Dude, who stole my sitcom?

Before the big fall out, Cheesemo and I kicked around an idea for a sitcom. It was a great idea. The title was going to be "The Karaoke King". The premise was it would be located in a small, smoke filled bar. All the characters on the show would be the regular singers. We got the idea when we were karaoke junkies. For a long time, we were really into it. We sang four nights a week at three different bars, entered the contests and deluded ourselves that we were actually good. One night while we were anxiously awaiting our turn to thrill the meager crowd with an amazing duet of "Wish You Were Here", the ridiculousness of all hit us like the sound of a drunken dishwasher trying to sing “Stairway to Heaven”. Not that all dishwasher sing off-key, but what are the chances that a budding Robert Plant is washing dishes in a karaoke bar? As we began to analyze the whole karaoke scene by picking apart each person in all the bars we went to, we began to see some common threads. For instance, karaoke is a very cliquish scene. Groups of people huddled together talking smack about people in the other group. Here are a few of the interesting things we found. Factoid 1: Everyone has a karaoke arch-nemesis. Don’t believe me? Try going to a karaoke bar and wait to hear someone sing a song you think you can sing. Then consult your catalog to find the song name, song number and artist. Scribble all the information on your little slip along with your name. Proceed to the stage when your name is called, usually in about an hour if you aren’t a regular singer at that particular venue. As soon as the song name appears on the screen, you will feel the angry eyes upon you. Belt out the song. You have just created your karaoke arch-nemesis. Factoid 2: There is always a more than slightly drunk woman with way too much make up that truly believes she is the next Mariah Carrey. Not to be sexist, cause as you all know, I am not. There is a guy that has always thought of himself as the third Righteous Brother and will sing “Unchained Melody” twice badly, each time he is there. Factoid 3: There is always a couple of extremely drunk interlopers that will have to sing “Sweet Home Alabama”, “Nevermind” or “Loveshack” as a group. Do yourself a favor. When they get up on stage, excuse yourself and head for the restroom or head outside for a breath of smoke-filled air – 25 feet away from the door of the establishment. Factoid 4: There will be at least one or possible two people that can sing. It is so amazing when you hear someone you have never seen before sing a flawless rendition of “Nothing Compares to You” or “New York, New York”. There really are some excellent vocalists out there. They are usually very unassuming, shy people. Anyway, we started pulling all these things together and we soon realized that “The Karaoke King” would be a great show. Just when we started pulling it together, some jerk comes out with “Duets” – what can I say? We were doing this a long time ago. As a movie, it was passable. But it did not catch the true feel of the karaoke sub-culture. Who knows? Maybe Cheesemo and I can patch things up and use “The Karaoke King” as a twenty-first century version of “That 70’s Show”. In 2010, people will be screaming for it. More stories from Paul Gavin. Info on novels Paul Gavin's Storefront. Technorati Tags: Fiction, Online Book, Chapter, Rebeleyeball, Paul Gavin IceRocket Tags: Fiction, Blook, Chapter, rebeleyeball