The club scene in 1970's rolled in and out, and the early '80's came in roaring with just as much thunder and excess. Studio 54 had become the symbolic club of social, sexual and even celebrity excess...but there were other clubs just as hot. They just simply chose to remain in the background and away from all the limelight. That was E Speakeasy. The same fun. More sophisticated clientele, and at the same time just as edgy as everywhere else.
By the time 1982 rolled in, I was a star high school athlete, with several colleges looking at me for scholarships in football, basketball and track. My mother had long since gotten out of the bar business and returned to being a nurse. I spent my summers working as a clerk at one of the three major local newspapers to make my minimum wage during the day. However I spent my week nights being a bar back, and eventually a bar tender at 17 years of age, for several legal and not so legal bars. Thankfully, I looked mature for my age. Plus my name had gone around the club/bar underground. You have to remember that back then the legal drinking age in NYC was 18, so me being inside any bar wasn't an odd thing.
Between my athletic and social popularity, the guys who owned the clubs were happy to have me working at their club because a lot of other young people followed me there. And that meant money to the owners. But it wasn't until summer '83, six months after my 17 birthday that I would get my real education on life with the big wigs of New York City who stay in the shadows of clubs like E Speakeasy.
Working at the newspaper was suppose to set me up for studying journalism in college and perhaps one day become a reporter after my athletic career was over. Instead, it was my athletic career and bar tending that sort of drew all of the important friends of the newspaper to me. Friends like movers and shakers in New York City who had a lot of money. Yachts in the city harbor, helicopter rides in and out of Manhattan from their palatial out on Long Island.
Mr. George Cooper was just that kind of man. He was a friend of my boss at the newspaper. Mr. Cooper's claim to fame was that he had made millions in ad campaigns to help pull NYC out of it's fiscal crisis in the 1970's and he also owned pieces of several restaurants in NYC. Cooper was a sports fanatic and followed my high school career. He was a jet setter in his mid 40's with mid 20's girlfriends. They all seemed to like his boat and his helicopter rides in and out of NYC to his mansion out east on Long Island. His favorite girlfriend was Alex. She was a Ford model wannabe tall, blond. She was actually pretty smart, had a degree in business from some school in the Midwest. She had kind of flopped out when she hit New York and landed back on her feet with Mr. Cooper's bankbook.
Mr. Cooper gave me and a handful of some of my best friends some lessons we will never forget, by getting us into E Speakeasy. First he got me a permanent job there after introducing me to his good friend, Gary "Gus" Johnson, the owner of E Speakeasy. It was also there at E Speakeasy that I would meet Stephanie Mitchell, a girl from Boston who I eventually fell head over heels. But, between the moment Stephanie and became an item, there was run ins with me ex girlfriend, who was still part of my pack that followed me to the clubs. And there was also the time that Alex decided she had had enough of Mr. Cooper, and wanted to try a night with a college bound athlete herself.
There was also a few fights and some other personal drama in between. All in a day's and night's work. All unfolded at a club we called E Speakeasy...
By the time 1982 rolled in, I was a star high school athlete, with several colleges looking at me for scholarships in football, basketball and track. My mother had long since gotten out of the bar business and returned to being a nurse. I spent my summers working as a clerk at one of the three major local newspapers to make my minimum wage during the day. However I spent my week nights being a bar back, and eventually a bar tender at 17 years of age, for several legal and not so legal bars. Thankfully, I looked mature for my age. Plus my name had gone around the club/bar underground. You have to remember that back then the legal drinking age in NYC was 18, so me being inside any bar wasn't an odd thing.
Between my athletic and social popularity, the guys who owned the clubs were happy to have me working at their club because a lot of other young people followed me there. And that meant money to the owners. But it wasn't until summer '83, six months after my 17 birthday that I would get my real education on life with the big wigs of New York City who stay in the shadows of clubs like E Speakeasy.
Working at the newspaper was suppose to set me up for studying journalism in college and perhaps one day become a reporter after my athletic career was over. Instead, it was my athletic career and bar tending that sort of drew all of the important friends of the newspaper to me. Friends like movers and shakers in New York City who had a lot of money. Yachts in the city harbor, helicopter rides in and out of Manhattan from their palatial out on Long Island.
Mr. George Cooper was just that kind of man. He was a friend of my boss at the newspaper. Mr. Cooper's claim to fame was that he had made millions in ad campaigns to help pull NYC out of it's fiscal crisis in the 1970's and he also owned pieces of several restaurants in NYC. Cooper was a sports fanatic and followed my high school career. He was a jet setter in his mid 40's with mid 20's girlfriends. They all seemed to like his boat and his helicopter rides in and out of NYC to his mansion out east on Long Island. His favorite girlfriend was Alex. She was a Ford model wannabe tall, blond. She was actually pretty smart, had a degree in business from some school in the Midwest. She had kind of flopped out when she hit New York and landed back on her feet with Mr. Cooper's bankbook.
Mr. Cooper gave me and a handful of some of my best friends some lessons we will never forget, by getting us into E Speakeasy. First he got me a permanent job there after introducing me to his good friend, Gary "Gus" Johnson, the owner of E Speakeasy. It was also there at E Speakeasy that I would meet Stephanie Mitchell, a girl from Boston who I eventually fell head over heels. But, between the moment Stephanie and became an item, there was run ins with me ex girlfriend, who was still part of my pack that followed me to the clubs. And there was also the time that Alex decided she had had enough of Mr. Cooper, and wanted to try a night with a college bound athlete herself.
There was also a few fights and some other personal drama in between. All in a day's and night's work. All unfolded at a club we called E Speakeasy...
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