Sunday, September 12, 2004

the latest careyoke canvassing

Against remarkable odds, I "won" the meta-poll over on careyoke's blog, meaning that I've advanced to there now being a poll about what song I should be encouraged to sing at tomorrow evening's karaoke. My victory is all the more remarkable considering that everyone who goes to karaoke knows that I (1) have a five-note vocal range, (2) can only, strictly speaking, hit four of the five notes within that range, (3) have no control over which of these four notes bleats forth from my head at any point in time. Fortunately for the ears of all, Careyoke and Dorotha's Mom* have graciously offered to join me onstage for whatever song prevails. The way the options shape up, the poll is a battle among the following lyrics:

(option 1) **
She's the one, the only one,
who's built like a am-ha-ka-zon


(option 2)
Yeah, your love thawed out
what was scared and old


(option 3)
Wipe the sleep out of my eyes.
My shavin’ razor’s cold and it stings.


(option 4)
I’ve been a bad bad girl,
I’ve been careless with a delicate man.


(option 5)
Baby, let me take all of my life to find you
But you can believe it's gonna take
the rest of my life to keep you


* The metapoll option "What song should be dedicated to Dorotha's mom?" did not win, perhaps because a slightly-lyrically-modified version of "Stacy's Mom" seems the obvious choice.

** Complete digression about "Brick House." When I was in graduate school, there was this guy from Texas who would goad me into any number of inane longrunning debates through the tried-and-true-two-step-method of: (a) making an assertion that was so completely ludicrous as to not be something one could just let pass and (b) absolutely refusing to ever admit he might be incorrect in any of said assertions. The low point among all these debates was the one about whether a person blind in one eye would be hindered as hitter in major league baseball (he insisted no and any one-eyed hitter who claimed otherwise was just making excuses; subsequently, his defense of this claim included a protracted denial of the idea that two eyes somehow help with depth perception). The second-lowest point, however, occurred when he described this beautiful woman he knew back in Texas as "built like a brick [slang term for feces]house."
"Wait, are you trying to say that she was very attractive or that she was very muscular?"
"[The former]" he effectively said, except I'm sure he described the person in more specific and elaborately anatomical terms, since he was the sort who was prone to that.
"The phrase 'built like a brick [slang term for feces]house' means that someone is really solid and strong. A [slang term for feces]house is an outhouse. Outhouses are normally made out of like straw or sticks, not brick. So calling something a brick [slang term for feces]house is calling attention to its exceptional sturdiness, not its voluptuous allure."
"How do you explain the song 'Brick House' then?"
Which I never did have a great answer for, other than the title didn't actually include [slang term for feces]. However, I was able to have about nine million people in subsequent conversations with us present verify my understanding of the meaning of the phrase "built like a [slang term for feces]house." To which his two responses were, always: "How do you explain the song 'Brick House' then?" and, better, "Well, down in Texas, we use it to refer to a beautiful woman."

3 comments:

Careyoke said...

Hey! I never said such a thing about accompanying you...but I am a stage hound I suppose, so, see you up there. I'll just be backing you up though. You'll be center stage.

dorotha said...

my mom ONLY agreed to sing with nina.

Ang said...

Your love thawed out what was... old? I think it's supposed to be 'cold,' right?