I SawTony Bennett Pick His Nose
It was a shock.
It was a warm night. Inside the small jazz club, it was even warmer.
People were sweating on their foreheads, and he was up on a slight riser singing. There was a piano and a bass. They were finishing up a somewhat quieter version of the Rags to Riches finale. The crowd was delirious.
Then it happened.
Out came the little finger of the right hand and up it went. Probing the old proboscis. Reaming the old rhino. A emergency sweeping out of the old snout.
A hush fell over the room. Here was the most gentlemanly gentleman in the world committing a social faux pas right out in the open. Traveling in front of his skis, out of his lane, the hero we all knew and loved from his 78’s, we pictured to be almost god-like in our minds, since few of us had actually seen him. We had only admired him from afar.
But then he Dixie-Chicked us.
We expected one thing and got something else. Sometimes when people are blessed with a platform, a large public platform, they can forget why they are there, and how they got there. They can surprise us.
Final Grumble.
Tony certainly didn’t need a club date to perform maintenance on his nose. The chicks didn’t need a recording contract to become political. I’m sure none was done with malice and forethought, just no thought at all. Maybe it’s just me, but if I become a consumer of something, it is to continue enjoying that thing, not to watch it evolve into something different. That is disappointing. And I’m too old to keep on caveat emptoring.
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