the three classic blunders, the first two i learned from the princess bride and the last i learned from angela

1. Never get involved in a land war in Asia!
2. Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!
3. If your voice has always been overrated and it isn't aging well, never say 'Help me somebody' and toss the mic to Patti LaBelle!


(fast forward to 1:38 into it [2:36 remaining], and then watch the next sixty seconds. don't watch more than that or else suddenly there's el debarge.)

A little like asking someone for help with an itch on your back you can't reach and having them rip out your spine with a scythe. Still itch? Higher? To the left?

Of course, the real showdown of the divas would be me and Miss Patti doing "Love Shack." I am not a stage presence to be trifled with, at least when I've got me a Chrysler that's as big as a whale.

Speaking of which, apparently Jerry Marwell did "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" (one of my standbys) at karaoke in Madison a few nights ago, and dedicated it to "Jeremy, who's no longer with us." This resulted in some confusion among the karaoke faithful about whether I was dead. (I'm not, although I have recently somehow screwed up my back.)

dear, you know you're still number one, but girls, they want to have fun

A dollar well spent is to go over to iTunes and buy Greg Laswell's cover of "Girls Just Want to Have Fun".* Laswell offers what I have been arguing for years via karaoke is the correct interpretation of the song: to be sung by a male, not a female, and to be sung sadly/ruefully/bitterly, not exuberantly. It's unclear from the recording, however, if he also steals my tactic of choosing an audience member at random to be the target of this rue.

Two other songs I downloaded from the same list: "Infinity" by Merrick, and an acoustic rendition of "Overkill" by Colin Hay. The latter is interesting for being recorded over twenty years after than the hit version by the same artist and being, perhaps inarguably, better. All these songs are of the mellow and easy-to-work-by variety.

* Via a list on the private blog of a certain friend; my ability to link to friend's blogs has been hindered in recent months by the rise of the private blog.

further evidence that right now is the most awesomely awesome time to be alive in the history of humankind

In my Inbox this evening:

Hello, Jeremy.

My name is Jamie Gaines, and I run a site called PeopleDoingTheRobot.com. As you might guess, the site is dedicated to pictures of people doing the robot.

I came across your picture here....

http://jeremyfreese.blogspot.com/carey_shamus_barbie.jpg

from the blog post at

http://jeremyfreese.blogspot.com/2004/08/other-questions-from-karaoke-night.html

and thought it would be perfect for the site. Would you mind if I post it?

The site is purely for goofy fun, and no pressure if you'd rather me not post it. I just thought I'd ask.

Thanks!

Jamie Gaines
PeopleDoingTheRobot.com

For those unfamiliar with the ways of Madison Sociology karaoke, the most frequently yelled phrase at the performer--since "Get off the stage, Jeremy" is, technically speaking, usually yelled at someone who is not the official performer at the time--is "Do the Robot!" There are only two other recurrent dance-demands, "Do the Breadmaker!" and "Do the Gecko!," and these are a distant second and third. Specific variants of the robot are sometimes called for, like "Do the Pregnant Teenage Robot!" during Madonna's "Papa Don't Preach" and "Do the Robot on the Second Floor!" during Suzanne Vega's "Luka."

Anyway, my response:

Sure, so long as you don't mind your e-mail appearing on my blog.

you're so vain, you probably think you have a psychic connection with a bar a thousand miles away (as well as that this post is about you)

It's karaoke night for the sociologists back in Madison. I knew this anyway, but would know it otherwise because they just called with someone holding up the phone while some combination of people were singing "You're So Vain." Strangest part of all--indeed, I type knowing you probably won't believe me--but when the phone rang I was sitting here at my tablet PC with my headphones in, and the song that was playing was "You're So Vain."

(All of which is well and good and fun, but as a brief matter of clarification: Cambridge is an hour ahead of Madison. And while it is [perhaps too] widely known that I welcome cel phone calls at any time, since I don't hear my cel phone if I'm asleep--and don't pick it up if I'm disinclined anyway--do not call my landline number with its intentionally loud in-case-someone-I-love-dies ringer at ~12:51 AM, even if prob(JF awake|1AM) basically = 1 these days. Yes, caller(s) in question, this parenthetical note is about you.)

further evidence of the relativity of time and distance

(me, shortly before leaving Evanszton, expecting the subsequent trip to be nothing but smiles)

It took me longer to get from the Boston airport to my apartment today than the flying time from Chicago to Boston. The luggage took forever, the Silver Line bus took forever, the Red Line T took forever, the T turned out to be out of service at one station which required a special bus trip that took forever, and the walk home after all those forevers (which, you know, add up) led to me feeling sufficiently weary that I had to stop at Herrell's and get a chocolate-malt-with-extra-malt. Herrell's, btw, appears to be as good as ice cream gets in the Harvard area, even though it is plainly inferior to Babcock's in Madison, not to mention inferior to the creamy-cold-and-cracklike-in-its-addictiveness Michael's Frozen Custard.

Then I spent about as long again as the flying time from Boston to Chicago taking a splendid and much needed nap. Now I'm about to go grocery shopping, but am allowing my cel phone to charge while I review business that has piled up during my trip, such as this link someone sent to the YouTubed video for The Best Karaoke Song Ever.

emily's reasons why not

(photo from olden days of karaoke: two faculty members torment an unknown bystander with their bitter rendition of "Girls Just Want to Have Fun")

A few weeks ago, I was at a T stop whose advertising space was completely overtaken by ads for the TV show "Emily's Reasons Why Not." The signs alternate between posters featuring a photo of the show's star and posters giving something to be read as a Reason Why Not. One was: "Because No One Forgets Bad Karaoke." Which is yet another example of a totally incorrect karaoke stereotype.

