Chapter Seven, Part II
The Courteous and the Not So Courteous
Channy’s Karao-Courtesies
(A Karz Publication)
1. Don’t ask the KJ to start the song over. If you miss the first line, just come in on the second. No one will care. Also, if you discover that you have ordered up the wrong song (say, Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?” when you wanted the 4 Non-Blondes’ “What’s Up?”), you’d better just fake it, because you’re not getting a do-over.
2. Don’t hang out on the back deck until your name’s called. Hey, I’m sure it really is all about you, but could you at least pretend to care about the other singers?
3. Don’t scream into the mic. As you pack your lungs with oxygen for the jungle yell on “Immigrant Song,” back that puppy up a couple inches. You’ll save everyone a lot of pain.
4. Don’t get falling-down drunk. Remember how great you were, singing “Bohemian Rhapsody” after six tequila poppers? Neither does anybody else.
5. Don’t hassle the KJ. It’s hard enough keeping all those raging egos in check without you coming up to bitch about the lack of Neil Diamond selections. KJs are the sacred priests of music – treat them accordingly.
6. Do not horn in. Perhaps your backing vocal to “Sex and Candy” really is God’s gift to harmonics, but you pick up that second mic without prior permission and you will die a terrible death. (This is not to discourage a planned harmony jam, which can be a beautiful thing.)
7. Don’t milk the applause. Even if you deserve it – especially if you deserve it – nothing looks cooler than a humble “thanks” and a quick departure. If you are offered a high-five, however, slap away. Also, if you have just performed an Elvis tune, you are required by law to mumble “Thankyouvermuch.”
8. Do not change your song selection within three singers of your turn, unless you’re willing to add substantially to the tip jar.
9. Try to avoid singing a song that has already been performed that evening. If you sing it badly, your effort will look that much worse in comparison. If you sing it well, you will appear to be showing up your predecessor, who will then be entitled to throw a baseball at your head in the following inning.
When I report to Karz, Hamster is standing at the bar with a songbook, reading my Karao-Courtesies yet again.
“Don’t you ever get tired of that thing?”
“It’s not just that it’s funny,” he says. “It’s that it’s so completely out of character. It’s so…edgy!
I take a stool across from him. “I never would have written it for the customers. I did it for a KJ newsletter out of Spokane. Strictly in-house. Somehow Harry got a hold of it, passed it all around the bar, and they loved it. And do you know why? Because they think it’s about everybody else. And five minutes later, they’re up on stage, saying, ‘Damn! Can I start over?’”
My little monologue earns a chuckle, but I can tell Hamster’s anxious about something. His gaze shifts to the end of the bar, where a squad of gray-haired men are gathered around Mt. Rainier.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
He curls a lip. “My distribution system appears to be on the fritz.”
“Yikes! You may have to deliver drinks by hand.”
“Perish the thought. You think the singers will come to the bar for their drinks?”
“Sure. I’ll make an announcement. I don’t know, Hamster. You sure this thing isn’t an Amtrak?”
“Ouch! Thou doth smacketh me with barbs of truth. If those Union Pacific freights would just give us a right-of-way once in a while. Can’t tell you how much of my soul I sent down the chipper telling some passenger ‘This hardly ever happens.’”
“Seems to me that bored, frustrated passengers might naturally turn to drink.”
“Paid for this restaurant,” he says. “But I still hate lying to people.”
I feel a quiet presence behind me, accompanied by the smell of old-style after-shave. It’s a trio of codgers. One is wearing an engineer cap. I’m trying not to laugh.
“Bad news,” says the tallest. He’s a rangy retired-officer type, owner of a bushy moustache straight out of a horse opera. “It’s definitely the transformer. Now, you know what we told you when we put this in, Ham. Y’got an enormous system here, with an unusually powerful transformer. You need to keep a backup at all times.”
Hamster covers his face. “Oh, God. If I give you another pitcher of beer, could you please not say ‘I told you so’?”
Moustache-man smiles. “I’ll try – but I was really looking forward to that.”
“How long to find another?”
He inevitably rubs his ‘stache as a thinking device. “Tell you what. I got a pretty free weekend. I’d bet I could get you two by Monday.”
“Two? But we only need…”
“Two,” says Moustache.
