Short Fiction: Turn Key Operation

Jim has said on more than one occasion how proud he is of this piece of work, and we're inclined to agree. This short fiction was inspired by a television show he had watched last summer about the booming (no pun intended) tourist industry in Israel, and he took it and ran. It originally ran on his myspace.com blog back in June of 2007. And we're running it here because it's Jim's day off and he doesn't feel like being cooped up in the office in front of his computer. -ed.

At 11:00 pm it would’ve looked like any bar in New York City, with its bright orange neon lighted sign, the patrons out front smoking, chatting idly on a Friday night. Only this wasn’t New York City, this was Tel Aviv, and these weren’t trendy New Yorkers, but Israelis, Greek tourists, employees from the near by British Consulate, what have you.

I bought the bar five years ago from an army buddy who was getting out of Israel. He lost his son in a bus bombing that summer, and since then didn’t have the heart to keep up the nightlife lifestyle. He sold it to me, totally turn key, for a song. I was happy to have something to invest my time in since leaving the IDF.

It needed a lot of work; the floors were scuffed and horrible to look at, there wasn’t much in the way of entertainment. There was a small stage towards the back, but the amplifiers were blown out and there was only one tv in the whole place, directly over the bar. I won’t even start on the condition of the bathrooms.

So I spent three weeks, every day, for about fourteen hours a day remodeling the place to my specifications. It took my entire life savings, over forty thousand dollars to get the place the way I wanted it. I put in plasma screen tvs, bought new speakers, new fixtures, hired some new staff, restocked the liquor, bought some new signs and renamed the place from Koffa’s to The Ocean.

And it was a good name because we were in essence right on the ocean. There was a tiny strip of other clubs and bars along the water, and mine now faced out so that during the middle of the day the place was nice and airy, and at night there was a gentle breeze that would blow in through the front double doors. It was literally paradise.

That was until tonight.

It’s 02:00 am now, and the paramedics, army personnel, police, everyone has finally left. The front of the building is black, the cars across the street are black, the ground is wet. At first it was an oily slick of hot blood and body parts, now it’s with water from fire hoses. The lieutenant responding to the scene explained to me that it would take a while to get a guy with a flatbed wrecker out here to get the cars, so it’d be likely morning before the charred automotive remains would be off the street. He suggested that I get home and get some rest if I wasn’t going to get checked out at a hospital. And then he told me that I should probably put my gun away.

I hadn’t even noticed it, until he mentioned it. I had been clutching a Berretta that I kept behind the bar in my right hand the whole time, the whole hour. My hand was numb, my arm throbbed, my face coated in a filth that consisted of blood, dirt and tears. I tucked the gun into my waist band and walked back inside.

There had been over two hundred people inside the bar when the bomb had gone off. I had been behind the bar, pouring a Bombay Sapphire Gin into a martini glass and flirting with a young American girl, much to my girlfriend Sara’s distaste. I remember pouring the drink, turning to see Sara standing at the other end of the bar, holding her waitress tray, a few empty glasses, apron tied tight around her slender hips. She was shooting lightening into my eyes and I shrugged sheepishly, grinning at her.

She was beautiful, long black hair, 5’6, slender body. During the reconstruction of the bar she had come in in the middle of the day to ask about tabling on weekend nights, she was 19 at the time, I was 27, and I was in love with her.

We dated off and on, mostly on, seldom off. We were always hot for each other, and we would do the most absurd things to make each other jealous. I’d flirt with the young tourists, she’d allow herself to be pawed by the male patrons to get better tips. But even when we were off, I’d always walk her to her apartment at the end of the night. And if we were on, I’d follow her up.

So here I am, standing there, holding a bottle of gin looking at her. She simply shakes her head and walks on over. She leans across the bar and puts her face to mine and tells me that I’m a dirty old man. She’s 24 now, I’m 32, and she pushes her fingers into my receding hair line, and grabs a hold of my short black curls. I smack her lightly on her cheek and tell her that I always knew she loved dirty old men. She smiles sweetly, turns, and struts off back towards the front of the bar where there’s more tables that need tending to.

At about that time, things seem to happen in a lurch, like your DVD is on the fritz. I put the bottle of gin down on the back bar, and turn to look out the big picture windows at the crowd outside. It’s a typical Friday night, the place is an orgy of young faces, laughing, singing, drinking. There’s not a bad seed in the crowd, no one here looking for a fight or to prove themselves a man. It’s mostly tourists and youngsters from the nearby hotel resorts. I let myself smile.

