Immaturity At It's Finest

Last night I was running karaoke along with my friend Jen at our little hole in the wall Wednesday karaoke spot. Poppy, who usually runs it with Jen is in Europe for two weeks.

I hadn't gone for the previous two weeks because I was trying to catch up on my TiVo stuff and just didn't feel like going out. I have been in homebody mode.

The bar was hosting a karaoke contest and the winner was based on applause, not talent. If you won you received a $50 tab to use at the bar and qualified for the finals that has a prize of $100.00. They hold the contest on Wednesdays & Thursdays and are going to have them through the end of this month.

I missed all of the drama last Wednesday but heard about some of it.

There are a few different groups of regulars. One group consists of the "middle-age" crowd and includes TooGood, his never-smiling wife, Greg & Debbie - a very cute married couple and various other people who I am not on a first name basis with. TooGood basically sucks but thinks that he is the best singer in the world. He roams around the bar with the cordless mike and acts like he owns the place. He has a true Napoleon complex as he is very short but thinks he is the baddest of the bad while crooning to BonJovi tunes.

The other major group consists of friends of Jen and are mostly young, single and love to sing really awkward songs like Sweaty Chocolate Balls by South Park & Oops I Farted Again, a Britney Spears parody. This group includes Bam Bam, his wife Erica, her younger brother Buddy and their various friends and relatives. They are loud and boisterous and have a very good time every time they attend.

Based on applause Bam Bam & Erica's friend won last week which incensed TooGood and he flipped out calling them names like "fag" "homo" "asshole" "bitch" "fucker" and additional dorogatory insults. He was pissed because Bam-Bam's table didn't applaud except for their group. Now, I don't agree with this. They could have at least politely applauded quietly and then when their group was up, hoot, holler, scream, whatever to get the applause meter at its highest.

I wasn't there so I can't really get into detail about what happened.

I can, however, tell you what went on last night. It was so ridiculous at points that "Mama Rachel" made a few appearances.

During his first time at the mike TooGood started to insult BamBam's table again using the same insults from last week. For the most part BamBam's table laughed it off. When he finished his song TooGood tossed the mike (a BIG no no) to Jen and walked past

BamBam's table continuing to insult them. Jen and I were freaking out about the near miss with the mike and the next thing we knew BamBam (who is at least 6'3" and 300 pounds) and TooGood were toe to toe ready to fight. Erica was in the middle telling BamBam to sit down and trying to get TooGood away from him.

This is the first time that I have ever seen any kind of altercation at this bar.

Mama Rachel came out and I turned off the music, turned up the mike and basically told everyone to grow up, act like adults and to sit their asses down and that this behavior was completely unnecessary and immature.

When the contest started TooGood was going around to all of the tables telling them to cheer for everyone that wasn't sitting at BamBam's table and would stand next to the applause meter to get it to artificially go up.

I then had to lay down some rules, one of which was that they had to stay either in their seats or they could stand but could not move away from their seats or they would disqualify the person that they were clapping for. At this point TooGood promptly went to sit at the table with the person monitoring the applause meter. I had to tell him that you couldn't sit at that table.

I also made a point to remind them that this was supposed to be fun. It was a contest and that a $50 bar tab wasn't worth going to jail so to keep their tempers in check and their asses in their seats.

Other than TooGood roaming around trying to get other people to clap for everyone other than BamBam's table the contest went well. There were no more insults hurled or mike tossing episodes and everyone at least politely clapped for everyone in the contest.

The best part was that the person that won really deserved it. Ron wasn't sitting at either table and he does a fantastic rendition of Frank Sinatra's New York, New York. It was icing on the cake that it was also his birthday.

I was absolutely floored that a middle aged man (TooGood) would be so immature that he would harbor anger for over a week and hurl insults at people just there to have a good time. I guess the fact that he won the contest last Thursday and couldn't even compete this week didn't make a difference to him.

And we call ourselves evolved.