Tipping the Piano Player

These last two weeks I have been working a piano bar gig in Midtown for a friend of mine. Now in the beginning of the night, I'm playing dinner music for the dining crowd, but after 10 or so, I kick it up a notch and begin a more interactive show. Last night I was reminded of how different people tip or don't tip the piano player.

First there are the people who leave the dining room and walk right past the piano without so much as a glance. The same piano which they have been listening to (and dare I presume to say, enjoying) throughout out their entire dinner . To these people, as they go by I make it a point to personally address them, smile widely and say "Thank you!" I don't specify what I'm thanking them for, of course. (Thanks for dining with us; thanks for the tip you are about to give me; or, thanks for nothing you cheap bastards.) Of this first group, about 25% of them will realize that they have forgotten to tip me (because my tip jar is right there as they turn around to respond to me) and they may continue walking out but come right back with a tip and a smile. Another 50% will turn to me and give me some version of a tight lipped smile and maybe say thank you back, but continue out the door, their precious purse change in tact, and then of course there are the 25% who don't even acknowledge that I have addressed them at all.

Then there is the second group: the ostentatious tippers. They are divided into two categories. The ostentatious BIG tippers (think bond traders out with their girl du jour) and the ostentatious CHEAP tippers (many times drunk middle-aged women). Now the first category has paid a large part of my rent for the past 12 years. They are the ones who will make damn sure you know that they have tipped, and exactly the amount of their tip. Sometimes they will bypass the tip jar entirely and put their $20 or $100 bills in your hand, and give you knowing look that says, Look at me, I want you to know that I am tipping you and it's not insignificant. These are not the people that are giving anonymous donations to the red cross after a major hurricane, but I still appreciate them nonetheless even though they sometimes make me feel like a well paid whore. Italian wannabe mobsters that want to sing My Way, or New York, NY for the entire bar fall squarely into this category. Then there is the second category. The woman who will do a little rain dance in front of the tip jar with their $1 bill in hand, waving it around as a banner of their graciousness so that not only do i know they are tippers, but the world knows. They think if they bring attention to the fact that they tipped, the actual penurious amount will be overlooked in a fit of gratitude on my part. Wrong! I hope there is a special section of Hell where these people end up waiting tables at a greasy spoon for all eternity and getting under tipped in such a spectacular fashion.

Then there are the ones who will tip $10 or $20 with no fanfare at all. These people are saying yes I appreciate what you are doing here, and we don't need to remind each other that you are dependant on my generosity to make your living. These people allow us pianists to retain our dignity and still pay the rent. The archangels of this group, which is the rarest of rare, are the $50 and $100 tippers who actually try to hide the amount of their tip so as not to bring attention to themselves or their tip. There is nothing as sweet as counting your tips at the end of a long night of New York, NY and Piano Man, and finding an unexpected $100 bill folded in four among all the other bills.

Finally and most humorously are the cheap tippers that try to hide their cheapness. These are the ones that tip a single dollar but will push it deep in the (clear glass) tip jar so that they think it's impossible for me to discern the tip amount. What they don't realize is that I've been doing this for too long am too dependant on the amount of their tips to be fooled by such an amateur move. The biggest clue is when they hide the bill in their palm and reach their hand down into the jar, past the lip of the (clear glass) jar as though they were about to draw out the winning number for a reverse raffle. And no matter how much they attempt to hide their faux pas, I can usually tell when they remove their hand, which bill has been added to the (did i say it was clear glass?) jar. It's almost always a single dollar bill, but sometimes, it's actually coins and they are hoping that the coins will be soundless as they fall to the bottom of the glass jar, which is why their hand goes so far down into the jar. If I catch people putting coins in, I will first determine if its a dollar coin. If it is I will begrudgingly leave them alone. But God and the host of Angels help them if it is not. I will shamelessly draw attention to the fact that this gentleman just tipped me 55 cents, and sir, no I'm not the crosstown bus, thank you very much! Now there is a special subsection of these discrete cheap tippers. These are the ones that later in the evening try to tell me that they have tipped me $10 or $15 or $20 throughout the course of the night, and for that reason I should play New York, NY for their overly mascaraed girlfriend. It is rare, but it happens. Invariably they are the most demanding patrons.

I send them publicly to hell.

I explain over the microphone that no, they have not tipped me $20. They in fact only tipped me $1, and I specifically remember. It was 25 minutes ago, they came over on their way to the bathroom, reached deep into my tip jar just like this (I demonstrate), and placed a folded $1 bill on the left side of the jar where they thought I wouldn't be able to see it, and this is their tip (I withdrawal their bill with a David Copperfield-like flourish). Sometimes they will fold immediately and reach into their tight wallet and quickly try to remedy the situation with a belated cash penance,...and then sometimes they will try to argue with me. If they do this, I ask them exactly what denomination they tipped in, and then proceed to explain to them how that is impossible because the only $20 bills in the tip jar came from John standing over there and Felicia sitting right there (I point) and I saw them being put in. (Thanks, by the way, Felicia and John.) It's quite a show I put on!

Then there was the well-heeled gentleman who tipped me with a Metrocard that he swore had an $18 credit on it. I reluctantly gave him the benefit of the doubt as there was no way of verifying it at the time, of course, but when I got in the subway I found out, not suprisingly that the prick had given me an expired unlimited card. He then came back the following week and tried to tip me again with another Metrocard then pretended to forget that he had done it the week before! Big Mistake. By the time I was done with him, he had paid me off $50 in shush money. It's ugly work, this piano playing stuff!

Update

Finally, I am moved into my new place in Manhattan and yesterday the internet arrived. I can finally log into my bank accounts and all that stuff with a secure connection, instead of leaching off someone elses wifi. Does anyone know what the "fi" stands for? I don't. This week I got back to my meditation on Monday night. I have not seen the inside of a gym in over 3 weeks due to my cold which is now finally 95% out of my system. Today I got the "joining letter" for my cruise gig in 1.5 weeks. Last week I ran into my favorite NYC realtor, Dennis, on 5th ave and he told me that his (very sucessful) business has dropped to nothing in the past month. Oy! The stock market, which I follow daily has been taking me (and everyone else) for quite a ride. I very timidly bought a teeny tiny position today in an oil services ETF which is at a third of what it was three months ago. I'm trying to look at this crash as a buying opportunity, although I wish I had more cash to buy these "bargains". I'm eyeing Apple stock. It's been beaten down over 50% in the past 4 months. Don't know if my tennant will renew in January, but I'm committed to continuing to rent out my apartment for the forseeable future. I was offered a job back in MO, at the same place I was let go of, due to my "inexperience" 3 months ago. I turned them down.

One of my piano bar patrons in NC

Holding on

I finished my month long NC trip and now I'm back in New York. The last week I was in NC I was fighting off a cold throughout my work weekend. The night that I returned home it finally got me. For the past 5 days I've been down with a stuffy head, a low-grade fever and a sore throat, but I am finally feeling a bit better now. In addition to being ill, I am moving my apartment next week so I have been dealing with piano movers and utility companies, landlords and leases. On top of that I finally submitted my taxes while simultaneously watching the stock market spasm into worthlessness as it took congress too damn long to finally get their act together with this rescue plan. Now it may be a little too late, I'm afraid. I am worried that the next 5 years may be really difficult economically. I think I'll be ok, because in times of economic strife, the bars always seem to do better than most other businesses.

I watched the VP debate last night along with 70 Million others, hoping for a gaffe-filled circus show. What I got instead was two great performances from each of the two candidates. I was impressed with Joe Biden and there were moments in the debate that he showed real strength and charisma. Sarah Palin, who I have come to believe is smart, sharp and also highly ignorant about things she will need to know as a VP, put on a masterful performance last night considering the limited time she has had to prepare for this candidacy. It wasn't nearly enough to actually help the floundering Republicans, but I doubt anyone could have hoped for any better.

I move on Wednesday into my new digs in Manhattan and begin a 3 weekend pianobar gig in the city.

Will the lights be on tomorrow night?

The lights are still on this evening. Everyone must be working furiously to get their resumes updated and posted on Monster.com. I took this picture tonight in Times Square. Look closely.

