Ruining a piano bar and a little harmless sass
"Their reactions would have made sense if you had puked on the piano."
Est. Read Time: 5 minutes. Read Time brought to you once again by the Ashburton Energy + Hair Logistics Group, in association with the Bradley Hills Bureau of Corrections + Housing. This week, a special thanks to Jensen-Donegan Mountain West Booking Agency and Oakland Terrace Publicity and Marketing.
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SHOWS
Wednesday, December 20th 7pm: Julian Stern Keeps Trying in NEW YORK (Free!)
Wednesday, December 20th 9:30pm: Also hopping on a show at Tiny Cupboard!
Sunday, January 7th 9:30PM: The Hollywood Comedy
Saturday, January 13th 7:30pm: Undiscovered Genius at The Hollywood Improv
Saturday January 20th 7:30PM: The Hollywood Comedy
Sternal Journalists!
Let me begin with some gratitude! I had a lovely time in Denver this week seeing many old friends and even making a few new ones! I was especially tickled that some people found out about and attended my shows specifically from the Sternal Journal! Also there were two babies (the theater manager said even one baby was a record) and I dropped a new show photo pose:
Now it’s not just “eyes popped insanely” or “hunched over keyboard shouting” or “flustering through singalong cards,” but also “ambiguously sexual possible gyration.”
Also, I had a (relative) ton of people reach out or mention their appreciation for uplifting short ass runs, or the variation of slow ass runs. All in all, a great week for connecting with people!
But of course, there is always the exception that proves the rule and boy, did I also not connect with a few people this weekend. Storytime!
Last night, after my show, my friends local to Denver wanted to show us around and also we are friends who like to drink together, so we barhopped.
After a couple of stops, someone suggested a piano bar and there was much chatter of the martinis there. It is for situations exactly like this that piano bars remain open. What a beautiful thing that is. No one can or should drink martinis and yell-sing over each other super regularly, but everyone for the most part should at some point feel a strong need to drink martinis and yell-sing and so we all take turns needing piano bars just often enough that they are able to stay open.
Pretty cool.1
Piano bars, if you don’t know, are kind of similar to karaoke bars, but there is really one main (professional) person playing and singing at the piano, with an extra microphone for whoever chose the song to singalong. There are also coveted stools surrounding the piano for the people who want to sit the closest and stare into the eyes of the piano player, and look at everyone else like “haha, you do not get to sit at the piano like I do.”
This was an establishment called Charlie Brown’s Bar and Grill, which is apparently an institution and (in a good way) looks like a mid-level hotel lobby that hasn’t been updated in a while but it feels cozier for it. I think I said multiple times “I feel like I could eat a continental breakfast here.”
Anyway, it was the last night that these friends would all be together so martinis were a flowin’. Little by little, we stayed long enough that we could get seats closer to the piano if not right at it.
Many unrepeatable conversations happened over the course of the night, but two things of note that occurred were:
a) one guy said “Can I have another martini with as many olives as you can possibly give me?” As it turns out, that number is six.
b) at some point, I started looking at the piano and feeling reallllly mischievous.
See, I knew that I had a hundred dollar bill in my wallet. I had earned this hundred dollar bill by helping a friend with a task that I really honestly would have done for free. And I kept forgetting to do anything with this hundred dollar bill. It feels so tedious to deposit a single bill into a bank account, but I also have not made any purchases that felt close enough to a hundred without going over, so I keep forgetting to use it.
So in that moment, with my martini-stained logic, I saw the hundred dollar bill as less of an actual hundred dollar bill and more of a… coupon for One Crazy Swing.
Because you see, I had just had this great show. And this great show concludes with me playing a song on a piano! You can view it here if you’ve never seen it.
So here I am thinking’… this is a piano bar. It is a tip-based ecosystem. I got this hundred dollar bill. And I got this song that is played on the piano that people love. And I got this built in audience. So I ran the idea by a couple of my most enabler-y friends, and they fully supported it.