Hamster laughs and gives a military salute. “Two it is. Thanks, George.”
“No prob, Cap’n.”
That’s enough engineering for me. I’m off to deal with my own equipment. This being Thursday, I’m expecting a humble crowd, but of course I’m entirely wrong. Within the first hour, I’ve got two birthday parties (thirtysomething and fiftysomething, respectively), a small battalion of mom’s-night-outers (one of them dancing rather naughtily for the engineers on an AC/DC song), and a dozen college karaokeans bent on a future with American Idol. The personnel management is like a New York Times crossword. I’ve got forty-eight singers, and I’m running out of business card holders, farming the extras to a windowsill behind my station.
Somewhere in the chaos I notice Kevin the Cop, wearing a tropical shirt that is anything but Octoberish. He’s got the skin for it, though – and, in fact, is looking rather fetching all over. He drops “Suavamente” for “La Bamba” – the first time I’ve heard it sung by someone who actually knows Spanish. Then he flashes a grin and returns to his friends.
It is often at moments like this, when I’m clamped in a non-stop rush, that my thoughts come through with alarming clarity. They have to – murkiness takes too much time. I have precisely two ideas on this renewed attraction. One: a month and a half ago, I asked Kevin to back off – and he did. Two: having tapped into such a torrent of sadness on Sunday, it could be that I have opened up my other emotions as well. Like lust. I am stealing this from Shari’s hypothesis, the emotional tool belt, use ‘em or lose ‘em.
After Kevin, I’ve got yet another singer I’ve never heard of, but the selection stands out: “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” by Roberta Flack. It’s a gorgeous song, but excruciatingly slow. The entrances arrive at long, long intervals. I have yet to see someone make it all the way through without coming in early at least once. I line up track five on the disc, right after “Killing Me Softly,” and then I reach for the mic.
“We have yet another newcomer! Please welcome Jade.”
Jade is quite a sight. She wears a dark, pleated schoolgirl skirt, a blouse of emerald silk with small white specks of Chinese calligraphy, and black pumps with stiletto heels. Her round Caucasian eyes are shadowed in layers of black and green, and her thick jet hair hangs in a long braid down her back. She wears a necklace of black string holding a circle of jade. I seem to remember they call this a blessing disc.
She perches on a stool and crosses her legs, content to wait out the long intro, then closes her eye on the opening phrase and sings almost to herself, tasting the words. This is something I have noticed about performance: if you are involved with the song, the audience will be involved with you. We don’t get Jade’s blue eyes until the third long phrase, and even then she doesn’t seem overly concerned with us. She’s concerned with the first time ever she saw his face. It’s a matter of theater – you can feel the fourth wall sealing her off, making it safe for us to watch.
With “Little Girl Blue,” she had to win us over – the bachelorettes, the horny men. This time, she has us within seconds. Something about the song, the long reaches of quietude. Church. I’m eating her sustenatos, great fields of tone that carry a drive and a shape, without ever seeming forced. I am so envious.
She climbs the last ladder of chromatics and leaves us dangling. Again the bank of silence, broken again by Harry’s happy woof – and again, she’s headed for a slippery exit. I do something I’ve never done. I hit the play button on a Joan Osborne song and let Shari figure it out for herself. I am fixed on my target, following Jade out the door like a teeny-bopper chasing a Beatle.
“Hey! Jade! Amber!”
She stops but doesn’t turn, holding a pose like a figure in film noir. She’s not about to get away – not in those heels – so she turns and faces me with folded arms.
“Yeah?”
I feel breathless, silly.
“You’re so… good! You’re extraordinary.”
She stares at me and blinks her eyes, once.
“You think I need someone like you to tell me that?”
“No… no. But I was just wondering…”
“Why I don’t stay? Why the fuck would I stay? To poison my ears with your so-called singers? Or that pile of shit you call a sound system? I’d be better off with a fucking megaphone.”
I’m absolutely stunned. She turns to go, then comes back for another volley.
“You’re lucky I come at all. You’re lucky that I’m crazy about singing. But one song is all I can take.”
She’s gone, clicking across the lot, calves tightening at each step. I follow my feet into the bar, where Shari is asking if God is one of us. I hold my ribs, feeling all the world like I’ve been punched.