Playing blindfolded

So I finally did the blindfolded performance. It was a benefit for the blind administered by the local Lion's Club. My dueling partner dreamed this up. He would play onstage for 24 hours with a blindfold on. There were 3 other pianists that rotated through the opposite piano for the entire 24 hours, also with blindfolds so that my partner was never up there alone. It was quite an experience to do a dueling show blindfolded. You can't see the audience, and therefore the interaction with them is difficult. We had spotters behind us that would read us the requests and tell us when someone tipped or when someone donated to the Lion's fund. In general, once I had my finger positioning I was fine as long as i didn't try to jump more than one octave. Sometimes I would loose your spot on the keyboard, thinking I was playing a G chord when I was actually playing a C chord. The few times that this happened I was able to stop playing completely and luckily my partner was playing correctly, and I'd continue singing while trying to locate my correct finger positioning. It was also tricky when my partner began a song in a key I didn't know. I would first have to locate the key by finding the root note on my keyboard by sound, and then using my fingers to discern which note/key I was playing. All in all it was a challenging task but the crowd gave us such love and all 4 pianists (and one drummer) had such a great attitude that it was great fun. All in all we raised over $5,000. And now I know i can do this shit blindfolded. I'm back in NYC for 3 days before headed back south for another 2 weeks.

Reciprocity

I worked a dueling job recently and was not invited back after my initial contract expired. I was told by the entertainment director that although he, himself liked my skills, a couple of the other house pianists didn't want to work onstage with me because I was too green and my music skills weren't sufficient. The E.D. is himself a weak player and generally defers to the opinions of the more experienced players. This upset me for many reasons. First, I my music skills are better than most that begin in this gig, secondly, I knew I just needed stage time and I would improve quickly. My music skills aren't really the issue. It's learning the syntax of this format. Thirdly, before he ever called me he was told that I was very new to this format and was looking for a working/training situation to improve my skills and get stage time. Finally, I know that my two detractors had once been green in this gig and mostly likely had to acquire skills after making many of the same mistakes that they were complaining about from me.

I come to find out that one of these pianists (let's call him "WhiskeyVoice") that didn't want me back ended up getting fired from the very same gig and came crawling to my current entertainment director and dueling partner, "Guinness" looking for work. So when I arrived to work last week, I found myself playing opposite WhiskeyVoice. After the gig was over he let me know how impressed he was with how far I had come in such a short time. I told him thanks, but no thanks to him. He stumbled over himself trying to explain his actions but I didn't really want to hear it. A few days later WhiskeyVoice called my current dueling partner (Guinness) and asked him again for work. Guinness, a very experienced dueler and no fool, responded by saying, "Oh I hear that you worked with Eddie before." WhiskeyVoice again stumbled over himself trying to explain why he blocked me from getting rebooked. Guinness suggested that perhaps it might be more helpful in the future to nurture and help the new talent rather than impede their progress, and no, he was not able to offer WhiskeyVoice any work at this time.

Intervention with Kristin Chenoweth

See more Kristin Chenoweth videos at Funny or Die

Sixteen dollar a pound chicken breast

A market opened up across the street from my apartment building. It's one of those real fancy ones that try and be like Whole Foods, with the organic foods and all that. So I was all excited as I entered the first time...that was until I saw the Chicken Breast. It was $16 per pound. I'm not exaggerating. Now, grant it, it was boneless, dye free, antibiotic, organic and grass feed, raised in a farm yard, not a cage, probably went to chicken dances on fri nights and had a feather bed to plop down in her hutch with a view after a long day of lounging around the barn yard and and all that. But really...SIXTEEN DOLLARS?? Who can afford this? And, even if you could, why would you pay $16 to give a chicken the good life before you killed it, threw it in the stew and masticated its tender blue-blood flesh? I mean for that money, I expect soooo very much more. I want to know what the chicken's name was. I want to know it's chick-hood nickname that only her mommie used? I want photos and hand-written letters from the chicken as it grew up, thanking me for sponsoring it's life of leisure. I want periodic video messages showing the chicken having fun at the thursday night mixers and the sunday morning brunches I paid for. I want a fucking ashtray made by the chicken, personalized to me. I want to know what the chicken's hobbies were, it's fears, it's hopes, how it spent its time in the barn yard. I want a letter from the grieving organic, grass-fed, gluten-free goose who was the chicken's lover and long-time companion detailing the chicken's final days and last words. THAT'S WHAT I WANT FOR MY SIXTEEN FUCKING DOLLARS!!!!!

blindfolded

In June I booked a dueling piano gig down south for the month of September. My entertainment director just called me 3 days ago and asked me if I was able to do the show blindfolded. Apparently he is doing some benefit for some blind kids and is playing 24 hours with a blindfold. Since I am scheduled to be up on stage with him for 5 of those hours, he wants me blindfolded also. Like this gig isn't difficult enough with my eye's open!! He told me that we would have someone standing behind us to tell us what was going on with the audience and the written requests. Now, I want to be a good sport so I began practicing today with a blindfold (my favorite college shirt from a gizzillion years ago rolled up and tied around my head), and at first it was really hard. I actually felt myself wanting to hyperventilate. But what I found after a while was that it limited my distractions and I was able to practice for a full 60 minutes without getting up and checking my email or my chat programs or the NY Times, etc. etc. And, although some of my left hand notes were inaccurate, it actually put me into a higher state of concentration and I was more involved with the musiic. When I was finished I didn't even want to remove the blindfold. I'll let you know how it goes in performance.

Overheard

Overheard in a conversation between a couple walking in the opposite direction that I was walking: "...Kids aren't stupid; they're smarter than most adults...."

I immediately thought, if that's true, which I think it is, maybe it's because kids don't "know" as much as adults, and are thus more likely to experience things deviod of judgement and preconception.

Mia Dona revisited 5 months later

In my blog entry for March 3, I spoke of my experience with the then new restaurant, Mia Dona on E 58th St in Manhattan. I noted that it was a great study in how to do a restaurant right but that I also had some very specific issues with some of the dishes. Well, last night I went out for a birthday diner with two dear friends at Mia Dona. My one friend was in the process of ordering the octopus appetizer and I warned her off saying I remember it being too salty. The server turned to me and suggested that I must have had it when the restaurant first opened and they have since "fixed" it. Apparently there had been a lot of feedback that the dishes were too salty. He also told me that the fries are no longer pickled in vinegar before being fried. You may recall that I had said in my blog entry that the fries were very good, but so bold that they overpowered everything else. Apparently that was the general consensus.

We went on to have a superb meal with great food and service. I have not one negative thing to say about this experience with Mia Dona. When I had first eaten there in March I had filled out a comment card saying I really enjoyed the experience but that the fries were too bold and the octopus and the pork chops were too salty. I'm guessing that I was not the only person to say so. How gratifying to see a management that is responsive to their customers. Now it is the perfect restaurant! A great vision, and superbly executed.

Random wierd guy

Tuesday night at 1:00am a couple my friends and I were walking from the Apple store on 5th Ave, over to this bar where we are friends with the bartender. As we crossed over Park Ave on 58th, there was a man standing on the corner, carrying nothing but a flat 9 x 11 manila envelope. As he saw us he made an initial advance towards us, presumably to engage us in conversation. My first thought was he was a wierdo and all three of us continued past him in our typical New Yorker fashion. On second thought, maybe he was lost and needed to be pointed back to Times Square. I turned back around and asked him if he was ok. He said very agressively and drunkenly, "Yes, I'm ok! Are you ok?" Alright, wierdo status confirmed. I didn't respond and we continued walking away from him. He then shouted at us that we were big dickheads. We quickened our pace, while he began walking/staggering in the same direction as we were headed, occasionally yelling . And don't you know, he ends up at the very same bar that our friend is working at. He actually got there first as we had made a small detour before arriving. As we came in, he moved his body to block our path, and we physically had to shove our way past him to escape from him once again. He had already found the only male hustler in the club and is groping his, um...merchandise and kissing him in a sloppy drunken way. The mysterious manila envelope is on the bar top. Once the hustler realizes that this guy is not going to "buy", he disengages and the man asks the bartender (our friend) to hold the envelope behind the bar for safe-keeping while he trolls the outside patio. The envelope has never been folded, and looks like it contains no more than 10 sheets of paper. It's rather unwieldy to carry around on a night out on the town, which leads me to believe the contents are important to him, otherwise, he'd have folded it up and shoved it in his pocket. We immediately egg our bartender friend on to show us the contents of the envelope, which he does. It was......a handout from his Anger Management class.

