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karaoke

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appears with…

me188
!duet118
grant106
sid and buddy101
!best88
!strangers85
amanda81
matt lesser61
lisa56
goldteeth54
sarah40
meredith36
seth35
matt l32
frank31
scott ward30
!yell30
emily29
!kktc26
candy25

karaoke — And the best part? You're on a bus and you have a CAPTIVE AUDIENCE! When you sing karaoke at a bar, you have to weigh what you want to sing against what the crowd is likely to tolerate. If you pick a horrible song, everyone will simply go outside and smoke until your song is over. But on a bus, there's no escape. So if you want to sing Believe by Cher (Yes Sean, I'm looking in your direction) there's nothing anybody can do but listen. Hahah.

karaoke — How has this not shown up here in the States yet? I'm at a loss.

karaoke — Look how happy I am. Hahahah.

karaoke — ...motherfucking built-in KARAOKE SYSTEM! Holy fucking shit, it's like my ultimate dream come true.

karaoke — ...a private karaoke room!!! (Bi bim bab for lunch? Superbelt Massager? A Private, FREE Karaoke room??? I was starting to wonder if my plane had crashed and THIS WAS HEAVEN!) Hahaha.

karaoke — ...and discovered this! At first, I wasn't sure what it was (mostly, because I CAN'T READ KOREAN), but then when I wandered inside the room, it hit me. We'd discovered...

karaoke — Meredith dueting with a stranger.

karaoke — We ended up rocking some late night karaoke.

karaoke — Then later that night I met up with Jessica Kain who was in town on business from Philly. (I went to high school with Jess!).

karaoke — Prizes included an official certificate proclaiming me winner of the very first American Schmidol 2005!

karaoke — 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.

karaoke — After much deliberation amongst the judges, it was announced that I was a finalist!

karaoke — Grant getting his score from the judges.

karaoke — Josh kicked it!

karaoke — Grant showed up and came correct with his version of Rick James' Superfreak (which had me worried. Because if we both ended up in the finals, he would no doubt pull out I Believe in a Thing Called Love by The Darkness which, having already used my only nuclear option, I would have no chance of competing against).

karaoke — 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...

karaoke — Yes, that's right! Sing along with me, Jews! You can't but help be charmed by my blonde shikso locks!

karaoke — 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.

karaoke — Here's Sarah tearing things up on the mic.

karaoke — ...but it's a ballad with YELLING! AND A MORAL!

karaoke — Longest. Arm. Ever.

karaoke — So earlier in the month Adam B. had told me that Heeb Magazine was going to be holding a karaoke competition at Lit called American Schmidol and he told me that I needed to come and compete. Here's Josh (who you may remember from when the Heeb guys came and rocked when I lived out in SF) acting as emcee opening the ceremonies!

karaoke — After Piano's we headed over to Remote for some karaoke.

karaoke — Ellen Stagg makes my heart skip a beat when she screams Metallica.

karaoke — Andrew on the mic.

karaoke — So they've got that going for them.

karaoke — Matt showing off his sweet birthday crack.

karaoke — Hahaha.

karaoke — Matt and Seth.

karaoke — Buddy.

karaoke — ...an all out karaoke ruckus.

karaoke — So if you're looking for a good karaoke time, go to Pianos and then head upstairs around 11:30. You won't be disappointed.

karaoke — These guys put more into their karaoke performances than anybody I've ever seen.

karaoke — "Mr. Roboto."

karaoke — For, seriously.

karaoke — These guys take karaoke to a whole new level.

karaoke — The night took a serious turn towards fun when Matt and Chris, hosts of the new Karaoke Killed the Cat Party (that still happens every Monday night at Pianos!) took the stage for their coreographed rendition of...

karaoke — Next up on the mic was Capt. Larson. So I'm writing this on Jan 23rd, 2006, a little over a year later - anyway, last night I was up late, I have the flu and couldn't sleep, and I started watching late-night HBO. A movie that I hadn't seen in years came on and I thought to myself...

karaoke — Seth killing some Stevie.

karaoke — He even had a stool handy to help him pretend he was swimming!

karaoke — Hahahahah.

karaoke — Then the costumes came out: Here's the birthday boy doing his rendition of Bjork's "Oh, So Quiet!"

karaoke — Matt and Seth doing a karaoke duet (Maybe "Ebony and Ivory?").

karaoke — ...Sid and Buddy Karaoke!

karaoke — Not 10 minutes late he was killing with a cider-fueling passionate (yet tender!) rendering of Mr. Big's 80s love ballad, "To Be With You." Awww.

