MY URBAN KVETCH

A "Glee"-ful Musical Awakening

For the past two years, I've been watching Glee and assuming that no high school kids anywhere had voices like the kids on the show. Clearly another case of Hollywood glamorizing and exaggerating what was possible for a high school glee club. I mean, we didn't have anyone who was nearly that vocally talented in my high school. Vocal Adrenaline? I mean seriously: Vocal Ritalin, maybe - then we'd at least be able to focus on the songs we weren't singing.

But then it occurred to me - the reason for this assumption was because there were no opportunities for kids in my high school to sing "Don't Stop Believin'" to a panel of judges, in competition with other kids in the state league. Best we could approximate was our high school choir busting out a rousing dirge of "Oif'n Priptichik" or if we were feeling really boisterous, "The Partisan Song." (It's a Holocaust song, but it's about the partisans surviving in the woods, which means it's a jaunty march, although still in a minor key.) There was the one year we put on a musical production of "Pinocchio," but we had to sing all of the songs as a group, to avoid the problem of kol isha, of girls singing alone and unwittingly causing teenage boys' hormones to run around like vildechayas. Because that would be the first time this would ever have happened in a yeshiva day school.

Did kids in my school have good voices? Who knows? It's possible that they, themselves, don't even know. Not even to this day.

Once I got to college, I started hearing about friends who had had opportunities to discover their voices in their respective high schools - through musicals, through something amazing called "sing," in which they did just that - each class (freshman, sophomore, junior and senior) had their own "Sing," an internal competition and celebration of song. I had grown up in a house of music, of song, of musicals both Broadway and homegrown. We had memorized librettos, listened to Disney musicals on long car trips, and performed original songs and song parodies at family events. The concept of "Sing" sounded like my idea of heaven.

College should have been a perfect time to test the old pipes, see if I had anything other than a love of music and song. But I felt like it was too late to start - people in college had the benefit of years of training and performing experience; I couldn't even read music. So my singing stayed inside: showers had great acoustics, I discovered, and I lucked into a group of college friends who liked to sit around singing the libretto from Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera and Aspects of Love, so it was like a second family, only with the occasional outing to a fraternity party.

In the years that followed college graduation, I found my voice. In writing, mostly. Occasionally in performance, whether in at a piano bar downtown on my first birthday in NYC, at the improv classes that transformed my writing and confidence or at karaoke, where I learned lessons about myself and about others. Watching others, trying to typecast them and predict the songs they chose to perform - and getting it wrong lots of the time - made me realize that you can't always see a person's song or inner self in their outer presentation. People started to surprise me, and it was in this venue that I started to surprise myself. I got back in touch with the songs that moved me and learned to channel the personas of the singers that made them famous.

Glee came along years later. It appealed to the musically-inclined, but musically-stunted high schooler in me, to my inner musical theater geek/would-be-diva seeking coolness, approval, self-confidence. From the first episode, studded with the strains of 80s hits, I was taken with it like a soulmate spied across a crowded room. There was music, and hearts soared, and it was love.

As the show progressed, there were missteps - but the episodes that failed to thrill me were still better than no episodes at all. And as I sing along every week - even with some of the original songs, which I'd never heard before - I feel regretful to have been denied the opportunities of music in high school, and grateful to have these moments in the years since, moments in which I can reach into my heart, yank out a song, feel it resonate in my bones and flesh, and rediscover my own voice.

Explaining Sukkot Makes You Sound Crazy

I explained Sukkot like five times over the last week. And now I have a new understanding of how nuts it all sounds - and if you think lulav and etrog sounds confusing, try explaining why you beat the living hell out of the Aravot on Hoshana Rabba. Of course, my friend, standup comic Avi Liberman has a bit about Sukkot that kills at Jewish gigs. 

This video is from one of Avi's comedy trips to Israel (actually the one I tagged along on for a City of David tour, with comedian Gary Gulman, Dwight Slade and Craig Robinson ("Darryl" on "The Office"). 