Stocks I like for a 5 year horizon

I was asked for some stock advice by a friend today and I figure I would post my response on my blog so I can go "on the record" with my opinions:

Everyone hates stocks now, which is the correct time to get in. All the economic downturn fears are priced in to the stocks! So you don't have to worry about an economic downturn. You're already receiving that discount! If you are looking for a long time horizon I'd park a couple thousand in the following:

Devon Energy (DVN): This is a longterm play on Oil and on Natural Gas. They derive half their income on each. The share price just took a major hit in the past 2 weeks since the price of oil and nat gas tanked. It's a great company and a good stock. It has been volitile as of late, but if you believe as I do that the price of energy will continue to march up in the next 5 and 10 years, don't worry if it looses value. It will come back. I originally bought it at $55 around 2 years ago and sold it at $111 a few months ago. I just bought back in last week at $91. That's about where it is today. I don't expect this stock to go below $75, but even if it does I will pick up more, for sure.

Goldman Sachs (GS): This company boasts the best minds on Wall Street and the most repected investment bank in the world. They were one of the few financials that were smart enough to get out of the mortgage investments before that hit the fan. They just got downgraded today because they are highly exposed to stocks and the analists feel that their profit is limited with the current bear market. This drove the stock price down. If you believe as I do that the stock market is a good investment on the whole, and for the long term, this company is a must have. The closing price today is a perfect entry point. Remember, you buy low, when everyone else is selling. The price has been driven down by people with a short time horizon.

PXJ - This is an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) that tracks the oil services industry as a whole. It is a bet on the sector that provides the drill bits and oil platforms, etc, etc to the oil exploration and the drilling companies. This sector was run up along with oil this year and when oil busted 2 weeks ago, this sector took a correction along with it. In my opinion it was not warrented, because most of the oil explorations and drillings are profitable with a price of oil over $60/barrel. Today after the current rundown from $140, oil is still at $112/barrel. Another note: During the 70's oil crisis, the oil services sector was run up over 1000%.

General Electric (GE) - This stock price has been run down recently. It's got a good dividend and is one of the best managed companies in the world. They recently entered an agreement with the Saudis, I think, where they agreed to buy a good chunk of the company over the next few years. What this does is put a continued upward pressure on the price of the stock, or conversely, it puts a floor on the price. It's got great international exposure and thus is not dependant on a strong dollar to make money.

Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM) - One of the best managed oil producers and refiners in the world. It's stocks been run down alot. The reasons for this price action are complex and I can't really explain it here. But it is a great company and a good long term bet.

Simon Property Group (SPG) - this is a Real Estate Investment Trust (a.k.a. a REIT). that owns, manages and developes retail real estate properties consisting primarily of regional malls, Premium Outlet centers, The Mills, and community/lifestyle centers. David Simon is the CEO and is one of the smartest names in the business. This may be a risky short term play, but luckily you aren't going to play for the short term. Real estate has been beaten down as you know, and may continue to be for some time but it will inevitably come back. Also, it's a bet on retail which is very much out of favor right now. My suggestion with this stock is to put a buy order in around $85 (It's at $97 today) and if it continues to decrease in price then BUY MORE! This is definately a long term play, but a good one. About 6 months BEFORE the economy turns around whether in 1 year or in 3 years, this stock will quickly rise and be a superstar.

My suggestion to you is to place some money in each of these stocks and let them ride for at least 5 years. Don't think about it, don't worry about, just do it and then forget about. Some of them may decrease in value from month to month. Some of them will increase. This is ok. That's what stocks do. These are not high risk plays and if this little 6-stock portfolio doesn't make you money in 5 years, then our entire economic model is in trouble, and this little stock bet will be the least of your economic woes. Finally, don't wait for the economy to turn around and the news to be rosy. Stock prices rise 6 months before the economy turns around. The market is a forward looking beast. The downturn has been, for the most part, priced in currently. Perfect investment time.

Peking Duck on E 53rd St.

I dined at the E 53rd st. location of Peking Duck with 2 friends this past week on a Tues. (8/5/08). Atmosphere was elegant and sparse although the lights were a bit too bright. Our waiter was an older Chinese man who seemed unhappy in his job. He was efficient, but unfriendly, and he scowled when we asked for food with no Garlic. We ordered the sizzling rice soup with shrimp for two ($9.50). The rice was not at all sizzling and the broth was devoid of any taste whatsoever. All three of us sent back the watery mess without eating it and it was taken off the check. For the main course we ordered Gran Marnier Prawns which is described as being "finished in a refreshing sauce w. a hint of citrus." I can't be sure, but the sauce tasted suspiciously like Jello brand lemon custard and had the same consistency as custard. I'm not exaggerating. It was definitely an unnatural taste that smacked of a taste laboratory off the Jersey Tpk. The Sliced Beef w. Scallops were good, but were served with sliced Garlic, after we had specifically asked our server to tell the chef no garlic. We spoke with the manager after we finished (and left about half the food on the plate) and he politely listened to our very specific complaints, but that was it. We weren't asking him for anything but even so, he did nothing. No complimentary dessert or apertif was offered, the check was not discounted, and no real apology. All three of us are New Yorkers to the core, we live locally and are experienced diners. We chose not to tip at all. We will not go back.

McCain Googled and a sprinkling of good old fashioned police brutality

I Googled John McCain. I clicked on the two sponsored links in the shaded blue area up top and the paid ads on the right side of the screen. John McCain pays Google for those clicks. ... Why did I do this? Because I own Google stock and am voting for Obama.

Strange thing. Blogger is the host of this blog site and is owned and run by Google. It has a real time spell check powered by Google that underscores misspelled words as I type them onto this blog. It flagged the second word of this entry as a misspelling. Ummm....who over at Google is asleep at the wheel here? I think I'll call investor relations on Monday and complain. And then look up John McCain on Yahoo.

Finally, this is NYC's finest. It happened July 27th. I'm so proud to live in the greatest city in the world.

Update from NYC

Am I the last person to get a facebook profile? I finally signed up and within a day I reconnected with about 20 people I haven't talked to in forever, including someone I dated 20 years ago. Anyway, if you know enough about me to look up my facebook profile, feel free to ad me as a friend.

I finished my N.C. gig and came back to New York in time to head to the Poconos for a huge family reunion that was great fun. Then back to NYC. My Missouri gig cancelled on me for August, but I have been invited down to Georgia for a tryout gig next week. I'm excited. I am up to 92 songs memorized, including 7 call-downs, some of which I wrote. The NC job did a lot to increase my confidence and I have gotten several very supportive allies in the past few months. I have officially promoted myself from trainee to newbie. Woohoo!!

My apartment building that I currently rent from just gave me a renewal offer that is 20% above my current rent. I responded with a counter-offer that will likely be denied (a 1% increase), and so I will have to rethink my living situation for an October move. I am really not sure what to do. I expect that I will be out on the road a lot this year, or perhaps even relocating somewhere for 6-12 months although I don't know where yet.

Sgt Jess

Tonight I drank with the 82nd Airborne. Apparently they are the most rapid deployed troops this country has. They can mobilize in 2 hours and be on a plane headed, well, anywhere. We drank shots of Jager to 2 dead men I never met. The toast was for the men, but after toast we tapped our glasses on the bar before putting them to our lips. That was so that Haji could hear it down in hell. Haji is the name of the enemy in Iraq, like Charlie or gook was in Vietnam. Sergant 1st Class Jess of the 82nd Airborne showed me his scar from an injury that kept him down for 9 months. It wasn’t pretty. He still feels bad that because of that he was unable to “return to the wire” to stand alongside his unit. After 9 months he is now fully recovered. His next deployment is Afganistan.

