the bullshit artist

Most bartenders hope for special occasions or parties because they know that’s how they will make money. I hope for meetings and funerals because that’s what really draws the crowd to the bar at the AC. Once a month, the board of the club has a meeting that usually lasts for about 2-3 hours. While they’re meeting, people come to sit at the bar and wait for them to be done so they can give them their opinions. Last night was the monthly board meeting and it was filled with the usual cast of characters.


One particular guy, Tom, came in while the meeting was taking place. I had met Tom before and as soon as I saw him walk in I knew I was in for a long night. The first time I had met Tom I had found out he had 6 degrees from 6 different schools, was a huge art dealer and made tons of money, and that he was one of the biggest bullshit artists I’ve ever met. I found this out within the first 3 minutes of meeting him. My uncle had coached him in little league and he knew pretty much everyone on my dad’s side of the family so I like to give him the benefit of the doubt and think that he just felt comfortable telling me whatever was on his mind.

One of the things that I haven’t figured out how to manage yet as a bartender is how to handle uncomfortable situations, especially with people like Tom. Tom is married with a few kids but doesn’t hesitate to hit on anything that moves. For example, since it was just me and him in the bar while the meeting was going on, whenever there was a lull in the conversation he would say things like “Tell me…how hard is it being beautiful?” or he would just randomly wink at me. What I wanted to respond was “Get the fuck out of here” but in reality I just laughed awkwardly. Seriously dude?

Thankfully, we weren’t by ourselves for long and the board trickled downstairs and into the bar. Remember the guitar-playing life-lover from a couple of weeks ago? He was laid off this week so the whole night he was “just trying to survive”. Him being laid off (as a physical therapist) lead into a 5 person tirade on how Yonkers policemen are overpaid. I agree, maybe some of them are. They were talking about one police officer in particular who will stand to make $365,000 next year alone. Coming from Tom’s mouth I don’t know how true that is but judging from what I’ve heard in the past I believe it. This is totally absurd but they aren’t all making that much and there are some that actually bust their asses. Anyway, this went on for an hour and in that hour I realized that even though this is a place where people have grown up together and most are on the same level financially, there is still a bar in between me and them and they do not want to hear my opinion in the slightest. I made a silent vow last night to keep my mouth shut when certain people are in attendance. Around 10:30 everyone started to head out. The life lover left with words of advice to “keep surviving” and a $10 tip (I’m sure he’ll survive just fine) and Tom had to go pick up his priest friend coming back from the Yankee game.

The club itself is basically a huge house they converted into this club house. It’s been around since 1891 and is rumored to be haunted. It’s scary as hell and on top of that when the warm weather came about my boss warned me that from time to time critters get inside so just be prepared. And I’m not talking about tiny mice critters. I’m talking about raccoons and skunks. Sweet. So anyway, I lock myself in when I’m closing just to be safe from all the animals, literally and figuratively speaking.

About 10 minutes later, after locking the windows and straightening up I heard this ridiculous banging on the front door. I thought maybe someone left something and came back to get it. Oh no, it was Tom. He was back and he brought his friend (actually a lawyer). So there we sat for another two hours, Tom drinking ginger ale and Friend drinking Guinness. In two hours I learned more about art history than I did in one semester of it in college, I learned that North Broadway used to be called “Millionaire Mile” (anyone from Yonkers is thinking “yea right”) and I was invited to a private event at the Met. I’d like to think that some of the things he was telling me were true but the entire time Friend was sitting there rolling his eyes and shaking his head. So I’m guessing I’m not the only one who’s got Tom figured out.

Any night I leave there that it is semi-busy I’m so happy that I have that little job. I think that I might learn more about people working there one night a week than I have in my entire life so far. It’s amazing what people will tell you after a few drinks…

Happy Friday!

a tiny freak out

This morning for the first time in a looooong time I went to the gym BEFORE work. To say that I am not a morning person is pretty much the understatement of the century but every time I go in the morning I say “I should do this all the time”. On days that I go to the gym after work I just sit and think up excuses for reasons I don’t have to go. Like Monday I didn’t go because I had to get a card at Walgreens. Walgreens is open 24/7 so that’s just absurd. I read in a magazine once the pros of going to the gym in the morning and they are all so true. #1- if you wait to go after work or school you have more time to talk yourself out of it, #2- you have a natural blush for the rest of the day and #3- it gets your metabolism going and gives you more energy throughout the day. Plus if I do go after work I don’t get home until 8 and then I’m starving and then I’m eating way later than you should. So, I’m hoping that after today’s experience I will start to go more often before work and stop being such a baby.

