To be read while listening to this.
A while back I threatened to tell you the real life story you're about to read. It was a very eventful evening, and I'm tempted to tell you everything about it because the main character of the night was the guy I based Cris Zim on. It was his birthday, and because he's an incredibly shitty person, it turned out horribly for him. To give you an example, it is customary to buy the birthday boy's drinks on that kind of night. By the end we agreed to stiff him with his bill. For very good reasons. When I write the Zimventures, I exaggerate him a little but not all that much. He is very much a piece of shit and deserves his miserable life.
(I have a secret fantasy that he's reading this column right now. Not that I'd be telling him anything new. I've never said anything about him that I wouldn't tell him to his face.)
But this story isn't about him. It's about the time I almost got in a fight at a TGIFriday's over karaoke.
I never take karaoke seriously. I'm not a good singer, and I have a tin ear, so I'm highly unlikely to ever be one. I might actually be the only horror author in history who doesn't want to be a rock star. But I take entertainment very seriously, and I do my best to make up for my lack of talent with outrageous onstage behavior. I guarantee that anyone who has ever seen me perform will never forget me. Especially the night I serenaded a blow up doll to the tune of an Elvis song.
I might tell that story someday, too.
So TGIFriday's was our second stop on Cris Zim's birthday tour, and I was in a foul mood. I forget why. Maybe it was the abscess wound an inch from my balls, which was draining all sorts of blood and pus at the time. But this place had karaoke, so I decided to burn off that mood with a performance. I discovered, quite happily, that they had Living Colour's "Cult of Personality" in their library, and I concocted alternate lyrics for my amusement and that of the audience right on the spot. It was my turn, so in my incredibly inebriated state I went down the stairs and took up the microphone. The song kicked in, and I started to sing.
"Look in my pants! What do you see? The cock of personality!"
(And I'm not making fun of the song. It's a fucking great tune. One of my favorites. But like I said, I can't take karaoke seriously. It's impossible.)
This infuriated one of the owners of the karaoke company. He marched down the stairs after me and demanded to know what I was doing. Sure, I was being an ass, but I don't think I rated the pure rage he came at me with.
Also, it's worth noting that he was somehow even drunker than I was. You know how difficult it is to smell booze on someone else's breath when you, yourself, are three sheets? I was gone, myself, but I could smell the whiskey on his breath. I didn't know that was possible.
He yelled at me that this was a family restaurant, and I calmly notified him that it was past midnight, and there were no children in sight. And then I held out the microphone to his mouth for his response, like I was a reporter interviewing him on TV.
Oh, he did *not* like that. He actually attempted to slap the mic out of my hand. His mic. Do you know how expensive microphones are? Very. If a karaoke DJ murdered some drunk asshole who did a mic drop at the end of a song, I would not vote to convict. I honestly believed at that point that this conversation would end in the parking lot with the both of us either in the hospital or behind bars. Or both. That genuinely bummed me out because I didn't want to end the night (or any) like that.
Surprisingly it didn't come to that, and that was the end of it. Until I decided to put in a request for another song. It would have been "Penny Lane," but the song would now be about a street populated by scumbags and perverts, but the other owner of the company stopped by my table and very politely asked me if I was going to do the song the right way. When people are polite to me, I am polite in return, so I told her the truth: that I couldn't do that. It's against my nature.
"Then I can't let you sing it," she said.
Fair enough.
To give you an idea, the evening got even crazier from that point. But that's not my story to tell.
Also, if this song is the only Living Colour song you know, you should dig deeper. This is another great song from them. They also did an excellent cover of "Back in Black."
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