Turn Around

It's been a while since I've performed karaoke; as I've mentioned in the past, my interest in the sport tends to wax and wane. This past weekend, about ten of us went into LA to a place with a bar, karaoke, and a bowling alley. Needless to say, that was the place to be -- what more could you ask for? Alas, that meant plenty of other people were there, too, so the wait to perform karaoke was ridiculously lengthy. During that time, Anna and I debated what song would be most ridiculous to perform, when I had an epiphany: "The Monster Mash." Bad spoken word with dumb background vocals would make for one of the more intentionally lame karaoke experiences ever. Alas, the song was not an option within this KJ's selection, so we decided to save this brilliance for another time, particularly a time of the year that would be even less seasonal.

Still, I would not be deterred from my mission to sing, and branching off from the monster theme, I selected one of my all-time favorite songs "Zombie" by the Cranberries. When it was my time to perform, I felt as randy as I ever have on stage and was pretty theatric about the whole thing. I asked the audience to "be prepared to cry," expecting that I would perform it in a soulful, despairing way. Ultimately, I found rage in me instead, and essentially screamed the whole thing with a lot of violent head thrashing and zombie movements. It wasn't quite singing, but it was definitely a performance, perhaps my best to date. Judging from my friends' facial expressions, the performance definitely shocked and pleased my friends. I couldn't help but look mostly at Jessica's coworkers, however, because they were looking at me without expressions of enjoyment, but rather strange stares of "what the hell?" that oddly inspired me to keep doing my thing. At the end, I spontaneously sputtered, "Thank you for paying respect to the living dead!" Normally, I limit my laughter toward my own jokes, but that escaped my mouth without any real consciousness, so even I couldn't even help but cackle a bit at that.

Later in the week, in honor of RJ's last night in southern California, we headed to the lesbian bar, The Hook-Up for some karaoke fun. It was significantly less crowded than my previous excursion, but still featured some amazing singers and, again, a disproportionate amount of Melissa Etheridge songs, including one endearing yet perhaps cliched parody of "I'm a Lesbian" sung to the tune of "I'm the Only One." Said the KJ at the song's conclusion, "Thank you, Captain Obvious." The other thing I like about the bar is that most of the singers change the pronouns used in the songs to queer them; if I ever return, I'll probably break out the gender neutral pronouns and rock their respective worlds.

As far as my group of friends went, Stacy went first and earned many fans for her rendition of Donna Summer's "On the Radio." I followed with "The Freshmen" by the Verve Pipe. Stacy warned me not to do it, as it wasn't in the spirit of the bar, but I thought that singing a melodramatic tale of suicide to a group of people out to have fun would at least be amusing to my friends and myself. As it turns out, Stacy was right. It kind of fell flat because who really wants to hear The Verve Pipe, besides me, I suppose. Oh well. RJ followed with Elvis' "Suspicious Minds" which is one of my favorite songs of all time, and we all crowded and loved on him at its conclusion, the proud and devoted friends that we are. We'll miss him, the little sucker.

Before we left, Stacy and I went for a duet, Fleetwood Mac's "You Can Go Your Own Way." Midway through the song, Stacy and I each found ourselves with a lesbian accompanying us, sharing the microphone. In some circumstances, a drunk stranger trying to share your spotlight is unappreciated, but in this circumstance it was very much appreciated, just as it was later when we also had the opportunity to close out the night with "Total Eclipse of the Heart," thus fulfilling a longtime karaoke fantasy of mine. At first, Stacy wanted us to just sing it all, but I insisted on going for the duet, the hysterical call and response of:

"Turn arounddddddddddddd
Every now and then I get a little bit lonely...
Turn arounddddddddddddd
Every now and then I get a little bit tired... "
Etc.

Turn around, RJ. Turn around.