Update from an airport in NC

Well I have finished the first MO tour and am now stuck in an airport in NC, waiting for my connecting flight to Nowheresville, NC (2 hours late and counting) where I will spend two weekends at a Dueling bar. I have 3 days off where I will meet my friend R in Raleigh, where I've never been but have heard it's a fun and vibrant city from my brother who at one time was considering living there. I have been asked back to Missouri for the month of August which will give me two weeks off in July to spend with my people and my things in NYC. After I finish the MO gig in August I am booked back here in NC for the month of September. Then I need to figure out my living situation back in NYC since my current lease is up in Oct. This past year I've lived with my best friend in NYC, but I suspect that next year I will be on the road more than I will be home so I'm not sure I want to commit to a full year of NYC rent. Meanwhile, I will try to re-rent out my own apartment when my tenant's lease is up in January as I like that money coming in.

The Turtles at St. Louis City Museum

If any of you remember my entry on March 9, it was about seeing two tortoises mating on the National Geographic Channel. Well this is the strangest thing. I had two days off from my piano gig and drove to St. Louis, MO where I knocked around for a couple days. It was suggested that I not miss the City Museum, and indeed when I went there I found it great fun. There is an aquarium within the Museum and there are 5 turtles living together. When I came upon them they were decidedly busy with each other as the picture below that I took with my phone will show:One of the cleaning ladies came over next to me and we both watched with fascination as these two pair of turtles had at each other, while a 5th (male) turtle stood just behind the two couples, no doubt waiting his turn. We could hear grunt-like noises coming from them as the shells knocked about and the males' necks strained out of the shells as they came closer and closer to turtle nirvana. As the grunting and knocking got louder, I took this picture:Just for clarity, and since i am nothing if not helpful, I will magnify this picture so you can see the back of the female turtle on the right (bottom):There it is for all to see. THE MONEY SHOT! Notice the drool that the cad has left all over her pretty little back as he...um....fertilizes her eggs. And within 30 seconds of the drool appearing on her back, the male has disappeared, as you can see in the following picture, after riding her hard and putting her away wet. The turtle actually moved faster to get away from his date once he was finished, than he ever did during his carnalities. Some things are universal, yes?

Update from MO

I finished my first week of work in the Midwest. All is well. I like the guys that I work with, with only one exception. We work in a band shell on the nice days and inside a bar on the rainy days. I think the season is beginning to pick up as there were more people this week than the previous weeks from what I hear. The band shell is on a lake and is part of an extensive resort facility in which people on three different levels of balcony's with tables (essentially 3 separate clubs) overlook our performance. The tips are poor but the people are fun and nice and so that makes it worth it to me. I've gotten positive feedback from many of the other players including the entertainment director, so I'm happy about that. There is one guy that by his own admission doesn't even like the gig, but he's been doing it for so long and the money is so good that he is stuck doing it. Onstage he can at times appear as though he is thoroughly annoyed with the audience and there doesn't seem to be any interaction between him and whatever other player is opposite him. I heard that he ran some customers out of the bar with his bad attitude, and he alsonhad some unkind and very nonconstructive criticisms about my playing. That upset me, because I'm the first one to be open to constructive criticism.

On one of my days off I went down to visit my friend that had found Jesus. It was good to see him, and he seemed happy in a religious zealot kind of way. All his greetings including his outgoing phone message involved the Lords blessings and when I left to travel to Kansas City, we had to hold hands as he invoked the Savior's blessing upon my travel. But it was good to see him, and we had a nice day, although he seems to have lost any sense of humor about the foibles of humanity, curse words or gay culture. After we had had lunch, dessert and spent a couple of hours in a basement practice room of a local college waiting out a tornado, he felt compelled to give me his "story" of how he came to Jesus. As distasteful as I find Born-Agains, it had been suggested to me by a very wise man that instead of finding differences, that i might look for the similarities between his experiences with religion and my own spiritual experiences. With that in mind, I heard all of the revelations, and life changes he had experienced and I immediately related to much of what he said. I told him this, and although he didn't say it, I just knew that there was an undercurrent of disbelief that I could possibly have had such profound spiritual experiences without being Christian.

Now my friend has been gay since he first had sexual feelings at 12 years old. He had told me that since he has found Jesus he is no longer gay and has met the woman that he will one day marry. As he described her, it sounded more like a gay man's fag hag than a fiance. They've been very close for a couple of years, but apparently haven't kissed. I asked him if he was sexually and physically attracted to her and he told me that "when the time comes, Jesus will see to it." What do you say to that????

born again

After I found out about the MO gig, I realized I know someone close (2.5 hours away) from the resort that I’ll be working. He used to be one of my closest friends for about a year here in NYC. He is another piano player/singer and also writes beautiful music. Well about 3 years ago he left NYC and found his way back home where he promptly found the Lord and decided that he wasn’t gay anymore. Now he is thick into the morass of having accepted Jesus Christ into his heart as his personal lord and savior, and all that goes with that. I really don’t think we will have much to talk about. I suspect I may scare him because I represent everything that he used to be. And I’m happy…and that may be the scariest thing for him. At best, I expect to find him distasteful and boring. At worst…well, I shudder to go down that path. It continues to boggle my mind at how really intelligent and highly creative people can get caught up in such a cult-like mentality. I’ll write more after I see him, probably sometime this week.

On the road again

I got a call Tuesday from a stranger asking me how fast I could be down in Missouri to take a dueling gig. Apparently the entertainment director in NC recommended me. So tomorrow (Sunday) I will be at a piano on a stage with total strangers playing the (now) 77 rock songs I have memorized. It's a nice arrangement. They are providing all travel, including a car rental while I'm there and accomodations. I'll be performing 4-5 times each week split between two places, one of which is a large outdoor stage on a lake. They tell me that this is the stage they put Willie Nelson on when he's in town. It turns out that one of the guys I made friends with in NC will be working these same venues. I'm really excited. It will be a busy summer.

Window art

My roommate decided to do an art installation on his bedroom window using colored "post it" note paper. The window overlooks the pool deck, so everyone at the pool saw it going up, one 3" square at a time. One the left is the view from inside the room, and on the right is the view from the pool. Pretty cool, right? Now I have bragging rights.

I found myself in many conversations over the past 7 years where I exposed strong opinions about everything from WMD's in Iraq to the manipulation of the American public through the corporately controlled mainstream media and religion. My brother in particular has asked me several times how I know certain things. It is my strong belief that if you rely on any mainstream media outlets, even the seemingly liberal NY Times or a foreign source such as the BBC, you will be fed what the powers that be wish you to hear. So how do I find truly contrarian information? There are many solid, well researched sources where you can access freely that the corporate-run press will not report. (If you are interested, ask me for specifics.) One of the best sources are books and memoirs. Because they are not controlled by the media, per se, the rules are different. The only thing that the publishers care about is, will it sell. Does it spin a good, readable story? And because there is much more room for detail and background in a book, you get a much clearer and nuanced account of whatever is being discussed.

When the book "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" came out in 2004 I read it in about 3 days sitting on the floor of a Manhattan Barnes and Noble store. This book was entertaining and very frightening, written as a first-hand account of how the US manipulates and essentially takes over weaker governments using tools such as the IMF and the World Bank. Sounds boring? It isn't, I promise you. It may be the most fascinating work of non-fiction I've read. If you want to know the forces that run the world and why wars are fought read this book, and others like it. The reason I am blogging about this 4 year old book is that the author, John Perkins wrote another title that recently appeared in my local B&N. It's called: The Secret History of the American Empire. If you know what John Perkins has been doing since the early 80's (read the first book), you will know that he is an insider that can do justice to such a grandiose title.

I guess my point is this: so many people have such strong opinions about our government and politics and policy, but rarely do people bother to really dig down to figure out what the story is beyond what is spoon-fed to them. There is great information out there; well researched, well articulated and readily available. Don't come at me with vitriol because you don't agree with me if you've never read! Because chances are that you are being manipulated and you don't even know it. READ!