The push to go to the gym at an ungodly hour came from me freaking out that my sister’s wedding is in a week and I don’t want to feel fat. This isn’t the only abnormal thing that I’ve done or that’s happened in the past month. See, since I went to school in the south, a lot of girls I was acquaintances with were getting engaged senior year but no one I really was close with. I was extremely happy when I heard that my close friends, Christine and Steve, got engaged and they are getting married in June of next year. There’s something to say about getting your own invitations to weddings and parties aside from the invites that are addressed “The Sacco Family”. It makes being an adult real. In the past two days I have gotten two invitations to baby showers addressed to myself. It’s so weird. Not only do you buy your own gift but you feel so singled out. One of the invitations was addressed to “Susan and Brittany Sacco” and then I got one of my own. It’s like saying “Okay, enough is enough. You’re on your own.” You know how women have all these raging hormones when they are pregnant? I think I’m going through something similar but instead of pregnancy hormones (phew) it’s your sister’s getting married in a week hormones. My mind races about everything and anything and I never get like that. I think it’s the high stress. Though I’m sure that in a week when everything is said and done I’ll be sad it’s over.

1 for 13

After 6 years and 13 games I am happy to say that The Incredibles finally won their first game this past Saturday. Maybe it was the Friday night practice or maybe it was all the Coors Light but either way we did it! FINALLY! One Saturday in May each year, Yonkers finest come together to play in the Rich Kenney Co-Ed softball tournament on Lake Avenue. The tournament is more commonly known as the Tony G. tournament and is an excuse to see people you haven’t in years as well as an excuse to start drinking at 7a.m. The tournament is by far one of my favorite days out of the entire year and I start looking forward to it the day after it’s over.

We switched up our line up this year and it really worked to our benefit. Each team plays two games and depending on how you do in those games determines whether or not you move on. We lost our first game to Martha’s Vineyard 6-2 then went on to win against the Lakers 9-6. First of all, when the brackets went up in Nugents two weeks before that and we found out who we were playing we thought we had no shot. Second of all, 9 is the most runs we have ever scored in a game and more than all the runs we have scored COMBINED. Needless to say we were pretty proud of ourselves. There was most definitely a World Series celebration in the field afterwards, complete with gloves and hats in the air and jumping on top of each other. We went on to play We Just Stink at 1:30 and the break in between the games killed us. The drinking continued and so they mercied us. It didn’t matter though, we got what we came for. Danielle got the game ball for NOT playing this year.

The celebrations continued throughout the day, first at the Laker club then, of course, down to Nugents. In tournament history I have never seen the place so packed. It was fabulous. After 16 straight hours of drinking and an effort to go out on McLean, it was time for me to pack it in. I had half a beer in Danny Macs, got in a cab and went home. But not before I made the cab driver go through the McDonald’s drive through. That was necessary.

It seems like in the past year I can’t go out without being hungover the next day. But for some reason on Sunday I actually felt pretty great. I headed to the Yankee game with Jeanne and it was a nice way to round out the weekend. I came home to find my kitchen invaded with wedding “stuff”. My mom was making sauce for the week of so we don’t forget to eat, there was toile and ribbon everywhere and as soon as I walked in I was given a job. Tomorrow will be single digits until the wedding day and I still cannot believe how fast this last year and a half has gone. I’m so excited but I know it will all be over before we know it.

the recipe

Thursday’s are possibly my favorite day out of the entire week. It’s right on the cusp of the weekend so you know that the best days are ahead of you. And since I’ve been bartending on Thursday nights it means a little bit more cash.


So the past two days have been filled with wedding stuff. Tomorrow it will be exactly two weeks until the big day and I cannot believe it. Tuesday I came into work early again so I could go with my mom to her dress fitting. Her dress is absolutely beautiful and she looks gorgeous in it. And I’m not just saying that. When she first got her dress we spent a lot of time trying to find shoes that were pretty and comfortable which is no easy “feet” (ha). My sister had gotten her own shoes from Stuart Weitzman and while we were in the store my mom tried on shoes that she absolutely loved. But, as a mother of three girls, she’s always been pretty thrifty and that’s why I was totally shocked when she purchased the $385 shoes. And after all that searching for the perfect shoes, you can’t even see them under the dress. Even when she picks it up a little bit to walk, there is so much material you can’t see a bit of the shoes. I guess she’ll just have to get more outfits to match them. The fitting went really well and I think she’s pretty happy with the dress. She picks it up next week. Our dresses will be picked up on the 24th.

