The Karaoke Nazi

We all have a friend who, for brevity's sake, I will call the karaoke nazi. She (and normally it is a she but occassionally a gay he) is the fun one in your urban tribe, a talented entertainer and a shameless exhibitionist. She will probably always talk about how to attract the boyz. She will wear tight bodyhugging shirts, so tight that sometimes the outline of her nipples will poke out under the harsh bright lights lighting the stage.

Of course she is always trying to drag you to the local karoake bar. And some nights you will be weak and want excitement over and above the excitement of watching testubes discolorate or monitors drawing a phosphorous trace. There must be more to life, you think and so, you end up with your karaoke nazi friend in some neighborhood bar called for instance, The Red Generic Pirate Bar.

She will excitedly ring up a bunch of friends, some of the karaoke-friendly, some not, and they will turn up, each racheting up the energy of the karaoke nazi, who in turn is parasictically absorbing their excited attention into the power of song. Everyone will pour over the karaoke list, dissecting the virtues and drawbacks of each. Someone will show off a move, perhaps a Madonna-Vogue knock-off, or a Joe Cocker-shuffle that everyone will agree would be a sure hit when performed on stage, and we will all laugh goodnaturedly in the dark corner in which we have gathered, safe in the knowledge that no one can actually see us.

But such talk will not satisfy the Karaoke Nazi, who at some point will turn to you, look into your eyes as if staring into your song soul, and ask, "so which song are you going to sing". Well, I was only here to see abject exhibitionists looking to redeem their lack of self-esteem by pretending to be real performers in some beat-up stage in some no-hope stopping hole for chronic alcoholics, I would think in my head but instead you look down at your feet and answer, "umm, I don't feel like singing tonight".

"What did you say???!!!" would exclaim the Karaoke Nazi, momentarily outraged. She who will not be pacified, "you've got to sing". And then comes a torrent of rhetoric, probably drunk rhetoric, for instance, what's it going to hurt? girls love boys who sing on stage. do it for the gipper. look everybody's drunk anyway. The Karaoke Nazi knows no limit, and she will hammer and hammer until resistance is futile. But then, at some point in this tete-a-tete, whilst you are hobbled in your little corner with drink in one hand and the song list in the other, some boar of a man in flannel shirt will start screeching a rendition of a Violent Femmes song, which will cause heart-burn in a certain percentage of the audience. Our karaoke nazi will shoot a look of naked disgust at said person and say something like, "a deer died somewhere in some forest because of that desecration of nature", or, "someone should rip out his vocal chords and burn them, for science", after which she will turn sweetly back to you to continue to convince you to go on stage, "and besides no one cares if you can't really sing."