Things you wanna do before you die

When my (now) roommate "L" and I first met we were involved in an incident at a piano bar where I had worked at the time. It happened the week after 9/11, and only 1 mile from "ground zero." Tensions were high, of course and on this fateful night I was working behind the piano and "L" was there in the audience. Also in the audience was my crew of Monday night regulars, many of them ossified onto the bar stools upon which they had sat for many years. There was a temper flare, and one of the regulars (let's call him "Mike") badly insulted both me and my new friend. I lost my temper...I can truly say it was the only time in the past decade that I have ever lost my temper. I made a scene, or should I say exacerbated the existing scene. What came out of that night was a three year relationship with my new friend "L" and an animosity between me and "Mike" that lasted for years. I lost that job about a month or so later, and to this day I don't know if that scene had anything to do with it. But regardless, it was a good job to have, and an even better one to loose after having cut my teeth at the place for 2 years. Over the years, I have made peace with Mike, who before 9/11 had been my friend. Meanwhile "L" and I have gone from being lovers to ex-lovers to best friends and finally roommates (sans privileges, thank you very much!) Last night I brought "L" back to the scene of the crime, and there was Mike, sitting at the piano, 8 years later. "L" had really never forgiven "Mike" for this incident, but there we all were, and by the end of the night "L" and "Mike" were buying drinks for each other like they were old friends. There was hugs, tears and promises of everlasting friendship, etc, etc. A beautiful thing!

My own private jet

So i was at a piano bar in the village last night, hanging out with a friend. I was asked to sing a song, so I sang You Go To My Head, one of my very favorite jazz ballads. After I was done, this guy that was sitting at the piano drinking his vodka martini was so very impressed with me that he hands me a very cryptic business card which identifies him as the "Chairman" of a limited liability corporation with some acronym or other that I had never heard of. He tells me to call the number on the card on Monday morning and tell his assistant to put me in touch with him. The mere fact that I have his card will establish my bonafides with said assistant, he says. With a flourish he makes his grand exit from the piano, leaving the martini sitting there, half finished.......Ummmm....ok.

Five minutes later he returns. He immediately begins grousing about someone taking his martini away. (The barback must have cleared the piano of abandoned drinks). After we get through that he asks me what I'm doing next week. I tell him I have a flexible schedule. He asks if I could be in LA. I said, sure, if there was a reason to be there. "What if I were to send my private jet to pick you up?" He then goes on to tell me that his holding company (mysterious acronym on business card) of which he is chairman, owns a world-wide talent management company, XYZ..."surely you've heard of them?" Yes, of course. Well, I am so impressed with your singing that I want them to meet with you, blah, blah, blah.

Well, having worked in NYC for many years, I have to tell you that I've heard this all before, although never with the private jet coming to pick me up. I have to admit, that's a new twist. And of course, you gotta follow this through, on the extraordinarily slim chance that this guy might be for real. So, on Monday morning (11:30am, after my coffee, thank you very much) I will happily call his assistant and find out what time I need to be on the tarmac. What fun!!!

Oh, yeah...a foot note to the story: Some black guy with a voice wandered over to the piano after we had finished talking. My fancy chairman asks if he would sing "Sing Low, Sweet Chariot." Oy-fucking-vey!!

Two Girls, One Cup

Am I the last person to see this video???!!!

Ok...so i watched it. I didn't know what it was but I knew I was expected to react. Because of this expectation I didn't want to react. But it's just about an impossible task. I reacted. Then I watched some of the reaction videos on YouTube. Grandma and Kermit were my two favorites. I immediately began thinking of bits for dueling pianos. If you listen to the original Two Girls, One Cup video, there is a very distinct music track consisting of a piano and synthesized strings. If I were to play that music on stage, would people recognize it? Two Girls, One Cup is now part of our popular culture. If you watch the original video it certainly makes an indelible impression. I can't help but wonder if that impression would include the innocuous background music? When a traumatic event occurs, don't all your senses imprint? And if after watching the original video you then go on to watch all the reaction videos(which I did) you hear the original soundtrack in the backround several more times. Enough to imprint? Perhaps. And if people do recognize the music as I play it onstage, what will they do? How will they react? I think they will scream and stomp their feet and say...Oh my God!! Do you know what he's playing????!!!!

The Fall

I saw a film called The Fall yesterday. (And it is a film, for those of you that understand the lexicon) It will probably get forgotten in a couple of weeks by a movie public infatuated with superheros, comics and reiterations of Rambo and Indiana, two franchises that should have never been allowed to be sequeled after 20 years. I mean really! But back to The Fall. I was so enthralled by the trailer (see below), that I had to see it. I was not dissappointed. This film offers some of the finest photography and cinematography I've ever seen. Absolutely breathtaking. Catinca Untaru is the 10 year old actress that plays the main character, Alexandria. I don't recall having ever seen more authentic acting. Ever. See this perfomance before it leaves the big screen.

Avalon - the evil corporation

I live in a very new hi-rise building directly across the river from Manhattan. This is our pool. It is two lanes wide, although the second lane has been truncated to give space to the lovely concrete box that is one of the stairwells. The pool opened for the very first time today, memorial day. The idea of a pool is nice, of course, but this pool and surrounding deck is way too small for the 600 apartments it serves. This picture was taken at 11:30am. The shady part of the deck has marched inexorably Northwards squeezing the occupants into a smaller and smaller space for sunbathing. Whoever designed the building clearly didn't account for the shadow a 39 floor building would cast upon a pool deck located on the 9th floor. Another thing that really irritates me is that they only purchased 8 (count them, eight...for 600+ apartments!) deck chairs. When the chairs arrived, they were artistically situated diagonally and spaced apart in such a way that they used up much of the space of the West side of the deck--in the same way that lazy students use a word processor to make 2 pages of information look like 5 pages. No doubt the entire setup was built only so that the building could boast a pool. There was no real consideration for the actual usage of the pool. It's way too small, overcast most of the day, and to ad insult to injury, the rich corporation (Avalon) that I write my rent check to skimped on the number of deck chairs. But with the Manhattan views the pool deck offers, it will sure make a great picture in the promo brochure.

Taxes

I just read an entry on a friend's blog that he received his tax refund. To be honest, I have not filed my tax return for the past 2 years. It's not that I don't owe taxes (I do) or that I morally object to how this government chooses to spend my tax money (and I do, oh how I do!), or that given the chance I would cheat the government out of their fair share (doesn't everybody?)...no, it's much more elemental than that. I have such a strong aversion to sitting down with those papers and making sense and order out of them. And what makes this just plain stupid is that I have an accountant who is going to fill out the forms for me. All I have to do is send him the appropriate papers and fill out a questionaire. And yet here I am, spending time writing about how I hate doing it, rather than just simply doing it! All other areas of my life are in order...why is this such a problem.

Sunday morning at the Turkish Baths

After a night of moderate drinking, I woke this morning to my roommate shaking me and telling me it was time to go to the Bathhouse. After a hastily downed cup of French Roast (Gourmet Garage), we took two trains and one bus and a 10 minute walk to land us in the lower east side of Manhattan where we entered the Turkish and Russian Baths. Apparently Sundays are "all-male" day, which I guess means that it is coed the rest of the week. There was a Hassaidic Jew replete with curls, etc. in front of us. As we came up to the counter we placed all valuables in a little safe deposit box, was given a locker key and pointed to the locker room. After undressing and wrapping impossibly small towels around our waists, we went down a narrow flight of stairs where there were 4 saunas, 2 steam rooms each of varying temperatures, and one ice cold dipping pool. We began in one of the steam rooms, and after 10 minutes went into the least hot sauna, slowly working our way up to the absurdly ridiculously hot sauna, and finally jumping into the ice cold water. It was quite a process, and my head was certainly cleared after all the snot ran uncontrollably out of my nose. After the two final temperature extremes, upon exiting the cold water, my body felt as if it had just been rubbed down with menthol. The other clientele were a mixture of gay men, and presumably straight Russians and Turks. Best of all...not one tourist. There was some discrete cruising but nothing tawdry or obscene. Once of the things I liked was that I never felt as though I had to pose. With sweat pouring out of every possible gland, and snot running down your nose, along with everybody else, you can just relax and not worry about looking pretty. In a city where appearance is everything, this is a neutral ground indeed. I probably won't go back, though. It was too cramped, damp and poorly lit for a truly relaxing experience. And I'm not sure all of the torture I put myself through in those temperature extremes was worth the effort. My head was clear, however, when I left, and since we were in a Polish neighborhood, we found a cute Polish diner where we had our first meal at 2pm. Perogies and omelettes on the patio.

