Krunk karaoke (part I of II): Before.

So, I've been a flaky blogger and haven't blogged about the best things happening in my life, since they take so damn long to blog about.

For example, I went to krunk karaoke the other month with my one (white) friend from Mississippi who I got hooked on karaoke - he had been there before with some (white) students from his class who invited him out to drink after their final exam, though it was my first time. When we got there, the waitress was like, "Nice to see you guys back."

Anyhow, it was packed but there was only a smattering of white people in the bar, and the hostess was this (black) lady with dyed red hair and black tight pants and this red leather jacket ("Lady Red"), and she was the most bad-ass karaoke hostess I've ever seen - she opened up with hip-hop or something and nailed the song, but she was also seemed really nice.

The hard part about the karaoke place is that the audience is all black, and the songs are mostly black, so you have to sing something that fits the mood. Only, even not all songs sung by black people work, since it's mostly from the 70s on with an emphasis on R&B and Hip-Hop. The best I could hope for was Donna Summers's "MacArthur Park" -- early disco is usually as late as I go with black music -- while my friend did John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom", since he prefers blues.

Anyhow, my friend did well with his song, and a lot of (black) women cheered when he got to the part about throwing you on the floor and wanting it right now. When my song kicked up and the chords rang out, two (black) women at the bar clapped their hands up in the air a few times and started whooping, and they whooped louder as I broke into the first words, authoritatively -

Spring was never waiting for us girl
It ran one step ahead
As we followed in the dance

- and then when the chorus breaks out like majestic sunshine after a storm, people kind of started bopping.

Only, the bass was really turned up and the treble really turned down, so when the second verse came around, I had a hard time picking up the melody again and so I stopped singing, and Lady Red noticed it right away, and jiggled with the balance to bring out the melodic accompaniment so I could start singing again, and I did, but I already lost momentum, so the song didn't turn out well, both because of that, and because they cut out the entire slow middle part.

Other than that, the night was very slow, and a little odd since the bar was packed, but almost no one sang, so we chugged our beers and left.

And, as we left, Lady Red was like, "Hey guys, nice seeing you again! I hope you had a good time!"

A Very Barry Christmas.

So, last night I went to the Barry Manilow Christmas concert. It was out in the suburbs in a suburban theater close to the airport... I got off the subway, and I had to walk along a sidewalk past conference centers / airport hotels / etc for like 10 min., and there was no one else walking, though there were a ton of cars lined up to turn into theater parking.

Inside, the place was full of white women with frosted hair - the younger ones kept it long, while the older ones bobbed it. A lot of the women wore red, and many of them had on these little Christmas accessories, like a big sparkly snowflake necklace, or a big sparkly Christmas tree pin, or some big-ass Christmas design in silver sequins on their shirt.

When I went to go take a piss - I had been at a coffee shop before heading to the theater - there were 20+ women waiting to use the restroom, and when I went into the men's room, it was empty.

Out at the souvenir stand, it was a crush of women.

"Ooh, an ornament!", one white woman was like, pointing to this $10 powder blue ornament with 'A Barry Merry Christmas' writtten in white on it.

"And look at that t-shirt," one white woman was like, to her two white friends, one of whom was older and looked like her mother

"Which t-shirt?", the one was like.

"The purple one," the original lady said.

"I don't see any purple one," the mom-like one was like, re-adusting her glasses.

They had posters up too for upcoming events, like "Mamma Mia!", and when I passed by those, one white woman was like, "Look, 'Mamma Mia!' is coming!", and when her friend said she saw the movie but had never seen the play, she was like, "Well, I saw the play, and it was great, and I'd go see it again."

There was also a poster that said "MANILOW: THE HITS AND THEN SOME" and had a big silhouette of Barry on it, and people would pose for pictures next to it, as well as next to these gigantic Christmas trees in the theater lobby.


When I walked into the theater - I had a seat on the upper tier - a (black) lady (the only one in the theater?) was handing out "ULTIMATE MANILOW: THE HITS" glowsticks, which glowed a frosty blue when you cracked them... Outside it had been soft Christmas music, and inside it was easy-listening music, only with an oddly clubbish thumping-bass backbeat to get the women stoked...

My seat kind of sucked - this really old guy with tall hair was in front of me - but towards the end of the opening act, this Vegas-style magician - I jumped up and managed to get a really good seat up at the front of the tier, probably like $70 more than what my ticket had cost.

Anyhow, after the magician got off stage, the curtains flung back to reveal a 50-piece orchestra and a few Christmas trees, and the majestic chords of "I Write the Songs" rang out, and just when you thought Barry was going to get on stage, there were these bells ringing out and some jingle bells and some spritely Christmas music, and from offstage, he started singing -

happy holidays...

