Karaoke death match

You know you've done it. And if you haven't, you know that secretly deep down, you've always wanted to. I wouldn't hold anything against you. It's natural to let one's inner superstar out every once in a while.

That's why I am a faithful in the Church of Karaoke. I believe in the gods of Sweet Georgia Brown, Sound Choice and Singing Machine. They lead me to everlasting glory, bearing only a wireless microphone and a lyrical television screen. Choirs of pre-recorded analog angels harmonize with my soulful hymns, and I see the light...of the disco ball...

My humble hyperbole serves only to illustrate the frankness of my appeal to the masses. Karaoke is a way of life, and God help anyone who tries to destroy it. Like a mean, ugly bitch who thinks she is the true queen of the karaoke scene, lording over us all as if we were her minions, stealing the thunder from our skies because that provides temporary relief from a sickly ego. (She wasn't really that ugly. Yet I vilify her for the purposes of this story.)

I'm not a phenomenal singer. I boast only that I can hold a tune when required and that I truly enjoy singing. To be honest, plucking the vocal chords in front of people scares me stiff. I've had psychological meltdowns before a cappella concerts, and vomiting spells during musical auditions. I have a fear of high notes (or is it a fear of being perceived as imperfect? Not sure), and when I think of singing publicly, the breath in my lungs mysteriously dissipates. Which is exactly why I choose to do Karaoke. I treat it as an exercise in eschewing the comfort zone. It's not a competition, it's not a sing-off. It's just me trying to make myself a more confident gal.

So one can imagine my discomfiture the other night upon the final cadence of my rendition of "All That Jazz" in a seedy bar downtown, to be met not with encouraging applause, but with,

"Get the f$#& out! You can stop wiping you ass with this trash heap! This ain't your bathroom!"

So sayeth the aforementioned mean, ugly girl. This was her kingdom, and I in some way must have offended. I handed the microphone back to the bartender (the KJ, isn't that cute? Like DJ but for karaoke!) like a scolded child unsure of the magnitude of its transgression. Bitch girl snatched it back, at which point the chords of a Pat Benetar song (I don't remember which, for they all sound the same) began to blast through the stereo system. I have to admit that she had a decent voice: a little bit of Janice's soul mixed with a little bit of Shania's belt. She had great lung power that she directed effectively through her chest (although trained singers would scoff at such bad form). In essence, I knew right off the bat that she had a better voice than I. Like, ten times better. So obviously better, that I was at a complete loss to even guess at how she could have felt threatened by me at all! But she sang the shit out of that Pat Benetar song until her throat started rasping. Then she left the bar in a huff.

Flash forward to two weeks later, when I decided to return to this bar for another evening of releasing the inner superstar. She wasn't there when I arrived, and I'd forgotten that her petty ass existed. But as soon as I picked up the mic to start singing Amy Winehouse's "Rehab," she walked in, strutting across the bar. She passed in between me and the television screen at one point, with an entourage that included a trashy looking dude and a little person who was a dead ringer for "Jackass"'s Wee- Man. They sat down at the bar, and I could see her trying to give me the evil eye.

A few minutes later, it was deliberately whispered to me that the Wee-Man-look-a-like was an agent for a big record company, here to see her sing. He was about four feet tall, with the disposition of an angry pitbull. (Last time I checked in with reputable agents, none of them would come to a karaoke bar to recruit new talent.) No sooner did I register this bit of clearly fake information, than someone slapped me in the leg! I looked down and saw the wee-man running away at top speed.

Bitch pulled a Tonya Harding on my ass! It was a hit and run leg slapping, all because someone felt threatened by my less-than American Idol vocal stylings. That just does not compute in my world. WHY????

Anyhow, I made it out alive that night, and I'll live to go back there. I'll face that hose-bag and her childish and semi-illegal attempts to thwart my performance. To be honest, stage-fright is far more intimidating to me and a far worthier enemy to fight.

Let the death match continue!!!

Million-dollar smile

Smile! It don't cost nuthin'.

Seriously, would it kill you to smile at a stranger on the street?

Well, maybe yes, if that stranger were a raving psychotic with a gun, an itchy trigger finger, good aim, a tragic childhood devoid of love and an acquired aversion to happy-looking people. But, since most people aren't quite like that, really, what's the problem?

Is it fear of premature wrinkles? Does it expend too much energy? Are you perpetually afraid that you have a big chunk of your last meal lodged in the choppers? Did you recently undergo oral surgery or Botox injections? Are you so deathly afraid of commitment that you think a smile risks laying your all your cards on the table?

The ability to smile is uniquely human. Cats, dogs, monkeys, snakes, fish, elk, geese...as far as I know, they express their feelings of happiness and good will toward men in other discernible ways. Why not embrace this human trait as we've embraced our opposable thumbs? If you can't get behind that, at least you can still use those thumbs to force a smile...

