A so uncool-it's-cool (or vice versa) admission:

I fucking love karaoke. I really, really do.

Maybe it's the frustrated rock star in me. Maybe the attention-seeker. Maybe the easy, willing drunk.

Mentioned because I'm about ten minutes away from heading out to do some now. It's for a good cause - prevention of sexual assault or something - but make no mistake, I'd go do karaoke for illicit, illegal or plain-ass immoral causes. Almost certainly not for sexual assault, but give me a few good beers, and I'd sing for sexual harassment at the very least. Yeah, I'd rip it up for the basic human right to make "nice tits" comments in the workplace. Most definitely.

I've seen a lot of bad karaoke. Hell, I've done a lot of bad karaoke. It's a trial and error thing; for every stone-dead "Burning Down The House" or "Born to Run" I've done (word to the wise: just don't) there's been a "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You" or "Need You Tonight" or "Uptown Girl" at just the right moment. The moment that everyone's drunk as fuck. That's really key.

It's a funny thing; the most unexpectedly good karaoke books I've seen tend to be in the most podunk places; an upcountry New Hampshire saloon; a townie bar in northern Vermont ski country with nine people in it; a a greasy country pizza pub off a racetrack my brother was working at in north-central Ohio, where the binder was so thick looked like it was meant to be on a probate lawyer's shelf.

Here in my college town things are positively average. At best. I could only dream, fantasize, that something as out there and incredible as Of Montreal's "The Party's Crashing Us" gets into the mix. I would kill for the chance to go nuts on this.





But then that's nothing. Give me the chance to do Karaoke Bowie with Of Montreal backing me, and I could get hit by a bus outside the bar five minutes later and die a fulfilled man.







In fact, I might actually run in front of the first bus I see anyway, just to go out on top, George Costanza-style. Yeah, I totally would.

And there's more.

Of Montreal Indie karaoke - Don't Stop Believing.
Need You Tonight.
Sweet Child Of Mine.

Labels: karaoke, of montreal, unfulfilled aspects of my life that will remain forever unfulfilled