Playing to the Crowd Mel and some of his Friday night faithful BOSTON — Early in the evening, he can understand it. People are tired from the day. They amble in, they settle down, they sip a pint, they talk amongst themselves. Fair enough. But by 10 p.m., Mel Stiller has been sitting behind the piano, pounding away, for two hours. So sue him if he’d like to hear a little singing. Is it really that hard to thumb through the pages of his songbook; call out the numbers of songs you want to hear; tilt your head back, open your mouth, and give him something that resembles music? “Pathetic!” Mel yelled at a table full of talkers the other night. This is not the Mel his family sees at home — the thoughtful husband, the doting dad, the beaming grandfather of four. It’s not even the Mel his staff sees every day, on the seventh floor of some downtown building, where he is president of the nonprofit Consumer Credit Counseling Service. But this is the Mel who has showed up, nearly every Friday night, at Jacob Wirth restaurant, for the past 20 years — the loud, cranky entertainer, working the crowd in one of Boston’s oldest restaurants. If you ask Chris Dempsey, a 26-year-old regular, the man bears a striking resemblance to someone else he knows. Works all day in a sterile office. Breaks out occasionally for the greater good. “He’s a little bit like Superman,” says Chris. | About This BlogWelcome to The Small Story, a blog about the lives of everyday people in Massachusetts- the challenges they face, the celebrations they make, and the communities they like to call home.
It’s a natural extension of the eight years I spent as a newspaper reporter, first at The Hartford Courant, then at The Seattle Times. Time and again, the small story pulled me in: the first day of school for a boy displaced by Hurricane Katrina, the final months of foster care for a tired teenager, the slow road to recovery for an injured Iraq War veteran and his mother. I work full-time as an editor now, and write this blog on the side. In the rush of reality TV, and minute-by-minute media coverage, the small story still says something important to me, about who we are, and how we live in this country. Here’s hoping you feel the same. - Cara Solomon Email:cara@thesmallstory.com Twitter: csmallstory Become a fan of The Small Story on Facebook, or shoot me an email and I'll put you on a "new story alert" list! Thanks for reading...  CategoriesAll ArchivesFebruary 2010 |
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