I approach the register to swipe the young blonde’s credit card, when I notice my doorman, Ari stand up from his stool and walk towards someone on the sidewalk. It’s something in his walk, his approach that makes me stop in the middle of what would be an uninterrupted credit card transaction. I stand watching him, and see where his eyes are staring at. I hired Ari on a recommendation from a friend who’s still working in the Mosad, he told me Ari knew his shit, and was looking for some laid back weekend work. I had no problem hiring him. He’s bald, 6’3 and two hundred and sixty pounds, he fills out a black t shirt like a typical bouncer, only unlike a typical bouncer he carries a degree in five different disciplines of martial arts and is the fore most expert in Israeli Krav Magna.

Ari walks up to a small skinny sickly guy in a brown coat. His hair is wet and combed to the side of his head. From where I’m standing at the bar, which is about twenty-five yards from the scene outside, I can see the whites of his eyes. I can see his Adam’s Apple bob in his throat. And just as I’m getting the thought into my head that there’s something very wrong with this, the coat puffs out, like he’s got an air compressor under it. It balloons out from his body and tears. I smell cordite and burning, there’s a flash and what feels like my skull ripping open.

I come to on my back, covered in glass and booze. The bar is on fire, I can feel a rumbling slowly fading under my back, against my spine. I wasn’t out long, maybe half a second. I try to roll over to get on my feet but nothing in my body is responding to the commands from my brain. So I dumbly lay on my back, looking at the far ceiling from between my bent legs.

Sound comes back like you’re turning up the volume on the tv after putting it all the way down. It’s a slow build, first there’s the screams and moans. And then there’s the sound of feet moving. There’s furniture being tipped over, so on.

Finally my body goes into motion. I feel like I’m watching it more than participating. But I feel this need to do something, and then the shockwave rips through my body and brain: Sara. She was right by the door when the bomb went off, oh Jesus.

I turn over and feel every inch of my body reject the notion of moving, but I fight through it, pure adrenaline running through my veins. It’s not anger, but a sense of need. Like being under water and needing air, and fighting to break through to the surface. As I turn over, I’m looking at the Berretta, my nose almost touching the grip as it sits under the register as if it was oblivious to the bombing. I snatch it and push myself up on the bar.

There’s a fog, everything’s wet, people are lying on the ground withering, twisting. Some aren’t moving at all. Some don’t have all their parts. On a far table that’s still standing upright there’s a hand with a wedding ring on it.

The whole front of the building is blown inwards. Paper is all over the place, the floors black and shiny. Cars across the street black, glass everywhere. I clear the bar, clutching the gun and wade through the living Hell all around me. I try not to step on anyone but it’s hard to tell. Ceiling tiles hanging down, insulation on fire, little fires all over the place. I slip and fall down, my hand comes back up red.

Bodies are literally piled on top of each other and it’s hard to tell who’s who and who’s still alive and who isn’t. I call out her name, my voice is hoarse and strained. I can barely hear over the ringing and the people screaming. There’s soldiers outside with Galils and Uzis looking around in a cover pattern. An ambulance is already out front, stretchers already on the ground, people being haphazardly rolled on to their backs and lifted. Fuck a neck brace at this point.

I call her name again, and still nothing. For some reason I’m comfortable accepting that she’s dead. My rationale is that at least she didn’t suffer, hopefully. Hopefully she was close enough to the bomber to be obliterated and isn’t lying under a pile of bodies suffocating and bleeding. God it’s so hot.

Finally there’s a tug at my pant leg and I look down. I see her face, half of it. Her mouth is caked in black, and a rope of spit is between her two lips as she’s trying to talk, maybe say my name. I drop to my knees and grab her up, cradling her head in my arms.

I don’t remember crying, I don’t remember saying anything, just holding and squeezing. Sara’s body is half black, burnt. Her right side is blacked out completely. No hair on her head, just tufts on the left side. Her ear is missing, her eye is shut, mouth doesn’t even look like a mouth, just a twisted wound.

Her right leg is missing, a bloody stump slowly lifting and falling. I shake a little, and she clutches to my chest with a bloody paw. She shudders in my arms, like a gentle cough and her grip gets tighter. God, just hold on, please stay, please.

I lift my head and do as I was taught in the army. I call for a medic, I scream for a medic. I can’t find my voice, it’s buried under all the bodies and debris. I start to cry then, or maybe I’ve been crying all along. I just need someone to help me, help her. The anger then starts to build as she starts to fade.

