Where everybody knows your name....

I used to hang out a lot with Dave .

He's a singing guitar player, I'm a singing pianist. We're both narcissists about performing. So we go out for karaoke. Sing at piano bars together. And, quite seriously, worked on a lounge act featuring the duets from the Once sountrack and Paul McCartney's "Blackbird," in harmony.

Alas. Busy lives, other gigs, girlfriends, have truncated such times. Which happens.

So last night, it was a treat to hang out with Dave again, exploring some old haunts on Tremont Street.

First, The Tam. Emerson undergrads at one end of the bar.....glazed-over all-day drinkers at the other. Big screen sports highlights but cash only. Brubaker's in the bottle for 3 bucks (ahh.....), and it isn't even the cheapest brew.

In my first year of grad school, The Tam was where I had my first conversation with someone who admitted to being bi-sexual. It was the first place I saw cocaine snorted in public (or ever). The first time my wallet was stolen and the thief stuck it in his back pocket while he sat at the bar for his next round....for me to easily retrieve. I started 1 memorable St. Patty's Day and ended 2 memorable New Year's Eves there. My random date with a gorgeous Norwegian fireman ended there. So did the doomed outing with the Republican.

Dave is a dive bar fan. The Tam, and the Brubaker's, met with his approval.

Then we headed down to Encore Lounge for Tuesday-night with Bobby Femino on the piano bar.

The clientele here are primarily European tourists and gay men in their 50s and 60s who know every cabaret and musical theatre song known to man....and can sing along. Dave and I were Wednesday-night regulars once .....although it had been about 8 months since the last visit. We got a couple small glasses of ridiculously overpriced wine and lounged on a velvet couch.

It's good to have a place where you once were regulars. We might have gotten up to sing, anyway. But within minutes another regular, Bruce, called out our names from his dark corner....to introduce us to Bobby and tell him we were the singers whose turns were next.

So I spent the night in the '60s......first John Denver and, later, Mama Cass. Dave did Elton John, then Carousel, and I don't remember his third because by then we were on our next glass of wine.

But my third was Petula Clark's "Downtown"....which I always have loved singing at Encore because, hell, we are downtown, and everyone joins in on the chorus, and that when I never remember how the second verse starts, I just hold out the mike towards the crowd and Bruce fills in the blanks.

Which he did again last night, as I knew he would.

It's good to have old haunts.