Kelly Ryan's

Remember in the old Saturday Night Live where Gilda, I think, dressed like a hoodlum, said "It's not a gang, it's a club." That is the way bagpipe bands are. There is this fraternal, "no matter where you are from in the world if you are in a pipe band you are a brother" mentality mixed with "if we are competing against you you are the enemy and you suck." It is kind of gang-ish, but it is really a club. Not that any pipers would beat you in a dark alley, that is unless they were drunk and you happened to look at them funny. Something where they were really provoked like that. (all of a sudden I write in "they.")

We wear "colors" in the guise of kilts and we try to beat all the other bands we play against. We talk about how their "f's" were flat and they had a bad attack and weren't blowing tone. Very much like a gang. But it is a club. And I like that. I guess I am a joiner, and I like belonging. Which is funny for a guy who loves to be alone. [Maybe I have to examine who I really am?!]

I have been playing with Monaghan Pipe Band for just 3 weeks now. It is a good bunch of local guys and girls all of whom I have never met, but we play pipes and drums so I am a part. We practice in the banquet hall of Kelly Ryan's Pub in the Bronx. I take the #1 red line subway to the end of the line and then a bus up a giant hill. This is one of those places with the back room that has the wooden dance floor, the folding tables and chairs and a bar. Where someone would have their 50th Anniversary Party with the salmon or the chicken or their retirement from Local #242. I can feel a soul there and I know as much as I play the fancy Upper Westside Manhattanite, this Kelly Ryan's Banquet Hall is part of who I really am. I am a working class immigrant guy whose parents did better than their parents and I got to go to college and have a shot at doing well in life. And I play pipes.