Michael Cecchi-Azzolina has worked in several high-end New York City restaurants — adrenaline-fueled workplaces where booze and drugs are plentiful and the health inspector will ruin your day. His memoir is Your Table Is Ready. Also, Terry shares a remembrance of revered magazine editor William Whitworth. David Bianculli reviews Restless Dreams, a documentary about Paul Simon. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
On the Ted radio hour, linguist Ann Curzan says she gets a lot of complaints about people using the pronoun they to refer to one person.
I sometimes get into arguments with people where they will say to me, but it can't be singular.
And I will say, but it is the history behind words causing a lot of debate.
That's on the Ted radio hour from NPR.
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Across his career, Michael Checky Azelina says he's been threatened, cursed at, punched and called every ugly name imaginable.
He's also had people press a $100 bill into his hand, sometimes more than one of them.
That's because for years he controlled a very valuable commodity, the tables at high end Manhattan restaurants.
He's written about his experiences in his memoir, your table is ready, tales of a New York City mater D, now out in paperback, Cecchi Azelina has encountered celebrities, captains of finance, plenty of nice regular folks and one bona fide mobster who repeatedly threatened him for a perceived slight.
In his book, Cecchiazallina takes us behind the scenes of the restaurant world, where we learn who gets choice tables and who doesn't, but also how restaurant staffs in the 1980s and nineties worked, fought and loved in adrenaline fueled workplaces where booze and cocaine were plentiful.
Michael Checky Azelina has worked as a server mater D and manager in several exclusive restaurants.
Last year, he opened his own modern bar and grill in New York called Checky's.
He spoke with fresh air contributor Dave Davies in 2022.
Well, Michael Checky Azalena, welcome to FReSh AIR.
Thank you so much.
It's great to be here.
Dave, when you were a maitre d at a lot of pretty exclusive places, there was one called the River Cafe, which had, this was on a bargeon in the East river, had this spectacular view of Manhattan.
And people would come in and ask for a window table, you know, normal folks who were there on a special occasion, and they would see all the window tables are empty and you would be steering them to the middle of the room and they would say, hey, hey, can't you help me here?