Finally, a young medic in white runs over and grabs her from me. He pushes me aside and I try to get back to her, get closer to her. I want to tell her I’m not letting her go, I’m not leaving. I can’t find the strength, and I watch them drag her outside, her stump of a leg waving good bye as her head lulls backwards, her burnt face looking up at the young medic in white.

I would later find out that she died on the way to the hospital.

I received a check for two-point-eight million dollars in insurance coverage, and decided that it would be better to just move away. I could relate then to my friend who left Israel after losing his boy. Who wants to own a bar caked in blood?

An Ode To Living Recklessly

I'm a shitbird.

A total dickhead, scumbag, perverted shit-stain on society.

I love to drive drunk with very little regard for other drivers. Fuck'em: the car load full of kids or the soccer team, or the prom dates.

I love to drink too much and pass out at people's houses whom I don't know.

I love to correct people's grammar in public, with only the most condescending tone.

I drive like an asshole (when I'm not drunk), I seldom wear my seat belt, never use my signals, and expect everyone else around me to abide by the same traffic laws I disregard. I speed and swerve and drive with my windows down in all types of weather.

I like to keep a loaded gun on my person at all times and often pick fights with people I know could kick my ass. I don't give a shit, I have a gun.

I like to fuck without a condom on. I almost never pull out, and if I do, it's to cum on the girl's face or tits. I never hang around after, I just get up and leave.

I bet on sports when I don't have the money. I do the same thing with my bills; I pay my bills with checks that I know will bounce. Same goes for my rent.

I vote Republican in the 21st century.

I sneer at children and wolf whistle at their moms. I grab my crotch in line at the grocery store.

I play with knives, especially when I've been drinking.

I may or may not have children someplace else in the country.

I tell fat women they're fat. To their boyfriend's faces.

I drink Tecate and eat microwave burritos at 3 am on Monday nights.

I wake up hung over for work at 0630 in the morning, when I have to be in the office at 0715. I don't call ahead and I don't give a shit.

I throw things.

I make my roommate do my dishes and scrub my shitty toilet.

I plug in my amp and play horrible guitar at all hours. When the neighbors show up to complain I tell them to go fuck themselves while blowing pot smoke into their faces. When they inevitably send the cops over, I pretend I'm a disabled war vet.

I rent movies and don't watch them. Weeks go by and when the store calls about their movies, I tell them that I just moved into the address and have no idea what they're talking about.

I sleep on park benches. I clean my gun on park benches.

I stroll by high schools and ask the girls walking on the side walk what grade they're in.

I play pool in bars and don't pay for the games. I let my friends buy my drinks for me and never pay for a round.

I demand a buy-back from the bartender. When he cuts me off, I go outside and slash all the tires in the parking lot, hoping I got his.

I eat like shit. Wait, let me rephrase that... I eat shit. My arteries are so clogged with shit that my insides look like an LA Freeway. My doctors yell at me, my girlfriend yells at me, and I don't care. If it tastes good, I'm eating it, whether it's deep fried, bathed in butter or beer battered, I'm going to ingest it until my heart gives out under me. Fuck it.

I smoke cigarettes but I never buy my own pack. I'm that asshole who's hanging outside of the bar bumming smokes off everyone. I never apologize for it either.

I'm inside the bar smoking.

I'm your co-worker who talks too loudly on the phone and ignores your emails.

I'm the dickhead on Facebook who won't return your Friend Request.

I listen to shitty music loudly and at the same time tell you you have no taste in music.

I'm at a rock concert feeling your girlfriend's ass.

I'm doing hits of extacy around black guys and telling them "thanks for not kicking my white ass"

I'm an asshole, a dick, and a douche bag. I'm your neighbor, your brother, your father and your son. I'm your boss and your employee.

I'm You.

So I Should've Been Eating Grapefruit Every Day For Lunch?

Or, you say 'fuck it' pack everything that will fit in the back of your truck, and drive the four hours back to Maine and emotionally breakdown at your parent's doorstep.

Fear and Loathing at The Poker Table

Last night I went to my first actual Poker Night in like, a while. Probably since I left Maine.

First off, let me say I'm not exactly God's Gift to poker. I can hold my own, I know some basics, I know the rules, I know what beats what and what hands to hold and what hands to fold, and considering the majority of the five people crowded around a tiny back-bar in Big Country's duplex last night had no clue how to play good poker, you'd think I would be in line to bring home the winnings.

