Friday, August 17, 2007

Brass Monkey Saves the Day

"Well, I told you it was between Miracle Mile and K-Town, didn't I?"
"There's no Miracle Mile about it! It's in the heart of Koreatown."
"Well, I told you I didn't know exactly where it was!"
"It's on the EAST SIDE of K-Town. Miracle Mile...what a disaster..."

The ride over was a bit of a disaster. I mean we were all trying, but it was late and the venue was elusive, at best. But we arrived at the bar in one piece and, thankfully, brass monkeys have yet to fail me.

A spectacularly awful rendition of "My Way" summoned the karaoke spirit. Anastasia, Jen, Foxy and I needed little encouragement to dance as someone took on "Twist and Shout". But we weren't the only ones.

A gleefully predatory, Asian grandpa noticed Nastia's moves and asked her to dance. He spun her around on the 2' x 4' aisle/dance floor in front of the karaoke warriors. Systematically, he took each of the females in our group for a dance and a grope, never letting genre changes deter him from his basic spin-in-sway-spin-out approach.

We braced ourselves for the worst when a sturdy man in a collared shirt stepped up to the mic, drink in hand, to take on Aerosmith's "Dream On". To our amazement, he attacked the song with gritty commitment. Shortly thereafter, hair let down, heads started banging and cheers provided an underscore for the performance. Wrapping up with a scream that would make Steven Tyler jealous, we gave the karaoke dark horse a standing ovation.

Half our posse gone, and having survived a few uncomfortably bad renditions of "Can't Take my Eyes off of You" and "Let's Get it On", Sniar, Dax and I agreed to wait out one more song, then go. I secretly crossed my fingers and willed the DJ to call for David to sing Edwin McCain's "I'll Be".

With a drunken and somewhat belligerant audience this could have ended badly. But Sniar and I cooed like good groupies do, and encouraged the menfolk in the audience who timidly tried to join in at the chorus. By the end of the song, Dax was wailing on the mic, men and women alike were musically emoting, and I was enjoying yet another happy association with the Brass Monkey.

**If you are keen to visit Caffe Brass Monkey, please note that the entrance is 1 block East of Normandie Ave. and 1/2 block South of Wilshire Blvd. In Koreatown.

3 comments:

Chairman_B. said...

I love the BMC. Those "Spank the Monkeys" go down SMOO-OO-OOVE!

Hey! Long-time, no see. How have you been?

Erin said...

So glad you didn't give up when you were lost and made it to the karaoke party of the year (or at least the week)! Long live naughty Asian grandpa's!

$ara said...

oh! i do believe i have been there before, a very long time ago!