I admit that I have preconceived notions of what a Garth Brooks fan looks like, not that it means anything about what that idea looks like or how it talks. You’d just expect something that does a particular thing to be a particular way and deviation should be small. He didn’t look like a Garth Brooks fan. An African American man sporting a doo-rag and a crisp button down in his mid-thirties hardly screams “country music enthusiast”. But when he picked up the karaoke microphone his demeanor changed and he became convincing. He dove headfirst into a traditional favorite by Garth, spinning a tale of a man living the rodeo life, he sang it with heart and grit and he was convincing, but I found it hard to believe he had any knowledge of rodeos. But then again, I didn’t have him pegged for a big fan of Mr. Brooks to begin with.
4 hours until I have to be awake, 5 hours until I need to have the yaks on the water. But I’m a sucker for a hole in the wall bar on the beach hosting karaoke night, so a few more beers won’t hurt anyone. I don’t know enough about fishing for reds to declare a few hours sleep will make a difference. It’s the strangeness that makes it so attractive. It’s a Garth tune coming from an unlikely source and some Patsy Cline coming from the older woman in flannel at the end of the bar sporting Pat Benatar bangs. I’ll go to bed after a few more rounds and hopefully we’ll hear another Conway Twitty song.