Los Angeles postscript: I ran into Robinson at Boardwalk 11 on karaoke night during my first month living in Los Angeles, reminded him how he knew me - through Avi - and then he spent ten minutes asking me to help him scope out the bar for dates for Avi. But we never talked about shwarma - I thought the memory would be too painful.

Avi (sans Robinson, mais avec Lovitt) is heading east for some comedy gigs in NYC and Saturday night, November 7 at Congegation Beth El in Bethesda, MD (Montgomery County 8215 Old Georgetown Road Bethesda, MD 20814). If you're interested in having Avi and Benji perform for your organization, fill out the contact form on Avi's website or contact him at [email protected] and  tell him you heard about him via @estherk on MyUrbanKvetch.  

Pigs [Heart] Karaoke

And this, my friends, is why there's a "Karaoke Kraziness" category on this blog...

We've all heard of the phrase "when pigs fly." But apparently, according to this Bangkok-area farmer, it's not about flying--it's all about the music, man. His pigs really enjoy his musical karaoke stylings:

According to the Thaisnews service, Kamsing Chaiwongchan, a 41-year-old villager of Khok Samran in Sakon Nakhon’s Wanorn Niwas District, said music makes his pigs feel relieved. They eat a lot, grow fast and produce a lot of pigslet.

I'm gonna guess that's supposed to be "piglets." And based on the lots of piglets being produced, I'm guessing the music that Kamsing, who apparently "kan sing," does sing is Barry White. Or Marvin Gaye. Or something like that. So, karaoke makes pigs amorous. Lovely.

Huh?

Via the JTA:

Moscow Limmud, a one-day Jewish learning conference based on a similar event in London (which was held in NY over Martin Luther King Day), announced that "Sessions will focus on topics ranging from Jewish philosophy to Holocaust-related issues to Jewish karaoke."

I'm not exactly sure what Jewish karaoke is. Does it mean "two Jews, three interpretations of 'I Will Survive'?" Or does it mean, "Better get out of the way, because we're all singing 'Hinei Mah Tov'"?

Perhaps our Moscow correspondents will check in on this one.

Karaoke Craziness: LA Edition

After emceeing the Jewbilation concert on the Sunday night of the JTB2 conference weekend, I realized that that had been my first time at the mic in a long time...and that 90 percent of the previous times had been for karaoke. But Sunday night, I didn't sing. And my attempts at spoken word? Well, they could have used some work, I'll admit. What I needed was to get back to my karaoke roots.

Since one of my NYC karaoke buddies moved to LA, and another one of my LA pals had recently discovered a penchant for that particular mode of self-expression, we all knew what we had to do. So off to the Brass Monkey we went, where every night is karaoke night, no one but you will sing for the first hour and most of the drink names have either "monkey" or "banana" in it (People's Exhibit A).

My first song was "Hit Me With Your Best Shot." Things went well. I sat down again and someone else sang some song that had him winking at me during his performance...then after, he approached" "Damn, girl...why you have to look so good? I got a pacemaker, you know..." I chuckled good-naturedly and he kept walking.

Later saw renditions of "Sweet Child of Mine," on which I sang with Annabel Lee, and then I busted out Young MC's "Bust a Move." I figure it's always entertaining when the whitest Jewish chick around tries to bust the fastest pre-Eminem, slightly lecherous rhymes 80s pop-rap style. (Boy, I'm pretty sure my parents have NO idea what that last paragraph meant.) Anyway, on conclusion, my "pacemaker" friend approached again:

PACEMAKER: Where'd you learn to do that? I'm a black Jew and I can't do that!
ESTHER: [Laughs good-naturedly]
PACEMAKER: [suddenly shouting] Gimme that hair! [Grabs ESTHER's head in both his hands, and plants a big wet kiss on her right temple.]