Anyone that is close with our family knows that we make or has received a bottle of our Anisette. That’s right. We make, bottle and give away homemade Anisette. The recipe is fairly simple but is pretty time consuming. Grain alcohol, sugar, anise, boiling and stirring until it feels like your arm is going to fall off. My sister was at a loss for what to give as favors and someone had mentioned the Anisette. Since she had decided on that, our weekends have been spent making batches and batches of the liquor. Tuesday night was spent bottling it. After all those batches, we are still short about 50 favors and so the bootlegging continues. Prohibition would have nothing on the Sacco’s.

Last night was spent doing our semi-weekly drive around. It’s funny because when we were sixteen and we first got our licenses, we would go for coffee and “drive around” for hours because we had nothing to do. Now we are 24 and we are still doing it except for the complete opposite reason. Now we do it because we all have so much going on it’s the only time besides the weekend that we can see each other. I thought, as a lot of people do, that everyone goes to college for four years, comes home, gets a 9-5 job and moves out. Mistaken? I think so. In fact, I constantly feel like I am the only one with that schedule (minus the moving out). A lot of my friends are in school or have jobs with opposite hours or work on the weekends. And so the weekly drive around came about once again. Of course we see each other on the weekends. But the last thing we all want to do is talk about work or school or our issues with still living at home when we’re in a bar. First of all, half of what was said wouldn’t be remembered and second of all, it’s usually about something serious. Drunk advice might be the most honest but it doesn’t help if you can’t remember it the next day. About mid-week we come together to vent and rant and rave and so far it’s been working out pretty well.

It’s been a pretty uneventful week but I’m so looking forward to this weekend. Saturday is one of my favorite days of the entire year- the Lake Avenue Tournament- and Sunday will be spent at the Yankee game.

Have a fantastic weekend…

not in kansas anymore

At what height does a person get classified as a dwarf or, to be a little more politically correct, a “little person”?

Generally, during an interview, when the interviewer asks you if you have any questions, the above is NOT a question that comes to mind. And yet during yesterday’s interview this was all I could think about. I only believe in “signs” when I want to so I didn’t really take the tiny-ness of my interviewer as any kind of sign that I shouldn’t be there. I walked in, shook his hand that felt like I was shaking a golf ball and went through the interview just like any other one.

I haven’t been on an interview in about two years and I guess it’s sort of like riding a bike. I remembered how to conduct myself and I still felt like I wanted to vomit after. It’s not that I don’t like my job that I have now. In fact, it’s the total opposite. I do like where I work and the people I work with and of course the work itself. That is what I am scared of. I’m worried that I will get too comfortable and never want to leave. I have an opposite commute, I have flexible hours, great benefits so what’s the problem? If I stay here there’s nowhere to go from the position I am at right now. Unless I become a lawyer (ah!). That would mean I would have to do more undergrad to get a degree in engineering/math/science (ah!) and then go to law school. I am really not ready for that right now. Maybe when I’m 30. Seriously.

So anyway, this feeling has sort of been creeping up on me more than usual lately and so I put my resume out there and had a call for an interview within hours. I couldn’t help but think the gods were laughing their asses off when I walked in and saw the mockingly small stature of the interviewer. But an hour and a half later I was done and had the promise of more interviews in my near future. I practically ran out of there, bought a pack of Marlboro Lights (which I rarely do and need to stop), smoked one and met my friend Caitlin for the commute back home. After going on thousands of interviews herself, some with equally ridiculous situations, I knew she would appreciate the story. I could not have been happier to see her face through the sea of Midtown suits.

After getting past the small factor, my dad had a few words of wisdom to offer that made me more comfortable with the whole situation. I can’t really say it was the most successful interview I had but I’m hoping one day I will look back at that interview and think it was just one of the first steps on my yellow brick road to success. Pun intended.

satin and sake

Since my sister Danielle got engaged to her fiancé, Steve, about a year and a half ago our lives have been filled with crap I know nothing about. It will never cease to amaze me how many small details there are into planning a wedding and I’m pretty sure if I had to do it I would forget something. That being said, it has been such a fun year and a half and once they get married I think I really am going to miss the planning and everything that went with the engagement. Saturday was her second fitting at Kleinfeld’s and ended up being her last. The dress is absolutely gorgeous and she looks beautiful in it. There are not many things that pull at my heart strings but I have to admit, I did shed a tear or two.

