You're not a pianist

At The Irish Pub on 7th Avenue and 50-something Street. A conversation with the bartender reveals that this place has always been called The Irish Pub. "Always" meaning that it might have been called something else 50 years ago, or before the current collective memory of the place.

This is the place I thought had been called The Slaughtered something. Lamb? Sheep? The Slaughtered Elephant Pub?

The bartender says people still come in asking about Mulligan's, which was an old school pub a half block away. Mulligan's has been gone for 15 years but people still come asking about it.

This place is surprisingly low key for midtown. As I walked over here I was virtually subsumed by a mass of tourists. Well dressed, all of them, it was a procession of well over 100 individuals who seemed nervous about their conspicuousness. The conspicuity of their numbers.

Snipers on their lunch break see this mass of people and think "No one will notice if I lop off just one of them."

That's when the carcasses start piling up in the streets. The mass of tourists thinks its flock has lost something, but none can define what, or who. The casualties are all from the rear of the crowd -- the ass of the mass.

I remember a friend describing Las Vegas as "all of America laid out to dry." Midtown is something similar, but I'm not sure what. America at Sunday School? America at its college graduation? I don't know, but it is not New York.

This is one of the first midtown pubs I ever entered. I never frequented pubs until 2002 or 2003, so I must have passed through here with the corporates after work, probably in 1996 or later.

One of my earliest midtown pub memories is from a place called Faces and Names, near this place. It's called Faces and Names because the bar hires an illustrator to come and draw the faces of the customers. The artist either sells the drawings to the customers or they get put on the wall of the place. The walls are covered with these illustrations, which also bear the names of the illustrated.

I was a that pub on a weekend afternoon -- probably a Sunday -- when I told the bartender that I was a classical pianist. The bartender mentioned this to the other customer at the bar -- a fat drunk woman in her mid to late 50s who could only scream where simply speaking would suffice.

I CAN TELL IF YOU'RE A PIANIST. I CAN TELL IF YOU'RE A PIANIST. I HAVE A QUESTION. ANSWER THIS QUESTION.

She was pointing at me, yelling. I wouldn't recognize it until years later but she was retarded drunk. I had never been around that sort of thing, so I just took her to be an obnoxious loudmouth, fully in control of her sense.

now, of course, I know a drunk when I see one. But that's another story.

Her question, the answer to which would determine whether or not I was really a pianist, was:

WHAT'S THE FIRST NOTE OF CHOPIN'S POLONAISE?

She didn't say which Polonaise but I assumed she meant the 6th, which is one of Chopin's most over-played piano pieces.

In answering the question I struck the counter with my hands as if I was playing the opening notes of that Polonaise.

"E-Flat," I announced. "Two E-Flat octaves."

Before I finished that second sentence she was already ripping me a new one.

YOU'RE NOT A PIANIST. YOU'RE NOT A PIANIST. THE FIRST NOTE OF CHOPIN'S POLONAISE IS F!

She then commenced to sing the main theme from Chopin's 6th Polonaise. That main theme does indeed start on F-natural, but it's not "the first note" of the Polonaise.

She sang and sang and sang the Chopin Polonaise in the stupid, spittled way that drunk people sing. I would not recognize her for what she was -- an all-day daytime drunk -- until years later. Until then I could only be a bit irritated at her accusing me of not being a pianist.