The List

A few albums ago Rosanne Cash produced an album titled 'The List.' The tracks were all songs that were part of the list her father, Johnny Cash, gave her when he started performing, telling her these were the 100 songs you have to learn. Considering that when Johnny was starting out he would approach record producers, and in that baritone/bass voice intone, "hello, my name is Johnny Cash, and I know about a thousand songs," a list of 100 to his daughter was nothing.

At one of the performances I saw of Rosanne she explained about the legacy her father left her with. She added that there was "one more song" that should be on the list, and she sang it: 'Ode to Billie Joe.'

This was a mega-hit for Bobbie Gentry in the late 60s. It told the story of young lovers were were seen on the Tallahatchie Bridge throwing something off the bridge. Later, the male, Billie Joe throws himself off the bridge, committing suicide.

Everyone concentrated on what was thrown off the bridge. And theories abounded. It was "who shot JR" before Dallas on TV. Who was Carly Simon singing about? Generally, most people believed a fetus was being thrown off the bridge. I remember on one show they even staged a reenactment, what would later be called a video, of the family sitting at the kitchen table, callously discussing Billie Joe. "Ain't never had a lick of sense."

Bobbie Gentry explained in an interview:

“Everybody has a different guess about what was thrown off the bridge—flowers, a ring, even a baby. Anyone who hears the song can think what they want, but the real message of the song, if there must be a message, revolves around the nonchalant way the family talks about the suicide. They sit there eating their peas and apple pie and talking, without even realizing that Billie Joe’s girlfriend is sitting at the table, a member of the family.”

It is no wonder Rosanne would include the song on her list of songs to be able to sing. And when she sang the song, she owned it.

There are lots of lists. Grocery lists, To -Do lists, New Year's resolutions, and probably the most commonly stated, Bucket Lists.

I don't like to think in terms of Bucket lists, even if I am turning 70 tomorrow. I just think of things I'd like to do. Same thing, without the deadline.

One of the things I've wanted to do is go to The 21 Club, a famous bar, restaurant at 21 West 52nd Street that was a speakeasy during Prohibition, but stayed around long enough to become a power broker's eatery.

It is a distinguished place famous for the toys hanging from the ceiling in the bar area, gifts from famous people, to the the lawn jockeys out front that represent the silks of some very famous stables.

Speakeasies flourished during Prohibition. These were bars and restaurants that were behind a single door that was opened when someone told the fellow on the other side of the peep hole what the "password" was. You spoke the password "easy," thus the joints became known as speakeasies, and NYC, Manhattan, had plenty of them.

There were known by their addresses. There was no signage that said liquor was available. The phrase to "86" something came to mean in a restaurant that the item had been run out of. The "86" stemmed from the back exit at a speak named Chumley's. When a raid was imminent it was announced to "86" the place—run out the back to the exit at 86 Bedford Street in Greenwich Village.

My grandfather's flower shop was the entrance to the speak Pete Bellas's, at what is now named Pete's Tavern on 18th Street and Irving Place. The menus used to describe the role the Royal flower shop played as a cover (many flower shops of the era were covers), but they've adopted new menus and scrubbed out the past. It was an ongoing flower shop. You could still buy flowers. If no one did, the family would have starved.

My oldest daughter turned 40 recently and as part of what seems to be the continuous celebration, my son-in-law took her to 21 for dinner along with tickets to 'Hamilton' this past Saturday. Certainly a double treat.

I was envious of the 21 part of the deal, and told all assembled at dinner shortly before New Year's. But, no one was asking Dad to come along on the date. Even without the theater tickets.

The pair of them knowing my history of paying attention to thoroughbred racing for over 50 years, sent me the following photo of the jockeys on the staircase in front of the place. I've passed the restaurant many times, (I was never inside.) but probably forgot the lawn jockeys are holding lights that work—what would originally be lanterns.

It's a great sight, and I appreciated getting the email with the photo. I responded that I've probably bet on all the horses whose jockeys were wearing those silks.

But there were two photos in the email from my son-in-law. Old bars and speakeasies have their innate charms. P.J. Clarke's on 3rd Avenue and 56th Street was of course once a speakeasy. And the men's room, like that at McSorley's Ale House on 7th Street, is graced with urinals that date to the year of the flood, huge porcelain sarcophagi that look like upended bath tubs.

My son-in-law is playful, and certainly not above some potty humor. So, I got a picture of what was on the wall above a pair of the urinals at 21.

I was surprised that in this cautious era a cartoon like that would still be around in a place frequented by so many movers and shakers. But of course it's in the men's room, and no one's been complaining.

I've seen photos of Eloise at the Plaza, and the Monkey Bar at the Elysee Hotel, but I was not prepared to know the men's room at 21 could also be an attraction.

I now have a Bucket List.

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