Thursday Night in Suburbia

There is not much that could relieve me from the horrific nature of existence that I was about to experience. Thursday night in the local neighborhood bar, karoake night of all things, completely ambushed by the vocal renditions that would make the worst American Idol audition feel like a well rehearsed stadium rock concert. Delving back into the world of reality has not been an easy task, as so many things begin to creep back into recognition, primarily the fake character most people don out in public, this is once you get past all the poser clothing, haircuts, and tattoos, not to mention any form of conversation, why not start on the bartender; she is phony enough, dashing out enough of a smile to bring home fifty bucks in tips a night, maybe sixty, talking to her is like having a conversation with a half assembled computer, every phrase and word I speak is analyized then what does not make sense puts her in a state of confusion making the entire conversation awkward, myabe she is under the impression that I have arrived at this bar tonight with the same set of social skills as all the other people in here who have nursed themselves on decades of worthless cultural trash in order to arrive at the point with the help of a lot of alcohol to convince themselves that spending the evening howling into an overmodulated microphone is one of the highpoints of recreational entertainment and on that point we would both agree, just as long as they are singing and I am watching.

The first one up is some middle age woman who is sort of shaped like a oohmpa loohmpa, fiery red hair, beer gut that could feed most third world nations, topped off with a sort of energy reserved for meth addicts and hyperactive children. The white t-shirt blue jean look gives her that retro look she may have originally worn back in the mid eighties with a lot more sincerity and fifty less pounds. All of this did not impede the woman from breaking into a scowling sing a long of Blondie's "Call Me". This exercise in humor had the entire bar laughing whether this was her original goal did not matter, there has not been such an embarrasing performance of a song since Rosanne Barr's sang the Star Spangled Banner, many parallels between the two could be drawn from the outright laughter to the impentrable bubble surrounding this woman's sense of shame, no bursting it tonight, just more off key grunting, yelling, and hollering, if she had sucked down some helium before hand that might have put her act right over the top, jiggling and wiggling all that excess weight like a set of maracas, this was her territory, her karaoke platform she let all the others in here share tonight.

Still it seemed the many tables filled with patrons tonight had no reservations about watching her perform, nothing more than a small car load of clowns parading around inside the circus tent she had her place, everyone understood this, except me, as the bartender asked if I wished to have the karaoke book in order to find a song to sing, this is where my illusionary condition of regular old suburbanite begain to fall apart, I had already weaseled a few smiles out of her, just for something to do and possiblity of getting a phone number had begun to enter my mind, this was it, right here, forget all these incredibly hot, well built women who circled the city of Las Vegas,they will have nothing to do with me at all, this is what I get, the run down, overcooked, recently divorced with children, mother who is about 20 pounds on the wrong side of cute, but has not been informed of the situation. I had said something out of character which is normal for me, something out of the well defined logic found at such place as this tonight, I could hear her inner voice saying, "What are you one of those smart people, who has to throw it up in everyones face, who can't seem to get along with anyone cause you have everyone figured out, well look here, you are the one who has not figured out anything, has everything inverted, from the outside looking that is why you roam these neighborhood bars, cause no one else will have you."

All of this in the moment that it look from her laugh to turn to a confused puzzled appearance, right then I knew I might as well just stare up at the television like all the other losers and pretend to be distracted, it was going to take a performance more than I could muster tonight to convince this bartender and patrons in here that I was nothing more than a tourist, a spy, peaking in on the social fabric of suburban Las Vegas. It has always been tough for me to hide my horror, my disdain, for this particular public medium. A consistant source of my amusement ever since childhood when I began to figure out why I exactly did not fit into this mold, this equation with the rest of the masses. Have to cut in as this tall brother in a black Lakers warm up jacket who has sort of an arty look about him, busts out a version of Coldplay I could never forget, the guy must be tone deaf and a bit naive about his own vocal prowess, cause this act is even more shameful than the last, there are those times when others feel embarassed for another person performing on stage or wherever, when things are just going horribly wrong for the entertainer, well this is one of those moments, one of those painful lessons of where people belong in the pecking order of acceptance, not much different than those found in schools, the workplace, and the nightclub. This melodic vocal death knell registered a 10 on the humor scale, straight to You Tube with this person, he would not be stopped from his crackled pubscent tone putting every ounce of effort into the song almost transcending the actual singer into his exsitence.

Ther was no amount of drugs that could mask my emotional state of suffering at the voices of these people tonight that came here with a sense of passing a bit of time celebrating the birthday of the karaoke master DJ who was responsible for this armada of wanna be rock stars tonight, he looks to have quite a following as the place is nearly to capacity with middle aged amatuer drunks, twenty something casino workers with the day off, and the casual observer like myself attempting to avoid detection but doing just the opposite to expose myself as a fraud and a non believer in the ways of the suburbanite. Cast to the fiery pit of the malcontent was to be my fate, but it has become a test of wills to see how long I stand staying here, the crushing reality of all these people in this bar is way too much for my sober brain to handle, there is no barrier to ward off all this poorly rehearsed psychology, to be constantly beat over the head with until my skull cracks wide open and what is left of my sanity pours out onto the bar where it will be readily absorbed by the bar itself as payment to witness such a social cultural experiement as the one undertaken here in this bar tonight, the bar wants blood, bodies, and slaves who will drain away their existence one drink at a time, one lame television show at a time and one badly performed song at a time, distractions make dollars here in Las Vegas, everyone has down time, at all hours of the morning, day, and night, a constant flow of bored people who are either slow or have worked themselves into a state of total collapse, so the bar becomes the modified rehab center, to maintain the juices and the workflow of the city but within a smaller confines, nothing as extreme as the mega casinos out in the distance.

So I will do my last bit of rehab here tonight before I head back down into the sewers of modern Las Vegas, nothing more than another avenue to find out more about a city I have put up so many walls to deter, finally to expose myself to all the intense semi glamorous and outlandish things this place has to offer, will uproot some of the finer details of what makes this city of Las Vegas continue, churn forward like a meat grinder, no emotion, no cerebral activity, and no remorse for how anyone in the town ends up after one night, one week, one month, or one year. No home for the insanely twisted, the entire grounds are open for this kind of mental arena, no one will be turned away, spite of condition, welcomed with arms wide to take part in this carvinal of souls who wander the streets nightly in search of resolution that will never present itself, a finish line that only grows further in the distance, and an answer as complicated as the meaning of life itself. So why not just put the head down and dive face first back into the chemical white wash that has so many people screwed to the walls already, well, if only for the fact I have been missing so much from being debilitated mentally and physically, it is time to go in the other direction and take all this madness, head on, totally straight, I have already seen the absurd nature of Las Vegas, now it is time to dissect the corpse, guts, nerves, diseases and all.