My friend Bob Hillman has written a song called "Circle Jerk at the Square Dance," which you can here at his MySpace page (click the "Demo 7" link in the music player - Bob's trying to duck out of paying me royalties for the title). It's not really about me blogging in the way that, say, "Believe It or Not" is about The Greatest American Hero. But sharing the title alone is good enough for me.
While you're over there, I recommend checking out his other tunes, especially "Valentine's Day" and "My Satanic Friends." He's a terrific songwriter who combines great pop/folk melodies with very clever lyrics. If you like what you hear, hop over to Bob's home page where you can buy his CDs. I am particularly partial to Welcome to My Century, which is just a stellar collection of catchy, witty tunes.
A quick story tangentially related to Bob: When The Lovely Becky and I attended the lovely wedding of Bob and the lovely SER, they had karaoke at the party the night before the wedding. TLB, who is a huge Aimee Mann fan, wanted to do a duet of Til Tuesday's "Voices Carry." My wife can actually sing. I actually cannot. But we had a routine for this song where she would sing most of the song and I would play the part of the psychotic boyfriend. We thought this would be an entertaining change of pace from the other karaoke performances.
The song began, and Becky started singing very well. I stood very still until the chorus, when I grabbed the mic and screamed "HUSH HUSH! KEEP IT DOWN NOW! VOICES CARRY!"
This boomed out of the sound system. Prior to our act, many of the folks singing had not been singing very loudly, so the karaoke DJ had turned up the mic. As soon as I started screaming, I saw him lunge for the volume control.
We kept up the call-and-excessive-response rhythm for the whole song, until we got to the last part before it faded out:
TLB: He said...
Me: SHUT UP!
TLB: He said...
Me: SHUT UP!
Together: Oh God can't you, keep it down...VOICES CARRY!
I really don't know how much of the room was with us. I do know that the table full of our Writer's Workshop friends and associates were laughing pretty hard. Probably at me more than with, but since I am a chuckle whore, I take them any way I can get them.
Shortly after we finished, I found Bob. Bob gave me a look that I call the "there he goes again," a slight head shake and eye roll he uses whenever I make a particularly bad joke or blatant attempt to do my "act."
"What did you think?" I asked him.
He paused for a moment before replying, "That was surprisingly aggressive."
That was good enough for me.
Back tomorrow with the Top Ten Tuesday I should have written today.
5 comments:
Once again, Brando breaks the mold: This sounds like a karaoke event that I might have actually enjoyed.
Karaoke, in general, strikes me as a necessary and sufficient condition for invading Korea.
Oh, wait. They didn't invent it? Well then, who can we invade?
Oh my god. That was too funny. I'm still trying to envision you too up there wearing wooly mammoth vests all Sonny and Cher from the sixties (because I know that's what you guys would wear to a wedding)singing a Til Tuesday song. It's making me very happy.
I am crying with laughter even with just the memory of it--those of you who have not had the pleasure of knowing TLB and Brando in person cannot possible imagine how pants-crappingly funny it was. Especially since TLB can really sing--it was this really lovely thing until Brando came in, and then it was just fantastically horrifying. I kept trying to see if SER's parents were reacting, but the laughing-tears were affecting my vision.
it was this really lovely thing until Brando came in, and then it was just fantastically horrifying.
That is such an apt description, and not just of this event.
I was also weeping with laughter during that karaoke performance. I remember looking over and seeing MSF, PJKM, and others also doubled over.
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