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Trip Report New York City April 2008
Monday Night
This is still Monday (it's already been a long day) and we were going to Gallagher's Steakhouse
The best pictures were taken by the fabulous Lorn Lee
They had pictures of all the stars who've eaten there - real stars, too.
Clark Gable, Bob Hope, Bette Davis, Babe Ruth, Teddy Roosevelt, JFK,
Mickey Mantle.
Geez, one could spend hours looking at all the pictures of famous and
historical people.
For instance, did Charles Lindberg eat here? Probably
If we had microscopic vision, we could look here and see.
I'm old, I'd probably know 2/3 of these people - if the artist was any
good.
One we can make out - Giuliani in the lower, right corner.
I think I see Reggie Jackson (3 pitches, 3 home runs in NY World Series)
Then the party started again.
Frank asked for wine list and we were off to the races!
Things got a little foggy at this point.
I remembered how tasty Lorn's Filet Mignon was last night, so
I ordered that.
Yum, it was mas fina.
This whole getting-treated-like-royalty is something I could learn to like.
"More champagne! More red wine!"
This was the most champagne and red wine I'd had in my whole life.
While we were there, a group came in and sat down
that must have been a rock group.
Sometimes you can just tell (I owned a live rock
club 1985-87 - cough!
)
Even to a couple of Okie rubes, they were obviously
a professional music group.
Since we were sitting at a table full of New
York entertainment lawyers, several of them
stood up and went over to their table to say
Hi and offer their respect.
Turns out the band was In
Flames, from Sweden
If you're a musician, you know how it is.
When you see another band, you reach out to show respect or, if you're
Kid Rock,
your pay your entourage a bonus to kick the shit out of some dude at
the Waffle House.
This is my good friend Raphael - I hope I spelled that right
because
I've never had a friend named Raphael, except for my Guardian
Angel, of course.
Rumor is Raphael and Frank each put up six figures to buy
a newspaper
in Colorado to spread the Bartcop message. To be fair,
the right half of the paper
was outrageous Nazi lies from Fascist dogs like Hannity and the
left half was God's
honest truth from Ol' Bart. As time went by, the newspaper
eventually folded,
so I'm going to send Raphael a pair of Bartcop Shotglasses...
That way, he can say losing that hundred grand wasn't a complete
financial disaster.
But time was ticking and we had to get to The Iridium Club
for the 10 PM show.
Greg snuck out and went to the club ahead of us - was he up to something?
The Iridum Club was nearby, it couldn't have been more than 3-4 miles away.
Musician, Inventor, Architect of Rock n Roll.
We got ushered in before the crowd, Greg arranged that, but of course,
when the
Door Dude saw me trying to sneak in with the beautiful people, he put
his hand out and said,
"Excuse me, this is a private group going
in," but fortunately one of the group said,
"NO, seriously - He really is with us,"
so we got to go in ...and I'll be damned.
Greg got us front row seats in the center. My knees touched the
stage
and we were sitting between Les Paul and Uncle
Lou!
Soon, the club was packed and the lights came down - out came the band.
There's Uncle
Lou, tearing up that Les Paul!
and there's the legend - playing his one-of-a-kind
Les Paul.
Check this out:
That's some weird hardware going on there - they don't sell
that
Les Paul in any store.
Les invented and created his Les
Paulverizer and the record company weasels wish they
could buy one, but Les told them no so he's the only one in the world
with this guitar.
To this day, no one knows exactly how the Les Paulverizer works
It was funny - as Les gets older, he's incorporated a little stand up
in his act.
At one point between songs, he introduced Uncle Lou. The
crowd applauded,
then Les asked Uncle Lou, "How long have we
been playing together?"
Lou said, "About 30 years," then
Les asked Uncle Lou how old he was
and Lou said, "Seventy," and Les
asked: "Still playing, eh?"
That got a big laugh from the crowd - because Les Paul will be 93 on June 9th..
They played a few songs, Les, Uncle Lou, a pretty lady on stand-up bass
and a piano player.
The bass was really old, but the girl playing it was very pretty :)
.
Not sure why, but several times between songs, someone would yell out,
"Give us the finger, Les!" and
Les's face would light up and he'd comply!
He got the biggest kick out of that.
"Les, give us the Double Finger!" and Les lit up again.
Then, just to keep things hopping - the jams started.
Singers and players came out to jam with the
inventor of overdubbing, delay effects
such as "sound on sound" and tape delay, phasing
effects and multitrack recording.
This lady came out first...
and sang 3-4 tunes, including "Summertime" which was spectacular.
Anyone know her name? There are several unknowns coming, so if
you know
any of their names, send me some e-mail and we'll add that for future
readers.
Sidebar:
You can bet if they're on this stage with this band,
they're great musicians and performers.
Next up was this crazy-talented sax player...
Then came this singer...wish I knew who she was.
Then Les's pretty bass player sang a few songs, but I could never get
a great picture
because my camera is so old, when I click the shutter, it waits 1-2
seconds and then flashes,
so no telling what's going on then...
Between songs, Lorn snapped a nice shot of Frank, Wendy and Paul.
Hey Les, how 'bout another double finger for the crowd!
Les really got off on giving the finger and the crowd loved it every time.
Meanwhile, Uncle Lou Pallo was jamming away.
Funny, we were close enough we could hear the pre-song talk. This was
all done apparently
without any rehearsal, because to each guest, Les would say, "What
do you want to play?"
and the guest would say "Summertime
in B Minor," and Les would repeat the title and
the key for the rest of the band and BOOM!, off they went into the
song..
Then this next lady came out and sang great - I wish I could remember their names.
Sorry the picture's not better - but we were very close.
How close were we? Check the bass player's strings.
Here, Greg watches as Frank burns his fingers on his white-hot AMEX
card.
So, it's been 90 minutes or so, and we feel the show is winding down,
but they had one more act to come - and you wouldn't believe who it
was.
Have you ever seen and heard Stanley Jordan play?
He doesn't strum or pluck the strings, he hammers the strings with fingers from both hands.
Les was impressed - he stopped playing to watch.
Stanley Jordan was the last guest - and before long the show was over.
I spoke with the pretty bass player after the gig, but I couldn't remember
what
I said (and I was sober, even) but Mrs. Bart was there and she remembered.
She said I told the lady, "You looked good,
you played good and you sang good."
I guess any performer would like to hear that, right?
I saw Stanley Jordan working the crowd, signing autographs, so I waited
my turn
and then shook his hand and I told him he played real good, too! Actually,
he plays
like nobody else I've ever seen and I've seen everybody.
Uncle Lou was talking to Frank when we noticed they were stacking
the chairs.
It was time to go - we took a cab back to The Benjamin and prepared for Tuesday.
Thanks again
to Greg, Terri and Uncle Lou for
making
this happen. How often do you get to
meet a
living legend like Les Paul?
And Uncle Lou, it was great to meet you.
I was so impressed that you took time out of your day to help us.
I hope to see you again when we visit New York.
Tuesday we met some TV "stars" and watched them tape a show.
Click Here for the Tuesday
(and final) Report - it's getting near the end!
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