Thursday Night at a Shitty Karaoke Bar

Underneath the Neon Moon

Thursday Evening, 5 o’clock, and I am at home contemplating going. I signed up for a meetup/social event to meet new people and sing some karaoke. I would know zero people and have never been to this bar. Typically social but here I am, thinking about staying home, eating some sort of junk food and scanning some 35mm film.

I decide to try and find an outfit, and that will help determine if I go or not. I get something on, decently nice but not overly, and now that I feel like I look good, I can’t help but go. I get in the car, I drive across town, and arrive at the shitty bar. This isn’t a dive bar…it's below a dive bar in stature. It's just cool enough to be one of those places you mention in a conversation about shitty bars, but just shitty enough to be kinda gross. I take a breather, look at the clock and it's 7:01. Event starts at 7. I am generally always on time if not a little early. Am I too early? What if no one is in there yet.

After taking a snort of imaginary cocaine, I make my way inside. There’s 1 large group and 2 medium sized groups. I go to the large group and just assume that these are the folks. I walk in, look around like I am looking for someone, and my heart flutters as I realize I probably look like a lost puppy. So I turn around and head for the exit. As I am leaving, someone comes to me and asks if I am here for the social hour. Well fuck. Now I can’t just leave. Guess I just have to lean into it. I head to the bar because liquid courage is all I got at the moment to look busy, grab a beer and head to the pool table. I pretend like I care about pool and just watch like I am interested.

I couldn’t give two shits about pool.

Someone notices that I am expressing (fake) interest in the game he is playing, and says he likes my shirt. I am wearing a striped shirt so it stands out from the standard plain white tee. We introduce ourselves to each other, and I immediately feel just slightly better. Thinking in my head “Congratulations random person, you are now my anchor for the entire night.” Luckily this gave me an opportunity to play pool, and met two additional people. My circle has broadened. I realize I am not alone in this and there’s plenty of people who are A. More awkward than I am bless their souls, and B. In the same boat as me, knowing no one at this shitty bar.

An hour later, I am on to my second beer, and the liquid courage is starting to do the trick. It’s karaoke time.

Let me be clear…I love Karaoke.

It doesn’t really matter if I am in a comfortable situation or not, I will get out there and sing. Not just sing but will sing a hard song and do it damn well. So I feel that the rest of the night will be somewhat of a breeze. I make small talk with a few more people, sing another song (Latch by Sam Smith), and finish my second beer and a NA beer. I say farewell, and thus concludes the evening. Once I get to my car and drive away I think about the evening. I ask myself if it was fun. Yes. I ask myself if I would go again. Maybe.

Thinking about why maybe even though I had fun, I realized how empty it was. Fun yes, but not impactful. I didn’t get any numbers of new friends, I barely had any deep conversations, if at all, and felt borderline depressed at the atmosphere of this shitty bar. Someone sang Neon Moon by Brooks & Dunn, and I went into a trance-like state thinking about this bar, and how I ended up here, and what it meant for my life. I am a 32 year old newly single dad, sitting in a shitty karaoke bar in the Hollywood district of Portland, trying to make friends. I have heard Neon Moon a million times at weddings and frankly hate it. But for some reason when the old man with a bowl cut gets up there and cranks it, I feel the deep loneliness of a man who’s lost a love. What does that say about me and where I am at in life. Does it say anything, or am I just overthinking things? Knowing my ADHD brain, I’m probably underthinking it.

Sometimes you have to try shitty things to know what matters and what you want.

Following the night of old men singing country tunes and LGBTQ+ drag performances (which were amazing), I met with my therapist and told him how I had fun, but it felt empty and I don’t know if a single person there would be friend material for me. He gave me some perspective that just the attempt to get out there and make my life more enjoyable was commendable and shows good things happening, not bad. Therapists always have a way of saying what you are thinking subconsciously, and unknowingly feeling, and making it as if it’s some sort of epiphany.

In addition to this shitty karaoke social group, I have recently been attending meetings with the Portland Film Club. We watch films on our own time, and then meet once a week to talk about the film. The people at these film discussions, although eccentric (I guess I am too), are people that I can engage in conversation with and relate to in some way. We can talk about the latest indie film we saw in 35mm at the Hollywood theatre, and which Kurosawa film is our favorite (Seven Samurai). Last week was a discussion on Val Kilmer’s performance in Real Genius and the scene where the popcorn blows the roof off the house…classic. I realized that it's not just about the shitty or not shitty karaoke bar, but it’s about the sense of belonging.

The Neon Moon of the shitty karaoke bar is only illustrious if being crooned to a love in your life, but without one, it’s a sad and lonely song of being in a bar by yourself staring at the Blue Moon Beer neon sign in the window. Instead of a woman by my side, I now have cinema discussions over a pint at a Portland Micro Brewery every Sunday, for better or worse. So sorry shitty karaoke bar with the sticky bathroom floors and cigarette smell because they leave the door to the smoking section open at all times. Sorry karaoke DJ who had way too much energy for this particular venue. And especially sorry for the homeless woman who came in with a large grocery bag with her belongings just to sing Lana Del Rey’s 2012 hit single Born to Die (god bless your soul, you did in fact crush it). I will take my currently fragile heart to my cinema friends so we can continue discussing how 1985’s Real Genius starring Val Kilmer is a cult classic film.

Finding a new me is too important right now.