Fantastically Flawed

Ted Kennedy drives off bridge while drinking, another passenger in the car subsequently drowns. He receives a suspended sentence after pleading guilty to leaving the scene of an accident.

Jack Goes Forth takes a few hits from the "lung" (tobacco inhalation apparatus) and subsequently drives the wrong way down E. Main St. A cop notices and pulls him over. After passing a field sobriety test, including a surprisingly difficult recitation of the alphabet from A to S, he is let go and continues his trek to 7-11.

Ted Kennedy is photographed in 1989 having sex on a motorboat in the Mediterranean. GQ magazine profiles him shortly thereafter referring to him as "an aging Irish boyo clutching a bottle and diddling a blonde."

Jack Goes Forth is photographed with his pants down at Strawberry Hill. Amidst the giggles of many area women, SaveRichmond refers to Jack as a, "Horndog, man about town, drink-mixer and controversial observer — Richmond’s more charismatic version of Joe the Plumber."

Newsweek refers to Ted Kennedy as "the living symbol of the Kennedy family flaws."

My Mom refers to me as "the living symbol of the Lauterback family flaws."

Ted Kennedy's overall and lasting image is that of a Democratic stalwart, the "lion of the Senate." His drinking and personal demons hold no candle to his accomplishments and his resume.

Jack Goes Forth drinks too much, does a few too many drugs and is hated by most area hipsters. His accomplishments pale in comparison to his many shortcomings.



Rest In Peace Teddy. You fought a good fight.

Classy Couples

Sometimes drunk couples at the bar will try to be sneaky and go into the same bathroom together for a little bit of barroom baby making. If the bar isn't busy I almost always catch them. Of course I usually let them stay in there for a few minutes as to give them time to unbuckle and get down to business. It's more fun busting into a bathroom stall when their pants are already down. By that point they're red-faced, oblivious to the outside world and maybe I get to catch a glimpse of some naughty bits. Although it's rare that an attractive couple will attempt to pull this stunt. Strangely, I'll still give grossly obese couples a few minutes before cutting off the copulation. I guess I'm just a curious (and sick) person.

...The gf and I only choose solo bathrooms with heavy-duty locks. Email me for a comprehensive list of the great RVA hook-up restrooms in bars (and gas stations).

deLux comes to mind.

Richmond And Booze Go Together Like...

Turner and Hooch. PB and J. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. Jack Goes Forth and Rumplemintz.

My 3rd "bartender/lifestyle/bitch-fest" column came out in Style Weekly today. This week it's about the heavy drinking culture in my hometown. I gave Richmond props for its excessive consumption and its well-earned reputation as a hard-nosed and hard-livered city. Essentially it's a celebration of the Cap City and its loyal drunken idiots. It's cool though because I'm one of those idiots.

Click here to read the piece. Leave comments you fuckers.

Don't Let Your Child Listen To Hip Hop

I received my first CD for Christmas in 1994. I begged my Mom for it and since she had no idea what "rap" was, she readily agreed to buy me the Notorious B.I.G. album, "Ready to Die". Surprisingly the title of the disc and the picture of an afroed baby on the cover didn't give her pause while purchasing it for her eleven year old son.

I thank her for that.

I also thank Biggie Smalls for influencing this young suburban white kid with his sexually explicit lyrics and his usage of violence as a means to an end.

He made me realize that yes, I would also like bitches. And not just any bitches mind you. It would seem that I shared his inclination towards "big booty bitches". And when dealing with these "big booty bitches", he taught me, that yeah, you can "catch a feel on a bitch, as long as you throw shields on the dick to stop it from that HIV shit."

Truer words will never be spoken.

What if instead of receiving Notorious BIG, I unwrapped a copy of Ace Of Base's "The Sign", the number one monster album of 1994? Would I be a fully functioning adult now and not a Peter Pan bartender who sleeps all day and eats at 7-11 five times a week?

Probably not. Truth be told, I had the Ace Of Base CD too. That shit was hot.

Drinking At The Office Is Okay

* "Why yes, it is only 10 AM. What of it? I'm Don Draper bitch."

Interesting article in the NYT today about my favorite show, Mad Men, and how they recreate the 60's cocktail culture with painstaking accuracy. Popular brands of liquor for the time period (no shitty ass Grey Goose or Patron here) and exact retro glassware are used to show the heavy consumption culture that personified the 1960's. And by "heavy", I mean they are drinking in every scene and most of the scenes are them in the office on a weekday.


