Every newspaper needs a bar

Especially one like Ebert writes about ... http://is.gd/32obp

 

My first job required a commute and I found a nice little bar on the way.

At night I would stop for a beer or drink, shoot some pool with the owner and then help him tidy up before closing. Never paid for anything other than the usually-generous tip for my server, who sometimes used me as a guinea pig for her concoctions.

Oh, but for a whiskey and those carefree days again.

 

Direct link: http://www.granta.com/Online-Only/A-Bar-on-North-Avenue

Any time's a good time to read Ebert.

 

My first job was at a newspaper that quite literally shared a wall with a bar. We were neighbors. Those were good times. Some nights, too good.

 

In the good old days, there was always a bar around the corner to stop off and get a homer. Those days, along with DUI's, are gone forever.

 

We have Jeers.

 

My first pro newspaper gig was in my hometown and in college I had worked at a bar just two blocks down from the paper. Those made for some interesting weekends.
My second job wasn't as great for location, but the publisher was a big golfer and he would take me to the course's 19th hole for drinks, which was nice.
This gig shares a wall with a bar, and we have made a nice home there most nights, usually tipping so well they ask us when we want them to close. I've been in that bar drinking til 4 a.m. on some nights. Living two blocks away made it even nicer so no boys in blue would need to worry.

 

The bar next to my old office, mentioned earlier, was run by a total nutjob. Just loved to party, which could be good for the patrons. It is against state law for a bar to sell drinks after 2 a.m. here. One night closing time came and Mr. Bar Owner wasn't ready to go home. So he figured out a loophole to the law. He locked the doors, and just gave away drinks for free to anyone who stayed. After all, he wasn't selling alchohol, so what he was doing was perfectly legal (I suppose). So here's this packed bar, open after closing, everybody drinking for free.

I finally left about 4 a.m., but I was hardly the last person to leave.

Rumor was, when the next day's shift arrived to open at 7 am (did I mention this bar opened at 7 a.m.?), the party from the night before was still in progress.

 

Anyone who worked at the Norwich (Conn.) Bulletin in the pre-Gannett days, will remember that Billy Wilson's Ageing Still was a bar in the corner of the building and run by one of the sons whose family owned the paper. (One went into newspaper editing, the other was a barkeep. He may still be).

A good chunk of the weekly paycheck never made it out of that building.

 

My first job, the bar -- The Keg -- was across the alley. Walk out the back door of the office, 50 yards down the alley, go in the back door of the bar.
Wednesday was payday and it was automatic everybody went to The Keg. We were a PM paper. Morning backshop people started arriving at the bar about 3 p.m., press room at about 4, ad people at 5, a lot of the newsroom at 6, and so on. There were plenty of times the 3 p.m. arrivals were still there at 2 a.m. closing.
When they started a downtown redevelopment, our paper moved and The Keg was also going under. For a couple of months we kept going back there. We asked the owner how long he was going to remain open. He said, "When I hear the bulldozer coming, I'm gonna grab the cash box and run."
It was a dive, but it was our dive.

 

When I worked at Smalltown, Minn., I lived about 150 yards from work.
In that distance, were a 3.2 beer/pizza joint, an upscale restaurant with full bar and three drinking bars... Only thing I missed about the place.
In fact, the breakroom in the basement had a beer tap -- but it had been a while since management put in beer.