Calle Uruguay, the street of Panamanian excess, where everyone goes to have a good time, where every party animal is an equal…or are they?

Let me tell you, last night I experience a little something I like to call “reverse karaoke racism.” Yes, that’s right, reverse karaoke racism. I had been looking forward to letting off a little steam ever since I arrived in Panama City a month ago, to blowing some hot air through the old pipes in the mystical form of song. However, Starlight Karaoke did me wrong, did me very wrong.

So it’s a Thursday night in the city, it’s the end of the month, and it’s before Carnaval. Apparently this means that no one goes out, having spent their last dimes and hording their remaining pennies. Never mind, I think, I can still have fun. My posse goes out and has a few drinks at the Londoner, to get things started. And once the hops and barley are making us feel all tingly, the moment I’ve been waiting for arrives.

It’s Karaoke time.

We cross the street to Starlight, and I excitedly prance up each step to the second floor bar and stage. We enter the small dimly lit room, it’s as cold as a meat freezer. Through the fog of dry ice I see only a handful of patrons scattered about. My first thought is, find the book, get the book, write down your songs. I think, tonight will be easy peasy for singing; my friends and I can sing as much as our eager hearts desire, and hopefully there won’t be too much unsuspecting competition.

We sit down and wait for a lady to sing her Spanish ballad, and then for her friend to sign her ballad, and then a man in a suit to sing yet another sad, Spanish ballad. Then he high-fives another guy who takes the stage. The current guy up there sings “I ain’t got nobody” in English; he likes to show us that he knows we know that he knows, English. He even gets all the “shooba dee dooba dee bobbad dees” down.
He exits and i’m thinking that there’s no one else in the place, so we have to be next!

Low and behold, Casey’s song flashes on the projector (which, by the way, is playing some sort of Sea World video behind the lyrics). He hops up there, twists and contorts his body as he shreds Outkast’s “Hey Ya,” and everyone is loving it. He’s really nailing it when all of a sudden, mid song, the volume goes down. Why could this be?! We all look at each other startled, while he puts the mic back on the stand and gracefully exists.

Weird, no?

So then the patient waiting ballad game begins again. We sit, while others perform multiple, yes multiple, songs to completion. And just as I’ve given up all hope of ever getting my song played, I hear it begin, from the bathroom. Great timing! I speed up my act, run out and jump on stage, grab that mic and begin performing “Summer Loving” with Rob. I’m prancing on stage, like Olivia Newton John, twirling my hair and just as we’r really belting it out, we get the axe, and it doesn’t feel very good.

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Filed under: Reviews on January 25th, 2008