In my last post, I predicted that the word for Valentine’s Day would be “male”. I think “karaoke” would have to be the winner though.

Single guys night out was a lot of fun. There were about a half-dozen of us. We gathered at a laid back bar downtown that was formerly frequented by a group of abstract expressionists known as The Club. (The 1951 entry of the Club minutes records “77 members + 11 deadheads”.) Our conversation was perhaps not as deep as their’s. We talked of women, music, and comic books. My kind of guys. Far better than discussions about football.

I shared a story Dad had told me that day about a Valentine’s fifteen to twenty years ago. It involves leaving work at three in the afternoon and sneaking beer into a Clint Eastwood marathon at the Quad Cinema on 13th Street.

The evening and the crowd were winding down. The hour was nigh for the city’s lovers to be celebrating the holiday as lovers do, and I was ready to wander home, feeling only slightly sorry for myself. That’s when A.J. suggested karaoke.

So we got a room at a karaoke joint near Cooper Union and a six-pack and sang and laughed until three o’clock in the morning. Matchbox 20 never sounded so good and so bad.