I never did the bar thing in college. I couldn't stand them. I didn't like beer and I didn't like trying to have conversations that sounded like shouting matches. And the cigarette smoke. I really REALLY didn't like the smoke.
However, I am no longer in college. I can order non-beer drinks. San Francisco has a smoking ban. And last weekend, my fashion consultant taught me how to get around the volume problem.
I call her the Fashion Consultant because she makes me look good. She owns a consignment shop near my house, and I go in on the weekends and play dress-up, and she gives good advice. So I buy my clothes from her, and occasionally we go out.
Last weekend, we were bored. We were both in our own separate funks and sick of winter and restless. We decided to solve the problem with dinner at a mediterranean grill down the street. And then the Fashion Consultant suggested we go to a bar in the Castro. But not just any bar. A piano bar.
We walked in and it was pretty great. There was a grand piano covered in brass plate metal, with chairs all around it. The pianist was taking requests, and occasionally a spectator would sing. And this was not karaoke bar drunken warbling. This was practiced, well honed beauty.
The thing that sealed it for me though was the song being performed when we arrived. It's a song I hadn't heard in at least 20 years. I don't know who wrote it or who performed it or what the instrumentation was. I do know it's possibly called "MTA" and my dad used to sing me to sleep with it.
