Chapter Two, Part One
Karz Bar: The Wrath of Super
So here’s my thought on cover songs: if you’re not going to make the song your own, don’t bother. You’re just a hack with a record deal, looking to milk a twenty-year-old hit.
Pretty funny, coming from a KJ (that’s Karaoke Jock). But six months after someone records that cover song, the wake rolls into my bar. A few months ago, I started getting requests for “Drift Away.” Once a night, three times a night – when it hit six, I had to call a moratorium. One of my college kids informed me that the latest acoustic grinder hunk had covered it for a soundtrack -–probably with that grungy yarl that everybody ripped off from Cobain and Vedder.
I make my living through the good graces of pop culture, so I engineered a compromise. At the end of our third round, I take out all five of our mics, and anybody who’s up for it gets to sing along. Over the weeks, it has almost become a beautiful thing. Kevin the Cop contributes a high third, Harry Baritone constructs something mysterious but effective down below, and Shari Blues has come up with a full gospel descant. I turn down whatever mic Caroleen is on (poor old gal), and me, I’m strictly melody, ‘cause I’m the KJ, that’s my job. I call it the Karz Bar Korale, and we are occasionally magnificent – especially when the CD knocks off and we finish with a bonus a capella chorus. There are times when karaoke is downright spiritual, like church with cocktails.Whoever’s left in the audience (at least Alex, who’s only here to dance) gives us a nice round of applause, and I gather up mics like a teacher collecting homework. Except for Kevin, who waits as I line up his salsa track, a disc that he brings from home. I guess I’d get tired of the thing, except for the stimulating effect it has on the hips and buttocks of its listeners. It doesn’t hurt that it’s Kevin, of the sunny smile and brown sugar tenor – he who spends his days shaking down meth labs in Lakewood. You wouldn’t guess that he was half Puerto Rican – not with a name like Connaugh, and that Caucasian face. But a couple of rolled R’s and hip swivels and you can see where Mama’s genes had their way.
When the song hits the percussion break, the rhythm gets too much for me, and I escape the bonds of my station to join Alex and his latest hottie on the floor. My pelvis is just beginning to loosen up when I hear a rolling thump on the entranceway and turn to find Supersonic, human train wreck, reeling our way. Oh, man.
Super is the Kitsap Peninsula’s primary freak, a position he endows with a distinctive visual style. His name comes from his wardrobe, composed entirely of paraphernalia from Seattle’s basketball team. Tonight it’s a jersey with the number of Ray Allen, recently traded scoring machine. Super’s other outstanding feature is a head of outlandish Einstein hair, completely gray on one side, completely red on the other. You could draw a line down the middle.
Sadly, there’s no stopping him now. He reels up to Kevin’s mic and lets loose a string of crackles and grunts in a crude approximation of the melody. Kevin pivots, blocking Super with a shoulder, but I can tell this won’t hold him for long. I dig under the soundboard for the cheapest mic I’ve got and hand it to Super, let him babble for a few seconds and then fade out his volume. Once he figures out I’ve cut his sound, he protests with a trio of full-body stomps and hurls the mic across the room. It barely misses Doc Mendelssohn, but not his martini glass, which explodes in a shower of crystals. (Fortunately, Doc’s wearing a thick tweed coat, which deflects a couple of scary-looking shards.)
For Kevin, that cinches it. He tosses me his mic, whips Super into a headlock and rams him against the bar.
“Rule number one,” he says. “You do not impede an officer in the performance of his favorite tune.”
Super sputters an answer: “Fucking spic!” He kicks at the bar and convulses in a full-body shiver, forcing Kevin’s ribs into a barstool.
“Asshole!” cries Kevin. “You’ve done it now, buttboy.” He cranks down on the headlock and rides him toward the back deck, pushing the door open with Super’s flailing, scrawny frame and steering him outside. The dancers plug up the doorway to see what happens next, while everyone else gathers at the window.
Kevin brings Super to the railing and forces him to look.
“That’s some mighty cold water, Super. Now apologize, or you’re goin’ in!”
Super looks back over his shoulder, drooling with defiance. His next words come out like the quack of a duck, or maybe it’s just a similarity of consonants.
“Fuck you, cocksucker!”
Kevin smiles. It’s just the invitation he’s looking for. Keeping one arm on his headlock, he spins the other around the backs of Super’s legs and hurls him upward, like a Hefty bag headed for the Dumpster. Super phases through several hieroglyphic postures before striking the drink and sending up a long fishtail of water.
Even in August, the water of Gig Harbor will turn your testes to Popsicles, so it’s no surprise when the next sound is something like an old-school Michael Jackson yelp. Kevin peers over the railing and grins.
“You want out of there, Super?”
Super yodels back: “Yu-yu-yes!”
“You’ll behave?”
“Yes! Yes!”
“All right. Grab onto this and shut the fuck up.”
“Yes sir!”
He tosses a life ring, then fetches a dock ladder from the other end of the deck. Meanwhile, I figure I’d better coax the evening back to normal, so I call up Harry to do “Delilah.” As I turn back to my song slips, perched in business card holders on my table, I discover Engine #9 pulling in with a drink and a note: Thought you might need this. I turn to salute Hamster, beaming from the bar, and I bring the sweetness of rum and Coca-Cola to my lips as Tom Jones’ horn section blows forth.
Next: Smoking on The Jerisich Dock
Purchase the book at: http://www.amazon.com/Outro-Michael-J-Vaughn/dp/1440111405/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231020486&sr=8-1
Hear the podcast of this episode at: http://www.gcast.com/user/michaeljvaughn/podcast/main?nr=1&&s=198404806
Image by MJV.
