You know when you have a certain idea in your head on how something should be and when it turns out not to be true you’re hell-bent on making it so?
That was my mood at Cleo’s in downtown Orlando last Friday. Now, I love this bar and my friends dig it too. I’ve said it’s reminiscent of Kit Kat… well sorta.
The plastic playing pool this particular evening was killing any cool vibe potential the place had going for it. (Now try to say that ten times in row… faster… faster!!!) The billiard area was like a casting call for "America’s Next Top Model" and the tools panting over these shallow betties had more chains and rings on then a jewelry rack at Jared’s.
This was not the crowd this place needed to be attracting. Sorry, I can be a bit of a hipster snob at times, even though I’m not a hipster. But Cleo’s is perfect for that clientele and we got enough bars pandering to the yups in this town already, so my friends were in agreement that the current crowd had to go.
Why? (and go with me on this I’m getting back to the original story) Because it all depends on the audience. If either one of them blared death metal the room would had been cleared out in five seconds flat.
My boyfriend on the other hand, he knows how to clear a room. And he proved it within 45 minutes this very evening at Cleo’s all within a touch of a button on a jukebox. Or a few.
Some hip-hop song that wasn’t very good because I had never heard of it was bouncing out of the jukebox, off the walls, on to the pool tables and into my ears and that’s when Casey (that would be my boyfriend) stepped in with $5. That’s an hour worth of songs folks.
Now what he did next was even slightly punishing to our friends and I, but you know what they say, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and we were willing to sacrifice ourselves for the benefit of this club attracting a cooler crowd.
What did he play you ask? Um, four David Allan Coe songs, followed by three Johnny Cash, followed by Tracy Chapman, followed by Patsy Cline followed by White Zombie.
Now some of you are like, hey I love Johnny Cash. And I understand that, as do I. This crowd, not so much. First song, you see them kind of startled, "where did the hip-hop go?" They’re whispering to each other but still patient that this must be a blip on the jukebox radar. Then the second Coe song starts up and you can see they’re busting into panic mode. About six of them are surrounding the jukebox, almost guarding it while shoving dollar bills down it’s metal throat as if they could choke the song out.
Third song they sit down on the couches. They don’t want to play pool anymore, they’re sulking. This is awesome! One Asian chick wearing a piece of Brawny paper towel disguised as a dress tells some guy staring at her chest, "If it ain’t hip-hop, I can’t hang."
Priceless.
Now this actually goes on for close to 45 minutes. They really held out, I was impressed. They were bitching the whole time but that’s entertaining so I wasn’t complaining. What surprised me though was the song that turned out to be the final nail in the coffin that was their good time.
"Fast Car"??? Tracy Chapman was the one to clear the room. I thought for sure they’d be running for the hills when Patsy started belting out, "Walking After Midnight" but what did Tracy ever do to anyone?
Doesn’t matter, they were out the door so fast they were tripping over each other. Now it was time to build up from the wreckage. My friend Paul said Mikey Cortez from The Spitvalves was DJing later that night so that’s a good start. We finished up our pool game and left with "More Human Than Human" playing in our wake.
