Karaoke Night at Tulsa's 'The Buck'

The mural on the wall of Tulsa's Buckaneer bar, on Harvard near 11th Street.

By Paul Lischwe

I am by no means a bar connoisseur or a prize-winning karaoke singer. Bit I am a 21-year-old who enjoys the company of good friends and singing the occasional "Mary Jane's Last Dance" when the time is right.

That disclaimer brings me to the beginning of my adventure at The Buckaneer, a bar just a stone's throw from the TU campus.

The time was about 11:15 on a Thursday night. I walked through the door of the Buck. To my left a portly man was on a small six-by-five foot stage belting out a western song that was lost on me. At this point, I could tell it was going to be a good night.

I walked over to the bar to meet a few of my buddies for a drink. As I passed by two female patrons of the bar, I could not help but overhear them intently discussing which karaoke ballad they wanted to sing. I caught the song "I Would Do Anything for Love" by Meat Loaf.

I hoped they would make a better selection.

Joining the circle that my friends had formed, I became aware that I was the only one without a drink in my hand. That needed fixing, so I worked my way through a wall of other thirsty customers and ordered the Thursday night special, which is a bucket of Natural Light bottles for $5.

After enjoying a few karaoke performances and taking down a few beers from the bucket, I decided to try my hand at karaoke. After recruiting my buddy John, we made our way to the man running the laptop that held all of the karaoke songs. We inquired about the song "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey.

About 20 minutes later, the two of us found ourselves on stage with about 100 patrons looking up at us, Maybe this wasn't such a solid idea.

We sang. For the most part, we were better than I had expected. We butchered a few of the later verses, but there seemed to be no booing except from my less adventuresome friends.

Off the stage and out of the limelight, I waked back through the billiard tables to my groupies. We settled our tab with the Buckaneer's manager, P.J., and made our way to Taco Bell for a nightcap.

Paul Lischwe is a junior finance major and a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity at TU.