Karaoke: NORMA JEAN'S   
                     5286 Baltimore Dr  
          (619) 462-0533   7-10 PM    La Lesa
                     Monday-Saturday
                           Directions to Norma Jeans

                    Norma Jean's was like going back to a dimly lit
                     tryst/country bar on Albuquerque's West Mesa
                     I remember,  except there were no fist fights and
                     the singers all seemed in better tune, a lot more sober,
                     and substantially more gray-haired.  And the Men's
                     Room was infinitely cleaner.                                  
           Thursday night, at 7:00 I drove east out I-8 to the Lake Murray exit.   Turning right
           twice,  I looped back over the freeway and headed north-east on Lake Murray about a mile
           and then turned right on Baltimore.  The trick is to turn into the last strip mall on the
           right before the light at the bottom of the hill and before you are forced back onto the
           freeway if you turn right.   This I learned the hard way.

                                                   

                     So, the second time around I saw the sign, Norma Jeans, on a windowless part
           of the building at the back of a strip mall, whose only other open establishment was
           a pizza parlor.  Parking was more than ample.  I went into the bar.  It took a second
           or two for my eyes to get used to how dark it was.  A big picture of Norma Jean, better
           known as Marilyn Monroe, in her glamorous prime, graced the wall behind the bar.  There
           at the far end were 7 or 8 patrons, each taking turns singing, as at a piano bar.  The
           song that was being sung was Hank Williams' I Can't Help It.   From the back, the
           singer, with his braided pony tail, looked like Willy Nelson.   Before the evening
           was over, I heard four other Hank Williams songs.  As I'm someone who grew up
           listening to his song and revering him as the father of American country music, I was
           very glad the songs well sung well. 

                   My karaoke friend Ron was the only one sitting at any of the 8 tables that
           surrounded a dance floor, perhaps 15' square.  No one was playing pool at the tables
           farther from the bar and the singers did not use a small stage at one end of the
           dance floor.  I imagine this place gets a lot of use on weekends.

                   "R-2", who I know from Miss Woo's karaoke at the La Jolla Sheraton on
           Saturday nights, .came in, and broke the lock that country music had on the evening. 
           With him, the singing rotation peaked at seven.   George, the KJ, wasted no time
           and in less than two hours I got to sing 5 songs.   As no one at the bar bothered to turn
           around to face me when I sang, from a ego-satisfying standpoint, the audience left
           something to be desired.   But George the KJ, who had a rich country twang when
           he sang, always said something nice when I returned the microphone.

                  Norma Jeans serves no food.  So I went to the pizza parlor close by and ordered
           a mini-pepperoni pizza for $7 to go with my ale.  This was delicious.  When I got back a
           tall blonde had seated herself at the bar, also facing away from our table.  And three more,
           much younger people had taken a table.  They added much faster rock songs.
           I had been told the musical   "MO" for Norma Jeans featured a sharp shift away
           from country music at around 9:00. 

                I liked Norma Jeans.  Getting a chance to sing so many songs in an hour and a
           half was a treat.  The beer was good.  The KJ smiled.  And I could join others in
           celebration of 1950s and 1960s country songs,  These songs might be accused of
           being too predictably sentimental, but, hey, that era's songs all had lovely and
           memorable melodies.  I would say that most country music since 1980 seems to be
           on an endless and unsuccessful quest for real melody.  The exceptions I really
           enjoy singing.  Listen to "Whisper My Name" by Randy Travis.  A woman once came
           up to me after I sang it and said "that's the most beautiful song I've ever heard."
           Listen to it melody and grasp the poetry in the words and decide for yourself.

                Back to Norma Jeans.  So,  a bigger variety of songs and a larger audience to feed off
           of  might have added more enjoyment, but that's always a risk in karaoke.  Personally,
           I might have tried tweaking the sound system down a bit to facilitate table conversations
           without people having to speak loudly.  When people have to nearly shout to be heard,
           the racket this creates tends to cause the KJ to turn up the volume still higher and so
           there is a vicious circle of loudness.  Another thing, I always want the sound system
           to allow the singer to be heard over the instrumentation.  Its the singer's voice that I
           come to hear.  Most of the songs' instrumentation I already know.  The singer is the
           unknown surprise in karaoke-land.  (Maybe, someday I'll own a karaoke bar and
           I'll show you.)   Generally, country music has fewer accompanists than most types of
           music.  So., I wondered if I would be able to hear the actual singer when faster music
           was sung.  The answer was not so well.  But. at least, there were two public monitors
           at Norma Jeans that I could read what I was not always understanding in the singers' lyrics. 

                                                    5/28/2009  -- William of www.tigersoft.com