Is there anything gaz regan wouldn’t do to get attention?

Would getting lung cancer, and getting rid of it while Tales was going on sound like him?

Gaz and I have known each other and been friends since the 1990s. More recently, we have become business associates in matters pertaining to the role of bartenders in brand building and business development. Together we launched Worldwide Bartender Database 

We speak often and a short while ago he told me that during the course of a medical exam, the doctors found a spot on his lung that needed to be removed.

I freaked out.  But he was particularly and unusually calm about the matter.

Got me to thinking… was this real? Was he pulling my leg? Or was he up to his old, attention getting tricks.

Now, before you think me cold and heartless, let’s examine Mr. Regan’s shenanigans:

In 2001 he started Cocktails in the Country, a bartending course believed to be the only bartending program in NY that used real spirits, as opposed to colored water.

By 2007 Jim Meehan, Dave Kaplan, Don Lee, H. Joseph Ehrmann, Jacques Bezuidenhout, Jamie Boudreau, Jared Brown, Anistatia Miller, Joaquin Simo, Jonathan Pogash, Naren Young, Philip Ward, Robert Hess, Sammy Ross, Toby Cecchini, Toby Maloney, and Willy Shine, among many others had all taken the CitC course.

In 2008 he started wearing eye-liner. (That’s right… among other reasons, he claimed it helped him make the point with bartenders that eye-contact with customers across the bar was an important element of ‘mindful bartending.’)

In 2009 he changed his name so he, like Prince, could be known as “The Bartender Formally Known as . . .”

In 2010 he started the Finger-Stirred Negroni Craze, which captured the world’s attention. Not long after, he had his finger cast in stainless steel and made into a stirrer.

And now, in order to create a buzz, gaz didn’t go to Tales of the Cocktail this year. Choosing instead to have half of his left lung ripped out.

So, you’ll forgive me if I was a tad skeptical.

“Well, in all truth” says gaz, “I didn’t have much of a choice in this one cos, according to my doctors I had a tiny pea-size lump of very aggressive cancer in there, but I couldn’t help but make a big deal of it, cos I’m known for never missing a chance to shock the world.”

Truth of the matter is that, after his operation, tests were performed, and gaz has been declared to be totally cancer free, and he’ll be out on the road again after he spends a couple of weeks being spoiled rotten by Amy his wife.

“I have to get back out there to make the money I missed out on by pulling this particular stunt,” says gaz, “So, if you doubt, for a second, that a two-time cancer survivor with hardly a tooth in his head, only half of a tongue and half of one of his lungs is up to the task, get in touch with me at The Worldwide Bartender Database  and I’ll show you how it’s done.”

In truth folks, gaz has been laid up and concerned but now that he’s in the clear, this blog post was his inspiration. It’s his way of… well… back to being gaz regan.

All I can say is: Twasn’t my fault, Mum… He put me up to it.

So, forgive us if we had a bit of fun at f**ken cancer’s expense.

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