By that point, other people were singing...but I did have time for one more: "Criminal" was good, if a little dark to end on--I just hope that with all those proclamations of bad behavior in the song, there weren't any lawyers in the audience. But it was late, and I had to drive (yes, DRIVE) home, so we called it a night. So I grabbed Pacemaker and we left.

Um, yes. Of course that last sentence was a joke...jeez.

And sorry for not listing all of AL's and Joel's songs, but my memory's shot. Now, I'm off to do--oh, crap. I don't remember.

Karaoke Violence...

Karaoke is famous for being bad. Notorious, actually. Most people suck, it's true, and should not consider auditioning for American Idol. (Do not make me mention William Hung. Dangnabit.)

But the fact remains, karaoke draws passionate people. It's a place for the hero worship of music industry celebrities and the trying on of myriad personalities, faces and personas we'd never have a chance to experience in real life. For most of us, it's just a one-song thing, a flirtation with a lifestyle other than our own. But karaoke engenders real passion that can lead to confusion, violence and death.

In London, a guy who was high on LSD and Ecstasy bashed a woman to death with an iron baseball bat, put her in the trunk of his car, and drove the car off a bridge into a river. Sound familiar? It's the plot of the video, Stan, the Eminem song that samples a Dido song and details the actions of a crazed Eminem fan. The incident transpired after the victim-to-be had listened to the murderer-to-be perform the song at a karaoke bar. (The murderer was sentenced to life in prison.)

What's the lesson? Well, first of all, maybe LSD and Ecstasy aren't a great combination. But perhaps it's also good to keep in mind how passionate people can get about their music even when they're sober; you never know who you're dealing with on the other end of the microphone.

[The...More...You...Know...]

Enraged Brit Pummels Out-of-Tune Karaoke Singers

Ladies and gentlemen, the reason we have a "Karaoke Kraziness" category is stories like this one:

An enraged Brit spent 24 hours in jail and was fined 60 quid for terminating a Bulgarian karaoke with his fists - a small price to pay for bringing to an end a tuneless rendition of Queen's We are the Champions belted out by a couple of melodicidal locals.

Having assaulted the two men responsible for the outrage, 40-year-old Kevin Tester of Eastbourne proceeded to trash the Techhouse karaoke restaurant in the Black Sea holiday resort of Sunny Beach. He later told police he had been provoked by the "bad singing" and "bad English", Ananova reports.

First of all, an "enraged Brit"? What would that look like? (Had to play to national stereotypes, sorry. It's over now.) I keep picturing Anthony Stewart Head as Giles taking off his glasses, and cleaning them, and looking rather constipated at the tones entering his ears. But that's just me.

If he got this bent out of shape over "We Are the Champions" (not an easy song to sing, by the way), we should all be thankful it wasn't "Paradise By the Dashboard Light."

I'm sympathetic. There have been cases, both of "bad singing" and certainly of "bad English," that have fueled an urge that could be described as slightly violent. But that's in  America. This happened in Bulgaria--why should he expect Bulgarians to speak perfect English? When I was in Israel, at a karaoke bar in Tel Aviv somewhere, and people sang "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" in Israeli-accented English, I didn't go ballistic. In fact, I thought it was kind of cute.

I guess I'm pretty tolerant, as karaoke goes. I recognize it's an opportunity for the rest of us, the ones who aren't American Idol-worthy, to have our three minutes on stage, regardless of our talent or mastery of English. The first time I did karaoke had a huge impact on me, as some of you know. Without it, I would never have had the guts to do improv, and if I hadn't taken improv classes, my life would be very different today. In fact, I'd probably be a librarian and you wouldn't even be reading this.

So please, citizens of the world...allow your fellow karaoke enthusiasts to slaughter whatever song they wish to execute. If you hate their rendition of your favorite song, pick that moment to use the facilities, or order another drink, or check your voice mail. But let them have their moment. And for Jebus's sake, don't pummel them.

Thank you.

