Writing About Friday Night Karaoke
Every Friday night, Del’s Bar and Italian Restaurant was the place to be.
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Bloomfield is a neighborhood in Pittsburgh. The neighborhood is known as Pittsburgh’s “Little Italy” because of the large number of people of Italian heritage that live there. Del’s is an Italian restaurant in “Little Italy”. Inside the restaurant is a small bar. Every Friday night, Del’s has karaoke in the bar. For years, I was a karaoke regular.
Karaoke at Del’s made me a celebrity to the crowd that gathered in the bar on Friday nights. As a young man, besides wanting to be a writer I also wanted to be a rock and roll singer. Over the years I was the frontman for several local bands. The bands never went anywhere. Now the only thing left of my rock and roll ambitions are two large speakers, a four channel power mixer, a mike stand and mike sitting in my living room. I gave up my rock and roll dreams in my 40s. I began my karaoke career at Del’s in my 50s.
Friday night karaoke at Del’s drew a lot of really good singers. I was one of them. Karaoke drew a lot of characters, too. I was certainly one of the characters. I was clean shaven, had a shaved head, wore black work boots, blue jeans and a black jersey. I wore a bandanna around my shaved head. I was an animated singer, doing a dead-on Jim Morrison impersonation of the Lizard King when he was at his best. I was popular with the regulars, the staff and the DJ. Del’s made good money Friday nights.
Then the owners made a decision that killed karaoke. After being a regular at Del’s every Friday night for over seven years, I stopped going to karaoke at Del’s.
I still stop in at Del’s occasionally for a beer. I’m still friendly with the owners. They want to know when I’m coming back to karaoke. But karaoke at Del’s will never be the same.
I may no longer sing rock and roll or karaoke but I’m still a writer. I needed content for an article for Triond. Writing about my passion for karaoke seemed a natural. All of this is background for the flash fiction story, The Death of Karaoke
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Tags: article, Bloomfield, content, death, Del's, Flash fiction, Friday night, karaoke, Little Italy, Pittsburgh, story, triond, writer, Writing
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September 16th, 2009 at 6:09 am
You always make all your topics interesting. Like this one too!
September 16th, 2009 at 7:43 am
Very interesting write,
September 16th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Mrs. Heart, karaoke is a great passion of mine. Maybe one day I’ll sing again. Karaoke is good, clean fun.
September 16th, 2009 at 9:30 am
giftarist, I miss Friday night karaoke at Del’s. I haven’t been there for at least three years. I like the place and the staff. Now I go in every once in a while for a beer and I sit at the bar and remember the good old days.
September 16th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
cool maybe u should sing again
September 16th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
royee, that’s something that a lot of other things have to happen first and some of them have nothing to do with Del’s but has to do with me. I would never sing karaoke any place but Del’s.
September 17th, 2009 at 9:01 am
Oh that sounded the best kind of place to be Friday nights! such a shame something happened to stop you singing. Can’t wait to read your flash fiction on it.
September 17th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
lillyrose, on Friday nights when I walked into the bar the expectant crowd would applaud. That’s how good I was. One Friday night I said to one of the regulars that Del’s was a great rock and roll karaoke bar. He said to me, “You turned it into a rock and roll bar.” Such was my standing there. The women loved me. No wonder I always had a good time.
October 17th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
I only tried it for the first time last year and enjoyed it. There was a man in his ninties who was there celebrating his birthday and still singing. Its a good thing to be a good singer because you make others feel a sense of enjoyment.