Why no karaoke? I’m glad you asked!
Peter Parisi has led karaoke outings at many of the recent ACES conferences.
To those of you who were wondering why there was no fourth annual karaoke after-after-party at ACES 2011 Phoenix on Saturday night (and to those newbies who didn’t know there was supposed to be one), here’s the lowdown.
The bar nearest the conference hotel that features karaoke, Majerle’s (owned by former Phoenix Suns player Dan Majerle and pronounced “Marley’s”), has karaoke only on Tuesday nights, but I asked the manager if he would have it especially for ACES on Saturday night, explaining that it was a three-year tradition at our conferences.
I told him we had about 250 attendees, and that if he had karaoke Saturday night, he could reasonably expect perhaps 75 to 100 of us to show up for it, and that we would probably average two or three drinks apiece (and in some cases, more). He said he’d be happy to — but only if we paid for the karaoke deejay ($250).
Needless to say, that was a non-starter, since that would be “double-dipping” on Majerle’s part: Lots of added patrons it wouldn’t have had otherwise, plus we would foot the bill for the privilege. So it was a lose-lose.
Now we know why it’s pronounced “Marley’s.” Perhaps he should change his first name from Dan to Jacob.
I then worked with the hotel concierge, Bianca, to find another venue; call it Plan B. I had a very long list of pubs that feature karaoke throughout the Phoenix area that I found in one of the free entertainment publications distributed around the city, which I showed to Bianca, but she said none was closer than a $15 cab fare away; so with that, the three-year ACES karaoke tradition hit a dead end.
I was disappointed, because I wanted to make Arizona the 11th state (after CA, CO, DE, FL, MD, MN, NC, PA, SD and VA, as well as DC) in which I’ve sung karaoke and because I had already picked out the songs I’d planned to sing: “Arizona” by Mark Lindsay, “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” by Glen Campbell and “El Paso” by Marty Robbins. (OK, OK, I realize El Paso is in Texas, not Arizona, but it’s close enough.)
But fear not, ACES karaoke fans. The sainted tradition will resume in April 2012 in New Orleans!
