Bartenders Week in Islamorada

Paul's in trouble.
``It's the atmosphere. It preys on me. I feel froggy and I want to leap,'' he says.
So far his leaping has put him into an Ace bandage running the length of his right leg. ``I was dancing,'' he says. ``I don't remember what song it was. In fact...I don't think there was any music.''
On top of that he's been conducting a shot-drinking contest in his head. ``All contests should just be in your own head,'' he says. ``I'm winning.''
And to make matters worse, he got on security's nerves last night and got stuck in one of those ride simulators they have on the premises for special events. ``The Cyclone, three hours they had me in that machine,'' he says. ``I'm still vibrating, but I think I'll be OK as long as I don't stop drinking.''
That is Paul Mosczynski's one saving grace. The drinking is not going to end any time soon because he is smack in the middle of Bartenders Week in his hometown of Islamorada.
Every year in May, the liquor distributors and the owners of the Holiday Isle Beach Resort _ the working man's Club Med _ offer this end-of-the-tourist-season event to reward bartenders for all their hard work. It's pay-back time in a good _ no, a great _ way.
What began more than a decade ago with a few Fort Lauderdale bars treating their employees to a getaway has grown into a massive coronary of close to 10,000 bartenders from all over the state and nation, because this party's got everything.
It's Caligula meets Cocktail. It's four days of no rules (except for Paul's). It's a bikini contest where the audience insists on singing the national anthem before women take the runway. It's sleeping until the martini glass drops from your hand as a wake-up call. It's water basketball, Southern Comfort style. It's finding out bartenders aren't great listeners, just excellent at shaking their heads up and down. It's Penthouse Pets begging for attention. It's free liquor competing with oxygen as the main source of survival. Although hanging over all this is the pall of Tiny Tim's death (he was an annual judge of the bikini contest).
``Can I tell you something?'' asks Charlie Roach, who each year brings about 40 people down from his Shaker Charlie's sports bar in St. Ann, Mo. ``This year I tried to book 10 rooms but could only get seven. It was driving me crazy because I wanted to bring more people,'' he says. ``But then they called me and said, `Guess what? Tiny Tim just died so we can give you his three rooms.' Bingo.''
It's a magical place.
``I wanted to come so much I bought a bar,'' says Mark Maturo, owner of Kokomo Joe's in Fort Lauderdale.
In the past, the event was exclusive to bartenders (although Paul's a cook). ``We used to worry about who was a bartender and who wasn't,'' says John Mason, a coordinator of the resort's promotions. ``But now that it's gotten so big we just let it go.''
And go it does.

Bartenders are gods
A handful of bartenders are playing a little game. One of their co-workers, who is wearing a tangerine thong bikini, has passed out face-down in a chaise lounge and a flock of sea gulls is gathering nearby. They want somehow to bring the two together, so they begin to sprinkle crackers on the woman's bare butt and watch the gulls peck away.
It is something they probably would not be doing if they were not at Bartenders Week, where bartenders are considered gods. The promoters even give them T-shirts that declare it so.
``Bringing birds and humans together like this is so godlike,'' says one bartender as he crumbles another cracker.
``Bartenders are a little rough around the edges, but cool,'' says Michael Levitt, an artist from Chicago who stumbled upon Bartenders Week while vacationing in the Keys.
Since its inception, the annual event has spread from the boundaries of the resort to fill up every hotel and restaurant in town. Even the local bowling alley, Coral Bowl, is taken over by liquor distributors for a couple of days.
Like peasants trying to curry favor among the gods, the vendors vie for the bartenders' attention. ``Please try one of my shots.'' ``Did you already get a free T-shirt? How 'bout one of our flashing pins?'' ``Is the beer cold enough?''
All alcohol is deep discounted for the entire week, but from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day it's a free-for-all as the hospitality suites cater to the bartenders' every need and then some to get the day off to a quick start. Miller Lite's ground-floor suite is wall-to-wall coolers loaded with beer. ``Those are the coldest,'' the doorman points out, as the bartenders roam in and out with their arms full of Millers.
At the extreme end, Jagermeister has a fourth-floor suite for doing cinnamon shots or frolicking on a bed with a Penthouse Pet named Gina.
``These guys are our livelihood,'' says Charlie Rosenberg, Jagermeister broker. ``We gotta treat them right because if they're not on our side we can't make it.''
Right now the guys aren't on his side but directly behind him, where Gina is holding court on the bedspread and posing for pictures with anyone who wants to hop on.
``This week is our turn to act like fools,'' says bartender Chris Aunspaugh of St. Petersburg.
``We have to live vicariously through others all year. We deserve this,'' says Ron Potter of Corbett's Sports Bar & Grill in Miami, with a beer in each hand. ``They really go down fast when they're free.''
There is no last call when bartenders are the main customers.
``Bartenders know when you should stop,'' says Bart Indrude, a first-timer at the event from Miami. ``But when we should stop? No, no, no.''

