The Sax Player

Last night a few of us went wandering. We flipped coins to determine what street to go down. We ended up at a place with flashing lights, and stairs leading to the basement. On the way down, there were photographs of a man who looks vaguely like Kim Jung Il, playing the sax and singing.

At the bottom of the stairs was a strange room. There were big sofas, a disco ball, and a stage with drums, microphones, a saxophone, and speakers.

We were the only ones there. We ordered some beers, and I pointed to the stage and asked "When?" That's when we saw the man from the pictures. He went to the stage and started up the equipment. He asked us if we spoke Korean, and we said a little.

He started speaking to us in Korean, which none of us could understand. Finally we heard a word that we recognized: "nori." "I think he wants us to sing," I said.

We had barely begun our first beer of the night, so none of us were too eager to get on stage yet. But the Korean man was on stage, and he wasn't leaving. He waited there, with the mic in his hand, and the silence in the room was heavy. Finally, Logan and I went up.

"Mual Nori?" he asked. What song? I said Johnny Cash, and we sang "Ring of Fire" for our two other friends and the other Korean employee, with the old man backing us up with his sax.

Skip ahead several minutes, and I was on stage with Andrew and Jerri. I was wearing a wig, and the other two had on a mask and a hat. We were half way through the song, when I felt something wet descending on me. The air was full of white bubbles. Behind us was the old man, who had taken a brief interlude from his sax playing to spray us down with bubbles. There was nothing to do but finish the song.

Logan did a solo of "My Heart Will Go On" and then we left. All in all, we were only there about half an hour, but it was one the weirder experiences I've had here.