I was not.

Let me break down the night for you: Around 8ish me and the roommate took off for the local supermarket to buy a 12 back of Miller High Lifes and hit up an ATM for the 20 dollar buy-in. Thing is about The Cape that no super market or convenience store sells alcohol, which is something that a Mainer would have to get used to. We first pull into the local Shaw's (cringe...) and wander around, up and down the aisles for a full ten minutes before tracking down a semi-retarded stock boy.

"Hey, do you guys even sell beer here?" I ask. He, the retarded stock boy, is walking directly at me. Have you ever had someone you weren't completely sure was retarded making a bee-line for you? The whole time you're thinking if this guy is retarded, he might not alter his course, but if I get out of his way and he turns out NOT to be retarded, then he's going to think that I THINK he IS retarded, and might resent that, and withhold valuable beer-purchasing information....

About three feet in front of us he stops, suddenly, and kinda stares through us.

"No. There's a store around the way though..." and this 'around the way' business is very helpful. We then spend another few minutes trying to figure out if this Shaw's has an ATM in it to get out our buy-in money. It doesn't (the one's in Maine do, however. Add this to my growing list of why Maine is superior to Massachusetts.)

We then try an Irving gas station down the road a little bit when we're hassled by hoodlum youths huddled hooded in the shadows of the rear of the building. Before me and the roommate are even half way out of my truck, I hear a voice trying too hard to be hard call out "hey man,"

The roommate turns half way around and I post up at the front driver's side quarter panel to my truck which would provide me with superior cover should a gun fight ensue. "Hey man," the voice says again, and a four-foot-tall Puerto Rican who dresses with the same sense of fashionable flair as my roommate emerges. "Do you think you could go inside and buy me some blunt wraps, yo?"

"Blunt wraps?" I chuckle through as I turn back to the store.

"I'm sorry bro, I'm not 18," my roommate says as he turns away. There's nothing more said from the diminutive Hyannis thug.

I found my roommate's response ironic and humorous; at the Station we tease him all the time about how young he looks. When we all got pulled over a few weeks ago, and the undercover officer wanted to see his ID, even he said that the roommate looked "like 13." So for him to use his youthful appearance to get out of buying "blunt wraps" for some juvenile delinquent got a chuckle out of me.

There's no beer at the Irving either, but there was an ATM. I took out my twenty dollars and did my best to keep an eye on my truck through the window, lest one of the street urchins outside should decide that my GPS must be worth something at the local pawn brokery.

When we get outside and back into the truck, I lean back to get my seatbelt when a yellow light catches my eye. I glance over at it and realize that it's a "discount liquor" store right directly across from us on Iyannough. I curse under my breath and pull the truck into it's tiny parking lot.

Once inside, by myself, I have a helluva time trying to find where the 'regular fucking beer' is. I put that in semi quotes because that's what I kept saying as I wandered around endless wine racks in this Portuguese-owned liquor purchasing establishment.

I finally find the "cheap beer" section, pick up a 12 pack of MHLs for 13-something dollars.

"Discount Liquors," pfft.

We're on the road, finally, to go play cards.

Big Country, who is the Marlboro Man animated - 21 years old, 6'2, skinny, dresses as if a damn rodeo is going to break out at any second, wears Ray-Ban Wayfarers 24/7, has been waiting for us over an hour, even going so far to call my phone twice while we've been driving. He lives in Orleans which is about a 20 minute drive from Hyannis, and since we had to make about forty stops between the apartment and his place out in the middle of no where, he was getting agitated.

We arrive and make ready the poker set. E-Money and his petite girlfriend is there as well. Money is my boss's boss at the Station, 25 years old, sharp dresser, very much like me in sarcastic-ness and competitiveness. I'm somewhat irked that he brought his girlfriend along, and even more so irked that they're splitting a buy-in.

Seriously, you brought not only a female, but your girlfriend to a poker night? Dude, really?

I take everyone's cash and make a pot of a hundred dollars and secure it in my poker set case. I divvy up the chips and deal out the first hand, announcing the game is Texas Hold'em. To this I get a lot of blank stares.

I look around the small bar which we're all seated around, stacks of multi-colored chips in front of us like siege towers before an epic medieval battle.

"What...?" I ask everyone.

"How... do you play?" Comes from E-Money. My jaw actually makes a noise when it unhinges.

I'm not a professional poker player by any means. I 'sorta' fell into that whole "Hold'em Craze" from back in like 2004, but to say that you have no idea how to play cards, especially hold'em, when for the last semi-odd years it's gotten more national coverage than Al Gore trying to save the planet, is baffling.