My younger sister Britt and myself were there to learn how to “bustle”- easy enough but alas another example of something I know nothing about. Ellie, a straight off the boat Italian seamstress, made it easy enough for us to figure out how the gather and keep up the material of her dress. “It’s-a very easy. You-a match-a the numbers from-a one string-a to the next-a. You-a see? Six-a match six-a, five-a match five-a. Yes?” Yes.

The whole “my sister’s getting married thing” has sort of made me look at my life a little differently. I’m not saying anything has changed per se but it does make you realize what’s important. It’s easy to say that what other people think doesn’t matter or that you care less about something than you actually do. I used to say that I didn’t really care if I ever got married and carried that attitude throughout college. But no matter how much I want to deny it, I think maybe I grew up a little and I don’t really feel that way anymore. I don’t know if I will ever get married and there is no one in my life right now that I could see myself marrying, but seeing my sister as happy as she is and seeing how much Steve loves her, I’d like to think that any good person deserves that kind of love in their life. Life’s too short to stress over the boys that pretend to care about you. This is an outlook on life that I have tried to stick to many, many, MANY times and usually doesn’t last for too long but I’m a year older and maybe this time it will catch??

Enough of that. After the important, putting-my-life-in-perspective dress fitting it was time to play. When people ask me what my hobbies are or my favorite pastimes I usually have a pretty hard time answering them. I usually come up with lame things like reading and the norm. But I have developed a new favorite pastime over the past year or so. However, I do not think that its socially acceptable (yet) when people ask me what some of my hobbies are that I answer “Sake bombing”. My friends and I have sort of started to go regularly for birthdays and that is where we found ourselves Saturday night; in Tribeca at the place we always go to surrounded by all you can eat Sushi, pitchers of beer and Sake. Within minutes your clothes are soaked, you’ve got a buzz and everyone’s chanting and taking pictures that they wish they hadn’t the next morning. It’s loud and the wooden tables have the smell of beer seeping from its pores. Delightful. We had a good group, a few people we wish could have been there were not, but the more people the better. From there we went out in Tribeca which we usually don’t do and I was glad we did. We went to two places I’ve never been, M1-5 and a place that I can’t even really remember what the inside looked like let alone the name of it.

Before we knew it, it was time to go. My name is Katelyn and I have a serious problem with bars having closing times at all. I’ve visited friends in different states where closing time for bars is 2am and I think it’s utterly absurd. But for some reason when 4am rolls around I think it’s ridiculous that we’re asked to leave. We got back up to the Bronx around 3:45 praying the doors of Rambling House would be open. Sadly they were not and all I could think of was how much fun everyone inside was having. Why can’t everywhere be like Vegas and be open forever? Though if this was the case I think we would all have serious problems. A stop at the Chipper Van to eat ourselves out of our depression was necessary.

Like most Sundays, I was pretty much bed ridden. Unlike most Sundays, I had to pull my life together. Mother’s Day plus an interview this afternoon after work makes for a grouchy me. And like most Mondays, I enjoyed the weekend thoroughly and still have the remains of a hangover floating around in my head.

the tender bar

For anyone that doesn’t know, “The Tender Bar” by J.R. Moehringer, is a book about a man’s life as he graduates college. It’s a coming of age story about how he was basically brought up in the local bars on Long Island and the life lessons he learned from being brought up that way. As an former English major, finding your “favorite book” is a constant struggle but after reading this one twice I have officially made it mine. For those that haven’t read it, you need to. Right now. I read it for the first time the summer of 2008 after I had just graduated and immediately after wrote J.R. a letter basically worshipping him and his book. I read it again the summer of 2009 and I guess in keeping with the theme will probably read it again this summer. Just awesome.

Anyway, this book, along with tons of others and pretty much any movie with a bartender in it, paints the picture of the bartender as the ultimate psychologist. This is a trait that I am still working hard on. I started bartending at our local “country club”- the Amackassin Club- on Thursday nights just from 7-10pm. The club doesn’t officially open until Memorial Day so saying that the nights have been slow is a complete and total understatement. But do I enjoy it? Absolutely. I’ve never bartended before and there’s something to say about being on the other side. My mom says I look like a fish walking on dry land back there but that’s like the pot calling the kettle black.