Cocktail preferences seen in the show include the Old Fashioned, Vodka Gimlets, Tom Collinses, Scotch and Bourbon (Neat!), and the occasional martini or twelve. At the end of season two, agency head Roger Sterling is proud to show off his pilfered bottle of Russian Stolichnaya vodka, which at the time was not available in the US. Something about a war and it being cold... (Smirnoff was already a mainstay in the domestic vodka market after a US company purchased it in the 1940's)


Imagine 40 years from now when they make a television show depicting our current cocktail preferences. I'll be embarrassed when my kid comes up and says, "Hey pop, what's a Jagermeister? What's an Orange Crush? What the fuck is a Nerd Bomb?" Even with the recent spike in interest over complex, classic cocktails, our modern day consumption habits remain horribly trailer park in comparison to the sophistication of the drinker and the appreciation given to the intoxicant back in the day.


I want to start bringing back a few old-timey drinks. Come on down to the bar and I'll make you a Sazarac or maybe a Moscow Mule. Then we can sit down, chain smoke and talk about how much we hate hippies and that god damn L.B.J.


.....Hold on one second. I have to pour these four Jager Bombs and pop the tops on six 24oz. cans of PBR for this group of unruly, half-witted, Ed Hardy wearing frat boys.

Snapshot Of A Tuesday Night

"I'ms ain't drunk ossiffer...You is the one who is drunk saaahh."

Notice the form on that cigarette point. I was paying tribute to Adina Howard with my violently sexual rendition of her classic R+B hit, "Freak Like Me".

Tuesday night karaoke at Cha Cha's Cantina. Catch the fever.

Best Cafes In The RVA

As an avid internet surfer, blogger, sometime writer, and master class porn connoisseur, I feel it is my duty to make a list of cafes in the Richmond area that are conducive to relaxing, getting free wi-fi, staring at women, avoiding hobos and advancing one's status as a small-time, immature bartending blog poster guy. The following is a list of my favorite and not so favorite spots in the RVA to get shit done. The only prerequisite is that the cafe have free wi-fi. I don't frequent places where people are cheap and don't give me things for free, which I realize is a huge contradiction.

*I know I'm missing many cafes on this list and this list will remain open and ongoing. Please email some suggestions so I can go check em out.



Globehopper Cafe, 2100 East Main Street : A solid all-around cafe. Good service, decent eats and a comfortable setting. I hate their hours (who closes at 2 PM on a Friday, and 8 PM every other night?!) and their lack of bottled water leaves something to be desired. Not much foot traffic in terms of women, but I always see people I know and the staff is pretty cool and down to earth. Great, clean restroom to take a massive dump in when that caffeine hits your blood stream.


Ellwoods Coffee, 10 S. Thompson Street: I tend to get most of my work done here. Very comfortable setting. High foot traffic of people from all walks of life. There are a lot of hippies, but it's in their nature to be passive and meek, so I don't really interact or have problems with any of them. The food and coffee are awesome, although the service is never quite on point. I suspect massive amounts of pre-shift "inhalation sessions" contribute to this, which is okay in my book. I've had the same barista burn my sandwich on three consecutive visits due to him "forgetting about it man." Everyone is really nice though, so that makes up for it. I'm taken at the moment, but this would be a good place to try some "day game" and meet a lady or two.


Crossroads 26 N. Morris Street (Forest Hill Area): A cramped spot that tends to feel more like a house than a cafe. Wi-fi is sometimes iffy and it's only comfortable if you get lucky and snag the right spot. On the flip side, the food and service are excellent. The clientele is very eclectic due to the general diversity of the area where it's located. I'm usually only here when hungover due to its proximity to my girlfriend's house and the fact that I drink a lot.


Lift, 218 W Broad St : A student cafe on the VCU campus. I've only been twice and both times I was swarmed by flies. It can be difficult to effectively blog when three fruit flies continuously go kamikaze on your keyboard. Not recommended for getting shit done. Highly recommended for wearing thick-rimmed hipster glasses, posing as a VCU kid and attempting to pick up college chicks. Have a Vonnegut book in your hand as you sip your americano. Drop the phrase "unbearable lightness" somewhere in your conversation. I saw three different groups of MCV girls having group study there one day. Go there and snag yo-self a doctor lady, or a (shudder)... nurse.


Bin 22 at Betsys, 3200 W Cary St : Not recommended. Atmosphere put me to sleep. The lighting is funky during the daytime. Wi-fi was down so I had to (gasp!) read a book. I admit to only visiting once, so I'll take rebuttals on this one.


As I mentioned, this list is ongoing. Please email your own reviews and suggestions. I'll add them to the list if they don't suck.

And They Will Identify Me By The Leopard Print...