No rules rule
There is no line to cross.
Jerry, the chief of security at Holiday Isle, has reigned over the event for about nine years and says the management ordinarily has plenty of rules at the resort, but drops them for the bartenders.
``Free booze for three days and do you see any fights?'' asks Ron Ivy of St. Petersburg.
It's a high-octane Woodstock as far as he's concerned. The camaraderie goes without saying, and there is no discrimination among professional bartenders.
Ron, who tends bar in an exclusive resort called TradeWinds, has no problem cavorting with, say, Tara Smith, who works in a place called Chuckles in the same city.
Tara herself is even more respectful of her fellow tradesmen here than she is on the job. ``At work I have to keep quiet about even coming here because other bartenders would want to take off, too,'' she says, feeling guilty for about as long as it takes for a colada to get sucked up a 3-inch straw.
The event peaks during the week. ``Because Monday and Tuesday are the bartender's weekend,'' Tara says.
The freedom of this kind of weekend is so overwhelming that the No Rules rule has had a reverse effect on some of the revelers.
``We're making our own rules. Like no bathing suits in the pool after dark,'' says Paul VonBernewitz of Fort Lauderdale's Falcon Pub. ``I'm out there enforcing it. Somebody has to make some rules around here or we'll have chaos.''
The only other mandate, which they don't really consider a rule but more of a politically correct thing, is that you don't stroll into, say, the Budweiser booth drinking a Miller and vice versa. That wouldn't be right, they say.
With those stipulations, the gang has the run of the resort, which is a magnificent 12 1/2 acres stretched out along the shore like a small town, with meandering pathways, tiki huts, crystal blue lagoons, 10 bars, banana-coconut oil hanging in the air, more than enough places to feed the gulls and no regulations whatsoever.
Unless you're Paul, of course. He's just had his personal shot-drinking contest shut down by the Sauza Conmemorativo tequila lady. ``No. 67,'' he frowns. He's standing in front of their hospitality booth begging just to give other people shots. ``Can I at least touch them?'' he asks, yearning to have his fingers embrace a shot glass.
Security chief Jerry is giving him the ``shush'' sign, but it's not working.
Suddenly, Paul rips a shot glass from the table and hoists it in salute. He's looking very froggy.
The crowd is frozen like a daiquiri in anticipation. They have seen what no rules can do to a society and its name is Paul.
``Here's to you, here's to me, and if we ever disagree, the hell with you and here's to me,'' he shouts, framing the words with a broad grin.
Security is moving in.
``No, no, not the machine!'' he screams.

