Epistle 23 – Java

I have a Starbucks gold card, which I think means I hang out there a lot. It’s like your friendly, neighborhood bartender having your “usual” set up on the bar before you even reach your stool. It’s comforting to know there is someplace you always belong. Of course, the barrista (Spanish for bartender) changes more than my shirts, but somehow, despite a bewildering array of ways to serve you a cuppa Joe, they always add a personal touch. “Room for cream?” they ask, genuinely concerned for my every wish. I never request room, thinking I’ll get more for my money, which leaves me anywhere from a half empty cup to a puddle in my lap when I add my own.

How did we ever order coffee in the good ol’ days, without lattes, mochas, cappuccinos and tarantellas? (I think that last one is some sort of dance, but it sounds like it should be on the menu.) I can even remember when decaf was invented—Sanka, I think—so not a lot of menu choices before that. My grandmother ran a diner and all you got was a white cup (made of real glass), with a hot, strong (very strong) dark brown liquid beside a beaker of sugar and a small pitcher of cream, which was probably really milk. But none of this sissy non-dairy creamer or white stuff in little paper bags.

No, sir. Not in the good ol’ days. You ordered coffee, you knew exactly what you were getting. The food service was about the same concept. Regardless of the daily Blue Plate Special, my grandmother gave you a plate of brown, green and white stuff mixed in a glurpy swirl. Her theory was that it all got mixed up in your stomach anyway, so why not give it a head start. Ambiance was supplied by the curly strip of flypaper hanging from the ceiling. One look at that, and you didn’t care about the presentation either.

So much for mellow nostalgia. Back to Starbucks where my gold card (it’s really coffee brown) also allows ol’ Starbuck free access to my checking account so he can make sure I never run out of money while I’m in his store. God forbid I should run out of credit and swoon from a frappuccino attack right in front of the barrista. Talk about service! Oh that my bank should treat me as well as the Bank of Starbucks, which didn’t even get a federal bailout.

And what about the snob appeal? Here I sit, sipping my cardboard Venti, in my overstuffed chair, thinking I should have a cardigan sweater and a pipe. I’ll bet everyone in here knows I have a gold card. The staff continually fawns over me, genuinely concerned for my every need. In fact, just this morning the barrista asked about me.

“Room for cream in that?”

We Will Win

No matter what level of playing you’re at now or which musical instruments you may know how to play, learn piano blues and you’ll be much better off for it regardless of the level of expertise that you are at or even if your focus is another instrument.

Playing the piano is invaluable for musical ideas, arranging for other instruments and just plain fun, relaxing and will open up opportunities when you can accompany other performers.

By learning piano blues you will have also learned many rock and roll songs as well since that technique developed out of blues music.

By simply learning some simple and easy patterns you can get in to the spirit of the blues. Before you know it, you will have mastered those patterns, develop some more complex version of those patterns and develop that are slightly more technical and before you know it you’re playing some very decent boogie woogie blues.

This style of blues with a bit of speed is very impressive. The boogie woogie style came directly out of the blues and is one of the best ways for a pianist to show off their technical ability.

If you ever get the chance, stand behind or next to a blues piano player and just watched what they do with their hands. Watching what they do will really allow you to see what’s going on with both hands and how these repetitive riffs are being implemented.

Just take it slow, analyze and study you will surprise yourself how easy things can really be. Then, like anything else, and a little commitment to some daily practice your peed and dexterity will come. Sure, kids usually pick it up quicker than adults or even easier than us boomers, but anyone who has the desire to learn can do it regardless of age.

Even if you decide to only learn to play the blues, think of the enjoyment that you can have at a jam session. Blues is the international language of music and who know learning to play blues music may spring board you in to other styles like gospel and jazz.

Epistle 20 – Juke Boxes

Back when there where diners with padded red and green plastic booths, on the Formica table next to the window there was a juke box, a machine that didn’t look like a box or a juke, whatever a juke is.  It had chrome sides, a glass face and a half-dozen pages of type-written songs that you could flip through with little levers on the bottom.  Some of the list was even legible.  The songs were an interesting combination of the very popular, the very obscure and Frank Sinatra.

For a nickel (or five songs for a quarter if you were really flush), you could punch a couple of buttons indicating your favorite tune, and the juke box would magically send instructions to headquarters, a mammoth 4-foot machine that held all the vinyl records (no CD’s, thank you, only 78’s or 45’s), standing on edge, hoping somebody would punch their buttons.  The lucky selection would then roll out of its slot and lay flat on the turntable while the arm with the needle would descend on the first groove (usually) to play your favorite song.  Of course, you could also put your money in the big machine and punch those buttons but that wasn’t nearly as mysterious.

Apparently, the record selection was changed periodically to reflect the modern tastes in music, plus a seasonal song or two like “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”, but you couldn’t prove it by me.  Did anyone ever see somebody change the records or type up a new song list?  I didn’t think so.  Of course, the obscure songs and the Sinatra songs never had to change in my lifetime . . . and probably didn’t.  Maybe the hot modern hits by the Andrews Sisters and Frankie Laine were installed in the dead of night when the diner was closed so the owner wouldn’t be blamed if the tune was really bad.

