NaNoBlogMo2 - Karaoke

Shortish entry today, probably, since I am visiting a friend and don't want to ignore her for too long. Karaoke is something I feel that people are of different minds about. Some love it, some hate. I like it, but I'm pretty picky about my karaoke.

My first time singing karaoke in Shanghai. 

Though I had "grown up" with the idea of karaoke being something that you do in a bar in front of a bunch of strangers, that is my least favorite way to do it. In my mind that's what karaoke was and I wasn't too keen on doing it. Despite being a huge hamball for most of my life (including now) who is a showboat and doesn't get nervous acting, talking or goofing around in front of strangers, I get very nervous singing in front of people. When I played my guitar and sang in front of people for the first time (at a holiday talent show at the high school I was teaching at in China) I was so nervous I could barely keep my hands from shaking too badly to get the chords right. I have a vague memory of once singing karaoke on a mini day boat cruise with my high school band that's it for pre-China karaoke.

When I moved to China, Lucy was excited about the idea of us going to sing karaoke together, especially when I sang for her the Sara Barellis song "Love Song". That's when I learned the fabulousness of private room karaoke. You get together a group of usually 5 to 15 people, rent a private room, and ROCK OUT. You pick all the songs, you sing all the songs, you can order drinks and food from the helpful people working there and they bring it to your room. You don't have to listen to drunk strangers singing offkey to songs you don't like....although you will probably be stuck listening to your drunk friends singing offkey....but I feel that's more enjoyable and amusing. I went A LOT while I was in China. It was the immediate fallback plan activity. It was the equivalent of going to a movie.

A shot of the screen from last night.
Bonus points if you can guess the song I was signing.

 Everyone has their own tactics and plans for karaoke. Everyone has songs that are their go-tos, songs they show off with, or songs they avoid like the plague. My personal favorite thing to do is enter in a few "fan favorites" that I know everyone will get excited about and sing loudly too. That's another must for karaoke in my mind. I don't mind a few solos or duets, especially if there are good singers, but usually I love when everyone is just screaming the words to these great high energy songs at the top of their lungs. Sometimes rooms will even have tambourines or maracas to help make the atonal rocking even more epic.

When I got back from China I was sad that I would have to go back to "room full of drunk strangers and one person singing" karaoke, but I forgot that New York is awesome and has everything. I've already been to good ole' private room karaoke in Korea-town in NYC at least three times already...last night being one of those times. It was a pretty amazing evening....even if no one else knew all the words to "If I Were a Richman"...