There's No Such Thing As A Good Time. When Karaoke Is Involved.

So, I think I may have met the woman I intend to marry last night. The only basis I have for this is because she did an intensely moving cover of Tegan and Sara's "Not Tonight" at a small club in Charlottesville, playing to only about 6 people. This woman was far from a Goddess, but I often find comfort in finding compatibility based off of musical tastes. And it wasn't lost on me that she was singing a song written by two lesbians about fighting off temptation from another lesbian. However, where there's smoke, there's not always fire. Sometimes there's just a lot of steam. I bring that up to bring this up....did I find out of said far-from Goddess, possible future life partner woman would like to share conversation over a nice cup of apple cider? No. There's two reasons for this. One, I am too shy, and our conversation just raged on about what bands we have in common (Yes on The Clash, Sleater-Kinney, and The Jesus and Mary Chain...but No on Springsteen, and she "doesn't get" Jay-Z, but is insane about Kanye West)...but the other, more irritating reason?

Karaoke night started. Oh. Yes. Now, I'm sorry if I offend anyone who lives for the art of Karaoke. I am just not one of those people. I can't even get a laugh out of it. and I get a laugh out of everything involving awkwardness. I wrote the book on awkward laughs. Seriously, I did. Or, at least I'm working on it. Now, I didn't know Freddie Mercury personally. I really didn't. But, I would bet that when he wrote 90% of his catalog (Or, when Brian May wrote said catalog), he didn't expect it to be sung by drunken, sweaty dudes in small clubs. Who are singing to mostly other dudes (Well, Freddie would have obviously been ok with that.). Like, why do I want to hear you scream "Fat Bottomed Girls" at me? why does anyone want that? And there's 2 kinds of Karaoke people. The people who are just looking for a "wild", drunken time, and just get up there and act a fool. I respect this kind. I might not like the show you're putting on, but hey...if you're getting your kicks, I can be into that for the time being. The other kind, REALLY puts on a serious show. You know. The dude that tries to get you to sing along to that one part in "Brown Eyed Girl"....or the guy who gets on his knees at the end of "Don't Stop Believin'"...I have no tolerance for this. If I wanted to see a middle aged man hanging on to his last great moments by singing Journey songs...well, I'd just go to a Steve Perry show. Maybe I'm too harsh. Maybe I just don't understand Karaoke. A woman last night told me that I was just too young. I think this has little to do with it. Bad cover songs are bad enough, but at least they're sung, in a studio, and usually (well...sometimes) by people who have some bit of connection to a song, and didn't randomly pick it out of a book. Although, I'm pretty sure that Jessica Simpson kind of just threw a dart, and it landed on "These Boots Were Made For Walkin'"....and (music video aside, guys) we all had to suffer. Karaoke is like that for me. Except for it doesn't stop right away.

And you all MUST be asking....well why stay? I. Have. No. Clue. Well, last night, I wanted to see the not quite Goddess, but still awesome girl go up for her encore (Which won my heart more, as she took on Rise Against's "Swing Life Away", and although she messed up the key lyric "We live on front porches and swing life away", I was too perplexed to even notice. That's a Cardinal sin though. If you're going to cover a song, you CANNOT mess up the line that contains the title of the song. Totally not acceptable, am I right?), but usually, I can't tear myself away from Karaoke, no matter what. And the kicker, last night ended with someone destroying Knockin' On Heaven's door. Not Dylan style. Rose style.

Short, but sweet venting blog, and I'm off to Columbus until next year tomorrow morning. So, safe travels to anyone else traveling, and as always, enjoy.