Now, of course, everyone has an i-Pod plugged into their ears so you don’t even need a clunky old juke box to entertain you and your friends.  You can get a vaguely similar experience in a nightspot with some kind of electronic gadgetry, but it’s too loud to recognize the tune, if it even has one.  That’s probably a good thing because nobody had to type anything, nobody had to push any buttons, and it’s probably not Sinatra.  Hell, I once tried to play one of those modern music machines, and it wouldn’t even take my nickel.

We Will Win

Epistle 19 – Tis The Season

Here it is again. Tis the Season, and it’s about time Joy to the World is duly recognized as the most important Christmas Carol ever. Not because it is a great work of art and adoration, but because it was always the last song of the Christmas Eve service at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, and I could finally race home and tear open every present as fast as I could and then wonder if that’s all there was to it. Of course, I did have to first endure a tedious ceremony wherein my brother passed out all the presents, just because he could read and I couldn’t. The tension was unbearable, a bit like waiting for the bell to ring and the gates open at a horse race, followed by a flurry of flying paper and bows. If there had been a horse doofer among the presents, no one would have noticed.

Of course, now that I am wiser and more mature, I realize that the joy of Christmas is the anticipation leading to the big event. It’s the journey, not the destination; and all my fond memories of Christmases past are of the weeks before. Like the time I learned the truth about Santa Clause. Actually, that happened about an hour and a half before the big event. I was on my way to church with my mother and my brother and suddenly realized I forgot something dreadfully important—probably my lucky plastic gold doubloon—and panic stricken, did an immediate about face and raced for home. I’m sure my mother screamed for me to turn back before it was too late but, her voice was drowned out by the bells on Santa’s sleigh. Or maybe it was the bell on the door to the Gopher Hole tavern.

Anyway, you can just imagine how shocked I was to find Santa, who was a dead ringer for my father, crawling around under the tree distributing presents. After a moment of mutual recognition, a moment frozen in time, I retrieved my lucky doubloon and raced back to church, wondering if my father would already be there, proving that Santa was real and the man under our tree was just another MIA from the Gopher Hole.

Of course, the spell was broken but that did not tarnish the wonders of Yuletides to come. Like the time my brother broke his wrist as we raced downhill on his sled, him on his stomach at the controls and me on his back, bravely breaking the sound barrier. Or the tears in our eyes the time I forgot to open the chimney flue as the Yule log blazed in the fireplace. And who could forget all the times the tree toppled over, thanks to the elves crawling around under it to gaze up at the marvelous lights . . . and thanks to the crooked trunk that took a left turn about a third of the way up because those were real trees, by God, and not these fake plastic ones with perfectly straight trunks, factory installed lights, and eternally green branches. Back in the good ol’ days, needles fell off real trees, usually long before the season ended, leaving the gay lights, silvery tinsel and beautiful ornaments dangling from a brown stick. Man, talk about festive.

Yes, children, they don’t make Christmas like they used to, but I still love to sit back after all the hustle and bustle of decorating, shopping, Scrooge and the Grinch, to bask in the beauty and true meaning of the Season. I’d love to but I have to go now and rip open a present.

God rest ye merry, Gentlemen . . . and Ladies.

We Will Win

Epistle 19 – The Three Martini Lunch

I was fortunate to start my business career in New York when white shirts, gray suits and wingtips were the only acceptable professional attire. Hats were strongly encouraged, especially when you were summoned to headquarters, but we young Turks held firm on that one and brought the establishment to their knees . . . sort of. One tradition I did not rebel against was the 3 martini lunch, a worthy tradition, indeed. My boss wanted me to drink gin martinis rather than vodka so the customer would know I was drunk, not stupid. Since they made me even more eloquent than I was naturally, I failed to see his point. In fact, I was quite proud of being able to glibly order “an-extra-dry-Beefeater-martini-on-the-rocks-with-an-olive-please”. It was quite a mouthful, especially with a mouthful of olives.

Of course, not everyone in the Apple shared in this ritual. Take the man in the Jersey City upstairs warehouse, for example. He was my very first sales call. After getting hopelessly lost and arriving late, he gave me 5 minutes to say whatever I was going to say to get an order, and then get out. Undaunted, I raced ahead, rattling off everything I knew about anything, coming to a breathless close with about 2 minutes to spare. “Well, young man,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re not going to get an order, but that was the damnedest sales pitch I’ve ever heard. Here, help yourself before you go,” he said, pointing to a display case of briar pipes. I chose one that made me look quite distinguished and shuffled down the warehouse steps, thinking my sales career was off to a grand start. My army aptitude test said I should have been a plumber, but how could you deny the profits of my first sales call? This was the game for me.

Now, having been shaken, not stirred, for decades and the three martini lunch having gone the way of leisure suits, I can philosophically look back on that phase of my career and honestly say . . . I missed most of it. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. No, sir. The Big Apple haze is probably best remembered through a Beefeater haze. And gin-soaked olives were all I got to eat some days. Sure, there were probably a few misguided adventures, like the time I leaped into a cab like Gene Kelly and split my pants; but I was part of the fabric of American history. And I was still ten feet tall and bullet-proof.

So, all you young people in the audience considering a grand and glorious business career in the Big Apple, don’t let them talk you into a martini at lunch. Wear a hat instead.

We Will Win