My Love Affair With Karaoke

Today’s Attire:  To Be Determined.

Outfit Justification: I don’t have to justify my outfit because I’m still in bed and not dressed for the day yet.

My Love Affair With Karaoke:

Without sounds like boastful jerk, I have to say that I’m a decent singer.  I’m not saying I’m the best in the world. But singing is something that I’m good at. I would hope that I would be pretty good at it since it’s something I’ve been doing since I was 5 years old. (It would totally suck to do something this long and totally suck at it) It probably has something to do with the fact that I love it. It’s therapeutic for me. It’s my way of expression.  And when I do sing, people don’t run for the hills screaming “What is that God awful noise coming from that woman?” So this is a good thing.

When I sing I enjoy performing.  That means I don’t get up there and look dead behind the eyes when the song is coming out of me. I sing with emotion, passion and fire.  I dance around. I air guitar during musical breaks. I engage my audience with eye contact, smiles, and whatever else. As my friend Shane, a KJ at a local bar says, “You got a show to do”.  In my mind, karaoke is one big long variety show. And I’m a guest singer with little mini sets.  So I feel the need to put on the show.  Frankly I like to treat it that way. I know it’s weird. No one is coming to bar paying to hear me sing. But the way I see it, is they’re in the bar, they know it’s karaoke, so they don’t expect much from the singing, so I might as well entertain or amuse them some way. 

My approach to karaoke is that everyone deserves to feel like a rock star for the duration of a song.  My singing of karaoke is not to compete with anyone. I love when other singers get up there and really sing a song well and have fun doing it. I love singing along when it’s a song I love.   Although I do find that people try to compete with me for whatever reason. I hate that. With the rise of singing reality shows, I find that the need to compete with other singers at a karaoke bar is at an ultimate high.  People have a tendency to think there can only be one good singer for the night. I hate when someone gets up to sing a song and they’re really good, but their attitude stinks. They act all douchey towards everyone else because they think they’re the best.  It annoys me to see this. Because karaoke isn’t about that, it’s about having fun. If you’re that good, take your act on the road, go to an open mic night, audition for American Idol, X-Factor and The Voice. Go be a star some place else, and stop ruining everyone’s good time.

Last week, I went to a bar that’s close to where I live.  It’s close and it’s cheap.  It gets super crowded there, but it was a Friday night and I learn to expect this. I was having a reasonably good time until I found out one of the contestants from American Idol and The Voice was at the bar.  I’d seen her at the bar a few weeks back. When I saw her the previous time, she was with a group of friends. Her friends were kinda  nice and cool. She was kind of a bitch. Her friends were telling one of my friends that she was a former finalist/contestant. And were both like great looking forward to hearing her sing. I actually sang sometime before her, mid way through my song got up walked in front of me while I was singing. Ok that was rude. Then she was rude to the KJ, which I saw multiple times. When she got up to sing, she wasn’t that good.  I was disgusted by all of this.   So last week when I saw her again, I was hoping it was a freak incident and maybe she was just having a bad night and then her attitude would have changed. No such luck.  She was impatient with the KJ, trying to get him to move her up she kept trying to convince him by saying she was amazing. Her friends were also trying to convince him to move her up because she was so amazing. He told them, she would have to be patient like everyone else. Then she proceeded to cross other people’s names off the list and say that they left so she could take their place. Really chick? When she got up to sing she did the same song I saw her do last time, and she was still not amazing.  In fact just was just barely mediocre.  At one point during her song she locked eyes on me and it was quite obvious that she was expecting me to be impressed by her version of Amy Winehouse. I wasn’t impressed. Anyone who knows me, knows that I have quite expressive facial expressions.  You can tell what I’m thinking just by looking at me. I made sure that egotistical brat knew I wasn’t impressed by her Amy Winehouse by staring back her unimpressed, unamused, and unsmiling. She finally got the point and moved to sang to someone else.  I don’t respect that kind of behavior. As a singer, I don’t behave that way. No one should behave that way. But if you’ve been on television with some mild success you have even less reason to come to a karaoke bar and behave that way. I know this makes me sound like asshole, but if this was a competition I could sing circles around that idiot girl and show her what impressive is. It would be easy to fall into the trap of getting a big head from all the compliments I get about my singing. Then walk around like I’m God’s gift to singing and treat people like they don’t matter. But what does that get you? A bunch of people that think you’re a douchebag and don’t want to work with you because you have a terrible attitude.

I’m fortune it enough to have the ability to sing. I thank God everyday for my voice.  It’s a gift and he blessed me with it.  Not everyone has that ability and I’m humbled that I have it.  I do my best to not take it for granted. But I use it to the best of my ability. So when I go somewhere and I sing and someone compliments me, I don’t behave like I deserved that compliment. Because frankly no one has to say anything to you when they hear you sing at a bar. I’m grateful that someone took the time to come over to say something.  In the last few weeks several people have said the nicest things to me. Even now as I write this, I smile because their words warm my heart. A few nights ago, when I sang a guy came up and bought me a drink. He said “I wanted to buy you a drink because I feel like I should pay you in some way for that performance”.  I told him that was silly and we were all there to have a good time.  It was still a sweet gesture.  When we were in Vegas for our anniversary, I did karaoke in a casino lounge.  The casino wasn’t huge, but it was big enough.  I got up to sing and for a few minutes the lounge, the bar and part of the casino stopped to hear me sing. Scared the crap out of me.  When it was over it was the loudest applause I’ve heard for awhile.  We went walking to other places, and people in other casinos were stopping me to tell me how great my voice was, or how amazing the thought I was. Honestly I was shocked by that, but I was so grateful that I could have that kind of effect. Then the next day I was back home at a bar and some guy who was at the bar saw me sing and heard all 3 of my songs that night said “This might sound wrong or come off as weird. But I’ve never seen someone like you do so many different types of songs and nail all of them.  Why are you even in a karaoke bar?  You shouldn’t be singing karaoke.  Alicia Keys, Radiohead, Bon Jovi? And you have all this power. It sounds like you have too much power for this room and it needs to be contained, but there isn’t a stadium to contain that much power.  Frankly all I can say is ‘Wow’.  You are so talented and need to do something with this beyond a karaoke bar. I’m so glad I got to see this first hand.  You are fantastic”. It took me a while to process all of that because I wasn’t sure where he was going with all of that. It was a big compliment. A bit over the top, but still a nice compliment.  However I’ll never believe that I’m better than karaoke. Gospel is where I got my early training, school is where that training was refined, karaoke is where I got the ability to perform. And ultimately karaoke is where I discovered that I could do things I never expected with my voice. Karaoke showed me the possibilities of what could be. Karaoke will always hold a special place in my heart for all the good things that it brings, the lessons that I’ve learned, and the possibility of the singing career I could have.  Thank you karaoke.