What baffles me more is that my roommate is from LAS FUCKING VEGAS and he needed me to draft up a cheat sheet which broke down the hands. I even labeled what was junk and what you'd want to stay with.

We play a few hands, small bets and pots are being made and I'm drinking beers faster and faster. Big Country hands me a fifth of Wild Turkey and I take a few pulls off of that, cursing in my mind that I'm getting total bullshit hands.

We play for about an hour and the roommate is betting somewhat recklessly, which makes it increasingly difficult to get a read on him. It doesn't help matters when he's betting before me each hand.

Big Country is fiddling with his laptop, which is strange to watch considering he's very anti-technology. Watching him select music on his iTunes is like watching two middle school kids slow dance for the first time. It's adorably awkward.

E-Money and his girlfriend are the easiest to read at the table. He's spending too much time before he bets glancing at his hole cards and the cards on the table. She's doing the same thing plus touching her face when he's got semi-good cards. I'm doing my best to fuck with him psychologically knowing that, like me, his ego is everything. To be called 'cheap' in any form would automatically cause him to overly compensate for it to disprove the claim.

"I'm starting to think we should raise the minimum bet," I say aloud as soon as he places one black chip (worth twenty-five cents) in the pot. He instantly increases his bet by two-fold.

After about an hour, Big Country has a commanding chips lead, and E-Money has been crushed out, his girlfriend is hanging on by a thread only because I wanted to be a gentleman and not put her all in, leaving her a dollar and twenty-five cents in her stacks. My roommate is also short stacking. I have the second most chips.

Fifteen minutes pass and E-Money and his girlfriend leave us amidst hanging Marlboro smoke, defeated. Money's bitching, obviously sore that he's the first to be taken out when I look at him in the eyes and tell him that he knew what he was getting into before we started playing.

"Don't be sore, you know what this," I say. He harumphs and leaves with his girlfriend, who was gracious and pleasant as she closed the door behind them.

My next objective is to smoke my roommate's short stack. I get dealt pocket kings and the table's showing a Five of Diamonds, Jack of Diamonds, Nine of Clubs, Three of Spades, and Ten of Diamonds. Still betting recklessly, my roommate bets high and I figure he's bluffing/has no idea what he's doing. This gets Big Country, who since extinguishing The E-Moneys has been playing tight, to fold. I raise roommate's bet and put him all in, leaving my stacks small, but thinking there's no way he can beat my cowboys.

He flips over an Ace and Two of Diamonds. He fucking flushed me out. Son of a bitch. It feels like I took a front kick square to my solar-plexus. And I'm suddenly very sober.

I'm now in panic mode, only having about four dollars left in front of me, mostly in small chips, watching my roommate stack up roughly half of the chips from the set in front of himself. With the blinds being raised to double what they were when we started with five people, I know I'm on the endangered species list.

It isn't long before Big Country puts me all in and I'm stuck with off-suit Eight of Clubs and Seven of Hearts. I manage to pull out a pair of Sevens from the table, but it's not enough to beat the pair of Jacks Country had. I resign myself to being permanent dealer.

The game goes on for another few minutes where it starts to look like a stalemate. I realize that the whole time Big Country was sizing everyone up and playing very quiet, good poker. He levels my roommate an ultimatum.

"What do you wanna do here? We can split the pot," he offers. That'd be about 50 bucks a piece. I glance at my naive roommate who's playing with his chips dumbly.

"I just want my 20 bucks back if that's ok with you," he says half distractedly. I explode.

"Are you kidding me, you're going to just give him thirty bucks! What the fuck!" He shrugs, and before I can convince him otherwise, Big Country agrees and the money is split up.

We leave the duplex and I'm cold staring my roommate the entire walk to the truck.

"Dude, all I wanted was my money back..." he tries to explain.

"You could've given me the thirty bucks if you didn't want it," I say back. I fumble for my keys and manage to get myself into the truck and start my GPS.

"You good to drive?" He asks. I do my finger test and barely pass it.

"You know how to drive stick?" I ask, already knowing the answer.

"No,"

"Then we'll be fine," and I back down the twisting sloping driveway in utter darkness.

(Editor's Note: We're all very proud of Jim for getting this article into us the next morning, despite being overly hungover and unresponsive to pokes in the side from a sharp stick we keep around the office. Kudos, and nice work Jim!)

