Karaoke Pt 1

As a grown man of indiscriminate age, it's certainly unreasonable for me to partake in a wide variety of activities. Roller derby is out, as is double dutch and hand clap games. I was never much for extreme sports or sports where you can't use your hands.

Sorry soccer, futbol and shirling.

There is one thing I love that, despite my late-20's decrepitude, I still partake in whenever possible.

Karaoke.

Go ahead. Laugh. Get it out of your system. I'll wait.

Done? No? Sorry to interrupt.

Okay, now you're just being an asshole. I'm pressing forward. See, karaoke has been a huge part of my Dionysian lifestyle since I learned what the word Dionysian meant, or approximately a decade. There's a feeling of power, of euphoric splendor, when I take the stage and bust a move and/or moves. It doesn't matter if it's in front of a shitty TV screen with too-hot microphones or with a lyric sheet on a music stand in front of a badass cover collective cranking it out live. Karaoke gives me thrills akin to what heroin users must feel when they overdose, die on the table and come back to life. One more karaoke night and I might write a tune as bitching as "Kickstart My Heart" is what I keep telling myself.

I can definitively say that karaoke has led to some amazing moments in my lifetime. Not life changing events, necessarily, just great times that I will never forget...at least until the vengeful Spirit of Senility descends upon me.
My first experience with karaoke takes me back to the distant past of the year 2001. Interesting events of the year include: the constitution of Finland was finally rewritten, Tuvalu joined the United Nations, and I was a 17-year old kid who liked a girl. I won't mention her name, not to save her from embarrassment, but because her name isn't important. It could be anything. Chris...or Tina...or some combination thereof…anyhoo…

College was right around the corner. I would soon be shipping off to the far reaches of Northern Toronto. I knew that if I were to have any chance of courting (read: fucking) this girl, I was going to have to act fast. As a pop culture squire training for knighthood, I delved into my movie obsessed brain to find the perfect way to impress (i.e. fuck) this girl. What I found was disturbing, to say the least.

I came away from my 1-man strategy session convinced that a big(stupid), bold(dumb) and romantic(ridiculous) gesture was my only option. I clearly recall driving around with some friends, detailing my awful, awful plan.

MARK
So there's this girl...

Or something like that. I should probably mention that this is all hearsay from my everything-addled brain.

MARK
I really like her, but she doesn't know. But I want to tell her. So at this karaoke thing tomorrow night, I'm going to dedicate a song to her.

What song you ask?

DAN
What song?

Thanks Dan.

MARK
"Need You Tonight," by INXS.

That's right. I knowingly chose to not only perpetrate one of the most shameful exhibits of crass romanticism ever in the history of fat, beardy 17-year olds, I chose to do it with an INXS song.

On purpose.

NOTE: William Turbyfill was there as well. Just giving credit where credit is due.

Had Michael Hutchence been alive at the time, he would have been well within his right to murder me with the scarf he would soon erotically hang himself with. Hell, a zombie Michael Hutchence with a craving for brains and killer stage presence would not have been out of the question. Either way, looking back, I would have deserved it for conjuring up such a massively boneheaded idea.

When karaoke started, I was still more than happy to make a colossal ass of myself just to get in this girls pants. I quickly made my way to the book of songs, rushed to INXS and pointed my finger at-

"Suicide Blonde?"

What manner of bullshit was this, I thought. How can you have INXS and not have "Need You Tonight?," I pondered. You have every Clarence Carter song in existence, including those from 1976's Heart Full of Song, but you don't have "Need You Tonight," I gerrymandered. My plan was ruined. Obliterated by a KJ who had clearly lacked the foresight to stock the one song necessary for my (hopefully) triumphant final stand. What would I do now? I couldn't possibly impress her with something else, something...inferior. Could I?

No. I chose Billy Joel's regrettably immortal "Still Rock and Roll To Me." Plan averted. Feelings reigned in. Love (or at least balls-infected like) devastated. I never told her how I felt, and by the time sunrise came around, I forgot. Sure, I'll always remember the circumstances that almost led me to make an almost demigod-like doofus of myself, but almost as soon as I finished singing about "hot punk, cool funk" and "next phase, new wave, dance craze, anyways" my crush was kaput. Why? A new crush had taken her place. A deep, yearning crush for the exhilaration I felt standing in front of fifty people, belting out a complete trifle of a song (should have gone with "Zanzibar"). A new crush called...marionette operation and repair.

Just kidding. It was karaoke.