Princess Piano Bar

My absolute favorite bar in the city, my safe haven, is a tiny hole in the wall piano bar in the west village. When I've had a bad day, a long week, or just need something to break up the UES hell I work in, I meander down to Christopher street into this cozy, homey, I-can-go-there-by-myself-and-not-feel-awkward-or-have-social-anxiety bar.

When you walk in, there's a piano to the right and a bar in the back. Thats about it. Every one gathers around the piano as medleys of musicals are played and we all join into song... and sometimes dance. But mainly song.

LAST night a particularly odd group of singers were seated around the bar at 7pm when I walked in...alone. Two girls who looked like mis-fit hippie/hipsters, a token gay who couldn't sing, an old couple who kept requesting songs no one had heard of, their friend Ed who I believe had social anxiety because he kept saying he needed to get home, aaand me.

Oh yes, and random groups of people dressed as Santa's kept trying to come in, but the bartender banned the Santas because this was a novelty bar and they were ruining it with their debauchery. Santacon is a once a year bar crawl where everyone dresses up as Santas (mainly those men and women who are missing things like frat parties and spirit weeks) and basically drink from 10am until Santa would vomit from even considering Milk and Cookies.

One of the old couples final requests was "A Whole New World" from Aladdin. God knows why. Oh, did I mention that no one could really sing around the piano except the piano player and myself? Fact. I imagine the old man could sing in his day, but now it was just loud and a bit off key... So we started singing A Whole New World, and when Jasmine came in, the old man pointed to me like "Take it away"... so I sang Jasmine's part whilst I awkwardly peeled the label off my stella. I wasn't going to stand up and sing to the patron's of the bar, so I figured awkward label peeling was my best option.

My favorite part of the evening, though, was about 20 minutes later when there was a lull in the singing. The bar was mostly quiet still, and old man off key came up behind me and started singing "I can show you the world. Shining shimmering...splennnndid.... " And I...who am alone.... started looking for a friend whom I could share an uncomfortable smile with... "Tell me princesss, now when did you last.." but I gave up because no one wanted to acknowledge the weirdo singing Aladdin into the back of "that girls" head. So I turned around and gave him as friendly of a smile as I could.

And he said to me, "You are a princess, though."