On Tony's "Surprise" thread I mentioned the benefit I played Sunday for the victims of Hurricane Charley. The organizers had the best intentions when putting together the music...but I failed to mention they also had a guy & gal who showed up to do Karaoke.

They, to, had the best of intentions thinking the guests would stand in front of a TV monitor and sing to their discs.

It was a flawed plan in that all promotion around the event highlighted locally known live players. Add to this the fact that the target audience had little, if any, interest in Karaoke to begin with.

When each of the "live" entertainers involved showed up and saw the K rig in the lounge, eyebrows went up. Then the guests arrived and the K couple started doing their thing. Their efforts were met with mass indifference as all the paying guests made their way into the big room for the live entertainment.

In fairness to the K couple, they offered their services free (as we all did) and were not aware that the organization had tried Karaoke in the past and found it was not their members' cup of tea.

After 30 minutes, the K gear quietly was removed and the organizers moved up the entertainment schedule to get things rolling.

Am I being snooty? No..not really. I fault one member of the organizing committee who accepted the offer by the K couple just because it was free.

It was a simple mis-match which was quickly corrected to the disappointment of the couple, who probably do just fine in the K bars.

Eddie