scenes from an italian restaurant 🍷

here we are waving Brenda & Eddie goodbye

Let me sing you the saddest bedtime story.

I went through a phase in middle school where each night I listened to Scenes From An Italian restaurant by Billy Joel before I went to bed. Dark. I know.

My Dad installed an old record player of his in my room, and for some reason, I got into this strange little habit of dropping the needle perfectly into the groove of the last track of side A of The Stranger, crawling into bed, and letting Billy sing me to sleep with his sad story of hometown heroes, Brenda and Eddie.

In retrospect, deeply embarrassing, yet, I believe we need to dance with our demons. Much like Billy Joel — I have never been cool.

I have never felt more like the world has turned and left me here. My cultural touchstones are all thirty plus years old, and I am struggling to find the energy to be on my phone doing the cultural due diligence that is now required to be a functioning member of polite society.

I watched the new Billy Joel documentary, And So It Goes on HBO last weekend. It felt very now. Long and glowing. Scrubbed clean of the darkness. In short, no fun. I was hoping to see a bit of the dark side. Everyone loves seeing the underbelly of a suit and tie kind of guy. Right?

The documentary was the visual equivalent of taking vitamins and going to bed at 8:30 on a Friday night. Or, leaving the house with your pajamas on. Lazy faux comfort. Smooth brain stuff.

Maybe my expectations were high considering Billy Joel has basically just been in the ether for the past fifty some odd years.

He’s like a rock in a stream, smoothed over by thousands of years of slowly passing water. If I want sex, drugs and rock and roll — I should probably reconsider my entertainment choices.

Anyway. Here we are waving Brenda and Eddie goodbye..

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