Yes, we have karaoke here in the Lounge. It’s over there in the corner – no, over there, kinda behind that juke box. See that layer of dust on it? Of course you don’t; we keep this place in good shape. But that accumulating dust that you don’t see is a result months and months of disuse. For some reason our patrons don’t seem to dig on it. But we keep it up for the occasional visiting Japanese businessman or giggly girls’ night out crowd.

But I’m not here to talk about the fictitious karaoke machine in the bar inside my mind. (I have a feeling that this entry may be becoming very confusing for anyone who lives outside of my head. But we soldier on!) I’m here to talk about at least one trend that suggests there is a decline in the popularity of karaoke.

I’ve only ever once participated in the karaoke experience. It was back in 1992. I was too young to drink in the US but luckily found myself in Germany where the beer flowed freely into my late ‘teens mouth. And thus, I wound up in a ski lodge in the Alps. Good Bavarian beer was helping me forget how sore my legs were from a day of skiing and it seemed only natural to climb up on stage to belt out a B52s song. I didn’t know who they were but I was quite convinced at the time that they were the awesomenest band in the world.

If you’re not seeing the moral of this story it’s that karaoke is evil.

So it was with not a little pleasure that I read this report from Britain that says the number of pubs offering karaoke is declining. They speculate on the cost and such things but I embrace the idea that customers are simply not using the bulky karaoke machines. Let us declare now to be the death of the karaoke. It’s time to just say no to karaoke.

This time tomorrow the Lounge will be karaoke free, I promise!