- and the women went nuts and jumped to their feet, and when he ran out on stage singing a 2nd "happy holidays", the women screamed even louder.

Overall, the concert was very mixed. The carols didn't do it for me, and he seemed to deliberately camp up some of his older stuff, and that didn't work for me, since his big selling point is authenticity.

That said, when he sang "Mandy", it was as if I was hearing every word of the 1st verse for the very first time, something that's hard to do for a song whose lyrics I could recite in my sleep, and everyone else felt it too - as soon as finished the chorus and was like, "Oh Mandy...", everyone burst into applause, simultaneously, since they were feeling it.

Also, when he did "Can't Smile Without You", which I always find very repetitive - the only interesting part is to see which woman he pulls up on stage to dance with, though he didn't do that this time - somehow he mixed up the delivery of the lyrics with the dynamics and rhythm, and it was great... It made me want to sing it at karaoke, even!

Other than that, the best parts were his onstage banner. Like always, he made fun of his Jewishness, which I love.

"Gee folks," he was like, "Can you believe that I put out three Christmas albums? That's right, three! Pretty good for a Jew boy like me."

At the end of the concert, too, when Santa came out on a golf cart and children starting flooding the stage for his big closing number, he shouted out, "Look who's here, it's Santa! After all, what's Christmas without Santa? It's like chicken soup without the matzah balls!"

Also, when he was talking about his current Vegas show, he was like, "And I thought Vegas was some place that old singers went to die. That, and seedy - you know, gamblers and hookers and everything. But, I've discovered that it's actually a nice family place - more like gamblers and hookers and their kids."

That's Barry, giving you just enough edge so you love him.

Leaving, people were like, "Wasn't that a fantastic concert?", and, "I swear, he brought Las Vegas right to this stage!".

Oops, Missed that Movie.

So many good movies I want to see.

By the time I turned around, Herzog's "Bad Lieutenant, Port of Call New Orleans" was already out of the theater (last showing - yesterday).

But, Almodovar's "Broken Embraces" debuts tonight, and I might be going this weekend!!!

Story from that one Catalan guy I know.

So, this weekend when I was hanging out with some people after going to see a professional basketball game (we got half-price tix), we headed out after the game to get a beer at a local bar, and for some reason that one Catalan guy I know was reminiscing about his childhood in a small village in the Pyrenees (sp.?).

As he told it, him and his one childhood friend used to enjoy stealing candy from this one toy/candy shop run by an old Catalan guy, and he would go up and ask the man about toys that didn't exist, while his friend would steal the candy.

"Do you have like, you know, those frogs that sing?", he said he remembered asking once.

Another time, he was like, "Do you have, you know, like a twig, only you put it in water, and it grows downwards?".

He said the guy was really old and didn't understand children's toys nowadays, so he would always shake his head and be like, "No no no, I don't have that here, you have to go to Barcelona for that."

Story from my British friend (II of II): This One Guy.

Also, my British friend told me about this holy man that lived outside the city way in the sticks.

I guess it never rains in the Sudan, and one time it rained for a few days and was interfering with construction of a new mosque, so everyone went out to the sticks to get the holy man, and he came to the mosque site, clapped twice, and the rain stopped.

Also, it's a delicacy there to eat raw sheep liver when the sheep is slaughtered, but once some people killed the sheep and sliced the liver only to find that it was rotten. I guess the holy man was there, and he came up and touched it, and the liver wasn't rotten anymore.

Also also, the guy rarely ate and never took a shit, and the times he did eat, it'd just be a little, and he couldn't keep it down, and when he'd vomit, the neighborhood cats would come in a pack right away to eat it up, and they'd be in this big swarm around his vomit, licking.

Story from my British friend (I of II): Evil Eye.

I had coffee this past weekend with my one British friend, who was in a very chatty mood. His dad is from the Sudan and he lived there for a while when he was a kid, and he was telling me about how when he and his family went back to the Sudan when he was in college, he had decided to talk his entire Sudanese family out of belief in the evil eye if they brought it up.

As it turns out, his one cousin had recently gotten married and then she got sick, and though they took her to a zillion doctors, they couldn't find anything wrong with her.

"Don't you think it's just some virus?", he told his relatives, and he says that as soon as he said that, his younger cousins in the room started looking at each other like, "Man, is this guy stupid."

Then, he said, his aunt told him that science is great and can cure many viruses, but there are some things that science can't explain.

