Could an innocuous ballad from an early 70's album incite barroom violence?
On a recent Friday night, a friend and I sought out a holiday pint or two. We went to a local tavern called Hilltop and ordered up a Mermaid's Red, a tasty red by the Coronado. By the time we were ready for a another great San Diego offering called Green Flash, we had had our fill of the contemptible music blaring out of the joint's jukebox.
So, the Beet Seeking Missile took the initiative and attempted to remedy the situation. Not the biggest fan of the current jukebox choices, which ranged from Nu Country to Kid Rock to today's big Rap Hits, I selected a brief, but wide-range of favorites that caught my fancy-the songs ranged from Primus' "My name is Mud" to Talib Kweli's "Hot Thang" to finally, "Abandoned Luncheonette" a rare old gem by Hall and Oates, who are favorites of my drinking buddy Juba.
With these newfangled digital jukeboxes, the upcoming que is displayed and it showed that my choices were plagued to stew behind more of aforementioned tortuous tunes.
I shared my frustration with a guy in a Dodgers hat who was sitting with his girlfriend and then innocently I followed up with the question. "So what do you listen to?"
The Dodger hat guy looked at me and said, "Nu Country and Kid Rock, kind of what like is playing right now.""
"Oh," I replied, when I could see that that he was serious, "I hear the ratio of women to men at a Kid Rock show is similar to that of women to men in Caracas, Venezuela." The guy and his girl got a chuckle out of that and then we proceeded to talk about baseball while I impatiently waited for my tunes to play.
During this interim, a pair of guys hovered near the bar in separate factions. The first guy, who looked a little too happy, was sitting with a couple and their female friend, who firmly insisted, "He's not with me" when I inquired. The other guy gave off an agitated vibe when he ordered from the bar on my other side.
As if by some divine intervention, Kid Rock's "Redneck Paradise" finally ended and on cue came Primus. Naturally, I did a dance/mosh of joy through the patrons, which was followed by a little head-nodding when Kweli played. Juba was surprised by the Hall and Oates choice and started singing the song at the bar, when, all of sudden, the guy who wasn't with the people at the bar and the agitated guy were nose-to-nose in the middle of the place. The guy who wasn't with the people says something in a sinister whisper to the agitated guy and before the Hall and Oates song can get to the second chorus, SMASH the agitated guy cracks a beer glass over the other guy's head. He drops to the ground. The bouncer promptly 86's the agitated guy (a regular) and I help up the guy who got cracked across the skull. No blood, just wounded pride. He too is quicky 86'd by the bouncer.
Just goes to show you that you gotta be careful where you play Hall and Oates on a jukebox.
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