(NOTE: I heard this joke more than 20 years ago - LONG before I had ever heard of our Gery in Vancouver. But, in keeping with the theme, I've turned this into a joke that takes place in Canada. NOTHING else, other than wording differences, have been changed here. Indeed, it involves a piano, as I originally heard it.)
Many years ago, while traveling to Canada, I decided that I wanted to "wet my whistle" a little, and perhaps end up with a little nookie as well, so I decided to go to a gay bar. It was a Monday night, though, and there were only about 40 people in the place, though it looks like there can easily be 150 or more in here on a weekend night.
There was a guy talking to the bartender, and he seemed to be very distraught. I thought I'd eavesdrop, in case there was anything I thought I could offer to the conversation. I mean, there wasn't much else to do - the place didn't look the least bit "cruisy" at the time. Everybody was hanging out in couples or small groups, talking.
He was telling the bartender about his frustrations in getting his music "heard." Paraphrasing, I heard him say something like "I've been composing piano tunes for years and years, and I KNOW that I'm really good. Anybody who has ever heard me play has told me it's the most beautiful music they've ever heard. I've been told that I should become as famous as Chopin, Tchaikovsky or Bach , my music is THAT good. But I've been sending demos to record labels for years, titling my compositions, and I never hear anything from them again - or they tell me to take a hike."
"Damn egotist," I was thinking to myself, "I'll bet this guy's playing really sucks, and his friends who hear it are only patronizing him and trying to make him have a false sense of confidence."
The bartender said, "Well, it's not very busy in here on Mondays, not even busy enough to justify hiring a musician, but there's a piano over there past the dance floor, and you're welcome to bang on it a while if you feel like it. It'll have to be volunteer and not paid, though."
The customer thanked the bartender and said, "Sure, I might as well" and he walked over to the piano and sat down.
And he began to play.
I then saw one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my lifetime. The music just poured out of that piano.
The music...
stopped...
the...
place...
COLD.
He made some music that I didn't even think was possible on a piano. I cannot come up with any words to describe how sublime, how beautiful, how hypnotic his music was - and the beauty had me crying within the very first minute.
ALL conversations stopped. Even the drinking stopped; I could see a number of people transfixed, entirely frozen and motionless, mostly with their drinks on the tables and bar, but in a couple cases with the drinks held in the air but still frozen in place. Without exception, all faces were focused on the very same spot in the bar. (It even took some doing for me to break myself away, enough to ascertain what was going on.)
He played for about 15 minutes. When he stopped, there was NO APPLAUSE. The clientele were simply too dumbstruck and speechless to do anything, and hardly anybody had even moved yet. After about a full minute of silence (you could have heard a cricket in there), one cute guy, who looked like an Olympic gymnast in his hot tanktop, started to clap, and the whole place became a cacophony of deafening applause and cheering. All this from such a small crowd!
After the applause subsided, he walked back to the bartender and said "See? I do play beautiful music, don't I?"
"I still don't understand why I get nothing but flak from the record labels, if they even bother to contact me back at all. Again, I send them demos, and I put the TITLES on the songs, and that's all that ever happens."
"Yes, I agree completely with you," the bartender said. "By the way, that second-to-last thing that you played was beyond any possible description, it was so incredible. What was that one called?"
"Oh, that one," said the piano player, is called "I Love You So Fucking Much That I Could Shit."