Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Karaoke Nights

When you're on the road with a travelling door to door encyclopedia sales crew, you gotta let off steam on a regular basis. And karaoke is as good a way as any.

I'd say that in my six months behind the lines, we probably went to karaoke bars three or four times. And the star on our team was definitely Andy Bailey. He was fearless and shameless. One time he saw "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" on the song list and picked it. Of course, it was Bob Dylan's original arrangement, but Andy did a full-on Axl Rose impression anyway. "Aww, aww, aww-aww yea-eah!" I still smile when think of it.

But without a doubt the funniest karaoke memory I have is from when we were at a redneck bar in some little town in the middle of nowhere. Most of the men there were wearing cowboy boots, and I believe there was sawdust on the floor. Ah, but the karaoke machine was off-the-shelf! In addition to country hits and standards, it had every other genre ever made for karaoke. Andy looked through the song list until his eyes lit up and he looked as happy and excited as a kid with candy. He had found the song. "Bust a Move" by Young MC.

I wish I had the words to do the scene justice. Try to imagine an 18-year-old 100-pound stoner kid from Vancouver on stage with a big smile on his face doing a dorky little elbow dance (and occasional spin) while rappin' away to In the city/Ladies look pretty/Guys tell jokes so they can seem witty.

Now imagine a room full of boots-and-flannel-wearing rednecks far far away from "in the city" staring at him like he was some kind of weird new bug they had never seen, and didn't know what to do with. While rednecks, stereotypes aside, are not generally slack-jawed, they sure were that night.

Finally, imagine Mitch, Ann, Nathan, and me laughing at the above scene until we were close to passing out. Man; good, good times.

The only other memorable karaoke experience from back in the days when I was a travelling door to door encyclopedia salesman was when we stopped in Cranbrook, BC for a couple days. It's where Mitch was from, so we met some of his family. One night, we went to a bar and they were having karaoke night. Mitch's cousin, a very attractive young lady named Vicky, got up and performed an old romantic standard. She was quite a singer, and between her voice and her looks there was hardly a man at the bar who wasn't smitten.

She came and sat with us afterward and we chatted. She had lived in Vancouver for a while, but had moved back home to Cranbrook to work as a massage therapist. (No dirty thoughts, people. Just a regular massage therapist.) That was that, except as we were driving out the next morning, Mitch (ever the diplomat) shared one or two little tidbits about his cousin.

"That Vicky. She's really pretty, eh?" We all agreed. "You know what she was doing when she lived in Vancouver? She was a prostitute! Not the street-walking kind. She shared an apartment with a friend. She'd go out to a bar and let herself get picked up by a rich-looking man with a wedding ring. She'd take him home and seduce him in such a way that his clothes ended up in the living room while she and he were in the bedroom. Her roommate would sneak out and rifle through his wallet. By the time he got on his clothes, left, and then discovered his wallet was much lighter, there was nothing he could do about it if he didn't want his wife to find out. Vicky did that to lots of men, and was making a killing till she got tired of it. So she moved back home to be a masseuse."

I think some of the other guys got a thrill from Mitch's story. I wonder what Ann thought of it. But I just found it depressing. I'm glad she got her life back on track, because it sure could have ended very badly. She was so pretty and lively. And a real karaoke champion!

No comments:

Post a Comment

A couple of important points if you wish to comment:

1. The names have been changed to protect the innocent (and the guilty). If you know me or any of the people I write about, please don't mention their real names in your replies.

2. While the content of this blog isn't necessarily "child-friendly," I also do not want it to descend into wanton crudeness or abusiveness. A general rule of thumb might be "PG-13". Of course, I will be the final arbiter of what constitutes appropriate content, and may delete any comments at my sole discretion.