We smile when we're happy or amused. We cry when emotion floods the mind, we frown when we're displeased, we shake when we're nervous, etc. The physical manifestations of emotion are the way to communicate in the absence of words. And emotion is often contagious, especially when reinforced with facial or bodily indicators. So instead of blabbering to everyone who crosses your path about your feelings of happiness and amusement, why not just show them with a smile? Maybe it will make their day better?

I was quite angered and confused today (emotions which have fueled my commentary thus far). I walked down the city street this afternoon, making a conscious effort to smile at every human being with whom I made eye contact. To my horror, it was completely without reciprocation. Not a soul returned the love.

"Why??? Oh why???" I cried to myself. Unrequited love is the most painful of all!

But then, I pulled my scarf off of my face to itch my chin. The same scarf that had been completely concealing my broad grins for seven blocks.

My faith in humanity has been restored, for the time being. Did I mention that human bodies tend to shiver uncontrollably when it's minus-19 degrees outside?

One final note, if all else fails and you just cannot force even a smirk, think of this:

Losing control

Most modern psychologists will tell you that a major source of human anxiety and the drain on the national supply of Xanax is a "perceived lack of control." Like losing one's brakes during rush hour on the GW Bridge or getting stuck in a spiderweb as you flee from a huge man-eating spider...thinking that you've lost all control is something that makes a lot of people shit their pants.

I've managed to keep my pants clean and dry, but I can't help but find it supremely uncomfortable when I am force fed my own ineptitude: i.e. when I feel like a complete moron.

Like two days ago, for instance. I was trying to take a bus downtown to my agent's office. I usually take the train, but I didn't want to walk a mile from the subway in the subzero frozen tundra (that looks astonishingly like a big city). I've always felt confused by the tangle of bus lines on the metro maps, but I figured if I get a bus that's going the right way down a one-way street, I'll probably end up heading in the right direction. My journey began with a frantic search for the actual bus stop. Of course, there were no signs and no indications that a bus has ever stopped there in the history of the city's public transportation system. The only person in sight was the bum selling papers on the street corner, and I think he actually took pity on me. I know this because he did not ask for money after pointing out the bus stop three yards from where I was standing. The bus arrived shortly thereafter, and I got on without incident. My cheeks barely had time to warm when it was time to transfer to a crosstown bus. I pulled the cord that you're supposed to pull to indicate that you'd like to get the hell off the bus, and stood close to the front doors as the bus driver pulled up to the stop. The doors didn't open immediately after the bus stopped, yet the driver gave me a look that said, "why are you still on my bus?" Crap, was I supposed to get off at the back of the bus? Are there some unwritten (or perhaps clearly marked) rules of which I don't have cognizance? So I bounded to the back of the bus to find those doors locked tight. Then I looked back at the driver, who calmly and slowly opened the front doors with a smirk. I ran off the bus and croaked out a "thanks." It took me ten minutes to find the next bus stop, which was literally in front of me as I exited the first bus. Just before I boarded the second bus, I realized I had just been walking around like a drugged schoolgirl in one of the city's more dangerous projects. When the doors whooshed shut behind me, I couldn't shake the depth of my idiocy for many blocks.

I suppose things could have gone much much worse...Like yesterday, for instance, when I spent three hours transcribing the wrong interview.

But there is an upside to the anxiety. If I were in control of everything in my life, I wouldn't have the fodder for self-deprecating humor. And without that, we wouldn't have any funny people in the world.

The unhappiest ending

This isn't right. This wasn't supposed to happen!!! I was supposed to star in a romantic comedy with this flaxen-haired hunk!!!

So far, 2008 appears to be the year of the OD, accidental or intentional.

R.I.P.

TV Time out

The inside of a television studio is a busy thoroughfare. I say, "thoroughfare," not only because it is a place where people are running about like decapitated fowl, each individual having it's own, fuzzy destination and wrinkle-inducing deadline. That's a given: a brightly lit tempest with a disposition as stormy or as clear as the weather report.

("Scotch, scotch, scotch. I love scotch." "How now brown cow?")

But in the wee hours of a Saturday morning, as the talent and crew prepare for the "morning show," it looks like a bizarro marketplace. There's a chef frying plantains in one corner of the room, which to an unsuspecting audience would appear as a fully functional kitchen. The sweet aroma of the sizzling tropical fruit pervading...In another corner, there is a full band warming up for a performance, which to the aforementioned, unsuspecting audience, would appear as if on a stage. In another corner, there is a collection of computer monitors and high-tech-looking gadgets that serve as the source of all those rumors of snowfall and the solemn predictions of below-freezing temperatures. The king of that castle, the meteorologist, can be seen easing a comb through his Ken-like coiff as he winks, making mental notes of the puns he will dish out on-air. Still, in another corner, the pretty-looking anchor sits under the studio lights and in front of a back screen painted to look like the city newsmarket. She's adjusting her posture and practicing a reading of her lover and crutch, the teleprompter. The producer flits in and out of the "marketplace" throwing scripts at people and yelling something about time and deadlines. The camera-ops whisper and giggle over the latest station gossip, or complain about their wives, depending on the mood of the studio.