Then, the whole conversation degenerated into talking about how the family had been showing everyone wedding pictures, and so they were trying to figure out who they had shown the pictures to at around the time his cousin got sick.

Also, later that week, my one British friend came down with something, and his aunt told him that he was a victim of the evil eye, because he had just graduated from high school the past year and would be a perfect target for envy.

Soup problems!!!

The other night I got home and got my bowl out and went to go get my pot of sour red cabbage soup off the windowsill, but, when I went to open the window, the window was frozen shut.

(It's been snowing the past few days, and temps have dropped a lot.)

I banged the window sill a lot, to no avail, and since I didn't have any other ideas, I banged it some more, also to no avail, so I started wondering whether that shit would be out there till spring, or the next warm day.

After a bit, I realized I could slide down the top half of the window, so I did that, and I was able to just reach the pot handles when I stood on the inside sill and leaned outside and down, so I was able to bring it inside and get my soup, and then I was able to fit it all in the fridge after re-arranging the fridge for 10 minutes.

Also, I was walking around my apt. in my boxers, so I was like half naked leaning out the window in a snowstorm getting a pot of soup off the window sill. I bet the neighbors would have raised an eyebrow, if any had been looking (though I don't think many can see).

Addendum.

When people were talking about whether people in other areas of the country would do videos like the one from San Francisco, that Floyd guy, who was from Mississippi, was like, "Maybe in the South... The thing about the south is, is that the South will surprise you. A lot of people don't realize that. In Atlanta, people would be lining up, Tuskegee too."

He said that real slow, in a southern drawl.

Also, his one friend who used to work for Playboy said an old girlfriend of his would make sure to orgasm before making major decisions, since that was when she said she felt that her head was clearest and that she was most rational.

Also also, after everything had broken up and that Floyd guy was leaving, him and the older retired male nurse who used to be a thug and is now a sexologist got in a conversation that I picked up part of when I was heading past them to go to the restroom to take a piss... Floyd was saying that a lawyer friend of his had figured out that you could spray Teabaggers with Silly String as a counterprotest and there was nothing legal against that, since it didn't stain and didn't constitute violence, so they were going to try that this weekend.

"Cum could work too," the retired male nurse was like, smiling and joking.

"Yeah, that's right," Floyd was like, "But I don't think I can produce that much."

"Start now and save it," the retired male nurse was like again, smiling and joking, "It's for a good cause," and Floyd laughed a deep, low laugh.

Went to a sex doc again on Tuesday.

So, on Tuesday I went to a sex doc again.

The movie was a documentary of 22 San Franciscoans getting to orgasm on camera, only you saw them from the neck up, and they spliced the footage of them getting off and orgasming with interviews of them and why they're doing it why it's political etc.

I found it kind of tiresome and a little bullshitty, just like the film about 13 women masturbating. There's this idea floating around that the way that you become a sexual revolutionary is by doing something like porn, which I find kind of odd. Why is that a good thing? Especially, since most people are awkwardly mugging for the camera when they're getting off.

During the Q&A, I wondered out loud if people in other countries (Canada, France, England) feel compelled to make this type of film, or if it's a bullshitty U.S. thing.

At that point, someone corrected me and said it's more of a bullshitty San Francisco thing, though you get it some in New York too.

Also, the (black) guy who worked for Playboy brought a friend of his along, this late 40s big (black) guy from the south named "Floyd".

In response to the film, Floyd said that that part where the Asian woman said she was trying to counteract stereotypes of Asian women, that that hit home with him, since his old girlfriend used to run across that all the time.

"And she grew up during the Cultural Revolution, man," he was like, "So she was anything but passive."

I also caught a ride home with the girl who's kind of nerdy and into BDSM and her boyfriend, who's a little fat and pasty. They hung around forever afterwards for a planning meeting, even after it had broken up, and were talking off the series coordinator's ear about how they should find a sex magick doc out there. Then, when we finally walked to the car (they walked really slow), we had to wait like 5 minutes inside for the defroster to run so the guy's glasses could unfog, and then once we drove, he was really really slow, but also a really really bad driver, so from the time when the movie broke up until I got home was an hour! - and public transportation only takes 50 minutes.

Also, in the car, somehow they started talking about rope bondage, and how he tied her up once and he had to untie her since she felt faint from not eating breakfast.

Soup!

I tried making cabbage soup this week, with one head of green cabbage, and another of red.

After I added in the onions and green peppers, I realized the red cabbage would give it a different flavor, so I added just a little hot paprika, and like 2 cups of vinegar, to make a sour cabbage soup with a flavor resembling Polish sour pink cabbage.

It worked!