                                                                                                                 The Amackassin Club
The place sells mostly all beer and wine and if anyone orders anything else I almost always have to ask them how to make it which isn’t as embarrassing as I thought. I have yet to forget how to make a cosmo after making my first (and only) one way back in February. The place has a certain charm to it for sure and every single person that walks through the door knows me or my parents so it’s comfortable in that way. This isn’t to say that I’m like so totally popular but my mom and dad both grew up in North Yonkers with big families and in two different “groups” if you will. For such a big city everyone knows everyone else. A blessing and a curse.

This particular Thursday started off as usual, with me being the only person in the whole place. I don’t usually mind unless I’m tired and then I would love for people to come in and entertain. Be careful what you wish for. Around 7:30 the tennis team came in for their pre-season pump up meeting. Only 7 of them showed up but the tennis “pro”, Kevin, a 65 year old former (current) hippie in love with life, was as enthusiastic as ever about the start of the season. He walked into the bar clapping it up with his guitar slung over his shoulder.

The meeting itself lasted about 20 minutes; they basically talked about everyone who wasn’t there and argued about why they didn’t have a working ball machine. The meeting was officially adjourned and so the guitar came out and me and two other women were suckered into being an audience. Kevin was asked to play the Sacred Heart Grade school’s spring concert and had the sheet music in tow. His first song: Summer Lovin’ from Grease. I have a karaoke history with Summer Lovin’- video included- so I found this pretty funny. He continued on with a few other numbers from the concert including La Bamba, Hound Dog and Leader of the Pack. Yes, these are 8-13 year old Catholic school students that will be singing these for their parents and the neighborhood. That’s Yonkers in a nutshell. Anyway, the two women left and I thought “How much longer can this last?”. About 4 vodka-limes juices and 6 Beatle songs, that’s how long. There is only so much fake enthusiasm I can muster. His wife even stopped by and upon seeing him and his empty glasses and me with my head in my hands could only ask “What in God’s name are you doing?”.

You can bet the entire time I was laughing to myself and thinking that I couldn’t believe this was actually happening. But watching this guy, totally content with life, so happy to just be doing something he loved and was semi-good at, made me think that if I could be that happy with my life when I’m 65 then I will have done a lot of things right. I sort of know his son and have met his wife (God bless her) numerous times and it seems like he has actually has done everything right. I left there, met my friend Jeanne for a beer, we talked for about 3 hours just catching up and I couldn’t have been happier so maybe I am at least on the right track with the people I surround myself with.

You can count on more bartending stories to come since the summer is right around the corner and I don’t have a bouncer but in the mean time read “The Tender Bar”. I could say it’s life changing but really it’s just everything you probably already know being pointed out to you.

a little history

As someone who is brand new to blogging, I’d like to blog about the actual process of setting up a blog. I felt like I was back in tenth grade, trying to figure out how to put color in my AOL profile with all those random letters and number signs everywhere. A little disheartening, I would have to say but I powered through. Now, here I am, my first blog with the most basic template ever. Just like my first AOL profile. The circle of life.

I won’t bore you with all the details of my life but I suppose a little background info is necessary. I’m 24, live in Yonkers, New York at home with my parents and am a legal assistant. I graduated college from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Worlds away from Yonkers in a lot of ways and I miss it every day. It has been almost 2 years to the day that I graduated and I still can’t believe it. I was an English major and absolutely love reading and writing but of course am now doing nothing remotely close to what I studied. Thus the blog.

When I moved back home from school I basically thought my life was over. I do think that anyone’s college years are the best in their life but I do realize now that all the good times don’t stop once they hand you your diploma. Every single person (no dramatics here) that I was close with at school lives in the Northern Virginia area. I mean ALL of them. I knew this upon graduating and I think this is what made it harder. Everyone was going to continue on with their friendships and leave me behind…or so I thought. However, over these past two years I have kept in really great contact with everyone and honestly I don’t think I’m missing out on much. Of course I get jealous when they are on kick ball teams together and go to happy hours during the week, things that I couldn’t do just from visiting, but I’ve come to realize that I really like my life here and I don’t think I could ever move that far away. I think it’s the whole “appreciating things you have more once you leave and come back” sort of thing.

 

I have two sisters: Brittany, 19 and a freshman at JMU (super jealous) and Danielle, 29 and about to be happily married. You can already see how different our lives are and yet we are pretty close. Not to say we don’t go through all the normal sister BS but they will definitely pop up here quite a bit. My roommates, aka mom and dad, are pretty great and I’m pretty sure if I never wanted to leave the nest they would never make me.

The reasoning behind the title of my blog is very deep and meaningful. Not really but there are a lot of reasons I chose it, all which will be revealed in due time.

And there goes my blogging virginity….