Friday Night Karaoke…and an almost bar brawl.

I love to sing. Ever since I was about two years old, I would sing. I have my mom to thank for that.

I remem­ber sit­ting in her bed­room (where the only tape play­er was in the house–part of her alarm clock) and would go through her coun­try and chris­t­ian music col­lec­tion and just sing my heart out. From Dol­ly Par­ton, to the Jud­ds, to Sandy Pat­ti, Twila Paris. As I grew old­er I moved on over to my sis­ters room, where the only record play­er (that I could use) was. There I would lis­ten to Debi Gib­son, Whit­ney Hous­ton and Tiffany. I would stand on her bed and sing and dance. I just loved music and still do to this day.

As I got old­er, my best friend Rachel intro­duced me to the world of Karaoke and my very best friend Ter­ri Mid­kiff. Ter­ri ran a karaoke show at the Eagles Club in St. Paul off Mounds Blvd.

There is where I met Amy.

I won’t go into details on that, but we went to the Eagles club for years where I was Mr. Hot­shit. As soon as I would walk in the door, I would get requests to sing this song or that.

For some­one who was the brunt of a lot of evil in High School, this put me on cloud nine and real­ly made me feel good about myself. Here I was wel­comed and encour­aged and my self-con­fi­dence bloomed. Of course, my wife will say at times I was a ‘pri­madon­na’ (but I think we all knew that!).

We then fol­lowed Ter­ri to the VFW in St. Louis Park, then Roberts on 10, until she moved away to Annan­dale. So our reg­u­lar Fri­day Night Karaoke came to an end.

So when we get the chance, we head up to Annan­dale where she lives and occa­sion­al­ly does Karaoke at the bar that she works at.

So, this past Fri­day Night that is where Amy and I were. At JJs bar in Annandale.

We arrived around 8:30 at Ter­ri’s house and head­ed over to the bar a lit­tle after 9 p.m.

The bar has three parts to it, a front bar, a side room with tables and a back bar with a stage where the band/karaoke play. We were the only peo­ple in the back, and only 3 or 4 peo­ple in the front of the bar.

We hung our for an hour or so, just lis­ten­ing to music, until Tyler, one of her sound guys (he helps run the house sys­tem and lives with Ter­ri) asked when we were gonna start. I told Ter­ri I did­n’t feel like singing (yeah…riiiiight).

Amy and Ter­ri hijacked my song slips (yep, I have a permenant/laminated set of Ter­ri’s songs that I sing that I bring with me) and they went through and picked out what I was gonna sing.

So we start­ed out. The rota­tion went: Ter­ri, Bert, Amy, Tyler, Ter­ri, Bert, Amy, Tyler (from 11–1:30am).

So we got to sing a lot! I can’t remem­ber what every­one sang, but I know that at one point Amy Sang “Some­thing in Red”, Ter­ri Sang “455 Rock­et” (one of our favs), Tyler sang “My Own Worst Ene­my” and I sang, well alot. (Click on the links to here the songs..I record­ed them with my iPhone…click here for me doing Night the Lights Went Out In Geor­gia) Ter­ri and I even did a Duet of Creeque Alley. Once I learned the song, she want­ed help with the high­er parts and there is one low part that she just could­n’t get…well, we sang it twice, I wish I had the first record­ing where she swears when she miss­es that part and we start over! LOL)

We had a blast, and as oth­er bars closed ear­ly, peo­ple head­ed over to JJs and so we got a few more singers.

Now, I sing high. I always have. Grow­ing up to the artists above I am just used to singing high. Now being mar­ried, hav­ing kids (if you know what I mean) has dropped my range, but only a lit­tle. I sing stuff like Celine Dion, Whit­ney Hous­ton, Dix­ie Chicks, Pat Bene­tar, Tina Turn­er, etc. The only guy song I sing is Chris Isaac’s Wicked Game.

As I am up on stage singing, Amy and Ter­ri can hear peo­ple make com­ments that I am gay, or this-or-that. Ter­ri, bless her, always makes a state­ment after I sing one of my “pow­er” songs of, “I know what your think­ing and no he’s not, his wife Amy is up next!”

But after awhile it starts to get real­ly old. Espe­cial­ly peo­ple who have seen me sing before and KNOW the real truth. For instance last night.

There is this guy who goes by the name “Night Train” (Or used to). He is a reg­u­lar at JJs. First off, this guy CANNOT sing. At one point in his life, maybe, but not any­more. He showed up at open­ing time, saw that only we were there and left…Terri said, “There was­n’t enough peo­ple for him, so he left.”

He came back around 1:30 a.m. and put some songs in. Well, I went up to sing my last song, for Ter­ri, Celine Dion’s ver­sion of “All By Myself”. My pow­er song.

While I am up there, Amy is sit­ti­ing at our table, and right in fron of our table is a rail­ing with a small table attached to the whole thing, and chairs. 

This guy, starts going down the row, mak­ing sure every­one sit­ting there, knows I am “gay”. At one point he tells some­one, “Look at the Chro­mo­som’s on this guy, some one has a few extra Ys.” (Stop and look at that for a moment…what a dumbass.…he just said the oppo­site of what he meant. I am MORE man­ly! He meant Xs.)

Amy could hear him the entire time and just stared him down, and he kept look­ing at her to see if she could hear him. Well, we almost had a bar brawl. She was hold­ing her water glass and as he is talk­ing, she lift­ed it up and pulled it back, then caught her­self and forced her to put it down. She was so ready to throw it at his head. She told our friend Mark, (one of Ter­ri’s sound guys) and he told her she should have.

So when she heard that, she was hop­ing I would nail the song, becuase obvi­ous­ly this guy was inse­cure in his abil­i­ties. And since the music (to her) appear qui­et, she was wor­ried, it would just be more fuel for this guy. Well, no wor­ries, I nailed it. Ter­ri made her usu­al state­ment and I say down.

Amy alert­ed me after­ward and told Ter­ri as well, before we left (which was short­ly after).

All in all I had a good night and am glad I hit that song, so I could, in my own way, get back at the guy. But it just gets old and tire­some. Amy and I talked on the way home about how small-mind­ed peo­ple are, and how sad, that it always seems to get worse, the more north or south you go from the cities.

I face­book’d about it, and WOW the sup­port I received from my online friends. I appre­ci­ate them so much!

Some peo­ple want­ed to see Amy and I sing, so here is your chance. I real­ized that I have quite a few places online where Amy and I are post­ed. So here they are (just be kind, some of these record­ings are crap­py or from a time that I did­n’t know what I was doing to adjust sound).

Ter­ri’s Site: www.terrioke.com (check out the media tab–samples are under our pho­tos)
Google Video: My Birth­day Par­ty & Slide Show (Birth­day video has live record­ing of us, slideshow as record­ings of me singing when I was 6 and then now. I was just lis­ten­ing to the record­ing of me doing Great­est Love of All, when I was 6 or 8, and how I still had­n’t learned when to breath and swallow…so there is ‘gaps’ in my singing! lol)