Music to Read Words By: Nine Inch Nails – Just Like You Imagined live @ Henry Fonda Theater, LA 9.08.09
The bench scraped the tile as he adjusted it, pulling it in under him. Stationing his body closer to the keys. His station. He and the piano were relegated to the lobby now. No longer lounging about.
Long ago he was Ambiance, sometimes even forefront. He staged things from on high, sometimes with other fellow musicians. Now he was background noise at best. The hustle of people around him, keeping the sound he made out of mind. Out of time. From another era.
The Lounge. For more than a decade, /up until the renovation, that was his home. I’d it was still there, it would have been full of his patrons, sitting down and listening as he played. The Lounge was no more though. The dim lighting and cocktails tables taken away to make room on the floor for VLTs. It was a form of entertainment he could not understand, but it made the hotel a lot of money. Or so he heard. The doors held tinted glass that kept out the outside world, but when the doors were opened the electronic, inorganic buzz and jingle of the machines could be heard. The noises from the Casino were the worst kind of cacophony to his own ears, but the siren sound seemed to entice people to enter and seemingly never leave. At least not during the Piano Man’s shift.
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