Martini lunches

Earlier this week, Joseph Kahn 's "Voices" column in the Boston Globe sounded the death knell for the martini lunch.

Personally, I hope he got more out of Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s Journals 1952-2000 then the observation that Schlesinger drank during lunch (his starting point for this essay). But since he brings the subject up...

All things being equal, perhaps that helped matters. I mean, considering the industries that Kahn quotes John Spooner (Boston investment advisor) as having been champions of the martini lunch--law, publishing, financial investments, and advertising--switching from alcohol to bottled water did nothing except make people more health conscious (not healthier) and self-righteous, and boost EPS for Perrier.

Back in the day, when I worked in business and banking, we didn't wait for happy hour (that was also back in the days of the happy hour in Boston). Summer afternoons we could be found at Lily's outdoor patio drinking strawberry margaritas or the local Mexican restaurant with a Slow Train to Nagales (a strawberry/banana thing). Then back to work, none the stupider. One company that I worked for was innovative in being a solidly no-smoking environment, but the president kept a bottle of scotch in his bottom desk drawer. As a company we were none the worse on either count (except for the day the systems' guy thought he set the computer room on fire, but that's another story). In the late '80s that gradually changed, but in a weird kinda way. People still wanted to, but no one wanted to be the first when the waiter came around. So unless the boss ordered first, there was that pause, then "Diet Coke."

When I switched to writing there were a lot fewer business lunches. But a couple of years ago, when I was writing movie reviews and entertainment pieces, I ran into an arts editor I knew at an interview who invited me to lunch. At 11:45 (I noted the time) we were sipping martinis at the Ritz and talking about the Boston arts/entertainment scene. She was much older and wiser than I, so who was I to argue? And why would I? In fact, I remember thinking, it doesn't get better than this.

(Brief aside: It's good to see that John Spooner is still around and still in Boston--whether or not he drinks anymore at lunch. His 1985 book, Sex & Money: Behind the Scenes With The Big-Time Brokers, a names-have-been-changed account of his early days in the money business, was a fun read and worth reading again.)