Rockin' out down South

I just returned from the South where I did my first real dueling gig. I worked 4 nights and one afternoon with several different piano players and drummers. Armed with my 55 memorized songs I am proud to say I kicked some butt. Each night was different, with Saturday night being the absolute craziest. The club was filled to capacity. There were 3 of us that rotated on 2 pianos, so it was 1 hour onstage, and 1/2 hour offstage, then back up again. The drummer was situated downstage behind the two baby grands. The audience on Saturday night was packed with a lot of military guys that had just arrived stateside from Afganistan and Iraq, many of them finished their final tour and were getting out of the military within the week. We were rocking, we were getting filthy and we were having a ton of fun, and the room loved every second of it. So this is the payoff for all the work and the practicing and the memorizing...and it's damn worth it! So now, the work continues...learning and memorizing more and more songs and comedy bits. But, what a payoff. This could possibly be about the funnest job in the world. The next post I'll tell you about the redneck drama.

The Holy Bible

It reads as follows:

Warning: This is a work of fiction. Do NOT take it literally.

Content Advisory: Contains verses descriptive or advocating suicide, incest, bestiality, sadomasochism, sexual activity in violent context, murder, morbid violence. use of drugs or alcohol, voyeurism, revenge, undermining of authority figures, lawlessness and human right violations and atrocities.

Exposure Warning: Exposure to contest for extended periods of time or during formative years in children may cause delusions, hallucinations, decreased cognitive and objective reasoning abilities and, in extreme cases, pathological disorders, hatred, bigotry and violence, including, but not limited to fanaticism, murder, and genocide.

The Judy Garland Show

It happened. Another Judy Garland tribute show held at the Duplex. I was surprisingly pleased with how it went. My singer got through her show and the audience (mostly her friends) really enjoyed it. She started out nervous and was rushing through things, and I was able to make her take things a bit less seriously through some unscripted onstage interaction. I was complimented after the show by many of the people who attended, specifically upon the energy and repoire between myself and the singer. That made me happy. I really felt as though I did a nice job supporting her, and that of course is the totality of my job once the lights come up. There was one very important NYC cabaret personage in the audience that saw me perform, I believe for the first time. It was all good. The singer (Judy) asked if I would continue to be her music director for future shows, and I'm excited to to do so as I have many things to teach her...things that have been passed on to me from those wiser and more experienced.

Memorize, memorize and more memorize

I have 47 songs completely memorized. That's 47 songs in about 4 weeks. Now granted, about 15 of these songs I've been playing for years, but even so, they were never memorized. So for a guy who always believed I have the worst memory of any pianist in NYC, I'm really excited about my progress. I have had some help. A friend of mine learned Russian while in the Army about 20 years ago. His job was to intercept their military communications. Very hush, hush, top secret and all that cold war nonsense. But he had to learn Russian very rapidly and I asked him how he had done it. He steered me towards a book by Harry Lorayne which tries to give you skills in association. For instance: suppose you are learning French vocabulary and you are trying to memorize the word for Duck, which is canard (ka-nar). If you visualize, i mean really visualize "someone throwing a can hard, and you duck," you can create an association between the English and the french word. This book teaches that the more ridiculous the picture you create for your association, the easier it is to remember. Suppose you are trying to remember a list of seemingly unrelated items in order. You would associate each item with the previous item in some very ridiculous way. For instance, if you are associating the word airplane with tree, you might come up with a picture of a million trees flying through the air; or big jetliner landing in a small tree. Even though I'm not even half-way through this book, it has me thinking in ways I've never thought before, and I'm sure it's helping with my memorization of songs. The latest two songs on my piano are Hey There Delilah and Hurts So Good. I have 10 more days before I go down South to perform all of this music.

Oh, Dios mio!

Last night my doorbell rings. Before I have time to walk the 20 feet from the piano to the door, it is ringing incessantly. Now I have a doorman that is supposed to screen all visitors and call up for permission to send up the visitor, but clearly this didn't happen, and I don't like people knocking on my door unexpectedly. It's a NYC privacy thing. This is why we have doormen. I open the door and there is this beautiful Puerto Rican girl of about 25 or so with her 10 year old son. It seems that she is from the Census Bureau and would like to ask me some questions. "Sure!" I say, knowing how important this is. She immediately begins firing questions at me, still standing in the hallway. I suggest that we move the party inside. After about 40 minutes of very personal questions, some of which I denied to answer, thank you very much, and 12 pages later, she finished. She didn't like the fact that I declined to answer some of the questions and spent a significant amount of time trying convincing me that this information was confidential and my government would NEVER use it in any way other than that which it was intended. Yeah, that didn't fly. I began telling her all about illegal wiretapping, arrogant presidents and the demise of the Constitution, an exercise in silliness considering that she really wasn't that bright. I did question her about the timing of the census as I thought it wasn't supposed to happen until 2010. But apparently the Department of Commerce and the City of NY sponsor this census and they do it every 3 years, and only 1 in 270 households gets to participate. Who knew?

After she finished she turned the form back to the front page where I happened to notice that this particular form that we had just filled out was intended not for my apartment at all, but rather the one across the way. I pointed that out to her and she responded by saying, "Oh, Dios mio," or some such expletive and her pencil eraser began flying a mile a minute over every personal answer that I had just spent 40 some damn minutes giving her, right there on my kitchen counter (the very same place that my roommate would to park his stoned ass a short 26 hours later and pretend he was Michelangelo Lloyd Webber, but that's another post). So there we all were, her, her kid, myself, and eraser dust flying everywhere, getting all cozy and laughing about the whole thing. I found out that "dad" was also a musician, and that today mom had bought the boy a cute little puppy for $800 and that it was making mommie sneeze and she was considering taking it to the pound. When the entire thing was all through, I think I learned more about her, her kid and her "kid's father" than she had erased about me and my "household." She left around 10:15 pm, and I could hear her banging on the door across the way 30 seconds later.

Cut to the following day.

I entered my building at 5 in the afternoon with "Tenacious D" blasting "F*#k Her Gently" in my ipod head phones when a small child comes running up from behind me and grabs my hand and begins pulling it hard, trying to get my attention. I turn around and see it's the 10 year old boy that was in my apartment last night. He is very excited to see me. I guess I hadn't really realized the extent of our bonding. He wants to show me his little puppy that is apparently helping out with the census today, as his mother was talking to the doorman, (puppy in hand) no doubt to torture another hapless resident. Oh, Dios mio!

work...continued

Ok...it seemed to work. Judy and I got a lot of good work done tonight at our rehearsal, and she realized that the charts she gave me from her last music director were very umm....unclear. She accepted my suggestion and we worked out only 4 songs, but we spent an appropriate amount of time on them and they came out really well, and both of us began to feel much better about working together. I came home to my stoned roommate trying to make a clay "Phantom" mask all over the kitchen counter with Bernadette Peters' Sondheim, etc. Concert blasting. Oy!

Work

Well I got a phone call last weekend. A very nervous cabaret singer with a music director that had gone MIA. She's got this Judy Garland tribute show she's doing (does this town really need yet another Judy Garland cabaret show?...really really??) and so I'm stepping into someone else's shoes and have to make this work. She is very nervous and it is affecting our rehearsals because she is coming from a place of fear. She wants to rush through a run-through all the songs she is doing rather than spending quality time on each and then putting it all together in a later rehearsal. And in her rapid run-through, because she has not articulated, and in many cases not even thought of what exactly she wants, we are not in sync, and she's freaking out. I think tonight I will take control of this rehearsal and see if I can get her to do it my way. I'll let you know how it all works out.

one week later

Comments anyone?

