Good news this weekend; R, my oldest friend from university is in town. He’s a BSD (big swinging dick) in the city and has been doing big financial things in New York all week before heading over to SF for a weekend’s R&R prior to heading back to London.
R’s been a mate ever since I showed his spotty first year incarnation to his room in halls of residence. For the record I was a spotty second year at the time. But we bonded over mutual liking of Warren Zevon, drinking stunning amounts of whatever was available (including my home brew which I’m sure chemical weapons manufacturers around the world would love to get their hands on) and a belief in the fundamentals, if not the practice, of socialism.
Well, we’ve both passed a lot of water since then and both of us have swelled in body and slightly in mind but have remained firm friends. He’s helped me with my relationship woes and I danced at his wedding and now am doing what I can for the divorce while his wife dances on his heart with her stylish yet affordable boots.
So I determined that the weekend was going to be about fun and after he turned up at the house (in a Bentley no less) I dumped his bags and we went out on the town. A dinner of Kobe beef at an expensive restaurant was followed by hooking up with an interesting lass who led us to a karaoke bar to meet her friends.
It was rather a fun evening, but I broke the cardinal rule of karaoke, or rather the two cardinal rules. First off, never sing a song you really like. Let’s face it, to get up in front of a room of strangers and belt out a tune you’ve got to be fairly wankered and so you’re not going to be on your best form.
However, deep down you know you’re never going to be able to listen to the track you chose without hearing your performance in the brain’s internal jukebox so never, never pick a song you like. I broke this and sang an old Frank Sinatra favourite ‘One for my baby’, which sums up so many evenings in dive bars with friends.
Quite frankly I died on my arse. Flat singing, mumbled lyrics and less skill at following the tune than Mark Thatcher’s ability to follow a simple road map. It was a painful performance that would have had my old choirmaster stabbing pencils into his ears to avoid hearing.
The second rule of karaoke is always choose something the audience can sing along to. As R pointed out, picking a popular classic like ‘American Pie’ means the audience will join in and hopefully drown out the garbage coming out of your mouth. Given that most of the people in the bar weren’t even glints in the milkman’s eye when Old Blue Eyes was crooning was, in retrospect, a mistake.
Afterwards we fell into a cab and headed home to a dubious night’s sleep. R and I haven’t shared a room in years (he has a lovely four bedroom place in London) and I’d forgotten what his snoring was like. Hearing the volcanic rumblings from the sleeping bag at the foot of the bed woke me up at 4am and as soon as I find a place to host the sound file I’ll post it. Now I know I snore on occasion too but this was really something.
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