Karaoke Nights

Last week, in the continuing adventures of Z0L0 Queen, I shared a poem written in my honor. While I’m still floating on air from all the extended birthday love, I can’t help but laugh at myself. Apparently I’m part queen, part court jester.

Here is a two-line excerpt from Ken Lee’s poem, Press Release to illustrate my point.

She’s no rookie to royalty though

In her veins, Queenly blood doth flow.

While that flattery might expand another’s inflated sense of self, it makes me laugh. Oh, not at Ken, but at the truth he nailed. “In her veins, Queenly blood doth flow.” Yes, dear friends, I am no rookie to royalty, for I am kin to a long line of queens….drama queens.

While I have not been accused of being one myself… exactly, there have been references to it, such as, my sister once told me, “You’re not a drama queen, except in the way you dress.” What on earth does she mean by that?

When I asked my mother if she thought I was controlling (Ahem, there’s no way I can deny being accused of that!), she said, “Yes. But your type of control is not centered around people, you just really need to control your personal environment.” I can live with that.

When I asked my mother the other day if she thought I was a drama queen, she said, “No, I’d categorize your life more like a sit-com. You always seem to find the humor in whatever situation you find yourself in.” Again, I can live with that. Thanks mom.

Why did I ask my mom if she thought I was a drama queen? Because Simon Cowell told me I was. Relax, I’m not hearing voices, I just had a dream in which he appeared as a confident character, giving me the message to quit being so “emotional about my life, instead, save the emotion for my life.”

I pondered that one. And then I was handed an example on a silver platter.

Groom and I were invited out for an evening of karaoke as a friend of ours requested support while he sang in public for the first time, part of a stretch goal. As the event didn’t get underway until 9pm, I spent most of the day in angst about going. I don’t like going out much, especially to a lounge, especially late at night.

I caught myself in the act of being emotional about my life. I was expending far too much energy about going. I could not decide. On one hand, I wanted an entire day that was not pierced by appointments, a block of time smooth from outside influences. Yet, on the other, I wanted to be supportive and watch him do this thing.

Groom suggested we wait until later in the evening to decide. Tired, no really, tired (recovering from colds), I crawled into bed after consuming dinner and washing dishes. We watched an episode of Project Catwalk and by then it was 8:30pm. Aaaah, the luxury of getting to bed at a reasonable hour and NOT having to get up early on a Saturday. For those of you who understand the Art Fair lifestyle, a Saturday off is like Saffron, rare and expensive.

I wanted to relish in it, but in the spirit of Z0L0, of doing things differently, I flung back the covers (but not without sighing first), pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt that had been carelessly tossed, did not bother to comb my hair or put on any camouflaging cosmetics, stepped into a pair of black boots, grabbed a jacket and hopped in the chariot. I went from a reclining recluse to a care-less-reveler in about 2.5 minutes.

When Groom pulled into the parking lot of the karaoke establishment, the first thing to capture my attention was a woman walking from her car fluffing, primping and priming her hair. She had her hands all up in it, last minute touches as she tossed her head from side to side, trying to get her mojo on before stepping through the electronic sliding glass doors.

I don’t know what I was expecting, as I haven’t been out to a lounge for about 20 years, and even then it was never my scene, but I was not quite prepared for Karaoke nights to be held in a sports bar. Groom and I walked in at the exact perfect time, able to secure the last available table. People had arrived early, eager to devour the song book and make their selections. On a scrap of paper, one jots down the corresponding song number along with their name and presents it to the karaoke hostess.

In this case, the karaoke hostess was a scrappy little thing. Barely 21, if a day, she reminded me of a sassy Katie Holmes. I think there were several men present who would jump up and down on a couch Oprah-Cruise style for this girl. She wore a short, no short skirt, and her youthful legs were on display for the entire room. She worked that microphone like a pro, entertaining the crowd between songs.

Hostess would then put the slips of paper in any order she chose, entering the data on a laptop so the person’s name, along with their song title would appear on the large, overhead screen when it was their turn.

The first song of the evening was sung by a large woman. Okay, in that crowd, that’s not narrowing it down at all. Most of the people there were large. Songs like Fat Bottomed Girls and Baby’s Got Back were the order of the night.

The first woman was so shy she had her big bottom facing the crowd. She was looking up at the screen for the words, chasing the yellow high-lighting, instead of using the prompter screen. The people who followed were also painfully shy and lacked any stage presence or charisma. As Kimmm said, it was like auditions for American Idol.

Groom and I, not wanting to consume alcohol for reasons, oh like not operating heavy machinery while under the influence, stuck to water. Yet my red cheeks, sans makeup, looked to all the world as though I was a champion elbow bender. It was fascinating to observe the crowd loosen up with pints of liquid courage, transforming awkwardness into social lubrication.

Historically, the lounge, pub or alehouse is recognized as the “third place.” It is neither work nor home, but a public place to meet, greet and relax. For some, it is the epicenter of social life, reflecting the “socio-economic ethos of its host community.”

Phew, that’s a mouthful. If true, the cross section of society represented in the small sports bar Friday night reflected quite accurately the “socio-economic ethos of its host community,” Eugene. A gentleman sitting at the table across from us had an enlarged, dangly earlobe. At one time, he wore ever-increasing large gauge earrings to purposely stretch his lobe, but on this particular night, there was no jewelry, just a limp, dangling piece of ear skin with a giant hole that I could see through.