Job offer

Well, it is beginning. I got my first real job offer as a Dueler yesterday. The owner of the club I was training at all last week made a phone call and as a result I was invited to play a four night gig at another club down South. It will still be training, but the pay is fair, the travel expenses will be picked up and I will be playing the entire gig, not just sitting around watching. The guy I will be training with has an amazing reputation as an entertainer and as a musician, so I expect to learn a lot. I can already tell from talking to him several times that he has a very strong personality. This will be a real good opportunity to practice humility. Oy!! Oh, and I have been instructed NOT to bring any music up on stage with me. Which means, I have reduced my available repertoire down to about 25 songs. I expect that by the time I do this gig, in 3 weeks from now, I will have memorized another 15. This should be reeeal interesting. At least the guy training me is fully aware of where I'm at.

Busy Week

Well I'm finally back in NYC after spending over a week at my "audition" down South. The original audition was only for the first weekend, but they asked me to stay a second weekend to continue the process. The answer to the question everyone seems to ask is, No, I didn't get exactly what I wanted. They didn't offer me a real job. I was told I still need more time for preparation and training. Well, that's why I went down there in the first place. I was applying for a "training" position as a dueling pianist. I think my presence there helped the club owner and the other two pianists define what they were really looking for, which was not a trainee at all, but rather an "A" player to replace the guy that left. This is all fine. I was treated very well by the club, the owner, and the other pianists. They paid me a nominal fee for my training and housed me. I was responsible for all travel.

Meanwhile, after having been immersed in the world of Dueling Pianos for the past 9 days, I am as motivated as ever to continue my practicing. I currently have 230 rock songs that I know, so I will now change my focus from adding new songs to memorizing and mastering the ones I know. Everyone I speak with tells me I should work to get "off book". OK. Message received, loud and clear. Even though I have always believed I have a really shitty memory, I'm motivated, so I will do this. I already have about 20 songs under my belt.

It was very cool being up on stage in a real venue with several hundred people paying attention. And I have always been very nervous about being on a stage like that, but this week i discovered that it wasn't all that scary, and even though I was unsure of how well I would do each time I got on stage (that due to all the critisism I was getting all week) I found that I wasn't nervous. I managed an attitude that I would either do well or I wouldn't but either way I would learn. And that is unusual for me. I have always been terrified of doing badly on stage. And when I was up there, I found myself much more focused than ever been, even though everything was unfamiliar and I was juggling so many things at once.

One cool number the other pianists did was Sweet Child of Mine. One of the pianists got in costume as Axel Rose, jumped up on top of the two grand pianos and played electric guitar. They had special lighting, and we were working with a drummer. It sounded amazing. Meanwhile, the bar manager poured Bacardi 151 on top of the pianos, at the guitarist's feet and lit them so there were flames shooting up. He then used the rest of the 151 to blow fire out of his mouth in front of the pianos...it was quite spectacular.

DuelingPiano Audition

I was invited down to the Carolinas to audition at a dueling piano bar. I sat in on Saturday with 3 other players and an adoring audience of 300 rock-lovin' southerners, singing Sweet Home Alabama and Santeria. Apparently the bar can and does hold 425 but it was a "light" night because of the NCAA final four games that night. So the good news is that I was invited to stay on through this weekend to continue the audition process. I expect to be back in NYC on Sunday. Now back to memorizing more lyrics!

for thought

Why in this country are we violent and literate?
Answer: Because we are taught to read.

rant: suspension of reality

Have we as Americans, smart and stupid alike, all gotten together and decided to suspend reality and enter into an alternate universe where George W. Bush shouldn't be run him out of town or impeached and imprisoned for high treason and crimes against humanity? Did we all actually agree to re-elect him and hand over, again, the public trust that he would act in our best interests after seeing his act for 4 years? Did we all agree that when he or his press secretary says something, it should reported as "news" rather than propaganda and manipulation? And this after 7 years of continual mistruths, lies and fantasy spewing out of the spigot of disinformation formerly known as The White House; lies that have proven themselves as such after only a few short weeks or months. How can the press look their audience in the eye night after night and say that the White House says this or that without at least a twinkle in their eye that belies the shared joke that our executive leadership has become? If you had a friend or family member that continually altered the truth to suit their needs, wouldn't you stop listening? And if you were recounting something they said, wouldn't your face reflect exactly how much trust you had in the veracity of such a statement?

REALLY!!...how is this possible? Has black become the new white?

Activity

So my life has come down to essentially this: Since I returned from all my travels last June I've devoted my time to 1. rent my apartment and 2. learn the dueling piano canon. It took me all of 6 months but by Jan my apartment was finally rented. If any of you have seen or know my apartment, you know that it's a bit of an extravagant space and since I was renting it furnished replete with all the fussy decorations, etc I was extremely picky about whom I chose as my tenant. Another reason it took so long was because I chose to test the market, to see how much I could get for it. I originally overpriced the rent and then slowly brought the price down to reality. A good lesson. Finally, the main bedding area is up in a sleeping loft that is accessed by a ladder, which limits the upper age range of interested tenants. Anyway, as far as I can tell, the right person IS in there, and he seems to be treating the space with dignity, as I had hoped, and hasn't fallen out of the sleeping loft head first. So with the positive cash flow that generated, I rented a more humble space and have been living with piano and with my best friend, spending much of my time working on music. Well now I feel as though I'm spinning my wheels. I haven't actually worked a steady gig since December, and I'm feeling slothful [is that a word??]. So in spite of my practice, I felt that it was time to put some feelers out for employment. The interest was immediate. While I have received no offers yet, several possibilities have been presented to me, including Europe, the Caribbean, Southern California, and the most solid possibility so far,....wait for it....wait for it.... waaaaaiiiit...... Detroit!!! About 20 minutes after I got that phone call I saw a piece on CNN about how the Detroit mayor is being criminally prosecuted for perjury and, apparently as a result of this (alleged) perjury, has cost the tax payers of this "already cash-strapped city" like 9 million dollars, or some such nonsense. So I switched channels to CNBC, to learn only 5 minutes later that GM is closing yet another auto plant in Detroit which will cause more layoffs, penury and general misery in the Detroit area. Oh happy day! I'm packing my bags right now!

Oh, PS...am I the only one that consistently misspells "Caribbean"?

Six hours!

Last night after the roommate left for the evening I decided to organize my photos on the computer. (Just this past weekend I spent way too much time organizing the naughty pictures, only to remove them completely from the computer. I think i enjoy the idea of acquiring them much more than would be proportional for the amount of times I actually...um..."use them.")

So there I am last night, for six hours, going through all the pictures from my life for the past few years, everything from the beaches of Boracay, the parks of Siagon, the rice paddys of Luzon, the Ferris Wheel at Coney Island, Friends, Family, to dead mother's defective tomb stone, dueling piano bars, Zen retreats, and past and current lovers (um...only one current one). It is an interesting way to spend a night. It's good "alone time," at times sad, at times happy. It makes you keenly aware of the impermanence of life. That's a good thing.

After I finished, I began reading an autobiographical book about a Dutch guy who decides to travel to Japan and knock on the door of some random Zen Buddhist monastery and asked to be admitted to live, and to study and practice Zen for 3 years alongside the monks. He says in the beginning that he was searching for "...indifference of a higher order." I think that's a great descriptor of Zen. I'm 1/3 of the way through the book now and it's a really fascinating tale so far. It's not designed to be a religious text or even a call to conversion. It's just a story; an account. I like that. It's called The Empty Mirror by Van de Wetering.


So here's your moment of Zen. This is a picture I took on the Philippine island of Boracay last May. It is an advertisement in the window of a doctor's office. The text states:

Circumcision Package.
Including:
- Medication,
- Supplies.
-P1,000/head.
-P900/head for group of 2-5
-P800/head for group of more than 6

At the time, the conversion was about 40 Philippine Pesos (p40) to the Dollar. So if you want to purchase one circumcision, the cost is about $25 USD. If you have a group of six to circumcise, well then you save 20%! It's only $120 for the entire group (of heads, apparently).