Next: Hangover at Hamster’s
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
The Courteous and the Not So Courteous
Channy’s Karao-Courtesies
(A Karz Publication)
1. Don’t ask the KJ to start the song over. If you miss the first line, just come in on the second. No one will care. Also, if you discover that you have ordered up the wrong song (say, Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?” when you wanted the 4 Non-Blondes’ “What’s Up?”), you’d better just fake it, because you’re not getting a do-over.
2. Don’t hang out on the back deck until your name’s called. Hey, I’m sure it really is all about you, but could you at least pretend to care about the other singers?
3. Don’t scream into the mic. As you pack your lungs with oxygen for the jungle yell on “Immigrant Song,” back that puppy up a couple inches. You’ll save everyone a lot of pain.
4. Don’t get falling-down drunk. Remember how great you were, singing “Bohemian Rhapsody” after six tequila poppers? Neither does anybody else.
5. Don’t hassle the KJ. It’s hard enough keeping all those raging egos in check without you coming up to bitch about the lack of Neil Diamond selections. KJs are the sacred priests of music – treat them accordingly.
6. Do not horn in. Perhaps your backing vocal to “Sex and Candy” really is God’s gift to harmonics, but you pick up that second mic without prior permission and you will die a terrible death. (This is not to discourage a planned harmony jam, which can be a beautiful thing.)
7. Don’t milk the applause. Even if you deserve it – especially if you deserve it – nothing looks cooler than a humble “thanks” and a quick departure. If you are offered a high-five, however, slap away. Also, if you have just performed an Elvis tune, you are required by law to mumble “Thankyouvermuch.”
8. Do not change your song selection within three singers of your turn, unless you’re willing to add substantially to the tip jar.
9. Try to avoid singing a song that has already been performed that evening. If you sing it badly, your effort will look that much worse in comparison. If you sing it well, you will appear to be showing up your predecessor, who will then be entitled to throw a baseball at your head in the following inning.
When I report to Karz, Hamster is standing at the bar with a songbook, reading my Karao-Courtesies yet again.
“Don’t you ever get tired of that thing?”
“It’s not just that it’s funny,” he says. “It’s that it’s so completely out of character. It’s so…edgy!
I take a stool across from him. “I never would have written it for the customers. I did it for a KJ newsletter out of Spokane. Strictly in-house. Somehow Harry got a hold of it, passed it all around the bar, and they loved it. And do you know why? Because they think it’s about everybody else. And five minutes later, they’re up on stage, saying, ‘Damn! Can I start over?’”
My little monologue earns a chuckle, but I can tell Hamster’s anxious about something. His gaze shifts to the end of the bar, where a squad of gray-haired men are gathered around Mt. Rainier.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
He curls a lip. “My distribution system appears to be on the fritz.”
“Yikes! You may have to deliver drinks by hand.”
“Perish the thought. You think the singers will come to the bar for their drinks?”
“Sure. I’ll make an announcement. I don’t know, Hamster. You sure this thing isn’t an Amtrak?”
“Ouch! Thou doth smacketh me with barbs of truth. If those Union Pacific freights would just give us a right-of-way once in a while. Can’t tell you how much of my soul I sent down the chipper telling some passenger ‘This hardly ever happens.’”
“Seems to me that bored, frustrated passengers might naturally turn to drink.”
“Paid for this restaurant,” he says. “But I still hate lying to people.”
I feel a quiet presence behind me, accompanied by the smell of old-style after-shave. It’s a trio of codgers. One is wearing an engineer cap. I’m trying not to laugh.
“Bad news,” says the tallest. He’s a rangy retired-officer type, owner of a bushy moustache straight out of a horse opera. “It’s definitely the transformer. Now, you know what we told you when we put this in, Ham. Y’got an enormous system here, with an unusually powerful transformer. You need to keep a backup at all times.”
Hamster covers his face. “Oh, God. If I give you another pitcher of beer, could you please not say ‘I told you so’?”
Moustache-man smiles. “I’ll try – but I was really looking forward to that.”
“How long to find another?”
He inevitably rubs his ‘stache as a thinking device. “Tell you what. I got a pretty free weekend. I’d bet I could get you two by Monday.”
“Two? But we only need…”
“Two,” says Moustache.
Hamster laughs and gives a military salute. “Two it is. Thanks, George.”
