Karaoke

I finally figured Karaoke out. It's the modern incarnation of the freak show, dispersed to every local community, that allows it's participants to potentially have sex with the other freaks. The pain comes in when the non-freaks, meaning everybody who had a normal childhood, have to listen to some one's imitation of the sounds that result when a live cat is skinned to a Stevie Nick's ballad.

Karaoke can strike anywhere at anytime. For obvious reasons, it's not advertised well. Often that sign that tells us normal folk that Wednesday is Karaoke Night is missing key letters such as A through Y, making it difficult to know whether it's safe to enter and order food. Some poor unsuspecting bastard, me for example, will go into a perfectly normal looking bar for a beer and a burger with a friend. Suddenly, in walk women in weird shoes with gold hair and black and white horizontally striped stockings followed by guys wearing star shaped, spangle rimmed sunglasses and purple Cat-in-the-hat hats. They start milling around aimlessly, swilling shooters in an attempt to kill off whatever is left of that little voice in their head that stops regular people from doing bad things to one another. I mean, Karaoke isn't Genocide, but I think you can get there from here. Soon, someone starts making Whoop-whoop noises and begins plugging in the sound system.

At that point, it's too late.

Your waitress has gone into hiding and you will never see your check in time to get out before the "singing" starts. I think that's how the community of Karaoke singers keeps growing. See, now you're stuck and will be there until someone gets your name on a request ticket, puts a few more drinks in you, and in no time at all you're doing your best "Winger" impression. Yeah, that's right, I said "Winger". Then, another very drunk person decides that you should be serenaded and before you know it, you've made little Karaoke artists. It's similar to the natural selection processes of the Galapagos islands, isolating breeding and evolution within groups of drunken Wednesday night American Idol wannabes. Your children will be born with an innate ability to air guitar and lip sync. GAH!

The saddest part of the whole awful practice is that since Karaoke came to our shores from Japan, somehow the Karaoke DJs here changed the word. Ok, read the letters: Karaoke. Pronounced Kah-ra-oh-kay. They had to make it Kah-ri-oh-kee. Why? They even still spell it Karaoke. Recently I saw it spelled Karioke at a local sports bar looking to pump up it's weeknight crowd. However, the specific day of the week that the event was to be held had been mysteriously stricken from the sign. I saw a guy lurking in the back with a funny hat. I went to Chili's.

Who's laughing Now???

A buddy sent this to me.

I'm getting cynical. So what? I think this pretty much sums it up though. Click on the image if you want to read the fine print.

Although I have tried to remain a-political on this blog, something snapped when I opened my retirement account statement the other day. It was almost like I went back in time to 1998, at least financially. (it would be nice to get my hair back, though)