No Karaoke at Ozzie's

Location: Seattle
Time: 9:30 p.m.
Crowd: just out of college
Party: Dude, where's my job?
Mood: Transfixed
Outstanding Quote: "Don't stop be-LIEVING!"

Election night is a great night to see a movie (Ashes of Time Redux, only patron in the place) and do some grocery shopping (all Safeway awaits my command!), but there were other sights to take in this evening.

Biking past the corner of Fourth and Pine, a swarm of Obamaniacs had made Westlake Plaza into a boisterous parade ground. Later in the U-District, cars rolled past, their windows down, the president-elect's victory speech booming over the sound systems. Spontaneous hoots and hollers all around. Back in the LQA, solitary pedestrians raced past, cell phones pressed to their ears, shouting, "Dude, I know!"

And even at Ozzie's, the cheerful redoubt of 20-something hedonism, every TV screen was tuned to Chicago's Grant Park. All the kids sat transfixed around their beer pitchers in the karaoke corner. There was no off-key singing tonight. Only one voice was heard.