Cool friends

So it's 6:30pm Easter and I just returned from a friend's Easter party. He's always doing something, and he'd definately one of the ultra cool set here in NYC. So I rearranged my schedule to go to his "Easter Brunch." He lives in one of the sweetest spaces I've seen here in Manhattan, with cathedral ceilings and lots of open space in a 5 story townhouse in the east 60's. I normally don't like to drink while it's still daylight, but I made an exception and began drinking Bellini's, which are a mixture of champagne and peach, at 2pm. Some people I knew and some I didn't. He has some pretty fancy friends, and there was more than one tucked chin and lifted brow in the set. As it was Easter, he had Easter eggs "hidden" in plain sight, wrapped in cool easter paisley fabrics which we were supposed to "find" and open. Inside the wrappings were easter eggs and some of them had notes, such as "kiss the chef", or "lunch with the host" or "stay and help clean after the party", while others had money in the wrappers alongside the eggs. What a cool idea for an adult easter party. And New York holiday parties are pretty cool in general because you never know who will meet. Many New Yorkers are far from their families, so in such settings it's almost as though you have an adopted family for the few hours you are together. I spent a while chatting with a woman who runs a hedge fund and is an expert in Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), which I have a passing interest in. I got to catch up with some friends and the host and I got into a showdown where we tried to out do each other with (of all things) Sophie Tucker jokes. Then I found $100 bill in my Easter egg wrapping!!!....and then we all got to hunt for a second one. Another $20!!! Yay! It was the first party I have been where I wasn't entertaining, and yet still got paid! Now I'm back home, shaking off the Bellini's and thinking about writing a thank you note to my host and heading downstairs to the gym.

Sophie Tucker: I was in bed with my boyfriend Ernie and he said to me, "Soph" (he always calls me Soph), he said to me "Soph, you have no tits and a tight box." I said to him, "Ernie, Get Off My Back!"

Tortoise love and TV theme songs

OK, this is just strange. I was lying awake, not able to sleep at 3 in the morning, so I turned on National Geographic where there were having a special on the Galapagos Islands. Cool, right? Well they showed two tortoises mating. And apparently the females are smaller than the males. So here is this huge tortoise mounting a little turtle half it's size and going at it like a Craigslist personal ad gone very very wrong. And amid all the knocking of shells, they were grunting too!! Loudly! Like pigs, I guess. It was a clumsy, noisy, awkward affair that was more than a little bit disturbing.

I finally went to sleep and dreamt that I was playing a dueling piano gig out in some Midwestern state, and there's hundreds of people waiting for me to play, but I didn't have my music so there I sat there as useless as teats on a bull. So the other pianist asked if I knew TV theme songs--which I have always resisted learning--12 years playing piano bar and no Gilligan's Island! So I had to tell him no, and continue being useless. It was kind of like when I was in 7th grade and would dream that I was on the school bus, and suddenly realized that I must have forgotten to put on any clothes before I left home, but no one had noticed quite yet, and I was frantically wondering what the hell I would do when we arrived at school and I would have to stand up and get off the bus. So today (after I woke up from my pianistic nightmare) I promptly did my research and discovered that apparently there is a very specific TV theme medley that the duelers play. It goes: Brady Bunch, Gilligan's Island, All in the Family, The Jeffersons and Cheers...in that order. (I didn't get that memo). So the next time you see me perform, you can hear me imitate Edith Bunker in all her melodious glory singing "Those were the daaaaaaa-a-aaa-ays!!"

The newest incarnation of the Townhouse Restaurant

Having worked in the restaurant/bar business for about 12 years now, it always fascinates me as to what makes a restaurant or bar "work" and what doesn't. Oh, I understand the basics: service, pours, pricing, quality of food, ambiance, location, management...but we've all seen places that seem to do everything right and they can't seem to get off the ground, and then there are places that seem to make every mistake in the book, and they do great. Well, the owners of a place called the Townhouse Restaurant closed their restaurant a couple years ago, presumably because they weren't making any money. Then they partnered with someone who came in and made it a nice casual Italian restaurant. They spent much time and money completely redoing the place into what was a very comfortable, fairly priced bistro with decent food. It completely flopped. In fact it did a heck of a lot LESS business than the Townhouse Restaurant that they closed in order to open the new place. So finally after many long and completely uneventful months, I guess they took their losses and got out.

In came Donatella Arpaia and chef Michael Psilakis, who completely redid the space (again) with an absolutely outstanding design, created a casual Italian menu and it has only been open only a couple of weeks under the name Mia Dona and it seem to be an immediate and smashing success. I've been their twice now and these people know how to do it right. The menu is unique and clearly designed by a master chef, the interior design is truly inspired, and the service is superb. The food quality has been wildly mixed. The Polpettone florentine meatloaf, made to order with a poached egg expertly cooked inside the loaf was a masterpiece, and so was the Spinach, béchamel & pecorino side dish. Creamy and interesting, it could have been a very satisfying meal in and of itself. The grilled octopus starter was very meaty and tender (yay!) but way too salty (boo!). The exact same can be said for the Roasted Pork Chop (meaty, tender and too salty). The pickled vinegar french fries were tasty but too bold and vinegary which overpowered whatever it was paired with, except perhaps the octopus and the pork chop. The Braised Beef Ribs with smoked mozzarella polenta, cipollini and tomato was very tasty. In spite of the issues I have with some of the flavors, the place is too interesting not to go back. It's a great study in how to do a successful restaurant in NYC.

Memorization

One of the things I continue to be told is that I have to memorize my music. I have always struggled with that. I have put in untold hours to memorize chords and lyrics for a one hour show, only to start forgetting them a few short weeks after the run finished. But in order for me to really be successful as a dueling pianist, I need to memorize hundreds of songs. It has always amazed me at the sheer breadth of material these guys know without any music or lyrics to remind them. So I began hunting for help with memory training. I found this one school called The School of Phenomenal Memory (PMemory.com) that makes all sorts of fantastic claims, but it somehow involves learning an alpha-numeric code, that you need to really integrate into your mind in order to quickly access it, sort of like learning shorthand, and only after you master this code, can you utilize it to help with the memorization process. I don't have a problem going through all that work, if I can be assured that it is a legitimate system, but I couldn't find any truly independent reviews or analysis of this School or method, but I did find that they had a couple of unresolved complaints with the BBB. And I gathered from those complaints that their "No Time Limit, No Questions Asked Money-back Guarantee" did indeed have Questions Asked, and apparently not answered satisfactorily. Moving along, I did, however find a cool website called www.memory-key.com which has a lot of different articles and resources for cognitive strategies and memory improvement. Now back my practicing. Was it Leroy Brown that learned a lesson 'bout messin' with the wife of a jealous man, or was it simply Leroy that learned the lesson 'bout messin'? I can't remember. Dammit!

Back from Bush Country

I spent a full week in Texas, first visiting my family in Dallas/Ft Worth, then down to Austin for a visit with my friend J, and then back up to Dallas to spend some time with friends. I performed 3 times in Texas, all unexpectedly: Once at a Dueling piano bar in Austin, and then at a private party where I was the featured entertainment, and finally I was asked to put together a 30 min Cabaret spot at a bar in Dallas. It was fun to do that kind of music for such an appreciative crowd.

Now I'm back from Texas, and have spent an enjoyable week with my music, meditation and friends here in NYC. I've been busy learning some of the songs I heard in Texas that I will need for my reportoire for the Dueling Pianos act. Many of my friends in Vietnam have sent me Happy Lunar New Year greetings and I've gotten a couple of wonderfully long emails from friends abroad. I'll close this blog entry with some text found on a Vietnamese travel agency website regarding their "SuperDong boat":

"We assures the punctuality in departure time. Here, aboard the boat, guests will have the good sensation of living in a warm and spacious home for its harmonious interior decoration and with all the entertainments such as watching movies, enjoying snacks, light meal in the friendly and pleasant atmosphere of the boat staff. Smart steward and stewardess are ready to serve guests by their courteous manners. And with SuperDong boat, clients gill get more excitement during the voyages across the sea to make a conquest the immense Ocean. The will be healthy and fine when leaving the wharf to welcome a new day with the bright sunshines as desired."

Incidentally, this mighty "ocean voyage" is actually a 20-minute ferry crossing to an offshore island.