[Rhodes22-list] Idiotic People Rant

[Bill Effros]

Slim,

I have a friend who played the same obscure song every time this request 
was made and insisted it was the song requested, by the artist requested.

Do you know the album "Terribly Sophisticated ...(Music--Songs--I don't 
remember which)"?

On it there is a song, "Pasalafaga" (Spelling?)  He inserted a word or 
words from the request in place of the word Pasalafaga, and sang the 
rest of the song as written.  Pasalafaga doesn't rhyme with anything in 
the song, it is merely repeated over and over as a song being widely 
sung throughout Turkey.

If the heckler came up with another unknowable song (and of course, 
these people are heckling) he would insert the new word, and sing the 
same song.  The melody is sweet and catchy, and soon the whole bar would 
be singing along:

"Pasalafaga, Pasalafaga, they're singing it in each town and Cirque,
"Pasalafaga, Pasalafaga, they're singing it all over Turkey... (that's 
all I remember, and that might not be right...)

Anyhow, he would take the money until the idiots tired of the game.

Bill Effros


Slim wrote:
> As many of you know I sing and play the piano for a living.  I always take
> requests and try my best to accommodate everyone.  I've been doing this a
> long time and I know thousands of songs.  It's not that I can't be
> stumped--nobody knows every song--but if I don't know your request I might
> know another song by the same artist or maybe another song in the same vein
> or at least a song "with a lot of the same notes."
>
> When someone asks for a song I don't know I just say, "Sorry, I don't know
> that one.  What else can I do for you?"  But tonight something happened
> that's happened countless times--maybe hundreds of times and it never ceases
> to amaze me.  The conversation goes like this:
>
> "Hey, play 'such and such'!"
>
> "Sorry, I've never even heard of that one.  Who's it by?"
>
> "It's by 'so and so'.
>
> "I've never heard of them."
>
> "Sure you have, it's 'so and so'.
>
> "Sorry, don't know it."
>
> "Sure you do--play it!"
>
> "No really.  I don't know that one--never heard of it."
>
> "Play it anyway!"   (That's my favorite comeback.)
>
> "I can't.  I've never heard it."
>
> "Here's ten bucks--now play it!"   (Actually a legitimate strategy on his
> part because of course I pay more attention to ten-dollar requests.)
>
> "You could give me a hundred bucks but I still don't know it."
>
> "How can you NOT know 'such and such'?"  (This question always baffles me.
> I never know how to answer that one.)
>
> "Well, I guess because I suck?"
>
> "You call yourself a professional and you DON'T know 'such and such'?"
>
> "I'm not a real professional.  I'm just filling in tonight for someone that
> called in sick.  I'm really a truck driver."  (You have to admire my
> patience.)
>
> "PLEEEEASE PLAY IT!"
>
> "Honestly, I'd love to play it for you if I could but I've never heard of it
> and I just don't know it.  Sorry, is there another song you like that I can
> do?"
>
> "No.  I want 'such and such' and if you don't play it right now I'm gonna
> complain to the manager.  I gave you ten bucks to play it!"
>
> "Money-back guarantee or in-store credit.  How about a Beatles song or some
> Rolling Stones?"
>
> "No!  I want 'such and such'.
>
> "How about some Van Morrison or Jimmy Buffet?"
>
> "No!  Play my song!"     ...etc., etc., etc.
>
> Well, you get the idea.  Here's an erect-walking homo sapien, native
> English-speaker who is obviously a few slices of baloney short of a whole
> sandwich.  I've had this exact exchange so many times I can't count, and
> still I'm always stunned at the idiocy of some of these people who are out
> walking around and are allowed to have sharp objects.  Nothing much rattles
> me anymore on the job but I'm still amazed and amused when it happens again
> and again.
>
> Thanks for reading my 4 am apres Saturday night gig rant.
>
> What idiots have you encountered?
>
> Slim
>
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