strike that

At two o’clock this morning

I was sharing a booth in a karaoke bar with a woman named Heather and her boyfriend Tony and their friend Collin, because there was nowhere else to sit. I assumed Collin was British when we were introduced, entirely because there is a movie I watched recently in which one of the main characters, a British character, had that name. It was loud enough in the bar that it was hours before I realized he just wasn’t. That was the ridiculous flavor of the evening.

I ended up in this booth with Heather and Tony and the wholly American Collin courtesy of Geof, whom I met earlier at a different bar half way across town on Mississippi Avenue. The band there had a keyboard and a guitar and two violins and a steel drum, which together produced a fabulous orchestral rock calypso sound. They wrapped up at midnight and we sped around blaring the Smashing Pumpkins until we found the Ambassador, where the karaoke goes late.

Geof sang twice, songs I didn’t know – this was a serious karaoke crowd, not the kind that sticks with the Beatles and The Tide is High – and so did his friend, whose name I lost somewhere between the three-fifty Bud and the round of murky sweet shots that Heather brought over on a tray. Once when a woman from across the room was on stage belting out a strange but inspired pop medley, her friend leaned off of the dance floor and whispered to me by way of explanation, She’s Swiss.

Sometime around two thirty Geof asked if I had any plans for today and I explained that in fact I’m biking eighteen miles, because today is Portland’s Worst Day of the Year Ride. We agreed it was perhaps time to call it a night. Cities are such marvelous inventions, and now I’m going biking.

posted by tortaluga @ 9:56 AM