I still can hear the roaring crowds. The fist-pumping, shoulder-grabbing people – rushing to cheer, congratulate, even join in.
When you sing Journey’s “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” at karaoke on a Saturday night in West Hartford, Connecticut, this is what happens. Well, this is what happens when I’m singing.
See, I have a problem: I’m a karaoke king.
I have a good tenor voice that can handle most Top 40 tunes. I enjoy singing and performing, with choirs and musical theater lead roles in my past. And it’s always a good time when I do it, too, as the crowd’s energy mixes with mine, building in intensity and pushing me to a level I’d never attain alone.
So, I should love karaoke! Right? WRONG.
(Secret black person fact: A crowd of white people yelling “Woooo!” always frightens us. It’s just one of those I’m-the-only-one-here moments. And as a blerd, you’re in a lot of I’m-the-only-one-here places. It always feels like someone’s gonna yell “Let’s get him!” next.)
It’s just too cheesy. And sure, I like cheesy stuff, given how much Dancing with the Stars I watch. But I’m more like Mystery Science Theater 3000 – I prefer to laugh at it rather than live it. And karaoke people? They live it.
I’ve done karaoke about 10 times altogether in my life, and disliked it every time. First time was on the first day of high school, when I sang The Sweet’s “Ballroom Blitz” with a friend at orientation. Then nothing until grad school orientation eight years later, and I won a microphone as a prize. (I never opened it, either threw it out or gave it away.)
And nothing again until a couple of years later on a random night out, singing David Bowie’s “Changes” at a bar in Northeast Philly and getting the crowd revved up; but then this same crowd had a feverishly passionate rendition of Evanescence’s “My Immortal” sung by a middle-aged woman who looked as far away from Amy Lee as you could get.
But then something changed. It was New Year’s 2008, hanging out at my friend Sara’s house in South Philadelphia. Sara had started running a karaoke business, and so late late after midnight everyone was totally wasted, singing songs. But this time … it was different, as Sara had a collection ranging from ’70s R&B to obscure ’80s punk to current Top 40. Shit, one guy sang Deep Purple’s “Space Trucking” and changed the lyrics to “Space Fucking.” For a reason I can’t remember now, another guy was screaming “Ass to ass!” like in Requiem for a Dream, which made its way into a bunch of songs.
“Into the Night” is a ballad of teen love between a 16-year-old girl and her rebel boyfriend. Except that Mardones was almost 34 when the song came out. Ew. And any song that starts with “she’s like the wind through my tree,” sad piano and a big saxophone solo is dying to be made fun of.
These days, I get to Sara’s Sing Your Life nights as often as possible when I visit Philly. I sing my favorite songs whose melodies I remember, plus joke songs that need to be taken down a peg in a dive bar. You can’t beat singing personal favorite Billy Joel’s “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Theme),” the crowd gathering around me to sing along, and when the instrumental part hit, a guy was playing a real saxophone next to me. It was the third most-awesome thing I’ve ever seen.
I love seeing friends, I love singing, I love performing, I love the songs. But don’t get me wrong: I still hate karaoke. Really, I do. But I’m nuanced; yes, I hate “Don’t Stop Believin’,” but otherwise I like Journey, hence singing “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart).” I cracked up when that song came on in TRON: Legacy, sucking Sam Flynn back into his father’s 1982 heyday.
The night after I sang Journey at the birthday party, another friend who was there wrote on my Facebook wall, “You are the goddamn karaoke king.” Yes, I am. But reluctantly so. I’m not turning that into an All-Star Batman-style catchphrase. Tell no one of this.
Now someone find me some Santigold in this song book, ’cause I’m about to tear the house down.
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