Lunch With Paul No. 9 The Starving Artist Bistro

Go down to the gulch and pull gold nuggets out of the creek,

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By the name of the place,

In a suburban shopping center

In North Fresno, near Woodward Park,

Almost sounded like the restaurant

Might be charitable toward artists

That might actually be starving.

Like Grub Gulch,

If you’re hungry,

Grab a gold pan,

Go down to the gulch

And pull gold nuggets

Out of the creek,

Enough gold to buy

A meal and better whiskey.

Elevating the worth of artists,

Though they are a dime a dozen.

But bistro, (a small nightclub

Or restaurant) is a night club,

And sounds very much like

For late night starving artists.

What about starving poets?

There must be a lot of them,

Some are artists too.

Was there a lone microphone

And a special spotlight

For the tortured solitary-figure

To read their lengthy poems?

Maybe this place was the really

The starving musicians bistro.

But this north-end restaurant

Served lunch.

It was Wednesday

Afternoon. I drove both of us

To the far-end of the urban sprawl.

That other Fresno, where those

With wealth live in gated communities.

We arrived late in the lunch hour

And were seated at a table in the back

Of a room of small tables and a stage

Near the entrance to the kitchen.

This very hour, there was a girl

In her 20’s, casually-dressed on stage,

Scatting jazz riffs, Ella-style,

And a beatnik-looking fellow

Backing her up on an electric piano

With fake drums thuds, bass and tom.

The customers went on eating,

Even though the song had ended.

There was a silent spot built in,

Just ready for clapping from the audience,

I was the only person there to applaud.

The music wasn’t that bad,

To afford no response

From the eating, laughing,

And ignoring (except me) house.

That seemed to be the ultimate insult

For a working musician, who must

Ignore such indignities.

I openly wondered:

Are they union musicians?

Are they being paid union wages?

Or was the pay negotiated?

The musicians looked up slowly at me,

In a very tired, overlooked way.

So she put some last-minute flare

Into her song, a little more feeling,

That brought it all to a close

By waving her arm right at 1:00 P.M.

She helped the keyboard-player

Dismantle his instruments, fold

The stand, roll up the cords.

The singer, and the bandmember

Didn’t seem to have much more

In common than the music they played.

He laid down the music track,

She did the singing, vocalizing,

Improvising, or whatever.

They both went in the kitchen door

And returned moments later

With envelopes in their hands.

My guess, they were not starving,

And the price was negotiated by the gig.

She stuffed the envelope into her purse

And left by the front-door rather quickly

Taking her instrument with her.

Her abrupt exit made me think

Maybe she didn’t care for the company

Of her disregarding lunch crowd.

I’d leave too. He hung around

The stage for a few minutes, anyway.

We were obliged to listen to soft-jazz

Piped in from satellite radio.

Finally we ordered our lunch:

A variation on the hamburger.

By Stephen Barile

From: United States