Most people know I spent a few years as a bartender through college, afterwards, and leading up to when I went into the Army. One of those spots I worked at was TGI Fridays in Dearborn. I was there for about a year. Fridays was always one of those places that emphasized flare in bartending, and going way back to when I first say the movie Cocktail I always thought that stuff was super cool. Problem was really the bar at the Dearborn place was nowhere near setup to do any of the cool tricks or anything. You could barely walk sideways between the well and the center cabinets let along try and pass behind a different bartender or flip some bottles. So I never really did much in front of customers or where the other co-workers could see.
I bought a bunch of fake bottles, practice tins, and all those kinds of stuff and I must have been spending an hour+ per day watching flare videos and practicing tossing bottles and coming up with cool routines.Christian Delpech (Google him - some pretty sweet videos) was the guy I tried to mimic. Not just in his flare ability, but in his mannerisms. It was a pretty interesting thing. I had always been fairly reserved, kind of shy and introverted. There were the occasional moments where I liked to be the center of attention, but they were few and very far between. Thats just who "Christian" always was - is. But when I was behind the bar I got to be a different me. When I was working at Fridays, I started having people call me CJ. It's the nickname my Aunt and cousins have always used for me, but it works well for a bar as yelling that across the room is better than a lot of names. Names aside though, being CJ allowed me to be someone else. A more outgoing version of myself that drew attention from some people that probably would have never looked at Christian twice. That was an interesting realization.
So the flare practice kept going, mostly in secret as I would either practice in the backyard of the house I was renting a room at, or sometimes in the living room when people were gone and watch the flare DVDs I had. Outside was nice because it muffled the sound of dropping bottles or tins, and I could actually use the glass bottles too instead of just the hard plastic practice ones. Fridays always has a bartender championship for every store, then region, and so on, all the way to world championships in Vegas I think. No I know I was WAY off from getting there, but I knew I was the only one who gave a shit at my store, and I thought I would stand a chance come the regional ones. I didn't know exactly what all we were going to be tested on, but I knew there was a certain time frames for the drink/flare portion and that we had to go through all the steps from greeting and taking orders, to making the drinks and serving with the show being the big portion. I got to work on coming up with a routine, and found a few songs to play and actually choreographed my moves to hit at certain points of the songs. I was all in. The whole time though, there was one move I was trying to do, that I NEVER hit in practice. Until the day before of course - It was like something out of a bad movie or TV show.
I honestly don't remember the store competition, but I know I won it. Pretty much by default though I think. Then we get to the pain point - the morning test. I knew somewhat that we were going to be tested on the menu. What I DIDNT know, is that there were going to be questions about how many ounces of pasta are in this dish, or what spices go in this.... it was like a test for the cooks! And I BOMBED it. If I got a single question right on that, I would be shocked. I was pretty devastated, but eventually that was over and there was a break before the flare portion started. It was cool that I had a few coworkers show up to support me, and my dad was there too. When the flare contest begins, the order is either one of two things, I've never really known. Either it was in alphabetical order, or in the order of how people did in the morning testing - either was I was dead last. Boy did that turn out to be a good thing though, because I got to watch all the other people do their shows. And it made me realize something - none of them knew what the fuck they were doing..... None of them had anything planned, no sets, no sequences worked up. They didnt have anything special ready when greeting the judges. Even the song choices were bland and did nothing to improve the look of what they were doing. I knew with how poorly I had done on the testing that I really didnt have a chance, but after watching them go, it no longer became about winning or not - it really did become about owning the fucking room.
Had this been 2016 instead of 2006, there would be some video evidence to prove this statement - but boy did I ever. From the napkin spin onto the back of my hand and then placing it down on the bar as I greeted the judges, to the first bottle pull that I tossed and caught behind my back without looking, I knew nobody there had any idea what they were about to see. I nailed those first two drinks - not a flaw in any aspect of what I was doing, and I made eye contact with enough of the room to know the only reason some of them were not clapping or cheering, was because they couldn't pull their jaws off the ground. And then we get to that movement I talked about. The one I only landed for the first time the day before? Yeah - didn't happen this time. My one and only drop. Sure the other competitors had a handful and they were barely even taking their hands off the bottles, but this was my moment - and the one I will never forget. I picked it back up and hit spot, finished the drink and ended my routine, but I knew it was not what I could have been.
Here is why this moment is one I can never let go of. I got 2nd overall. I can't get into the whatif over the AM testing - there is no reason to. I had nothing going into that and nothing I did differently would have changed the fact that I just did not know what was on that test. But what if I didn't drop the bottle? Was the penalty on that one enough that dropped down to 2nd? What if I had gone first instead of last? Did the other competitors get better scores than they deserved because they had nothing to judge it against yet? In the end that ended up being my one and only flare competition. I worked a few other bars after that, but none that really gave me that same feeling as when I was doing that. I think about picking up the flare stuff and practicing from time to time, but I never do. Its an interesting thing to think if I had won it though - gone to the next level and probably got my ass handed to me by people who could out "showman" me. That I could deal with, that probably would have been the motivation that I needed to push and go beyond what I did. Instead I pretty much gave up - at least thats what it feels like. And that.... I'm not ok with.
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