...this totally dirty-by-accident photo! Holy moly! But one thing's for sure, it certainly clears up any doubts anyone had about Lisa's ability to, ummm, work the mic.
I didn't know too many songs that were in their repertoire, so I ended up going with a few old classics. Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive and the CCR version of Proud Mary if I recall correctly. Hahaha.
Big ups to Gurj who took my camera and used it to take some of the funniest pictures I've ever seen of me singing karaoke (which is quite an accomplishment when you think about how many photos there are of me singing karaoke).
I wasn't even planning on singing, but Chris put on Laura Brannigan's Gloria (which everyone knows is my favorite karaoke song) and he called me up on stage to tackle it duet-style.
This night was probably one of the best karaoke nights I've ever been to (and I've been to A LOT of karaoke). Pretty much every single person that hit the stage went full-out and sang their heart out. So when it was finally my turn to sing, I knew I had no choice but to go with some Jovi.
...a motherfucking STAGE DIVE into the crowd! Thanks again to Brad Walsh for being there with a camera, otherwise this moment would've been lost to history forever!
Doubling up for the big outro. This was probably one of my most favorite accidental karaoke moments. (In fact, it's probably only eclipsed by the time that Seth and I ended up accidentally karaoking with Tracey Morgan back in 2003!)
When the band got back on stage, they called me up to sing! "Don't Stop" is pretty much one of the best karaoke songs of all time and one of the few times that I actually don't mind that fact that I was pretty much born with a woman's voice. Check out the singer all like "Holy shit, this guy's a eunuch!"
Last song of the night! I may not have won the competition, but I definitely went home feeling like a winner! (Cue sitcom audience applause and outro music from Growing Pains).
In my defense, I first used to balls to show off my juggling skills, but the crowd wasn't impressed. It wasn't until I started awkwardly rolling them around on my crotch that the crowd lit up! (Photo by Leo Zacharias)
If, by the time I die, tombstones with embedded video screens are commonplace, someone please make sure that this photo makes it into the cemetery slideshow. Thanks. (Photo by Leo Zacharias)
Claire was the other finalist! For the last round it was announced that our hands were going to be TAPED to one microphone and we'd be singing a duet voted on by the audience! Here's Claire and I getting our hands taped together. Hahaha.
(Photo by Leo Zacharias)
The audience ended up selecting Summer Lovin' from the musical Grease. I didn't know the song well, but I knew it better than most of the other songs that were on the list! (There was stuff like Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong! If the audience had chosen one of those songs, I would've been effed!).
For the first round of competition we were told that we'd be judged on two things: 1) How well we performed our song. 2) How well we incorporated the use of a "prop" that would be given to us halfway through our song! Sure enough, I was about halfway through Gloria and I was handed...
Out of all the Jovi repertoire, Livin on a Prayer is the one that has the most opportunity for crowd-interaction. You get to sing the part that goes "Whoa, we're halfway there..."
I was really nervous about the list (because nothing's worse than having to watch someone do karaoke when they don't know the song!), but I lucked out and managed to secure Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer for my round two jam!
I was the second competitor called up to the stage, and it was announced, much to my relief, that I'd be singing Gloria! Yay! (Thanks to Seth for manning my cam and snapping these pics!)
Then I sang. By the serious, woeful look in my eyes, I know that I must have sang about the tragic tale of Ricky's life-long incarceration at the age of 18 after having accidentally shot his friend in a drunken wild night. (For any of you who didn't grow up in NJ or are under the age of 30, I'm talking about Skid Row's epic ballad, 18 and Life.
Check out our scary eyes: They're glowing ike the metal on the edge of a knife. (Too bad I just realized I made that same joke about singing the same song almost 5 years ago. Jeez, maybe it's time I started picking out some new karaoke jams).
So after a few songs, the band, (who I've since found out is called Drunk Uncle Bob) took a break. I pulled the singer aside and this time I managed to convince him to let me sing a song! Then after he agreed to let me do it, it almost didn't happen because I didn't know most of the songs in the bands repertoire. In the end I managed to convince him that I sorta knew the words to My Own Worst Enemy by Lit and that I'd be able to wing it. Check out the singer's expression: totally annoyed because I'm messing up the words. Hahah.
And a heartfelt ending. Why, Ricky? WHY? By the way, Brother Lawrence was manning my camera for all of this and I'd like to thank him for taking such great pics.
I decided to go with Skid Row's cautionary ballad, 18 & Life. I was even lucky enough to score a stageful of interpretive backup dancers. Sure, that song might be a ballad...
In American Schmidol, everyone gets to perform one song. The judges score everyone and then pick two finalists to return to the stage and each sing one more song. The winner of the finalists round will be crowned AMERICAN SCHMIDOL! Any karaoke enthusiast knows there are a very limited number of jams that are surefire karaoke gold. I wasn't sure which one to go with. Oh, Darling by The Beatles? Faith by George Michael? Maybe something from the Pantheon of Jovi? In the end I decided to take no risks and chose the only nuclear warhead in the karaoke arsenal: Laura Brannigan's Gloria.
Lorelei and I kicked off the festivities with a duet. (By the way, I'm writing these caption in May of 2005, almost a year later so I pretty much have no idea what song anyone was singing in these pics).
Any time you end up wearing a silver sparkly bandana, it's usually a safe bet to say you've had an interesting evening. And hey, the month's only half over. Click here for Part Two.
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