I got a magical bit of time after my crazy dentist screwed my implant in again and before I had to go play with the guys at the Navy Yard so I went to our old haunt Nancy Whiskey, unchanged from the early 21st century, tin ceiling, Irish flag, full of people who don’t belong in TriBeCa but are there anyway: old black guys, young black women, construction workers playing shuffle board and shouting curses. And me. “Gone Daddy Gone” by the Violent Femmes is playing and maybe that’s the only song everybody can agree on.

One of the construction workers spies a local crossing the square outside, a pretty young thing with a halter top, and proclaims, “Number 10 with a bullet right there!” A guy at the bar says, “But they never come in do they?” I guess you can see why.

Actually no one gives a fuck about the music most of the time. Except when something suspect for its softness and obscurity plays. You can be soft and universal, like “Maybe I’m Amazed.” But otherwise someone’s gonna shout a profane complaint.