Karaoke?
I went down to Mountain View yesterday and finished the work I had gone to do by about 8:00. Instead of driving home right away, I decided to have dinner down there and check out the King of Clubs - after all, thursday is Karaoke night.

It was a pretty thin night - only a dozen or so people in the joint. And everyone was either a spectacular singer or a horrid one, nothing in between. The very cute bartender was one of the spectacular singers - and since there were so few people there, his turn to sing came up quite a lot. He started the evening off by flattering me (stating his "card people who look under 40" policy before carding me) and continued the evening accepting playful flirts, cooperating by stripping off his shirt, etc. Fun bartender.

At one point I found myself at the bar between an older cuban immigrant who had been trying to pick me up and a young very pretty gay redneck. They decided to discuss politics, one on each side of me. At the same time, the bartender's song came up - he chose Amazed - yes, probably the sappiest romantic song there is. He just sang his little heart out - an easy thing to do with a song like that - looking right at me as if he were singing it me. He's quite a good performer - I could imagine him actually having a career on stage. But here I was, being serenaded by the hot bartender, with people on each side caught in a hot political discussion that got louder and louder. I got so caught up in his song that I actually tuned out the arguers completely. I let this vignette go on for a while before I sidled out from between them and took another seat down the bar. True to the vignette, the arguers didn't even notice that I had left.

The bartender and the redneck stepped out for a cigarette break, the cuban went out to get some air and cool down, the table full of opera singers had just settled its tab and left when my turn for a song came up. I had chosen Maybe this time. I have a pretty narrow vocal range, and am always terrified when I do a Karaoke song, even one I know well, that the recording will be in a key I just can't do. I don't understand why Liza Minelli seems to sing in a key that suits me, but she does. I was really able to get into the song, which was pitched just about perfectly for my voice. The fact that I was actually singing to an empty bar - yes, empty; no bartender, no patrons, no cleaning staff, nobody playing pool, no bar backs, just the KJ, who was hiding behind his console behind me - really seemed appropriate for a song like this. They all came back in just as I finished the song. It wasn't really like Karaoke it all - it was more like singing in the shower, when you know nobody can hear you.

King of Clubs is one of the more surreal joints I have ever been do. I never know what its going to be like.