“No prob, Cap’n.”
That’s enough engineering for me. I’m off to deal with my own equipment. This being Thursday, I’m expecting a humble crowd, but of course I’m entirely wrong. Within the first hour, I’ve got two birthday parties (thirtysomething and fiftysomething, respectively), a small battalion of mom’s-night-outers (one of them dancing rather naughtily for the engineers on an AC/DC song), and a dozen college karaokeans bent on a future with American Idol. The personnel management is like a New York Times crossword. I’ve got forty-eight singers, and I’m running out of business card holders, farming the extras to a windowsill behind my station.
Somewhere in the chaos I notice Kevin the Cop, wearing a tropical shirt that is anything but Octoberish. He’s got the skin for it, though – and, in fact, is looking rather fetching all over. He drops “Suavamente” for “La Bamba” – the first time I’ve heard it sung by someone who actually knows Spanish. Then he flashes a grin and returns to his friends.
It is often at moments like this, when I’m clamped in a non-stop rush, that my thoughts come through with alarming clarity. They have to – murkiness takes too much time. I have precisely two ideas on this renewed attraction. One: a month and a half ago, I asked Kevin to back off – and he did. Two: having tapped into such a torrent of sadness on Sunday, it could be that I have opened up my other emotions as well. Like lust. I am stealing this from Shari’s hypothesis, the emotional tool belt, use ‘em or lose ‘em.
After Kevin, I’ve got yet another singer I’ve never heard of, but the selection stands out: “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” by Roberta Flack. It’s a gorgeous song, but excruciatingly slow. The entrances arrive at long, long intervals. I have yet to see someone make it all the way through without coming in early at least once. I line up track five on the disc, right after “Killing Me Softly,” and then I reach for the mic.
“We have yet another newcomer! Please welcome Jade.”
Jade is quite a sight. She wears a dark, pleated schoolgirl skirt, a blouse of emerald silk with small white specks of Chinese calligraphy, and black pumps with stiletto heels. Her round Caucasian eyes are shadowed in layers of black and green, and her thick jet hair hangs in a long braid down her back. She wears a necklace of black string holding a circle of jade. I seem to remember they call this a blessing disc.
She perches on a stool and crosses her legs, content to wait out the long intro, then closes her eye on the opening phrase and sings almost to herself, tasting the words. This is something I have noticed about performance: if you are involved with the song, the audience will be involved with you. We don’t get Jade’s blue eyes until the third long phrase, and even then she doesn’t seem overly concerned with us. She’s concerned with the first time ever she saw his face. It’s a matter of theater – you can feel the fourth wall sealing her off, making it safe for us to watch.
With “Little Girl Blue,” she had to win us over – the bachelorettes, the horny men. This time, she has us within seconds. Something about the song, the long reaches of quietude. Church. I’m eating her sustenatos, great fields of tone that carry a drive and a shape, without ever seeming forced. I am so envious.
She climbs the last ladder of chromatics and leaves us dangling. Again the bank of silence, broken again by Harry’s happy woof – and again, she’s headed for a slippery exit. I do something I’ve never done. I hit the play button on a Joan Osborne song and let Shari figure it out for herself. I am fixed on my target, following Jade out the door like a teeny-bopper chasing a Beatle.
“Hey! Jade! Amber!”
She stops but doesn’t turn, holding a pose like a figure in film noir. She’s not about to get away – not in those heels – so she turns and faces me with folded arms.
“Yeah?”
I feel breathless, silly.
“You’re so… good! You’re extraordinary.”
She stares at me and blinks her eyes, once.
“You think I need someone like you to tell me that?”
“No… no. But I was just wondering…”
“Why I don’t stay? Why the fuck would I stay? To poison my ears with your so-called singers? Or that pile of shit you call a sound system? I’d be better off with a fucking megaphone.”
I’m absolutely stunned. She turns to go, then comes back for another volley.
“You’re lucky I come at all. You’re lucky that I’m crazy about singing. But one song is all I can take.”
She’s gone, clicking across the lot, calves tightening at each step. I follow my feet into the bar, where Shari is asking if God is one of us. I hold my ribs, feeling all the world like I’ve been punched.
Next: Hangover at Hamster’s
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
Image: Art by Nina Koepcke. Photo by MJV.
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