The second bar of the preplanned bars
was put on hold till we could get all our friends that wanted to do
karaoke. Of course after 8 months the 2 original friends that wanted
to come didn't. However, it was my friend Aiden's going away party;
so, we had plenty of people to go to a memorable night at bar #35,
Corky's Place.
My business, Pawsitive Influence, is a door down from Corky's Place. You would think I would be heading over there all the time. I run a dog daycare and bring my dogs to work with me. Since, going to Corky's requires me to drive home and then return back to work I haven't felt compelled to make the trip. Plus, everyone that I know that's been to Corky's has been there for a specific reason karaoke. I don't sing. Tonight, I would sing karaoke for the first time in 15 years.
Corky's Place did know I was coming.
They did nice things like reposting that I would be there Friday night, giving me a free beer, and putting up a Every Bar in Lakewood
graphic on the screen. If there is one thing I have found during
this blog is that if a bar is given an upper hand then bad luck or
weirdness will ensue. The first of these happened before I even
arrived. I got a text from Katie that there was a fight. A couple
minutes later there was a second fight (only verbally this time.)
That was the end of any violence of the evening. The scuffles were
between the new bouncer and the previously fired bouncer who are
normally friends. The new bouncer was victorious and like a Bumble,
bounced the old bouncer.
The atmosphere was dark and taverny.
This helped make the open layout feel intimate while drawing your
eyes to all the entertaining features. These included ping pong, a
bowling machine, pool, Golden Tee, free pop corn, a shiny bar section
and, of course, karaoke. None of these were the first thing I
noticed upon entering Corky's Place. What we were all immediate
spell bound by was a very drunk man probably named Tom yelling out
made up lyrics to a song while being a stumble away from face
planting.
Johnny started us off with a brave
choice, Pepper by Butthole surfers. It was better than Tom. Sorry
Tom. The nice thing about karaoke is no matter how bad you sing
there's always someone worse...or at least your friends will tell you
that there was. I was the worst of us but that's coming up.
The list didn't have all the songs we
wanted but the DJ was willing to look them up to see if he could
download them. Normally we picked songs via a cracked ipod. There
wasn't a printed list.
I went with Me & Julio Down by the
School, it was a rash decision once my first three choices weren't
available. It was also the wrong version so my timing was off. For
normal people this would have been fine but as my voice acts like I'm
tone deaf; I'm not. I hear that I'm wrong without the ability to fix
the issue. After failing I went back to drinking (it's hard to mess
that one up.)
Alcohol drank that night: mead and
hard cider at the first bar, then Sam Adams, a jello shot, Bell's
Oberon and to finish things off a can of Busch. I find Sam Adams to
be the defining line between craft beer and corporate beer. Bell's
Oberon is still awesome. Busch is not good, it has a kind of stale
sweetness that probably comes from being made from corn.
The high and low points of the evening
came one after another. Aiden got the bar excited by his rendition
of Baby Got Back, including most of the bar yelling “Yeah!” at
the appropriate times. My rendition, even with two of my friends
backing me up, of the Boba Fett Rap was disastrous. It was probably
played too fast, since between the three of us no one could keep up
for more than two lines.
Rules to follow about karaoke.
- Singing unhappy songs well is better than happy songs unwell. Example: Me and Julio vs my friends' Radio Head and Fiona Apple songs.
If you sing show tunes, you are
never as good as you think you are, but you can pretend this is
because of the speakers.- If you don't sing, you can't make fun of other people who do.
- No matter how bad, drunk, sober you are compared to everyone else sing and have fun anyway.
- If you are stumbling around drunk we, probably, don't think you are singing well, sexy or funny; and yes, we are laughing at you. (The tough love part of todays blog.)
The DJ was pretty good and usually
funny. He played funny clips in between singers.
I met a fan that was real happy with my
previous Corner Pub review and said I hit it right on the nose.
Compliments and criticisms are always encouraged, more so the
compliments. I also, met another person that had just heard that I
existed and was there. She stood in front of me as I tried to tape
my friends sing Bohemian Rhapsody. But I never have a problem with
any of you coming over to talk and it is a very long song. It was
made even longer by randomly halfway through jumping into fast
forward. You could see their brains crash to a halt the word speed
hit 5x. It was fixed and they pulled it off. They also received
free shots for their trouble.
Eventually, the lights came up and it
was time to go. We had a really good night and saw a handful of
really creepy people (you can't have karaoke without a couple.) Most
of the people there were normal enough, even saw a random friend. We
really didn't have anything bad to say about our experience.
I got the lunch special later that
week. A small pizza and a beer/pop for $5. It was good for $5 and
cooked in the toaster over in like 3 minutes.
Fun fact: Corky's Place is named after
the son of the original owners, my landlord. When they were
registering the bar they needed to give it a name, which they had't
come up with yet. So on the spot they named it after the kid.
Corky's Place is not your average bar.
There is plenty to do there and karaoke Wednesday through Saturday.
There's a wide range of beer available but mainly your standard
corporate varieties on tap. There's a wide range of patrons that
will always give you someone worth meeting and someone that will be
refereed to in a later conversation “Did you see that crazy
guy/lady/...person” Regardless, Corky's Place, bar #35, is a lot
of fun and lived up to its reputation as the place you must do
karaoke at. Fun enough in fact, that I returned or am returning,
depending when you read this, the following Saturday, May the 4th
Be with You.
13302 Detroit Ave
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| Life @ Silly Dogs |
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