Karz Bar: The Wrath of Super
So here’s my thought on cover songs: if you’re not going to make the song your own, don’t bother. You’re just a hack with a record deal, looking to milk a twenty-year-old hit.
Pretty funny, coming from a KJ (that’s Karaoke Jock). But six months after someone records that cover song, the wake rolls into my bar. A few months ago, I started getting requests for “Drift Away.” Once a night, three times a night – when it hit six, I had to call a moratorium. One of my college kids informed me that the latest acoustic grinder hunk had covered it for a soundtrack -–probably with that grungy yarl that everybody ripped off from Cobain and Vedder.
I make my living through the good graces of pop culture, so I engineered a compromise. At the end of our third round, I take out all five of our mics, and anybody who’s up for it gets to sing along. Over the weeks, it has almost become a beautiful thing. Kevin the Cop contributes a high third, Harry Baritone constructs something mysterious but effective down below, and Shari Blues has come up with a full gospel descant. I turn down whatever mic Caroleen is on (poor old gal), and me, I’m strictly melody, ‘cause I’m the KJ, that’s my job. I call it the Karz Bar Korale, and we are occasionally magnificent – especially when the CD knocks off and we finish with a bonus a capella chorus. There are times when karaoke is downright spiritual, like church with cocktails.Whoever’s left in the audience (at least Alex, who’s only here to dance) gives us a nice round of applause, and I gather up mics like a teacher collecting homework. Except for Kevin, who waits as I line up his salsa track, a disc that he brings from home. I guess I’d get tired of the thing, except for the stimulating effect it has on the hips and buttocks of its listeners. It doesn’t hurt that it’s Kevin, of the sunny smile and brown sugar tenor – he who spends his days shaking down meth labs in Lakewood. You wouldn’t guess that he was half Puerto Rican – not with a name like Connaugh, and that Caucasian face. But a couple of rolled R’s and hip swivels and you can see where Mama’s genes had their way.
When the song hits the percussion break, the rhythm gets too much for me, and I escape the bonds of my station to join Alex and his latest hottie on the floor. My pelvis is just beginning to loosen up when I hear a rolling thump on the entranceway and turn to find Supersonic, human train wreck, reeling our way. Oh, man.
Super is the Kitsap Peninsula’s primary freak, a position he endows with a distinctive visual style. His name comes from his wardrobe, composed entirely of paraphernalia from Seattle’s basketball team. Tonight it’s a jersey with the number of Ray Allen, recently traded scoring machine. Super’s other outstanding feature is a head of outlandish Einstein hair, completely gray on one side, completely red on the other. You could draw a line down the middle.
Sadly, there’s no stopping him now. He reels up to Kevin’s mic and lets loose a string of crackles and grunts in a crude approximation of the melody. Kevin pivots, blocking Super with a shoulder, but I can tell this won’t hold him for long. I dig under the soundboard for the cheapest mic I’ve got and hand it to Super, let him babble for a few seconds and then fade out his volume. Once he figures out I’ve cut his sound, he protests with a trio of full-body stomps and hurls the mic across the room. It barely misses Doc Mendelssohn, but not his martini glass, which explodes in a shower of crystals. (Fortunately, Doc’s wearing a thick tweed coat, which deflects a couple of scary-looking shards.)
For Kevin, that cinches it. He tosses me his mic, whips Super into a headlock and rams him against the bar.
“Rule number one,” he says. “You do not impede an officer in the performance of his favorite tune.”
Super sputters an answer: “Fucking spic!” He kicks at the bar and convulses in a full-body shiver, forcing Kevin’s ribs into a barstool.
“Asshole!” cries Kevin. “You’ve done it now, buttboy.” He cranks down on the headlock and rides him toward the back deck, pushing the door open with Super’s flailing, scrawny frame and steering him outside. The dancers plug up the doorway to see what happens next, while everyone else gathers at the window.
Kevin brings Super to the railing and forces him to look.
“That’s some mighty cold water, Super. Now apologize, or you’re goin’ in!”
Super looks back over his shoulder, drooling with defiance. His next words come out like the quack of a duck, or maybe it’s just a similarity of consonants.
“Fuck you, cocksucker!”
Kevin smiles. It’s just the invitation he’s looking for. Keeping one arm on his headlock, he spins the other around the backs of Super’s legs and hurls him upward, like a Hefty bag headed for the Dumpster. Super phases through several hieroglyphic postures before striking the drink and sending up a long fishtail of water.
Even in August, the water of Gig Harbor will turn your testes to Popsicles, so it’s no surprise when the next sound is something like an old-school Michael Jackson yelp. Kevin peers over the railing and grins.
“You want out of there, Super?”
Super yodels back: “Yu-yu-yes!”
“You’ll behave?”
“Yes! Yes!”
“All right. Grab onto this and shut the fuck up.”
“Yes sir!”
He tosses a life ring, then fetches a dock ladder from the other end of the deck. Meanwhile, I figure I’d better coax the evening back to normal, so I call up Harry to do “Delilah.” As I turn back to my song slips, perched in business card holders on my table, I discover Engine #9 pulling in with a drink and a note: Thought you might need this. I turn to salute Hamster, beaming from the bar, and I bring the sweetness of rum and Coca-Cola to my lips as Tom Jones’ horn section blows forth.
Next: Smoking on The Jerisich Dock
Purchase the book at: http://www.amazon.com/Outro-Michael-J-Vaughn/dp/1440111405/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231020486&sr=8-1
Hear the podcast of this episode at: http://www.gcast.com/user/michaeljvaughn/podcast/main?nr=1&&s=198404806
Image by MJV.
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