Shah's Trio


Last night I dropped by Shah's for a martini, because it's the specialty of the house, and because the guy who owns the place, an aristocratic Persian, controls the atmosphere. If its the first time you've come in, you can cool awhile, under his observation, before you get a drink. Or maybe you won't get a drink. Smirk or say something rude and you disappear. You won't get served.

The guy's name is unknown to me, but as he owns the bar, everybody calls him "Shah." There's no television set in the place, and no juke box. There's a trio nesting comfortably in a back corner, infecting the atmosphere with a brushing of drums, sultry piano chords and melody insinuated by a clarinet. The place is dimly lit, and conversations tend to be intimate, or at least private. It's a mixed bag of Americans, Middle Easterners and Europeans.

"I have a good clientele," Shah told me, as I sat at the bar sipping a martini. It isn't often that he makes conversation with anybody in english. About half the clientele is Persian, most of them the children of the men and women who were in the Shah's bureaucracy. They seem to prefer speaking French or Persian to each other. Shah also speaks Italian. I know because I was there with an Italian woman once, and they ignored me and talked to each other.

"It's because you have radar for the internal rhythm, and you don't let disharmony hang around," I said.

"It's because I'm the Shah of Iran," he said. "And the trio? They're not just any old jazz trio. The guy on the piano? He used to be CEO of General Motors."

"You're kidding."

"And the drummer was CEO of Ford Motor Company. One of the most successful executives in history. You'll appreciate this. He figured out how to redesign the diesel truck so that the per unit cost was reduced by over four hundred dollars."

"Those damned things are falling apart."

"Now they are. But in the quarterly earnings reports where he made his bonus money, the stockholders were doing a St. Vitus dance; If it all falls apart later it's some other CEO's problem."

"You're not going to tell me the clarinet player used to be head of Chrysler?"

"You don't recognize him? He's the one who stole 'I'm a Radiator Man' right out from under the nose of the General Motors advertising department. It was the biggest hit single in the auto industry, garnering an emotional identification index of almost 82 points among building contractors, practically none of whom had ever repaired a radiator. He's a man who understood the truck business."

"He's not the one who put the female reproductive system on the front of the pickup is he?"

"No, but he's the one who made them rename the Dodge Vagina the Dodge Ram. The general consensus among industry executives -- and they all come in here -- is that he avoided a colossal marketing blunder by catching that before the release."

My eyes were adjusting to the light better and I looked around the dimmed room, full of people with expensive shoes and haircuts. "See that guy at the table by the piano? The one toe tapping his toe to the beat?"

"Yea."

"United States Senator."

"I'll be damned. You do have the creme de la creme, Shah. You weren't really the Shah, though, were you?"

"No, but my I was one of his heirs, under the protection of the Americans."

"Did anybody ever try to kill you?"

He wiped a glass. "I have seven bullet wounds," he said, "all of them superficial. One thing about religious fanatics is they just come in screaming about Allah and firing wild, like the Al Qaeda fighters in the good old days, before the Americans trained them in lethal tactics during a proxy war against the Russians."

"How old are you anyway, Shah?"

"Older than I look, my friend."

The band took a break and the piano player ambled over to the bar to get a drink. "My usual, Shah," he said. "I'm celebrating tonight."

"The new contract?"

"Yes indeed. Shifting the management of the health care to the union is a smart move. The only way to get the industry, or any industry for that matter, competitive again is to get rid of at least the administrative nightmare of the health care benefits." He leaned in closer to Shah and smiled a corrupted smile. "You know, it always amazes me that people pay taxes and then elect people who make them pay for the services the taxes ought to cover."

"Why do you think they do that?" Shah asked.

"Idiotology," the piano man said. "Plus, they get complimented on their independence."

Shah laughed at that. It isn't often Shah really opens up and laughs at something. He's usually more reserved.

Posted: Thu - September 27, 2007 at 01:31 PM