GPoW#3 - Son, Won't You Sing Me a Melody

Throughout my preteens one of my favorite activities was pretending to be a rock star. At the time I was a KISS fanatic. Until my mama finally bought me that cheapo electric guitar I was dying for, I used tennis rackets. I had a pull cart for my golf clubs that, when unfolded, left the handle looking conspicuously (to this pre-teen) like a microphone.

When mom was out for an evening, I would rope in my younger brother, and we would set up stage in the living room with our rackets and my makeshift microphone. Mom's stereo wasn't the greatest, but it was plenty loud for us. I put on KISS Alive! or Alive II! and we would bring down the house.

Of course, there was one problem. I had to lip sync. Now maybe that really was a good thing, but I sort of wanted to be the one wailing away.

Getting older I put away such play-acting because, well, girls. You just can't take the chance at getting caught playing about like that by the girl you're hoping to make out with later that night, right? You'd be a deader fer sure.

Fortunately, someone was looking out for me. Somebody said "There has got to be a way to let adults make arses out of themselves and still not lose the respect of their love interests or peers.

Enter Karaoke

You know, the Japanese are a strange bunch to us occidentals. They eat weird and play weird, but now and then they come up with some of the best inventions ever thought of by any person ever anywhere. Forex: Godzilla, Ninjas, and Square Watermelons.

If you thought I was going to say Anime, Pokemon, or Yu-Gi-Oh, deduct 10 points and sit in the sin bin. Anime is crap... well, Sailor Jupiter is pretty hot, but other than that...

So after being formally introduced to Karaoke back, oh, ten years ago, we've become semi-fanatics. I have a library of around 1200 songs, and of course our own machine to play them on. They're actually quite inexpensive these days, unless you're really going for sound quality. And why would you? With a voice like most of us have, what good is HiFi, right?

Still, we have gathered a pretty eclectic collection. I even have an Opera set with arias for guys and gals. No kidding. Real orchestra from Eastern Europe. You have to use the libretto, though. Tragic, but we manage.

So, when we karaoke together one of these days, what songs will you hear me sing? I'll throw out five, just to give you a chuckle:

1- Pink Floyd - Time
2- Deep Purple - Space Truckin' (no, really)
3- Billy Joel - Scenes From an Italian Restaurant
4- Van Morrison - Moondance
5- Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water

Oh, and if you do talk me into trotting out the opera one, I'll sing Nessun Dorma for you, though not nearly so well!

Your turn.