Leeward Camino: She's Goin' to the Chapel - or - The Piano Douche

***WARNING*** Explicit content. Please don't read if you are 1) Under the age of 18. 2) Offended by discussion of sexual innuendo and bad language. 3) My parents.

For months now, I've been prepared for last week's bachelorette party to be the low point of the next three months. To the bride Kristina, don't stop reading here.

Cheesy debauchery, the exuberant well wishes to a friend that's having more sex than you are, and booze by the bucket. Having sworn off the stuff and therefor the enhanced decision making that comes with it, cocktail-swilling bridesmaids just remind me of what I'm missing. So when I pictured how that night would go, this is what I was expecting:

But that's not how it went down. Thank God.

I pulled my hot pink wife beater on over my relatively normal clothes — displaying the "Team Tena" label that would mark me as a friend of the bachelorette — and walked in to one of the best forms of entertainment I think there is on the planet. Or at least in the city.

I had never heard the phrase "dueling pianos" before I walked into Keys on Main in Seattle. These two absurdly talented young men sat at pianos facing one another, taking turns meeting the well bribed requests of the club's guests. When one played and sang the main bit, the other provided drum and other back up noises via synthesizer. It sounds cheesy, but I cannot stress enough how AWESOME these guys were. And their smart ass, wildly inappropriate comedy did help to bring it home. They sang a version of "She'll be comin' round the mountain" to the bride whilst she sat atop the piano that would make any decent woman blush. (Luckily I've slid down the other side of the scale.)

The one you see pictured above couldn't stop talking about boobs, and he actually referred to himself as the "piano douche." I can verify the accuracy of that statement, illustrated by the following Story Within A Story:

So our dear friend Kathleen could not come to the wedding festivities due to an unfortunate and sudden illness. I missed her a lot, so I thought, hey, I'll dedicate a song to her. And then I thought, hey, how about the song that she and Kristina used to sing at karaoke bars ten years ago. Even better. Here is the request slip I turned in:

In case you can't read that, we requested Like a Virgin, and dedicated it to "That Skank Kathleen Who Couldn't Come."

The insta-creep look on the Piano Douche's face revealed that this was indeed a good move on my part. He picked up the slip of paper, raised a hand to hush the crowd, and read the slip aloud.

"For that skank Kathleen who couldn't come? That.....BITCH. Now, what lame ass reason did she give for not joining you on your special day? I mean what the fuck is her problem?"

I'm not sure what he was expecting, but surely it wasn't the response I yelled from the audience.

"She has shingles!!"

Finally, a crack in the Piano Douche's rich sarcastic outer coating. He started laughing because, honestly, the shingles is a really good reason to not be at a bachelorette party. But that didn't stop him from providing us with a video rant chastising Kathleen PERSONALLY for not attending his piano bar on that celebratory eve. Because, you know, when you're a good friend you don't let some petty illness get in the way of a good opportunity for inciting abuse by complete strangers.

It was made clear pretty quickly that you had to be careful with your requests around these guys. Hit on a song they aren't interested in, and you're graced with a two minute sarcastic version interspersed with requests for a better fucking song. And if you request the Piano Man, apparently, you should go ahead and just stab your own eyes out along with them.

So I learned to be creative. While they never actually sang Like a Virgin, it did start an unforgettable exchange. They honored my requests for that Discovery Channel song by Bloodhound Gang, as well as a kick ass, table-standing version of Thrift Shop. Because of their earlier sarcasm I was never sure if they were just faking their enthusiasm on these songs — for some reason it was important to me that they be genuinely having fun and also liked me and thought I was a good person — but they sure looked like it. And when they delivered a heartfelt rendition of Dick In a Box a la Justin Timberlake and Adam Samberg, my heart truly soared.

However, no where was their courage more daring than when they singled a pleasantly inebriated asian party out of the small audience, and asked their ethnicity. (Holy risky move, that's some Spider Man crowd reading right there because that could have gone POORLY.) One replied that he was South Korean, following which he was, of course, asked on stage to sing none other than Gangnam Style. Random drunk South Korean on stage singing the year's hit dance song? Questionable? Yes. But he KILLED it. The man was on fire. How can you possibly beat that?

I fully expect every bachelorette party I attend after this to be completely lame, either by nature or in comparison. What a way to wish this beautiful woman well.