Karaoke Night at the Bowling Alley. An observation of Everyday People.
The collective discontent of a hot Saturday night in June hung in the bowling alley bar room with the smell of stale carpet and never cleaned beer spills. A cross-section of ages and cultures clung to round tables and their long-awaited song selections on the Karaoke Machine … Betty Davis Eyes, Gypsy, Yesterday, Bohemian Rhapsody …
The music and the booze told a tale of another time and place when perhaps they were younger, stronger, and happier. Here, they could be free from judgment. They could bare their soul to a room full of strangers half lost in the lyrics on the screen and the odd shadows of synthetic fire in the back of the makeshift stage.
One man sat alone with a pitcher of pale, domestic beer. Another sat with a guitar and a glass of water. Other assortments of friends and uncomfortable dates sipped their two-drink minimum to avoid talking or listening. There was a table of “regulars” that sang their “regular” songs. There was a man that thought he was Elvis and another that thought he was Tim McGraw.
And then there was the woman that sang The Rose. She was not quite right. Her unnerving manner and far away eyes revealed a long and lonely road. Love had escaped her. She was neither lucky nor strong and her untenable life played out here where no one really listened and no one really cared. Painfully off key and disconcertingly off rhythm, her words tripped over the melody. She was drowning. With childlike movements and a not-so-present smile, she was cut. She bled and ached, spilling her imperfect humanity all over us …
“Just remember in the winter, far beneath the bitter snows, lies the seed that with the sun’s love … in the Spring becomes the rose.”
How is it possible that in this astonishing and remarkable world, she had never learned to live? As the last few notes of her ill-fated song washed into background noise … you could hear the crash of bowling alley pins outside the bar room door and the thud of heavy resin balls bouncing and rolling on lacquered wood with the screech of shoes and groups of young girls … that only came to watch young boys.
The collective discontent of a hot Saturday night in June hung in the bowling alley bar room with the smell of stale carpet and never cleaned beer spills. A cross-section of ages and cultures clung to round tables and their long-awaited song selections on the Karaoke Machine … Betty Davis Eyes, Gypsy, Yesterday, Bohemian Rhapsody …
