Honky-Tonk Blues

So, my advice to you is this: Always keep a stock of pen refills in your house in case of emergencies. And in order to try to maintain this stock, buy your refills on-line instead of venturing out to the shops. You see, I didn’t take this advice, and so a couple of Sundays ago I realized that I urgently needed a refill for my ballpoint pen. There was nothing for it but to take a trip to the refill retailers – a harmless enough exercise you may feel, but in doing so, I had to walk past a pub in which it just so happened that two of my friends were sitting. It seemed rude not to respond to their cheery waves and eager beckoning, so I entered the bar. Some time later, after three or four pints, I emerged to discover that the pen-refill shop had already closed and thus, I came home empty-handed.

The following week, using the next opportunity to get to the shop (I work Monday-Friday in the remote and inhospitable salt mines, with no access to shops at all), I set off again – confident that it was too early for my friends to be in the pub. In fact, I deliberately went in the opposite (circular) direction so as to avoid even having to look through the windows of the bar. I therefore successfully navigated myself to the pen-refill shop without incident, bought the required items, and emerged from the shop to make my way home. But just then, just as I was happily about to head back to my apartment, there, right across the mall opposite the shop doorway from which I had emerged, something caught my eye. It was the piano shop.

Oh, shop of wonders – more tempting even than some bar crammed with my dearest friends. The piano shop, where dreams and schemes of impossible skills are hatched and nurtured. The piano shop, where it isn’t simply pianos that are sold, but the promise of joy upon joys to come. I ventured inside where I was met with a bewildering array of different pianos, both electric and strung (I think that's the right expression). I confessed to the energetic and courteous young salesman that I knew nothing whatsoever about pianos, but he was so patient with me, explaining all the various merits and drawbacks about each type and model, and so very willing to demonstrate the different sounds that each model made with his elegant and nimble playing. I wanted them all!

Not only do I know nothing about pianos, but I can't play one either. I was never taught such a bourgeois effete skill as a child - growing up, as I did, in the backstreets of Naples - and as such have remained totally non-musical all my life. Inside that piano shop - having meant only to go out to buy some refills for my pen - I decided that this non-musical status of mine was about to change. The boy in the shop convinced me that it is never too late to learn to play an instrument - but then of course, he was trying to make a sale. Well, whatever his motives, I was soon hooked on the idea of becoming the next Librace or Barry Manilow and so, after much deliberation over the various models on display, I made my most foolish and extravagant purchase to date.

Foolish and extravagant? Phooey! I now have a fabulously stylish, beautifully-sounding, full-sized 88-key and 3-pedal electric piano sitting resplendent in my livign room. It plays and sounds exactly like the real thing, and with the added bonus that I can play it with earphones on - thereby sparing my neighbours the tortuous horror of listening to me endlessly practising my scales. I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, but I do know that's it's going to be one hell of a lot of fun finding out. I have appointed a fine young fellow as my teacher, and have already made a start. I have already learned to play a very well-known piece of classical composition, worthy indeed of a concert in the Royal Albert Hall: Frère Jacque.

You may laugh, but I have this to say: "Ooh, I am the music man, and I come from down your way!"