To usher in the new year, family and friends concocted an effervescent mix of distilled spirits and spirited karaoke singing. To my knowledge no recorded evidence has been posted on YouTube. However, I fully expect a few incriminating pictures to arrive in manila envelopes with no return address — or end up as next year's Christmas card.
Unfortunately, I might have overindulged on New Year's Eve — in karaoke that is.
Far from the vocal majority, I don't fancy myself a singer; be it lounge or basement rec room. I can carry a tune, but you better make it a wide bucket with a big backing chorus. Overall I'd put my vocal range somewhere on the scale between Elmer Fudd and Luciano Pavarotti.
Despite my musical misgivings, somehow I ended up with a microphone in one hand without an ounce of liquid courage in the other. I blame it all on Daisuke Inoue.
Japanese musician Daisuke Inoue is widely credited with popularizing karaoke singing in the early 1970s. Since that time, kara "empty” okesutor "orchestra” has been imported around the world, including the United States — and you can't even blame NAFTA. For those still burning their music on Victrola needles, karaoke allows amateur singers to warble along with recorded music using a microphone and a PA system.
Thus spawning the musical aspirations of hundreds of delusional "American Idol” contestants.
Guess I'm not the only one to blame a night of bad karaoke on Daisuke Inoue. According to Wikipedia online, Inoue was awarded the tongue-in-cheek 'lg Nobel Peace Prize' in 2004 for inventing karaoke, "thereby providing an entirely new way for people to learn to tolerate each other.”
Rather than take full responsibility for my karaoke actions, I blame my brother-in-law, a part-time d.j., and his array of equipment. Oh, and Glen Campbell.
In the world of karaoke bars, many singers have one song they excel at and use to show off their vocal abilities. In Japan, this is called "juhachiban” in reference to the 18 most popular kabuki plays. Turns out that "Rhinestone Cowboy” is my juhachiban musical sweet spot.
As guilty pleasures go, this is tantamount to admitting to your bowling buddies that you TiVo reruns of "Desperate Housewives.”
Truth be told, I'm not a country music fan. Yet put a karaoke mic in my hand and I Honky and Tonk. How I can sing the words to "All My Ex's Live in Texas” is beyond me. Perhaps too many trips to the corner hardware store in the early 90s.
While I might confess to karaoke cowboy crooning, I'd never take my act public. You only have to sit through one tortured version of "The Rose” to realize the irony of ingesting a depressant during "happy hour.” The same goes for any Britney Spears song or "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” in you live above the Mackinac Bridge.
While I might drop a few pounds or actually open my 401(k) statements this year, I've already resolved to make changes for 2009. First and foremost that my father-in-law takes "Keep on the Sunny Side” down an octave or two.
Grand Traverse Herald editor Garret Leiva can be reached at 933-1416 or e-mail gleiva@gtherald.com