Bastard karaoke

Well, it's tuesday apparently.

Each day brings an hour or so of blogging before I actually do anything. This is probably a good thing. It is a costly habit (30 rupees a day) but valuable if I don't want my ability to write to shrink to the size of communal shower cock.

Sorry. That's grim.

I blame it on those pesky Danish girls. Lovely as they are, they brought a perfectly decent night into misery. Well, clearly it was my fault. But I like blaming my own inability to follow sound judgement on other people.

We decided last night that we would "go out" and "get drunk". Fair enough. The five of us (Chuck, Paul, Louisa, Eva and my bad self) went and had a nice meal, found a decent airconditioned bar, drank as many bottles of beer before the uncharitable closing time of 12, and had a bit of a dance to some dodgy Rap music.

All was fine until we demanded to continue drinking. After a little wandering around asking people where we could drink (all the places mentioned were having "private parties" - read "piss off you scruffs, but blonde girls come on in") Chuck and Paul realised they had no money with them, and also realised that this was a fairly fruitless exercise.

The girls were determined to find more booze. They had the thirst for alcohol that freshers usually have (during their first two or three years at university). And I thought, well hey, I'm on some kind of undeserved holiday, I may as well stay out if I'm not ready for bed.

So 'Not Just Jazz By The Bay' was the one place we could get in. Karaoke night. Expensive entry, expensive drinks. Shit karaoke. Pretty empty. Shit.

On entry, I went to the toilet. By the time I came out (it wasn't a no. 2), the girls had already been bought a drink by some old sleazy Indian guy. They didn't have the courtesy or thought to get him to buy me one. So, I trundled to the bar, reluctantly bought another beer that I didn't really want and sat down to read the karaoke menu.

Sigh.

They didn't even have Bon Jovi's 'Living on a Prayer'. Let alone Bill Withers' 'Lovely Day'. What's a boy to do? I was scanning for something half respectable (in the vaguest sense of the word) and could find nothing I wanted to sacrifice my dignity for. It was all Celine Dion, Backstreet Boys, Michael Learns to Rock (???) etc.

This would have been fine had I been accompanied by two sane and half-sober girls. Unfortunately booze brought out the side of someone I never want to see - namely the side that makes someone wrongly say words like "BACKSTREET BOYS! WOOO! LET'S DO THAT." and "My Heart Goes On. Yes!" and "They have Michael Learns to Rock! Coool."

What have I done?

Eva made me write my name and the words 'Hey Jude' on a bit of paper. Oh god. My heart just wasn't in it by this point. She then proceeded to spend the rest of the time looking really drunk and studying each page of the song book, making notes like it was some religious text. And completely ignoring me.

I went to find Louisa. She was with sleazy guy. He was all handshakes and "hey, come back to mine for a party!"

Me: "who's gonna be there?"

Him: "me, you, these two, and my buddy over there."

Me: "sounds like a shit party."

He then said "so, how old are you? Nineteen?"

Me: "fuck you mate, I'm twenty two. How old are you? Sixty?"

Him: "You want to fuck me twenty two times? Ha ha."

Me: "No, I said fuck you. You look really old. She is young."

Him: "Ha ha"

Ha.

I couldn't even insult the guy for being a pervy git. I mean, he wasn't that old. He was probably in his forties; balding, fat and sleazy. All the Indian guys love white girls. It's horrible the way they look at them all the time. But, you know, we've all been there I guess.

I left them to it.

I sat down, finished my beer and watched some embarrassing performance by some embarrassed guy, singing some embarrassing song. Eva had clearly missed a page as she was still scouring the song bible for karaoke nirvana. I took a deep breath and remembered how cheap taxis are.

"Right, I'm going."

"But you haven't sung your song."

"I don't care. I'm not having fun. See you guys tomorrow."

So that was that. I spent a day's budget on that fucking place!

Lessons learned. One - no karaoke. Ever. I have had one good night of karaoke in my life. I have spent too many bad evenings trying to recreate it. It won't happen.

Two (and I should have known) - never go out with just two girls. At least make sure there is some male company, in case you know, you end up at a horrific karaoke night and you have nothing to do but laugh at how crap it is. You can't do that on your own.

Three - get out of Mumbai! It's like being in England but smellier (you did warn me, Adam). And there is nowhere I can just go and read a book. There's just people everywhere!

Right, I'm gonna do nothing today but read and spend no money. Oh, and maybe buy a train ticket somewhere cheaper. Byeee.