The lovely ladies behind the blog, CafeDarkness, cracked me up this morning with their profile of a UMOT (Unmarried Man Over Thirty). Since there's a solid chance I will one day be a UMOT, I've decided to respond with my own profile.

"Purrrrr, hello there young Mr.Bartender. I'm an Unmarried Woman Over Thirty or what you might call a UWOT. I'll bat my eyes and laugh when you ask for my ID with a straight face, but you and I both know, and my weathered skin cannot lie, I'm plenty old enough to be having a drink in this bar.

I'm meeting my girlfriend here in a few minutes. The topics we will discuss as we quaff low-cal Vodka sodas and Michelob Ultra?

- Cats.

- The shortcomings of Match.com, Chemistry.com, AdultFriendFinder.com and every other "dating service" we've used in an attempt to find somebody, okay anybody, to love us.

- More cats.

- Memories of what it was like to sleep with men who aren't fat, married, bald, random bar drunkies, etc.

- Catty remarks about all the young girls around us, and general bitchiness over how their skin still maintains some semblance of elasticity, along with their noticeable lack of the dreaded "pancake ass syndrome."

- Who this King Of Leon character is?

- Our jobs and how much we hate that bitch "Misti" in the next cubicle. It's not fair that she got that raise and it's not professional for her to go around throwing her cleavage in everyone's face!

- Our collection of John Mayer CD's.

- How much we admire Jennifer Aniston.

- How we foolishly believe that our short, "bob" haircuts make us look sexy.

- Our next trip to the SPCA to get another cat.

- Our daily routine of self-medication: Zoloft, Booze, Xanax.

Thank you for listening Mr.Bartender. You are so adorable. I'll continue to shamelessly flirt with you and you will continue to make me feel like I actually have a chance of sleeping with you.

Another Grey Goose, cutie?" - Unidentified UWOT in the wild.

*Calm down, calm down. This post was all meant in good fun. Don't you go getting your panties in a bunch...Ma'am.

Style Weekly Bartender Column #2

The second edition of my Style Weekly column, "Punch Drunk", came out this morning. This week I discussed tipping etiquette and I attempted to educate the masses by provided a concise bar gratuity guide. *Note my recommended tip percentage for when one is a patron at my bar.

Leave comments, send hate mail, call in bomb threats to Style...They love all that shit.

Click here to check it out or get out of that cubicle and pick up a copy.

Best And Worst Of Richmond Mag A Sham? (Repost)

In honor of Richmond Magazine releasing their best/worse issue I've decided to reprint a post from last year. It's about the night that I unwittingly stumbled upon a major ballot fraud conspiracy at Richmond Mag while attempting to hit on two girls at 3 Monkeys (local pub). Click on the link and check out the comment section. Fucking hilarious...

I still question the integrity of their voting system. I mean, how could I not trust something a drunk girl told me at a bar?


"I chatted up (or at least attempted to chat up) a young lady last night (details withheld). It turns out she works at Richmond Magazine. She mentioned that she has something to do the balloting/voting process for Richmond Magazine's best and worst issue (which was released last week)....."


Read the rest of the post and comments here.

The Sweaty Bartender

It was 95 degrees in the bar last night. The place was slammed and I'm taking drink orders 3 and 4 people at a time. My t-shirt was soaked through and beads of sweat were running down my forehead and chin. A droplet of Jackjuice definitely went into someone's Bahama Mama as I reached over to the fruit caddy for an orange slice to garnish their drink. The patron didn't notice or they just didn't say anything, and I wasn't about to weed myself any further by voluntarily refashioning a drink that has 5+ ingredients in it. So instead, I grabbed a shaker tin, covered the pint glass containing the Bahama Mama and shook it like it was an insubordinate little child. I was hoping to distract the customer with my awesome display of power, and I was hoping to completely demolish that errant sweat droplet in a mini-super collider of alcohol, fruit juice and jagged ice chips.

Another bartender may read that last paragraph and say, "hey that's not right, you should've remade that drink", and he would be correct. Barman and restaurant etiquette dictates that you always provide impeccable service, and if that service is unsatisfactory, you re-provide it, lest you want to lose that customer.

That axiom is true is most cases, but I don't think the person who said that ever worked at a maniacal, high volume type bar like mine. A bar where you're always four deep, always making an endless array of Long Island Iced Teas and Red Bull laced "bombs", repeatedly dealing with customers who were most assuredly members of Hitler Youth in their last life, and a bar whose climate resembles that of a Sub-Saharan African village.

Don't get me wrong, I love this bar and all I'm saying is that a droplet of my sweat probably won't kill you....

....Which I'll know for sure in a few days when my bi-annual HIV test comes back.