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Del’s Bar and Ristorante DelPizzo is located in the Bloomfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh.  Bloomfield is known as “Little Italy” because of the large number of residents of Italian descent who live there.  The restaurant has a small bar that seats maybe twenty five people.  Forty people and the bar is packed.  And for years, when Del’s had karaoke in the bar on Friday nights the place was packed.  The bar made real good money every Friday night.  Then for some reason the owners decided to put in several, large flat screen HDTVs in the bar and that was the end of karaoke.

It was a cool, sunny Saturday afternoon in March and I was sitting with Dianne and Rick at the bar.  NCAA men’s basketball was on all the TVs except for one which was muted and was tuned to classic rock, the kind of music Dianne, Rick and I had grown up with.  John, one of the owners, was having a glass of wine at the end of the bar as he talked to a few of the Saturday afternoon regulars.  Until recently I’d been a regular on karaoke night.  I usually sang The Doors.  I thought I did a pretty good Jim Morrison imitation.  A lot of other people thought I did a pretty good Jim Morrison imitation, too.  I was a popular singer and always had a great time.

“I should tell him,” I said in a low voice to Dianne.  She sat between me and Rick.  She and Rick had been married for years and had met or gone to the concerts of the Rolling Stones, Bad Company, Fleetwood Mac, The Who, Heart, Janis Joplin, Bad Finger and people like that.

“Bob,” Dianne said to me, “don’t you do it.  He’s not going to take the TVs down and he’s not going to turn them off.”

“Now karaoke sucks.  No one shows up.”

I drank my beer and looked out the wrap around window at Liberty Avenue which was full of life, not like Del’s on a Friday night.

That following Saturday, I got to talk to John.  College basketball was on three of the TVs, muted classic rock on the fourth.  John and I sat together at the end of the bar.  No one else was in the bar.  The bartender had gone for supplies.  I had a mug of beer and John had a glass of wine.  It was another sunny afternoon in Pittsburgh.  This was my chance.

“With this recession,” John was saying, “things are bad.  We’re going to run a special for hospital workers.  If we can get an extra 200 people a week from the new hospital we’ll be all right.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

“We pay our light bill on the very last day it’s due.  The very last day.  It’s that bad.”

Del’s had been in business since the late 1940s.  I was shocked to realize that there was even a slight chance the place could go out of business.  When the bartender came back with his supplies John said, “Give Bob another beer.”

“Thanks, John.”

I kept my mouth shut about karaoke. 

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