Humor

I’m copping out today and doing another darned repost from the past, BUT ONLY because yesterday was Valentine’s day and “TONY BENNETT DAY” here in San Francisco. They celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his signature song “I Left My Heart In San Francisco” by playing it at noon instead of the the standard noon-whistle that gets heard all over downtown. It was pretty freakin’ cool.

So, HAPPY BELATED TONY BENNETT DAY. Did ya’ll know I almost met him once? NO? Well gosh, let me tell you about it..

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Tony Freakin’ BENNETT put on a concert at Davies Symphony Hall the other night, which is about two blocks from us.

We didn’t get to go because we’re always too broke for those kind of tickets, but our friend Drew went, and he took his sister, Lorie.

Drew is a music teacher so he gets all kinds of tickets for trips and stuff, because I guess music teachers have some kind of “in” where they get to do musically-oriented things at a discount educational rate or for free.

He lives a couple of hours south of San Francisco, so he’s always coming to the city for these gigs and sometimes he even takes us if he has extra tickets, but not this time. So we just met he and Lorie for dinner before they went off to the Tony Freakin’ BENNETT concert.

At dinner I told them of the time I saw Tony Freakin’ BENNETT in the airport in Medford Oregon. This was back in the nineties when I drove a cab around Medford, and on that particular morning I’d just dropped a lady off curbside to catch the United flight to LA and I had to pee, so I left the cab parked at the curb and went inside.

The United terminal in Medford Oregon is about the size of the restaurant we were having dinner in. I’d just gone in the door and rounded the corner to walk the fifty feet to the men’s room when you’ll never guess who I saw sitting in a chair, waiting for the United flight to LA?

That’s right, it was..

TONY FREAKIN’ BENNETT!

I wanted to say “hi,” shake his hand and tell him I’ve been a fan for years, which is the usual stuff that he hears everyday, but some lady had beat me to it.

As I passed I overheard her telling him “I’m from Kansas, and oh my goodness I’ve just loved your music for years, and if you ask me you’ve always been better than FRANK!”

That last part isn’t necessarily true. I mean, Tony and Frank are different, you know? Apples and oranges.

Dumb lady.

So I went and had my pee and when I came out of the men’s room and passed by again to get out to the cab she was still there, yakking away about Kansas and music and Frank while Tony Freakin’ BENNETT just sat there and grinned at her like a big ol’ gentleman, throwing in an occasional nod and “Well, that’s wonderful!”

I would have waited for her to shut-up and move on so that I could shake his hand and take a turn at boring him to death, but we really weren’t supposed to leave our cabs curbside. I had calls stacking up anyway, so off I went, forever losing my one chance in life to stop and shake hands with Tony Freakin’ BENNETT.

As I pulled away from the curb I picked up the radio and called Mac, a fifty-something year-old driver who I knew would be the only one who’d appreciate the gravity of this news. The rest of those Medford drivers were neanderthals who wouldn’t even know who Tony Freakin’ BENNETT was.. they probably all listened to Country music.

“Hey Mac, you’ll never guess what just happened.. I just had a drop-off at the United terminal and went in to take a 10-7, and Tony Freakin’ BENNETT is sitting right there inside the door!”

It turned out he was on his way to the airport with his own drop-off, so he said he’d check to see if Tony was still there in a few minutes, and he thanked me for the tip.

I didn’t see him again until the end of the shift, when we met up in the office to turn our cabs in and do our paper-work.

“Hey Mac, was Tony Bennett still there when you got up to the airport this morning? Did you get an autograph?”

He gave me a sullen look. “Yeah man, he was there but I didn’t have time to stand around and wait.. he was gettin’ his ear chewed off by some broad from Kansas.”

Drew and Lorie thought the story was pretty funny and both of them pretended to be hearing it for the first time, even though I’ve known them both for over twenty years and they’ve heard all my stories at least three times each or more.

Then they went off to the concert and Dorian and I went off to The Coffee Bean, and then Drew and Lorie met us there after the concert. Drew told me he got to meet Tony Freakin’ BENNETT and had told HIM the story, and Tony laughed and said he remembered me!

Drew went on to say that Tony had gotten all excited when Drew was telling him this, and he said he remembered “that young man” in 1995 who he wished would have barged in and shut-up the boring lady from Kansas.

Yeah okay, I made up that last part.

But I’m glad Tony came back to San Francisco to look for his heart, even if we didn’t get to see him this time around. I hope we do someday.

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