Sex on the beach
The famous bar drink Sex on the Beach didn't originate at this annual event but certainly could have. In fact, judging by this year's action it wouldn't be surprising if Sex on the Ice Machine or Sex on the Maid's Cart Next to the Lance's Snack Machine start appearing on cocktail menus.
``So far it's been outrageous,'' says Suzanne Migdall, a producer for Primetime Productions, which is filming the festivities for a pay-per-view cable special. ``There is nothing else like this left in South Florida that takes us back to those old Spring Break days.''
Not that she's doing a historical piece. Primetime's last production was Ultimate Centerfold.
Karen Anderson, who works at MiMi's Deli next to the resort, has a doorway that's a porthole to the insanity. ``It's crazy. The girls are prancing around like wild animals on the Serengeti.''
And the bartenders seem to have left their inhibitions behind the bar. Everyone has a story of seeing someone having public sex inches away. ``They're, like, so close you almost think you're having sex _ but then you realize you're not,'' says Tim Gavin of Pompano Beach, sounding a bit disappointed.
During the week, the liquor companies sponsor a few contests involving speed serving and bottle flipping, but the premier event _ the one that draws the real crowds _ is the bikini contest.
And they take it very seriously, attracting ringers from dance clubs and clearing out the main hospitality suite so the contestants can use it to prepare. The PA system sends out the command: ``Everyone please leave the suite. We have to get the girls oiled up. I repeat, we have to get the girls oiled up.''
For people who have been living with no rules, the bartenders immediately realize the importance of the situation and evacuate.
And, so the audience doesn't feel they're watching just another Tuesday afternoon bikini contest, Gina the Pet comes out on the fourth-floor balcony as the girls hit the runway and creates a sort of peekaboo contest, or game of chest, if you will.
Necks jerk back and forth as the striptease builds to a crescendo.
But just at the height of the action, one bartender starts dashing toward the beach.
What gives?
``This is the best time to pick up real girls,'' he says, flying by. ``All the guys are at the contest and the girls are all down by the beach getting lonely. This is my only chance.''

Loose ends
``There was this group that came down from Daytona who said they were going to show everybody in Islamorada how to party,'' says Karen at MiMi's. ``You should have seen them the next day. They said they couldn't handle it.''
That's the kind of partying these bartenders are capable of. It's so intense that even people from Daytona can't handle it.
Josh and Veronica Reynolds, a bartending couple from Babe's Lounge in Dania, got off work at 3 a.m. and drove straight down. ``We got here at 5:30 in the morning, but I knew there would be people here to greet us,'' Veronica says. ``I have faith in bartenders, especially when it comes to not sleeping.''
The word is, when you check out this year you check in for next by making a reservation. By the end of the week there will be no vacancy for '98.
By the way, bartenders do not pick up after themselves when they're on holiday. The beach is a mess. But they are great tippers, 30 percenters.
And that old thing about them helping people with their problems? ``We dish out advice but we don't really know what we're talking about,'' Miami's Ron Potter says.
But let's not get into that. The guys are trying to relax.
Grace Harbinger, a bartender from Michigan, is in front of the Beefeaters table blessing herself. ``If I have one more I don't know what will happen,'' she says. ``But if I don't, what will happen?''
Either way she probably won't remember. That happens to people who hang around the Beefeaters table too long.
Outside, beneath the three-story-high inflatable bottles of Absolut, Bacardi and Capt. Morgan, bartenders are converging like balloon handlers at a Macy's parade. Only everybody has a drink in their hands instead of a tether line. They are rulers of their kingdom, keeping all the bottles in line. They are gods.
Except for Paul, who's milling about. As the day's worn on he's become kind of a mascot. Women periodically take off his sunglasses, clean them with his shirttails, then place them back on his face as if to give him a clearer view of the world.
But he's resorted to going ``A-oogah! A-oogah!'' And the spooky thing is, others are starting to join in. By the end of the day, everyone seems to be falling apart. You can't tell the bartenders from the cook.
Which makes one wonder about the main reason for this affair. ``This is where we make and break products,'' Robert Mateau, a liquor distributor, had said earlier. ``They're a captive audience and they'll remember the new products they tried here when they get back behind the bar.''
But what if they get so drunk in this bartenders' paradise that they don't remember any of the products when they get home?
``Well,'' Mateau says, ``...that's OK, too.''