That was the state of things when RM and I walked in Saturday morning. We were there at an obnoxious hour for a Saturday morning, under the pretenses that we were to coach Erin Harkes on the details of the Tim Gray Memorial Fundraiser (to be held that evening) as she went live on the show with her blues band. We were late, thanks to misdirections and lack of sleep. I drove and let RM off at the door. I found a place to park and ran in myself, not expecting to bust in on the bizarro bizarre that is Saturday morning at a television studio. Almost immediately, the producers hooked a wireless mic to RM and prepped him for air. The fact that RM was going to be on live television in a New York minute was even less expected from both our perspectives, but then again, it should have been. That's another thing about a live TV studio: if you're there and you know anything about the topic to be covered, you go on the air. Live, local and in your face.

As they beckoned for RM to step into the limelight, he mouthed a quick, "call my mom!" The dutiful girlfriend that I am, I waited until the next commercial break and surreptitiously punched his brother's number. He answered groggily, with as clear a head as one could have at 8 AM on a Saturday morning.

"Turn on Newschannel 13!"

"Who? Whaaa?"

"Turn on channel 13! Shit, I gotta go." I slammed on the end button just as the anchor started up her peppy dialogue concerning the most recent deaths in Iraq. I caught her stealing a glance at me as I tried to hide the evidence that I had made a starstruck phone call to mommy because my boyfriend's gonna be all famous on TV!

Real or imagined, I immediately took offense. After all, I've been on air as an anchor in the #3 market while she lords over measly market #55...of course my stint on the big air waves was in a student production on public television. Probably the only person watching was my great Aunt Joan out in Joliet, who called me up afterward and politely reminded me that the city was pronounced "Shih-caw-go" and not "Shee-cah-go," as my ignorant New York accent would have it. But my point is, I ain't no amateur. I can sell my shit at this market too!

And it turns out, so can RM. He told the Capital Region about the generosity of his good friend Tim Gray, and the appropriateness of a scholarship in his memory. The murder of Tim Gray was big news four years ago when it happened. Juicy fodder for newscasts, sadly: a young man murdered by his fiancee's jealous and deranged ex-boyfriend. RM had a few seconds to explain everything behind the fundraiser for this scholarship, and he did well, considering his interviewer (the anchor) asked him three seconds before air, "so you put this band together for the party tonight?" There was a split second that lasted an eternity where the only sounds in the air were the sizzling of the plantains and the sound of brains struggling to think. It was like RM swooped in and saved the day once the camera lights went red.

One of the first lessons they taught us in journalism school (besides checking the facts before going on the air) was that the world is a marketplace of ideas. Well it's a marketplace, for sure. After the show ended, the band left, the chef packed up his kitchen and the weatherman re-gelled his hair. Their wares sold, they called it a morning. We called it a morning too, and went back to bed as soon as we got home.

Scrabbled signals

...Hey baby, wanna play?

...Oh yeah. You go first.

...Oooh, that's a big one. You're soooo good at this.

You can see where this is headed, in your dirty little mind, right? Now take your naughty imagery, and plop a Scrabble board smack in the middle of it. Tiles flying about in ecstasy. There you have it: the human race's latest trend in foreplay.

Prior to this revelation (for perhaps Scrabble was always a bit of a turn-on? I wouldn't know), I thought Scrabble was reserved for foul-mouthed old grannies and geeky late 30-somethings on "bring-your-own-merlot" night. It seemed to be a game that created more animosity between players than sexual tension.

Then I joined Facebook, which has a nifty little application called, "Scrabulous." Once installed via your Facebook account, you can play a virtual game (complete with virtual board and virtual letters, and a handy little virtual dictionary that's not allowed in the board game). And what would a virtual anything be without a little live chat mixed in?

To find a playing partner(s), you can post personalized a want-ad.

"Regular game, no cheaters, English language only."

You can play in another languages, request fast games or slow games to be played over a couple of days among other options. That's how it started out. But now when I browse the Scrabulous want-ads, I see stuff like this:

"HOT NAUGHTY CHICKS ONLY"

"Must talk dirty during play"

"Looking for chatty gay males"

"Blonds with big boobs"

Me oh my. Basic human instict, transmogrified in the digital ether.

Of course, to be fair, Scrabble does have its romantic uses sans pornography. A friend of mine was just proposed to via a real Scrabble game. The first word being "Marry," and quite legitimately (in terms of the game's rules) "Me," came second.

The future of digital Scrabble and the windows it opens to poor, lonely souls to meet like-minded sexual partners is unclear at this point, however. Recently, the makers of the board game Scrabble have taken issue with Scrabulous, arguing the Facebook application does not have the rights to reproduce the game in such a fashion.

Some one is going to score soon...triple word score, baby.

Opening statement

Time to flush out the ole' cache of useless, whiny musings from my addled psyche. Here's a fresh slate for my brain dumps.

Welcome to the land of the green-eyed monsters! It is named as such, after my own stunning peepers. Go ahead, look into my eyes.