"There's a two drink minimum ..."
In the normal course of transacting business, I was told that the long bartender from the Palos Verdes Bowl, Willie, had a heart attack.
My wife was quick to point out that this happened just a few weeks after I'd quit hosting Friday night karaoke there, weeks shy of my fifth anniversary.(1) Also, I'd received reports that Friday nights hadn't exactly gone smoothly since I left. He was always very particular about the karaoke and servicing the clientele. I don't want to believe that my exodus had anything to do with it -- Willie lived hard -- but it was an unusual coincidence in timing.
Willie, if you can't tell from the photo, is Italian. From New York. In his seventies, he grew up in the days of wiseguys and doo wop. He loved to regale me with tales of his "connected" cousins and his "boy band" long gone days as a singer . There was no credit at the bar -- cash only, or take that plastic stuff out to the ATM and eat a $2 fee. Every once in a while, he'd want to grab the mic and belt out "Teenager In Love" by Dion and the Belmonts, and heaven forbid somebody wanted to sing Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" without him singing along, "bop-bop-baa ... so good, so good, so good!"(2)
Many customers either loved or hated Willie's gruffness. The bar had a two drink minimum to sing, which Willie enforced with a vigor some felt was overzealous. Many of my regulars -- Eddie the Guitar Man, long haired Howie and more -- refused to return, tired of getting hassled to buy drinks week after week after blessed week. "If I come here this often, I deserve a little slack," was their rationale. Willie had a harder view of this -- cash up front. Every day. Money he had was better than money he might get.
Still, for all his gruffness and his initial ambivalence towards me (my rigid rotation took some time for people to get used to, and then became a gold standard), I came to appreciate him. We were a steady presence for each other, and I perfected my show style while he looked on, amber hops pouring into clear glass. I came to grasp his love for Sinatra, wielding my baritone through renditions of "That's Life" and "Fly Me To The Moon," his half-smile visible almost every time. He came to appreciate my exaggerated sense of fair play, never letting even my friends get extra turns to sing and never penalizing even the worst vocalists.(3)
He never questioned my decision to retire from hosting weekly karaoke shows. "You're a newlywed, Hannibal," he'd say, cigarette hanging from his lip as we closed down. "You've got this baby on the way, she wants you there ... it's only right." He was old school in a way that was often hilarious to me, because I didn't have to worry about whether I ordered my bottled water from the bar or got it from the vending machine.(4)
I hope this isn't an obituary. I hope he heals and has many more years of slinging drinks and puffing on cigarettes and rolling his eyes at people on stage.
Playing (Music): "Sing, Swing, Sing" by Benny Goodman
My wife was quick to point out that this happened just a few weeks after I'd quit hosting Friday night karaoke there, weeks shy of my fifth anniversary.(1) Also, I'd received reports that Friday nights hadn't exactly gone smoothly since I left. He was always very particular about the karaoke and servicing the clientele. I don't want to believe that my exodus had anything to do with it -- Willie lived hard -- but it was an unusual coincidence in timing.
Willie, if you can't tell from the photo, is Italian. From New York. In his seventies, he grew up in the days of wiseguys and doo wop. He loved to regale me with tales of his "connected" cousins and his "boy band" long gone days as a singer . There was no credit at the bar -- cash only, or take that plastic stuff out to the ATM and eat a $2 fee. Every once in a while, he'd want to grab the mic and belt out "Teenager In Love" by Dion and the Belmonts, and heaven forbid somebody wanted to sing Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" without him singing along, "bop-bop-baa ... so good, so good, so good!"(2)
Many customers either loved or hated Willie's gruffness. The bar had a two drink minimum to sing, which Willie enforced with a vigor some felt was overzealous. Many of my regulars -- Eddie the Guitar Man, long haired Howie and more -- refused to return, tired of getting hassled to buy drinks week after week after blessed week. "If I come here this often, I deserve a little slack," was their rationale. Willie had a harder view of this -- cash up front. Every day. Money he had was better than money he might get.
Still, for all his gruffness and his initial ambivalence towards me (my rigid rotation took some time for people to get used to, and then became a gold standard), I came to appreciate him. We were a steady presence for each other, and I perfected my show style while he looked on, amber hops pouring into clear glass. I came to grasp his love for Sinatra, wielding my baritone through renditions of "That's Life" and "Fly Me To The Moon," his half-smile visible almost every time. He came to appreciate my exaggerated sense of fair play, never letting even my friends get extra turns to sing and never penalizing even the worst vocalists.(3)
He never questioned my decision to retire from hosting weekly karaoke shows. "You're a newlywed, Hannibal," he'd say, cigarette hanging from his lip as we closed down. "You've got this baby on the way, she wants you there ... it's only right." He was old school in a way that was often hilarious to me, because I didn't have to worry about whether I ordered my bottled water from the bar or got it from the vending machine.(4)
I hope this isn't an obituary. I hope he heals and has many more years of slinging drinks and puffing on cigarettes and rolling his eyes at people on stage.
Playing (Music): "Sing, Swing, Sing" by Benny Goodman
FOOTNOTES:
(1) = September 2005 to August 2009. I missed less than fifteen Friday shows that whole span -- business trips and family dinners. Oh, and that one Friday when the power went out for the whole block, which was weird.
(2) = He was actually not bad. The cigarettes had dulled his voice a lot, but you could hear the nugget of melody still there.
(3) = There was a lady who sang "Memory" from the musical Cats in the voice of a cat. Meowing and all. Her I denied. But even buzz kills like Princess (also known as Janine), Lenny (always polite, not a bad singer per se, but killing me with five minute salvos of Pink Floyd) and so on got their turns, fair and square.
(4) = I finally had to switch when I saw that the water coming from the bar's tap was actual fawcet water. No thanks.
posted by Hannibal Tabu, The Operative at
12:51 PM
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