Karaoke Review 11-02

Last night was a little unusual.   To begin with, my grandfather passed away & a number of friends showed up to get shitfaced with me show support, which was quite heartwarming.   Because of the evening’s events, however, it ended up being backwards.   I started off the night drunk & finished it sober.

The previous night I had done a short gig at the Down Towne event at E & O Trading Company, at which I discovered Corralejo on the liquor shelves & 11 drink tickets in my hand.   I survived with a little babysitting from a friend, but I was ready to go again by Sunday night.

This night wasn’t characterized so much by song as it was by drama.

Probably the worst of the drama centered around a 21-yr-old female version of Carrot Top, or maybe a taller, uglier, skinnier Jake Busey in a blue bikini stretched limply over her skeletal frame & pallid skin.   Her wrap barely covered her & kept coming off anyway as she raised her arms to the ceiling & swayed her hips, intermittently screeching at the top of her lungs, ululating like a hyena, while singers attempted to sing.

You think I’m just speaking poetically.   I’m not.   This is what she was actually doing.   It was so bizarre that I was struck speechless most of the time.   She wanted to make a spectacle of herself & she did.   Men were shouting “Cover that shit up” & 4 different women approached me to inform me they were on the verge of dragging her outside. 

The first incident occurred while Miss J was singing Alex Parks’ “Cry.”   I had stopped at ECW’s table, hoping to get a glimpse of leg (unfortunately he wasn’t wearing the stripper pants from last week.), when, on the chorus I heard horrible, ululating sounds.   It was so bad & I immediately tried to remember how many shots Miss J had had because I couldn’t imagine her trainwrecking like this.   I didn’t think her even capable of sounding this bad.   In my confusion I stayed put, not wanting to look until I could compose my expression.

When I did return to the bar, Miss J was furious.   She asked me who the hell “that chick” was, & as we had a handful of females I didn’t know, I wasn’t sure, in my Corralejo-infused haze, which chick she meant.   But when someone else’s song came up & Ms. Carrot Top began screaming again, I knew what had happened.

“Excuse me,” I said.   “Could you tone it down a little please?”

“Oh, but we love this song,” Ms. Carrot Top’s friend & apparent babysitter (age 24) said.

“That’s great, but people pay to sing songs.   They should be allowed to sing them.   If you scream like that while they are trying to sing-”

“You mean we’re stealing the show,” the babysitter said.   “Sorry, we’ll stop.”

“That’s a real nice way of putting it,” I replied.   “Thanks.”

Ms. Carrot Top turned out to know The Saucy Pirate Boys, & vacillated between her perch on my bar to the dartboards, where she draped herself (with some difficulty, considering her height) over them in turns, & wrote down karaoke orders.

She was unable to restrain herself while people sang, & just as I was writing out her party’s tab so I could run their charge card & tell them to get the hell out, her babysitter leaned over to reason with me again.

“We’re just going to lip synch, we promise; we’ll be good,” she said.

I sighed.   “I only work on Sundays,” I told her.   “On any other night of the week, you can do whatever you want to do.”

“Just not on your shift,” she said.

“Correct.   On Sundays we actually have a number of real singers, some professional, who come in to sing.   It’s enjoyable because we all show eachother respect & it’s a lot of fun.   Sunday nights are mostly only regulars, & it’s nothing personal, but your friend is disruptive.   I’ve already got 3 girls who have expressed to me a desire to kick her ass.”   At the time it was still only 3.

“If I said she’s only 21, would that help?”  the babysitter asked.

“It won’t help her,” I said.

THEN, the Saucy Pirate Boys discovered their wallets missing.   Insisting that Ms. Carrot Top wasn’t the culprit, the only other possible offenders were Jukebox Hero’s friends, as they were the only other people who weren’t regulars.

Why do I automatically discount the notion of regulars stealing wallets?   Because on top of knowing these people, all of whom have become friends with eachother from hanging out together Sunday after Sunday, I also know that none of these folks would 1) want to steal a wallet, since they have money already (evidenced by their regular attendance), 2) dare to jeopardize their position as regulars by doing something stupid.   In addition to that, none of my regulars are stupid.   If they were stupid, they wouldn’t get to be regulars.   Stupid people don’t make it real far on Sunday nights.

HPD ended up getting called, & Mele was annoyed that out of the 8 or 9 badges milling around the bar, he didn’t know any.   I chose to ignore them, but damned if I didn’t sober up while they walked around the place, killing everyone’s buzz.

Ms. Carrot Top & her friends tipped me out $4.75 on a $55.25 tab, & after that I informed the Saucy Pirate Boys that Ms. Carrot Top was being 86’d, at least from Sunday nights.   I just can’t have that kind of behavior in the bar.   It’s too small of a place for that much stupidity.   On her way out, Ms. Carrot Top dropped her wrap, exposing her G-stringed, utterly flat but still loose-skinned ass.   Several people considered throwing up, including me.

Ohhh yeah, she’s not allowed in here any more.