My buddy Steve is a pretty good karaoke singer. He usually sings old standards such as “The Lady is a Tramp,” “The Summer Wind,” and “Volare.” He’s good enough that couples will get up and dance during his renditions—and he scats “Minnie the Moocher” better than anyone aside from Cab Calloway himself.
Anyhow, last night I went to a restaurant called Tailgater’s in Bolingbrook with my buddy, to cheer him on in the semifinal round of a $10,000 karaoke and impersonation contest. Each participant was required to register ten friends—I actually had to sign in as an Official Friend of Steve. We found some tables that had been pushed together, and I ended up sitting next to some hot blonde chick (Me: “What do you do?” Her: “I’m a teacher.” Me: “Really? I was a teacher once. What do you teach?” Her: “Gym.” Me: “Never mind.”). After burgers and booze—I mean milk, the contest finally began.
There were about twenty participants. Steve went fifth, singing “Under My Skin” as Sinatra. He had his dark suit on, his fedora on, sang well, and had Sinatra’s motions down. As expected, couples got up and started twirling each other around. I thought he had a pretty good shot at advancing to the finals next week…
…until I learned that the quality of your singing was only 40% of your point total. The rest was appearance, audience reaction, and judge reaction. On sheer singing talent, Steve was in pretty good shape. But the passions of drunken patrons aren’t aroused as much by a nice, classy Sinatra tune as they are by a guy in a bad blond wig wailing “The Immigrant Song,” or a guy dressed as Eric Cartman squealing “Kyle’s Mom” to perfection twice, or a fat green guy burring the Scottish ogre version of “Baby Got Back,” or a big black guy stripping out of his black leather outfit to reveal a bright red, lacy bustier ensemble while singing Shania Twain’s “Man, I Feel Like a Woman!”
Steve looked a little nervous about his chances.
The contest wrapped up around 10:30, and the votes would be tallied, with the qualifiers for the finals to be announced “shortly”—but if you weren’t still there when your qualification was announced, you were disqualified. Well, “shortly” turned out to mean “midnight.” And the news was well worth waiting for:
All twenty participants qualified for the finals! Hooray! Everyone’s a winner! Everyone’s happy!
Everyone, that is, except me and Steve. I wasn’t happy because I’m never happy unless there’s something to complain about. But since there was something to complain about, I guess I was happy af–
DOES NOT COMPUTE.
C:> _
Seriously, I wasn’t happy because if everyone was going to qualify anyways, why keep us there any longer than we had to be on a Tuesday night? I know the answer: “to sell more booze while we’ve got you and your ten friends captive.” That doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is that they were keeping us waiting under the pretense of “counting the votes”—which didn’t really count, since everyone qualified anyways. Why not just be honest and open about it?
Steve wasn’t happy because while he did advance to the finals next week, there was “no sweetness in it.” Everyone who tried to qualify for the finals succeeded, thus the accomplishment meant nothing. There was no comprehending the nectar because tonight wasn’t really a contest; it was just an elaborate registration process for next week’s finals.
They could have just as easily awarded first, second and third prizes, and still given everyone passage to the next round–but they didn’t. They could have simply said, “It’s not a contest, it’s just to whet your appetites for next week”–but they didn’t. They pitched tonight as a competition, but tore out the joy of competition by simply saying everyone got through. Even the lame,overarticulating David Bowie. Even the 40-year-old, off-key Britney Spears. Even the Jon Bon Jovi who looked more like Sebastian Bach and sang more like Axl Rose. Whoopity-do.
To find the right song, the right suit, to practice until you’re hitting every note just right, to get your friends to show up to support you, to get up on stage in front of hundreds in spite of those butterflies in your stomach, to go all out and sing the best you’ve sung in ages in hopes of achieving something–and then to have all that extra effort mean not a damned thing leaves you hollow. Deflated. Empty.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 30th, 2005.
2 Responses to “Underwhelmed.”
- bologna of mal intent Says:
December 1st, 2005 at 8:46 AM
Hmmm that is a cheap lame marketing gimmic to sell booze, but look on the bright side, you got to rant about how much the everyone getting qualified thing sucks so overall didnt it make u happy that they gave u something to complain about
- Doctor Hmnahmna Says:
December 7th, 2005 at 8:15 PM
OK Dom, it’s been over a week since this post. Us people in cyberspace are waiting for an update with baited breath.
Did he win? Did he win? Did he win?
