What is love? Baby don’t hurt me…don’t hurt me… April 23, 2008

This past week Frank, Amy and I got to tool around for a few days in my favorite city, Florence. It was a little strange being back three years after I studied abroad there. Things had changed–my favorite internet cafe BeeOnline was closed (We miss you Nadir!)…my favorite sandwich place The Oil Shoppe has gotten somewhat commercialized …the sandwich shop where the owner conspired with a thief to steal my cash has opened up a fancier shop (BOO!!)…and the cafe with the snobby Italian ladies that made me feel so horrible has closed down (YAHOO!). But overall Florence is just as extraordinary as I remembered!

The first night we were there we went to a bar called the Red Garter. It was karaoke night which sounded like a blast to all of us, so we went inside and ordered a shuttle of Heineken which is basically a mini-keg you can bring to your table. At first we were the only ones there, but then a tour group of about 30 college students came in which livened up the place a bit. Then the karaoke started. Let me tell you, this guy that ran the karaoke must have had some sort of complex because he proceeded to turn down every singer’s microphone, turn up his own backup vocal microphone, and turn up his guitar, so you couldn’t hear anyone singing but him. It was like his own little one man show.

So Frank gets up there to sing “Another One Bites the Dust” and tries to use the karaoke man’s microphone but he’s not having it. Frank is screaming this song and you can barely hear him so we keep telling the man to to turn up his mic. He turns it up for about 3 seconds and then it’s back to just karaoke man.

My friend Amy and I decide to go and sing a song, but they didn’t have Technotronic’s “Move This” so we had to look at the list. The karaoke man scrolls through the entire list in about 3 seconds so that we can’t actually read any of the songs listed. Another thing, he doesn’t even have lyrics to a lot of the songs, just the music on his iTunes. We finally spot Haddaway’s “What is Love” (From the Saturday Night Live skit) and we start joking about how it would be so funny to sing that one. All of a sudden we hear the music start playing for “What is Love” and we figure, OK he must have overheard us mention the song and this is the one we are doing. Then we hear karaoke man start belting out “WHAT IS LOVE! BABY DON’T HURT ME..” and we look at each other like what the hell is this guy doing? He then points to us, and then points off the stage, telling us to get off! He stole our song! What is this guy’s deal? So after his song, Amy and I sang “Bohemian Rhapsody”, and Frank and our new friend Julia Goolia sang “Hey Jude”. Then we said to hell with this egotistical karaoke man, and had a dance party of our own in the next room.