afternoon, had been postponed, like many events in the aftermath of the killing but we were eager for the season to begin. The year before had been the first in decades during which both the Cubs and the White Sox had finished with winning records.

All of us were Cubs fans except for Louie LaFemina. He always seemed a contrarian and so it was with his baseball loyalty. It worked out well for us, though, because every spring he'd trade us all his Cubs baseball cards for our White Sox cards. Louie argued valiantly for the superiority of the Sox that day. We ridiculed him but he only argued more determinedly.

Finally, after 20 minutes of squabbling, Pollack Julian piped up. "Shut up, Louie," he yelled. "The Sox suck. They got too many niggers."

Well, Louie had nothing to counter that argument with and so he fell silent. It was Paulie who challenged Julian. "That's not a very nice thing to say," he said.

Julian snorted, "Whaddya, some kinda Martin Luther King-lover?"

"What's wrong with Martin Luther King?" Paulie asked. "I think he was a good man."

Oh, Julian howled! He laughed until he had to clutch his side in pain. "Didja hear that?" he hollered.

Ever since I'd met Paulie, I'd shunned him. I was afraid of him, quite frankly. What was I to make of this kid who enjoyed dressing like his mother? I was curious, though, about why he wanted to wear high heels. Of course, I never asked him outright why he did so. Merely posing the question might put my own preferences in doubt among the guys and, gulp, maybe even myself.

But that day even a scared rabbit like me realized that Paulie was the bravest among us. God forbid I would have told him so, though. It would be years before I could muster that kind of bravery.