Illawarra Catholic Club

Much is discussed about competitions and particularly the subjectivity of judging...

Here is a plea on behalf of hapless karaoke punters who inevitably must listen a lot more than sing. IMHO (In My Humble Opinion) while ballads may be fun (read braindead easy) to sing, for the listener they render the karaoke experience tiresome and jejune (read gormless and banal). For judges who continue rewarding the performance of the same ol' tedious ballads pollute the karaoke funster demographic with childlike and bland 'Pop Idol' loopy pudency.
A submission - on all acceptable criteria the number of dancers on a dancefloor is a good indication of a singer's success. Acknowledging this, it is time all judges wised up/substituted the prevalent idée reçue - 'sing toetappers for show, sing ballads for dough' with an audience-simpatico 'sing ballads for show, sing toetappers for dough'.

Now about Friday night...

The bistro at the Illawarra About-As-Much-Fun-As-A-Catheter Club advertises roast lamb on its prominently displayed dinner menu. But don't try to order it because there isn't any.

So en coulisse I inquire about what looks suspiciously like lamb on a fellow queuee's plate. Yes, that's the lamb we haven't got, but it comes with a sausage. Recalling a scene with Jack Nicolson in Five Easy Pieces I am tempted to order the lamb 'but you can hold the sausage.' but Her Indoors sees me warming up and this is the Catheter Club..

So I'm absquatulated to order drinks at the bar. This is an irksome little chore more algedonic than hedonic. Here customers wait. None of that flashy management malarkey at the Catheter Club. None of that Ricardo or Taylorism or Drucker or Bedaux belts or Adam Smith bilge. The sheltered workshop of a barstaff (if that is the correct noun of assemblage) has not mastered to memory any wine price, or thought to write them down. So my innocent inquiry à propos same requires a lugubrious queuing up at the - single - cash register so a bottle, if same can be located, can be scanned for the price. What about this wine list here with prices I ask? I am regarded superciliously. Poor silly boy. The wine list is wrong, the prices are wrong.

After 10 minutes I am told with hauteur the $10 vin ordinaire sells at a special 'club' price of.. $21. The Sheltered Workshop is incredulous when I don't leap at the rare opportunity to snap up several. My thought balloon reads it must be open season on bécasse at Hurstville, the $10,000 suit brigade pays less for better wines at the Exchange Club, the Union Club, The Australia Club and even the Bar Association.

Audaciously I ask for the price of another and am rewarded with another 10 minute wait while staffer finds the wine, queues at the register, scans and announces another silly price. You get the picture. Finally I select the Hardy's Chardonnay a snip at $15, for which we receive a wine-bucket and four glasses. To the sound of hautboys I triumphantly transport my spoils to our table. I place spoils on table where my Thai veal on rice with vegetables, now on the glutinous side of tepid, regards me reproachfully.

I notice my guests for the evening, experienced in the hospitality industry, regarding my hard-won wineglasses with what I desperately hope isn't dismay. Each glass is taken up, rotated and eyed with the grace of the connoisseur before the story of each is eloquently related with the sibylline certainty of a Sherlock Holmes. One has previously been generously mouthed by a senescent enchantress with a penchant for carmine-rose, another decorously sipped by a colourful dresser or spintry of cerise maquillage. The others are tached with some sport in the percales, or less prosaically the Sterident of the edentulous. Orexis more saporously esculent than vicariously osculant, I am again arointed to that House of Hebetation the bar for fresh glasses, where I have ample time to ponder that in the interests of vitrous hygiene the eye-popping fluorescence of the Bistro Experience could be usefully transfered to the Stygian depths of the bar-from-hell's plongeurie. With four replacement . . .(full story on where2sing.com)

Read the rest of this exclusive Karaoke Gig Review, and find whether this karaoke gig is still running on Where2sing.com . . .

Where2sing.com