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December 03, 2004

It's Not What You Know, It's Who You Know

Or something.

I will begin by saying that the Karaoke contest was most definitely one of the most hilarious experiences of my entire life. For a while I thought my blog entry about it was going to have to be that I couldn't even bring myself to process it.

We got a call on Thursday evening, letting us know that we needed to be there by 6:45. Beth and I headed over at 6 to scope out a table (we got a great one) and ordered margaritas bigger than our heads.

It was a frenzy of madness. People were coming and saving seats for 20 of their closest friends (while b/c we asked like idiots, we weren' allowed to save seats for our 8), the judges were arriving, there were sign up sheets to be signed and songs to turn in. Much craziness. And every 5 minutes, Motown would get on the mike and say "welcome to Zapatas Mexican Restaurant. We're not having regular karaoke tonight, because of The Contest. Again, if you are here for The Contest, please come up to the front and see Margarita here at the judges table. There's a lot of competition here tonight, and they are going to bring what that have, and if it's meant to be, get PAID."

By 7pm, the place was more packed than I've ever seen it.

The Contest went as such: The five judges (one named Jesus and one named Margarita among them) were to score contestants on performance, audience reaction and voice. Each of the 20 contestants got a warm up song, then, in the same order, performed their contest song. We started around 7pm and were finish by about 10:45. Then we waiting 25 minutes while the judges did their magic.

Now, I can't really explain to you what happened, and you kinda had to be there to fully grasp it - had to have sat through all 20 contestants. But we can't really figure out what the judges were really scoring on. We're thinking that the three scoring categories were actually code words for other things, and we can't quite figure out what those things were.

Needless to say, neither of us placed (but neither did the girl with a really good voice who had both her songs memorized and had 20+ friends cheering for her the whole time - but neither did Motown's sister-in-law), but it was definitely one of the most hilarious nights of my life.

Long live Mix-Cin music, Motown, and Zapatas.

Posted by nikl at December 3, 2004 11:01 AM

Comments

Beth's recap:

Well, the karaoke contest came and went and I have no more dollars in my wallet.  Details below.

1. There were about 22 contestants.
2. During my warm-up song ("Wanted Dead or Alive,") a 20-something Harry Potter lookalike walked past the stage, paused, and lowered his arms in the 'we're not worthy' gesture.  I was hoping he was a stealth judge.
3. The *real* judges were 4 middle-aged women and 1 middle aged man who sat at a long table in straight-backed chairs a la Simon, Randy, and Paula.  Except they were less polite.
4. My "Hurts So Good" performance was pretty good, I think, using a combination of advice from Kris (her outfit suggestion) and Molly (knowing stare during "ain't as green as you are young")  I also played up the "sink your teeth right through my bones" line to the hilt.
5. My friend Nicole TORE. IT. UP. on "Me and Bobby McGee," Great performance.  Great singing.  Solid audience reaction. Lots of energy.  Notable shout-out from the karaoke DJ (not a judge)
6. There were three threats as we saw them.  A bubbly blonde who sang moderately well and performed quite well to "All That Jazz," a pregnant girl who did a good job at Sarah McClachlan's "Angel," (though she took herself a bit seriously) and a peppy, Mike Ditka looking fellow who did "Bad Bad Leroy Brown."
7. Drum roll please.  Here are the five place winners.
7a. 5th place.  A dude wearing a cream mock turtleneck and a gold chain who sang Poison's "Something to Believe In."  Badly. That's the fun, crowd-pleasing Poison song about homelessness, Vietnam vets, and suicide.  He stood and stared at the screen the whole time.
7b. 4th place.  A large 30-something guy in too-tight pants, who may have had a slight erection, who sang "Just the Way You Are."  Off-key.
7c. 3rd Place.  A girl in a poncho who sang Evanescence's "Bring Me to Life" so horribly that I couldn't even remember, for the life of me, how the actual song was supposed to go.
7d. 2nd Place. Jolly black dude that sang some Christopher Cross nonsense.  He was okay.
7e. 1st Place.  Cowgirl and/or lesbian that did Reba's "Fancy." Decent voice, no performance skills whatsover.  Although she was decked out, head to toe, in denim.

Audience reaction was not much of a real factor, I don't think, because pregnant "Angel" chick had the entire bar (all of her friends) screaming for her, and plus, the judges weren't even watching the audience at all anyways.

We were all embittered and horrified.  Clearly there was some sort of craziness going on.  Maybe we stumbled onto the set of the WB Superstar USA?  Because, I mean, for God's sake.  I went to go up to the "All That Jazz" chick after the prizes were handed out, but she'd already split the scene, befuddled, as were the rest of us.

I'm a loser baby,
Beth

Posted by: nikl at December 7, 2004 09:23 AM

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