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![The Starting Gate: A Cocktail of Working, Drinking, Family and Zen by [Paul Mullin]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51RHsyx-alL._SY346_.jpg)
The Starting Gate: A Cocktail of Working, Drinking, Family and Zen Kindle Edition
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It all starts—where else?—at the Starting Gate: a country bar in Northern Maryland where the author first started working at the age of thirteen, and where his boss once shot a man dead for trying to rob the local drug store. Other jobs follow, like when he works as the only white kid on an all black labor crew at the National Archives, or the years he spends as a high-rise window cleaner in Manhattan.
An essential primer for anyone interested in Zen and/or cocktails, or for anyone who enjoys a good story as if told from the next barstool over.
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateJanuary 24, 2016
- Reading age13 - 18 years
- File size2250 KB
Editorial Reviews
Review
Playwright Paul Mullin deploys his gift for vivid storytelling in this lively memoir of work, play and apprentice barkeeping. --Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb
Do you want to know how to behave in a bar? Do you want to know how to live? Maybe they're not so different. Paul Mullin finds a real honor and wisdom in the messy practice of a life, and he makes me wish I too had learned how to work as a kid at a little country tavern in Maryland called the Starting Gate even on Taco Night. How am I suddenly nostalgic for a life that wasn't even my own? --Tom Nissley, Jeopardy Champion and author of A Reader s Book of Days --This text refers to the hardcover edition.
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : B01B13Y8YI
- Publisher : Sweet Air Publishing; First Electronic Edition (January 24, 2016)
- Publication date : January 24, 2016
- Language : English
- File size : 2250 KB
- Simultaneous device usage : Unlimited
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 261 pages
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Paul Mullin was recognized by Seattle’s preeminent alternative weekly, The Stranger with a “Genius Award” for achievement in theatre. His plays have been staged across the United States as well as Canada. His Louis Slotin Sonata won the L. A. Drama Critics Award for Outstanding World Premiere, and was read by invitation before scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory prior to its Off-Broadway run. Most recently a French translation, La Sonate Louis Slotin was produced in Quebec. Mullin’s The Sequence premiered at The Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena and The Ten Thousand Things at Washington Ensemble Theatre in Seattle. Both Louis Slotin Sonata and The Sequence, were commissioned by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, in collaboration with Ensemble Studio Theatre. Mullin conceived, co-wrote and co-produced NewsWrights United’s series of Living Newspapers, It’s Not in The P-I: A Living Newspaper About a Dying Newspaper and The New New News which enjoyed tremendous audience and media acclaim.
In addition to work for the stage, Mullin has had several poems published, most recently with the King County Metro’s Poetry on Buses program. He has written several feature film scripts and television documentaries, including Hitting The Ground, an independent feature in which he also starred as an actor. He has also contributed regularly as a writer and actor to Sandbox Radio Live.
His memoir The Starting Gate was published in early 2016.
Born in Baltimore, Paul now makes his home in Seattle with his wife and two sons.
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This book is weird only because it defies categorization. It's a memoir, an introduction to Zen Buddism, a guide to the proper way to drink in bars and a collection of essays on work, creativity, growing up, being human and living life.
I was just going to say that I have never read a book like this and I would not be surprised if Mullin has invented a new genre. Then I remembered that most singular of books, Thoreau's Walden. To me, The Starting Gate is like Walden, full of beauty and wisdom and descriptions of personal experiences but, for me, this book is much better because it makes sense to me as a real person living in the 21st Century. I just referenced Mullin's take on the role of work in life, one of the book's major themes, in conversation with my wife who is contemplating a career change. I don't highlight stuff in books, ever, but I highlighted all over this baby.
I can't wait to read the next one.
I think if you are lucky as a reader you can ride along and have something close to that same experience.