I don't know if you have ever felt like you walked into a parallel universe, but it happened to us and some friends last weekend. There were 8 of us who wanted to go to one of our newest usual spots to do Karaoke last Saturday night. We arrived in time to eat and then planned to stay for Karaoke, but as it turned out, The manager made the decision to suspend Karaoke for the evening for "The Game." Now to us, "The Game" meant Notre Dame was playing, however, a few miles up the road, which is where we were, "The Game" meant Michigan was playing! So......3 out of 8 of us had smart phones and were frantically looking up places that might have Karaoke.... none of them seemed to be having much luck! UNTIL....Steve remembered seeing this little hole-in-the wall place, the neighborhood bar if you will, that had Karaoke 6 nights a week. So.....6 of us decided to check it out, after we ate. We couldn't be rude and just have soft drinks and water then up and leave....even if they did leave us high and dry on Karaoke...it just wouldn't be right.
With Dinner over with we headed up the road to the neighboring town on a quest for Karaoke! We found the little place and finally got parked and went inside. Of course, we couldn't help but notice the little crowd outside the building and I verbalized to Jon that it might be a good idea to go take the face plate off of my car stereo! He disagreed.....and this was one of those rare moments that I decided not to go back and do it myself! As we entered the place it was like stepping into a time warp of some sort. Seating was in an L shape sort of, with a pool table in one corner. The tables were all pushed together in rows for the most part so we politely inquired of some people at one end of a table facing the Karaoke stage if we might share the other end of the table. Once we worked out the seating Steve was ready to jump right up and put our names on the list to sing. I am not usually timid about that, except in the case where you have obviously crashed a party that goes on 6 nights a week and all eyes are on you wondering where you came from and how the heck did you end up here....and furthermore whatever possessed you to come inside!? Oh wait...part of those thoughts were mine! I felt like a teenager again.....like I was going to some forbidden place that I might get into trouble for.....but this time my parents knew about it and let's face it...I am well past the age of having to report to my parents. Oh I forgot to mention that there was a black light on the ceiling...and of course, we had to notice that Jon's shoe laces on his new shoes were glowing, as was the white part of the design on Cheryl's shirt. I did notice that the pages in the karaoke book glowed as well making really easy to read the song listings.
I usually like to listen to the music that people are doing if I enter a place that has karaoke already in progress....just to see what kind of music they are into, but it didn't take long to figure out that the chosen genre was "Country" and not just Country, but "Old Country". I almost expected Patsy Cline to come out of the ladies room....with Loretta Lynn right behind her...and while Patsy did not make an appearance, one lady did her own rendition of "Sweet Dreams" and it was pretty darn close to the real thing. Now our usual observation in Karaoke is that even with a large crowd, only a percentage of the people actually sing, but not in this case.....I would say over half the people in that little place sang...not only did they sing...but most of them sang rather well; a pleasant surprise I might add. I was still feeling a little weird though and all I kept thinking about was the song "Hotel California" not that I wanted to sing it, I was just feeling like we might be living it! You know.....like the little Karaoke bar that time forgot.....or some ancient buried city that you have to accidentally stumble across....only we did it on purpose....which makes it more like "Hotel California." But much to our surprise, the people, who obviously knew everyone else there except for us, were very friendly and they love to sing Karaoke as much as we do, and oddly enough their language and their actions were less offensive than some we have encountered in our usual places that are more up to date and close to home, which was another pleasant surprise!
At some point in the evening the music did a 180 and turned to Rock! They were now singing stuff like "White Wedding" by Billy Idol.....but there were some that did not deviate from Country.
I don't know what these people's stories are, what their lives are like, but they like to sing...a lot..and with 6 days a week to practice it was probably one of the best kept secret little Karaoke hideaways......but now we know about them! We probably won't venture that far from home on a regular basis, but we have another option when our usual places let us down! Especially now that we know that not only can we go in, but we can leave anytime we want!
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