I sidle up to the piano, assuming there might be some thinking and consideration on the part of the piano player, as this is sort of her domain and she’s probably in charge of making sure the night stays entertaining.
I say, “If I give you a hundred, could I play an original?” Not only did she say yes, she immediately got up and disappeared. Everyone was confused by this piano vacuum. They might have been even a bit annoyed.
Not to worry, because I was about to blow their minds with some some musical comedy, the likes of which they had never seen. Or so I thought.
But Sternal Journalists, I regret to share that I bombed so hard. There were a few factors at play: 1) I am not actually good at the piano and real pianos are harder to play than keyboards. 2) I didn’t want to take any extra time so I just started playing rather than explaining what was going on at all. 3) The whole point of a piano bar is that you get to sing along and nobody knew the words to my original song about seeing Anne Hathaway at Target, except my friend Garrett who valiantly attempted to support me.
Also the martinis.
I of course was not going to back down from my big swing as I had spent a hundred dollars on it and also I just generally am a double down kinda guy. But the best part is that everyone knew the piano player would return and therefore they did not want to lose their primo seats at the piano.
This resulted in a situation where the biggest fans of the piano bar and therefore most upset that I had hijacked the night had no choice but to sit and stare at me for five minutes as I tried and failed to win them back.
It was easily one of if not the most hated-by-the-audience performances I’ve ever given (although I’m not factoring it into my stats as I was off the clock). One of my friends today said “Their reactions would have been understandable if you had puked on the piano.”
Am I ashamed that I tried something that I thought would be fun for everyone and it fell very flat? No. Am I ashamed that, after the piano player returned, I walked up to the girl who had been glaring at me the most and said, “But did you write this one yourself?” about the Elton John song they were all belting. Yeah, tiny bit.
But ultimately, big swings are how I operate. All of the friendships I reconnected with this weekend were somehow started or solidified by big swings; putting on this show in Denver was a big swing; even being crazy enough to make a real go at stand up is a big swing.
And the part of me that did all those things is that same part of me that absolutely obliterated the vibe at Charlie Brown’s last night. So! I guess I’m grateful for that too.
And since I know you’re curious if you read this far, here is video evidence of everyone losing interest (except my supportive friends on the left) as I fall apart:
Recommendations!
Bongos. Song. This was a song of the weekend and it is very good.
What Do We Want From Comedy? New Yorker article. I thought this was a headful meta-meta-meta criticism about the meta-criticism of comedy that is so popular right now. I especially like the light side-eye at Jesse David Fox, who I do actually like but has grown too powerful.
Denver. City. Denver is a great city! I had a wonderful time! The only time I didn’t like was when a guy found out I lived in LA and said, “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” You’re not allowed to hate LA unless you’ve lived here, that’s the rule. This was indeed after my song and he was one of the glarers, so I gave him a little more shit than I would have otherwise and when he was trying to end leave the conversation by saying, “I’ll let you get back to your friends,” I countered with “That’s okay, I’ve spent a lot of time with him,” essentially forcing him to stay for even longer. This is a piece of social dark magic that I cannot actually condone even though it was fun to try.
#MalCrushMonday. Substack. In case you didn’t read it last week, here, is the full PalCrushMonday installment written by me, which I previewed last week!
Alrighty, that’s all for this week! Hope to see you in New York if you’re there! And take some big swings! And try to have a little more grace than I did if anyone is rankled by a big whiff!
Love!
Julian!
P.S. I spend anywhere between two and twelve hours a week on the Sternal Journal. If you enjoy receiving it (and are RICH) consider becoming a paying subscriber. For just a few bucks a month, you can provide me with a bit more time to come up with fun topics, poems, and interviews; and you with probably fewer typos.
I’m not sure why karaoke bars are more popular than piano bars other than the fact that I guess you need one person who can play the piano. But for some reason, I think it’ way more normal to go to a karaoke bar all the time than a piano bar. Am I wrong? Tell me.
BIG SWING JULES