karaoke — The Dith rocking the k-mic.

karaoke — I forget this girl's name - but she's awesome because no matter how many pics of her I take, she always ends up looking like a crazy homeless person in all of them.

karaoke — Like, for real.

karaoke — Meryl, you make my karaoke-heart go pitty-patt.

karaoke — Amy's friends were in karaoke full-effect.

karaoke — Duet time!

karaoke — ...aerial magick.

karaoke — As always, Grant treated the crowd to a little...

karaoke — Crowd shot. (Hi there, foxy girl in the grey sweatshirt! Rowr!)

karaoke — While Jake was shaving his giant, hairy nuts - Grant and I headed over to Lit for Colin's late night basement karaoke.

karaoke — Making new karaoke friends. While we were there we also managed to make friends with...

karaoke — This guy was a fucking karaoke god.

karaoke — Okay, I'll keep them at a minimum though, mmmmkay?

karaoke — The answer, of course, is yes!

karaoke — Right as we were finishing up our meal, the staff turned on a TV in the corner and started busting out Thai karaoke jams! Seth was like "Hey, karaoke! I could do a little karaoke, you?"

karaoke — Birthday boy duet.

karaoke — This guy is Mike D's friend Ethan. He's fucking awesome. (He reminded me a lot of my good friend David - except he looks even more like Jeff Bridges - so I instantly liked him).

karaoke — ...the karaoke jams were kicked. Michael and NJ (it's her name, not the state).

karaoke — ...CHINATOWN BIRTHDAY KARAOKE! Woooo! Now we're talking! We headed over to some little narrow dive right down the street and...

karaoke — No duet is complete unless I can manage to "back that thang up" a little bit.

karaoke — After she was finished, I suggested we team up for a "new roomie" duet. She was like "Sure! Do you know "Total Eclipse of the Heart?" I played it cool, "Yeah, I think I might've heard that song once or twice. Let's give it a shot, I can always just wing it." (Hahahah.)

karaoke — The vein-popping finale.

karaoke — (Grizza, you have any idea what we sang?)

karaoke — Late night (and noticably drunk at this point) Grant and I sang a duet.

karaoke

karaoke — Hahahaha.

karaoke — Frank never fails to deliver.

karaoke — "Ok, ROCK!"

karaoke — Frank Picarazzi took the stage for one of his rare karaoke appearances. "Are you all ready to rock?"

karaoke — Amy on the mic.

karaoke — ...MLE on the karaoke mic.

karaoke — Which I'm guessing I probably followed up with Laura Brannigan's Gloria.

karaoke — ...Grant took to the karaoke stage.

karaoke — But the nature of the move busted in this picture I'm going to guess he was singing Rick James' Superfreak.

karaoke — Lorelei and I doing another duet. (Girl, where you been? We're so overdue for a karaoke date).

karaoke — Emily and Kristie representing on the RHS Choir tip (Classic Sounds, lemme hear ya!).

karaoke — How about Ellen flashing her awesome pink panties while singing Led Zep at karaoke?

karaoke — What's better than Ellen singing Led Zep at karaoke?

karaoke — Leah and Sarah.

karaoke — Hahahah. Something tells me this might have been "Paradise By the Dashboard Lights."

karaoke — 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).

karaoke — Hahaha.

karaoke — Group karaoke! Adam Mandell, Brother Lawrence and Smellsgood Gina on back-up vox with Sarah taking the part of cheerleading dancer.

karaoke — When you're following Grant on the karaoke stage, you always gotta bring out the crowd pleasers.

karaoke — The night ending with a group sing-a-long of...

karaoke — ...Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.

karaoke — Meredith on the mic.

karaoke — After Red & Black, we walked over to Blu Lounge to visit Sid who was hosting karaoke in Brooklyn that night.

karaoke — So a little later on in the night, this guy got called up to sing. He took the stage, but Matt accidentally started playing the wrong song. Instead of correcting Matt this (incredibly drunk) guy ripped off his shirt and started screaming along to the song (that he clearly didn't know at all).

karaoke — On Thursday night Grant, Meredith and I went over to the basement of Remote for karaoke. Here's Ellen on the mic tearing up some Zeppelin.

karaoke — Birthday girl closing out the night with the second to last song.

karaoke — Group singalong. ("Don't Stop Believing" if I recall correctly).

karaoke — Here's Meredith, the birthday girl.

karaoke — Gavin with the fierceness.

karaoke — Striking a fancy, just stepped out of a salon birthday pose

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a photo diary · online since december 1996