Naked Karaoke Winners Proclaimed

And the winner, for best karaoke song rendered while naked and behind a screen, goes to Ray and Marie LeBrun, for their rendition of Bob Seger's "Fire Down Below."

Why'd they win? For their pioneering spirit. For their bravery. For their willingness to go all the way.

And because they were the only ones.

Earlier in the evening, the assembled crowds weren't sure that anyone at all would dare to bare both souls and bodies through song:

There better be nude singing," said Rick Smolicz, a New Britain resident who arrived at 5 p.m. to get a seat. "I spent $60 on liquor so far, and if there is no one singing naked, I'm going to be talking to someone about this bill."

As word spread among those who waited for the show to begin that any naked singing would be done behind a privacy screen, most agreed that the event was still "worth it.""I mean, do you see anyone in here you would really want to see naked and singing?" Chuck Beers said as he surveyed the room. "The curtain will probably be a blessing."

Beers is absolutely right. I've been to karaoke on the Upper East Side, and even that crowd isn't buffworthy. (Speaking of Buff, as Buffy might have said: "Beers...foamy, good.")

Another note? "Chuck Beers" is an imperative sentence.

"Oh, it was fun," said Marie LeBrun, who added that neither she nor her husband planned to tell their three children about the performance.

I would say their secret's out now. If asked to explain their behavior to their three children, I would advise the LeBruns to go with: "We were totally drunk, and did something that we regret--see? Alcohol is BAD."

Karaoke--Clothes and Talent Optional

At last--karaoke singers can bare their souls without the pesky restrictions of clothing.

BERLIN, Conn. Feb 9, 2005 — After a yearlong fight with the town, a bar is going ahead with a plan to have patrons belt out ballads in the buff. On Saturday night, the Berlin Station Cafe is scheduled to hold its controversial "Naked Karaoke" event.

Which begs the question...which songs are the best ones to be rendered au naturel?

My list:

1) See Me, Hear Me, Touch Me, Feel Me--because it's always helpful for nude singers to issue instructions to their audiences.
2) Paradise by the Dashboard Light--because a classic duet about teenage sex (which contains baseball commentary) becomes so much more seminal when the singers are nekkid.
3) The Stroke--because Billy Squier's ode is that much more poignant when accompanied by a visual.
4) Do You Love Me?--oops, no need to ask: I can see for myself.
5) Dress You Up (in My Love)--this Madonnesther song has love-as-clothing imagery, as well as multiple warblings of "from your head down to your toes" that potentially leads to suggestive choreography.
6) Rumpshaker/Baby Got Back/Bootylicious/The Humpty Dance--no explanations necessary.

More songs to be added to the list as I consider this today, and as my readers write in with their own...

AN OPEN LETTER TO NIC CAGE

Dear Nicolas Cage,

I was perusing my morning copy of New Kerala when I saw the news item about your enjoyment for karaoke. Apparently, one night of karaoke carousing led you to lose your voice on the set of National Treasure and you had to dub your lines in later...

Well, I challenge you to a karaoke duel...The Urban Kvetch vs. you, Indiana Clones.

Each of us picks a classic song and renders it Sex Pistols-style. She (or he) who rocks the loudest, wins. You may have the Coppola family in your court, but I've got the yeshiva education that breeds punk rebellion. I've rendered everyone from Guns and Roses to the Mamas and the Papas. Forget your playing twins in Adaptation. "Sweet Child O'Mine" to "Dream a Little Dream"? Now that's range, baby.

The stakes? A role in your next movie. Of course, you already have a role in your next movie, so why don't you just give me the prize now, and we can call it even. No need for you to be "beaten by a girl." Save yourself the embarrassment. In fact, since I'm unagented, have your agent call me with an offer of representation AND a script, and you can get credit for "discovering" me. Everybody wins.

As Gwen Stefani recently asked me, "Whatchu Waitin' 4"?

Most sincerely yours,

Esther

Kvetcher of Urbs /Queen of Karaoke