On The Road: The Blackberry Chronicles

"Introducing new Bud Light with Lime!"

..... Sooo you've basically invented Corona with the lime already in it.... Congratulations.

My Love For Karaoke Bars

Typically I'm not the type of person who loves the spotlight.

No that's a lie. I'm sorry, I didn't take my "truth pill" this morning. I've been running around town telling everyone I'm Andrew Jackson's great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson. It's been a real mess.

Anyway, there's an amazing facet of American life that I think is all too often shadowed, if not outright ridiculed: The Karaoke Bar.

I know what you're thinking reader "haha, yeah ok, good one, let's all get drunk and yell into microphones all night. I got the first round of scorpion bowls!" No. No you don't and shut up while I tell you why you're wrong and I'm right.

Karaoke is a sport of shameless self promotion and exploitation. Like all sports it takes guts to get out in front of a crowd of people and give it all you got for their adoration and respect. And just like any other sport, if you blow it big, the crowd won't hesitate to let you know from the peanut gallery.

You wipe the sweat out of your eyes, the track (which, because of copyright issues, is always played in an different key) and you glance at the words as they scrawl across the little monitor in front of you. You hesitate, your stomach clenches, the sudden soberness of the situation strikes you due to the fact that this is a song you've selected because of your knowledge of the words- yet can't remember a damn lyric. I mean, you sing it almost everyday in the car on your way to work; this all seemed like such a good idea twenty minutes ago when you signed up. Now you're looking down the barrel of scorn and shame.

"Dontcha wish your girlfriend was hot like me..." comes a voice similar to yours from your own mouth, much to your own shock.

What also makes Karaoke like a sport is the fact that it's televised for our collective pleasure. "American Idol" is in it's 8th (or close to?) generation, and if anyone tells you that "American Idol" and the Karaoke night down at your local pub are different, you tell them to shut the fuck up, because they aren't. In fact, where else can you go to watch assholes screech out warble-y versions of your favorite tunes? Half the fun of both "American Idol" and Karaoke night is seeing how awful the people are. No one gives a shit for the mediocre masses that make up the bulk of both venues, because they're nameless, faceless entities that leave no impression. But we always remember the winners and the losers.

Who was that semi-retarded Chinaman from a few years ago? That motherfucker put out a Christmas album- I shit you not. And we all remember Kelly Clarkson, The fat black guy, that chick who looks and sounds like Lianne Rhymes, and the other chick who apparently couldn't read, if I remember correctly.

It's the same at Karaoke night; you watch a few people go through who have the bare minimum of talent and it's boring. But everyone once in a while you get someone who's really good, who maybe sings in your local church's choir or took lessons when they were in high school. And if you're really lucky, you get some inebriated fool who thinks he can harmonize to "Three Times a Lady." He has a pack of smokes rolled into his Ted Nugent' Live in '95'-concert t shirt, his jeans are tar stained, his lungs are beer stained, and he lets loose a salvo of off-tune notes from his beer belly, while showering the mic with gobs of partially digested food and spittle.

All of that, for the price of maybe two beers? It's almost as if I'm ripping off the bar.

My favorite song to sing at the bar? I'm glad you asked. If I could sing at all, it'd be Cory Heart's "Sunglasses at Night," but that's a little too emo-ish. I think songs at Karaoke night need to be fan favorites that everyone knows and can sing along with. The last thing you should do is sing a song from some indie-label, underground hipster band no one but you and your shitty friends have heard of. You can never go wrong with a classic rock selection, just make sure it's between two and three minutes, because much longer than that and you'll probably bore/drive the crowd into a riot with your awful rendition.

Another Do: Feel free to get into the crowd and walk around, sing to people sitting at tables if the mic cable stretches that far. This not only get the crowd more into your performance, but it also shows that you know the words and aren't anchored down by the monitor.

Don't: Drink and sing. Like drinking and driving, you're only going to manage to spill your drink all over yourself, and when holding a live mic, that can be bad for every one.

Don't: Do an encore. One song per night is enough.

Do: Take requests. See what people want to hear, feel out the crowd. As demonstrated in the 1980 film "The Blues Brothers" when the Band played a gig at some shit-kicker joint out in the wilderness, they nearly got killed by playing "negro music." Quickly, Jake and Elwood changed their sound to a more honky-tonk flavor for their audience. So take heed when selecting a song to perform, unless you like the idea of being dragged out into the woods chained to the back of a pick-up truck, and brutally raped by moonlight.