The woman sitting directly in front had three dark tribal lines tattooed on her face, starting at her lip and scoring the length of her chin. Admittedly, I’m not familiar with the cultural significance of her facial tattoos, all I could see in the dim lighting was that it looked like she had attempted to drink something inky and filled her mouth overmuch and now the liquid was dribbling down her chin.

A girl holding up the bar was dressed like Raggedy Ann, complete with a tomato-red yarn wig and a shamrock patterned frock. When it was her turn to claim the stage, she explained she was celebrating the two most famous drinking holidays, St. Patrick’s and Cinco de Mayo, but as it was the 5th of March, she called it “Cinco de Marcho.”

One guy, who sat at our table, had a split, dichotomous hair-do. One half of his head was brunette, the other bleached blonde. Of course, I had to point to the shocking red raggedy Anne at the bar and ask, “Can you imagine what your kids would look like?” We all laughed, and I blamed my second glass of water for the comment. But he only had eyes for Hostess.

And then the biggest surprise of all. A very large man, so large in fact, he looked like a sheet cake tipped up on end, all the contents sliding down from the pull of gravity, worked his way to the stage. Judging by appearances and the performances before him, I assumed it would be the opposite of ear candy. Then he opened his mouth and sang the beautiful Leonard Cohen song, “Hallelujah.” Gave me chills. Present in the moment, right then, the emotions about my life dissipated and I stepped into the emotions for my life. The cake man’s power notes brought tears to me eyes, sniff, it was haunting.

While Hostess was summoning one singer after the other to the stage, the woman at the beginning of this tale, the one trying to make her coiffed hair look finger-tugging good, was sitting alone at the bar of this “third place,” ready to meet and socialize.

A man, sitting by himself at a table, probably the least emotionally available male in the house, was the beacon to which this woman was instantly drawn. It was a painful scene to watch, the karaoke singers fading into the background, despite the sound level, morphing into the soundtrack for this sad attempt at validation and hookup.

The woman was physically attractive, but beneath the shroud of beauty, I caught a glimpse of her addiction: the fuel of rejection to feed the endless loop of self-loathing. There were any number of men who would have been flattered by the attention of a beautiful woman, but she was blind to them.

Now keep in mind, I was not drinking, yet I saw her energetic loose threads, like those from a poorly sewn garment, and I found myself terribly distracted. I wanted to focus on the singer wanna-be’s up front, but I was getting pulled into the drama unfolding behind me. I was disturbed by the woman’s behavior and even more distressed by the man’s flagrant dismissal of her.

The image of a vampire came to mind, but instead of the requirement to extract blood or siphon energy, I saw her need to intake more emptiness. Other men would have been happy to give her attention, but that was not her fuel. She needed to ingest more rejection. When she asked, “Are you sitting with anyone?” he said, “No.”

Failing to offer her a seat, she took it to the next level and asked, “Do you mind if I sit down?” He did not answer audibly, but simply shrugged. He did not look at her and continued to nurse his drink. She leaned in and whispered something in his ear. Again he shrugged. Then she got up.

I made the mistake of sighing with relief, believing for a moment she had come to her senses and was gracefully trying to remove herself from the failed connection. Nope. She bought him a drink. He was willing to accept a refill, but did not appear the least bit obligated to thank her, much less talk to her. He proceeded to look around at the other women in the room but treated the one at his table with a palpable lack of interest.

Apparently this only made her want him more. She shimmied her way to the dance floor and proceeded to, well, shake her fanny in a way I’ve not seen before. Suddenly she disappeared from sight. From my vantage point, I thought she’d slipped and fallen. But the crowd started whoopin’ and hollerin’ because she had dropped to her knees and was now, on all fours, like a dog, arching her back and wagging tail.

Huffing and puffing from the exertion, she made her way back to the table, high-fiving people along the way. Her table companion was staring at his phone, busy texting. She leaned into him again, her prowess on display. “Did you see me dance?” she asked, her seduction getting into third gear.

He didn’t even look at her, just kept texting. “Nope,” he finally said. The look of incredulity upon her face spoke volumes, as it was obvious she had just pulled out her big guns on the dance floor. “No?” she asked again?

“No,” he repeated. Well, what was she gonna do but buy him another round?

In the meantime, the friend we had come to support had spent the better part of an hour looking through the song list book. When his name was finally called, he approached the stage with a mix of excited reluctance. The first bars of the song began to play and immediately it was obvious that it was a crowd pleaser. People jumped up to dance and even though the pacing was too quick for our friend and he had a minor technical difficulty keeping up with the words, the audience was clapping and very supportive.

It was at this point we left. The clock struck midnight and this Cinderella wanted to get back home before her coach turned into a pumpkin. I don’t know what happened to the vampire woman. When last I looked, she had her arm hooked into his. Oh, and I forgot to mention the weirdest part. He kept trying to get my attention and at one point suggested we get up and dance.

Are you kidding me? Sloppily dressed, no make up, red cheeks blazing in the low lighting, I was in fact, the least available woman in the place for him. I was sitting there holding hands with Groom! Why is it human nature to want what we cannot have?

While there is no tidy ending to this three-hour slice of life, I feel the need to comment on the photographs. To see them enlarged, simply click on the image and then hit the back arrow to return to the blog. I'm especially thrilled to have captured the bee hovering around Groom's camera.

And so this Z0L0 Queen/Sitcom-y court jester bids you a lovely week.