In less than four minutes, I went from top to bottom, from grand
champion to second-rate, from karaoke star to karaoke flop.
And I don’t even know why.
In less than four minutes, I went from top to bottom, from grand champion to second-rate, from karaoke star to karaoke flop.
And I don’t even know why.
There I was, standing before the crowd at Betsy’s, the bar attached to the former bowling alley in Morgan Hill. Just minutes before I was hanging out in my apartment with my neighbors when I got the call from a few of my friends. I was needed on stage.
See, I’d been there before – the lights, the microphone, the words changing colors as they cross the screen – and it was no problem. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no karaoke junkie, but I’ve been in front of a microphone enough times to get over the terrible stage fright I once had. Now I have little inhibition. And a few drinks never hurt anyone either.
I sang karaoke for the first time just a few months ago. I’d been here only a few months and figured I needed to impress my new friends. We happened to be at Betsy’s on a Saturday night – Karaoke Night – and we dared each other to go up and sing a song. While he chose a quiet rendition of Jimmy Buffet’s “Pirate Turns 40,” I decided to bust out with Clarence Carter’s “Strokin.'”
If you haven’t heard the song, let me put it this way … uh … it’s kind of a dirty, dirty love song, only without the love part. It’s just dirty. But by getting the crowd involved in the song, I figured it wouldn’t do much harm.
So after slow, boring song after slow, boring song (including that uninspired version of “Pirate”), I was called to the stage. I was a little scared, but as soon as the music hit I remembered just how ridiculous the song was and knew that I couldn’t go wrong.
I quickly paraded around the bar singing the lyrics to the song, which included asking men and women seated around when and where they had last made love. The crowd not only was into it, but they were yelling and whistling and laughing – everything that karaoke should be.
I continued to dance around the bar, crooning the dirty words to the song, which would be too embarrassing to write in this column knowing that it could fall into the hands of Gilroy’s youth.
After finishing the song, the woman who runs the karaoke show each night told the crowd that I am in desperate need of a girlfriend (and she’s probably right …), and I returned to my seat only to be greeted by girls at the bar asking me to sing the song again and to “sing it just to me” and guys gave me high-fives and told me I was hilarious.
I was the karaoke champion of the world. The Elvis of the bar scene.
And then came last weekend, when the above-mentioned call brought me back to Betsy’s and back to my beloved crowd – or so I thought.
No sooner had I ordered a beer for myself and my roommate and a Sprite for our driver when we got to the bar nefore my name was called, and I was given the microphone. I hadn’t even picked out my song … my friend had already taken the liberty and put my name and my song on the list for the moment I came in.
I thought nothing of it, went through my motions of preparation (humming different octaves poorly into the microphone, making funny noises and talking to the crowd) and told the karaoke organizer – the same one from my last performance – to play my song.
And it began again, a whole new audience to blow away with my rendition of Clarence Carter’s classic, which I only heard once while I was at a bowling alley back in Colorado a few years ago.
Just like before, I went around the audience like a lounge singer and asked people when and where they last made love. Only this time no one was paying any attention, and most of them seemed more frightened of me as I approached them with the microphone than they were excited like last time.
By the end of the second chorus I could feel myself losing my audience, and, since this was just my second time singing before a live audience, I didn’t know what to do. I just continued my show until the song finally ended. It felt like I had been singing for an eternity.
Sure, I received some clapping from the audience, but I had felt myself being dethroned as the self-entitled karaoke champion.
I couldn’t help but wonder if my performance had lacked something from the previous one. Did I not have the same energy? Was I too loud? Out of key? Or was this just not my type of audience?
But I had little time to think about it, as my performance was vindicated in two sentences. The karaoke organizing lady grabbed the microphone looked over at me and said “I only have one thing to say to you, man: You need a girlfriend.”
It wasn’t me. It was my audience. And I am bound to return and regain my crown. Just give me a few more months.
