Karaoke to Go!

One of the activities that we were looking forward to on our cruise was to karaoke. We found out that the first karaoke night was the same Monday we boarded and it would start at around 9:30 p.m. My sister and I decided to give it a shot and so we hit the song lists and soon I found the song that I wanted to sing to "mi chica". "I Love the Way You Love Me" by John Michel Montgomery was my only choice for the night.

Both my sister and I must had sung pretty decent because they asked us to come back Thursday night for karaoke with a twist dubbed "Rock e-okie". Eight of us were going to be the show as we performed a pre-selected song to be backed by the band. I thought it would be fun but must admit I felt a little nervous, when I qualified on Tuesday night, that was only my second public karaoke appearance and now I was going to sing with a band and all.

Thursday night I was awesome... ok maybe not awesome but good... ok maybe good is not the word, how was I supposed to know that I missed my queue to start singing, shit, miss one little tiny note and the whole first verse vanished in front of me. Luckily my supporters sang loud enough for me to find my way and redeem myself. See I chose a song that I had never sang before so I didn't know half the lyrics, but I pretended pretty good. The crowd was roaring while I was singing "I have friends in low places, where the whiskey drowns and the beer chases my blues away, and I'll be OK", I'm pretty smart because I chose a song that I knew half or more than half the audience was going to sing along and it worked... At least that's what I have been telling myself.

All said and done, the show came out pretty good, the eight of us sang our songs, shared our 15 minutes of glory and came home with an extra shirt and key chain, yes that's what we won for our efforts, the nice thing about the show is that it was not a competition but a performance so there were not winners or losers. As a show closer we all sang our rendition of "Hey Jude" by The Beatles, the crowd really loved it.

So Saturday night we are driving back to Phoenix and as we made our last gas stop in Quartzite we saw that there were more people than usual, we heard loud music and even saw people dancing. As I'm pumping gas my daughter comes back and tells me that they are having karaoke. I finished with the gas and parked the van, went into the store to use the men's room and when I came out the first thing I hear is "And our next performer is from Phoenix and is traveling so please forgive us for letting him sing first". Wow that guy must have some pull I thought, and then the voice in the microphone said, "Please give it up for Jose". My jaw must have dropped about 5 inches or so, I turned around looked at my daughter and she said, "We found your song so please sing it for my mom". So once again I sang my rendition or "I Love the Way You Love Me" by John Michael Montgomery to a crowd that was mostly country and that really appreciated my singing... or at least that's what I keep telling myself.

That was kind of a charmin ending to a great vacation week.