Delayed karaoke post.

I had very mixed feelings about the lesbian karaoke bar I went to on New Year's Eve with friends.

On the one hand, the lesbians were pretty cool. The hostess was this 40ish squat Mexican lesbian who opened up with Rickie Valens's "La Bamba", and there was this regular named Jessica, who was 40s and blonde and built broad and did quite a few numbers, including Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" in this really low, husky, wistful voice (making love in the green grass/ behind the waterfall with you/ brown-eyed girl), and the bartender who was 40s and kind of looked like Courtenay Cox and opened with Jefferson Starship's "We Built This City", and at one point I considered singing Neil Diamond's "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" just because I was at a lesbian karaoke bar, but I decided not to, since I didn't want to be a dick to them.

But, on the other hand, there were a ton of hipsters there, since they started moving into this area not too long ago, which pisses my one loud, mouthy Jewish-looking friend to no end, since she's always saying shit like "We were here first, what the fuck, we've been living here nine years, and now they come and drive up the rents?"

She almost went up and decked a hipster guy, too, when he did this way over-emoted version of Pat Benatar's "Love is a Battlefield" in that predictable over-emoted way that quiet male hipsters do when they do karaoke and think they're being funny by breaking the shit out on loud songs, ironically.

"I love the song and he does that, what the fuck," my loud, mouthy Jewish-looking friend was like, and then went off on some young hipster girl who was dressing like she was from the 40s with a big red fabric flower in her hair and a thin belt high on her waist, all in imitation of some Katy Perry-look alike who she told me is big now on "Project Runway".

Anyhow, I decided to open up with Blondie's "Sunday Girl" since it's fun and kind of poppy and has that whole middle verse in French, only to discover that it was too low in my register to be effective and I couldn't kick it up an octave, and there was no middle verse in French, either.

When I went up to sing, too, the 40ish squat Mexican lesbian karaoke hostess looked at me and was like, "No drink, no drink?", since I came up without a beer in my hands.

After a while, a friend of a friend sang Cher's "Believe", and she had a strong voice, so that came off well, and then it was my turn again, so I started to sing ABBA's "Fernando", only to discover that there's almost no accompaniment on the verses, and so I was straining to catch the tune while I sing, when all of a sudden -- the karaoke machine was set up near the door, by the way -- this hipster girl I hadn't noticed who was heading out grabs the mike from my hand, turns it towards her mouth, and tries to sing along with me, and then as soon as she's done with that, a guy hipster behind her puts his arm around my shoulder and shakes me and screams "WOOOOOO!!!!!" in the microphone, and then a third hipster behind them tried to do something and had put their hands on the mike, but I tore it away and was like, "What the fuck, people? That's just not cool," and stopped singing, though no one in the bar much noticed since it was crowded and loud and no one could much here anyways.

"It's okay, it's okay," the 40ish squat Mexican lesbian karaoke hostess said, but she looked at me suspiciously, like she wasn't pleased, though I was happy that I had stood up to that hipster bullshit, though in retrospect I wish I had tripped one of the first two and made it look accidental, I've never seen anyone be treated at karaoke like that before.

When I got back to the table and I told my friends what had happened, my loud, mouthy Jewish-looking friend said I should have called her up there, she loves to get in fights and would have done something. "Are you sure they went out, or did they just go to grab a cigarette?", she was like.

The mood of the night was over, though, though I tried to be a good sport and sang Melissa Manchester's "Don't Cry Out Loud", only to discover that though I could deliver an effective interpretation of the verses, the climactic words "Don't Cry Out Loud!" were just out of my range, and came out strained.