The truth: People readily forget bad karaoke. It's creepy karaoke that permanently scalds onto others' minds.

I was at the same T stop last night and saw all the posters were gone, replaced by a campaign promoting some nonpulpy orange juice. So then I googled "Emily's Reasons Why Not" and learned that it had been cancelled after just one episode. Apparently the show did not add to the list of All I'm Missing By Not Having Television.

they tasted all right to me, earl

Lisa asked me to contribute a recipe to a informal cookbook she is putting together comprised of recipes from different people who have crossed her path in one way or another. Asking me to come up a recipe is a little like asking the parish priest for amorous advice, given that I don't cook. (Even so, strangely enough, this is the second time I've been asked to devise a recipe in the past year.) Anyway, I suspect Lisa is putting together the cookbook because she is approaching an especially nostalgia-provoking point in her life. Here seemed one propitious nostalgia candidate for Lisa and me, as reconstructed from Careyoke's karaoke recaps:

Lisa says: "Remember when Jeremy was Earl?" So what does she do? She sings "Goodbye, Earl" of course! And Jeremy plays Earl again. Earl explains to us what the FFA is and argues Earl’s innocence. Then he "dies." Though he does and then is resurrected (Happy Easter!) so that for every new chorus he can die again. Seriously. You need to see this. It is crazy. I’ll try to describe: During one death sequence, he knocks over the stool on the stage, drops the microphone, and flails around so much that Lisa has to get off the stage. Ang says: "Awesome convulsions!"" Lisa then puts her foot on his stomach, indicating how she has conquered Earl. Well done!

And so, here was the recipe I submitted:

WANDA'S FAMOUS SPICY BACON BLACK-EYED PEAS

8 ounces bacon
2 large onions, chopped
1 1/2 cups chopped green bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
2 cups chopped celery
3 cans (15 ounces each) black-eyed peas
3 tbsp. arsenic trioxide
1 can (4 ounces) chopped mild green chile pepper
1 bottle of Pinot Grigio wine
chopped pickled jalapeno pepper, to taste
salt, to taste
pepper, to taste

Cook bacon until fat has rendered. With slotted spoon, transfer bacon to a large stockpot or kettle. To the bacon drippings add onions, green and red pepper, celery. Cook, stirring, until vegetables are tender. Add peas to the stockpot with bacon, then add the cooked onion and pepper mixture, chile pepper and jalapeno, and salt and pepper. Simmer over medium low heat for 30 minutes. Add arsenic. Serve hot to Earl. Drink wine. Wait. Taunt.

once you leave a place, people there will often talk about you in the past tense as though you were dead. sometimes, as though you are undead.

Working away here in my office on the conclusion of a paper, I got a call from three folks back in Madison. Apparently, there is going to be a Zombie March in Madison this Saturday, perhaps to protest the departure of some highly delectable brains from the city over the past year. The three Madisonians were calling to report that when one of them complained about how she wanted to go to the Zombie March but didn't know what to wear, another offered the suggestion that she could just dress in the "Jeremy costume" she had worn to karaoke once. Why dressing as me would be an appropriate approximation to zombie attire was left unexplained.

(As for what exactly what a "Jeremy costume" consists of, the woman in question wore a button-down shirt that was only partly tucked in and had one button unbuttoned. The frequency with which I actually commit either of these fashion don'ts, however, is a matter of considerable debate among the apparel scholars in Jeremy Studies nationwide. Another person's "Jeremy costume" included also a T-shirt that said "I love bacon" on one side and "Stata is my friend" on the other.)

i can't help it! it's like there are these twee pop supertwins inside me just clawing to get out!

I deny all assertions that I am tone-deaf. I have, however, admitted to the possibility that I may be tone-hearing-impaired. This, if true, makes the fact that I pulled off a master's thesis (and subsequent publication) on prosody all the more impressive. Whatever the real capacities of my ear, it's a plain fact that I can't really sing. I have a five-note range, can only actually hit four of the notes within this range, and none of these reliably.

None of which means that I don't enjoy singing, but I have learned to avoid the ridicule that comes with subjecting to melodic stylings.* So I belt it out in the private spaces of my world, such as the especially acoustically pleasing environment of the shower. The elevator also provides a nice acoustic environment, and you would think on the weekends singing in the privacy of the elevator would be safe. I've been listening to Tegan and Sara obsessively the past week, and, when the elevator doors re-opened on the fourth floor yesterday, the line I was singing a bit too loudly was from the chorus of one of their best songs: "Look me in the eye and tell me you don't find me attractive." The person who happened to be standing outside the elevator had that kind of bemused look that gives away that apparently voices carry through elevator doors. At least, I suppose, he didn't look at me and say "You're not attractive."

* Karaoke doesn't count! As anyone who has seen my renditions of "Goodbye Earl," "Take Me to the River," or "Stacy's Mom"** knows, I don't sing at karaoke so much as perform. But, verily, I can actually sing a little better than what I've shared with the masses at karaoke.

** And, yes, I admit, shouting "Yeah, well, your Mom is next!" to hecklers in the crowd was going a little too far, especially given my professional position, etc..

the inner selves of singing-sconnie-sociologists

So, last time we had karaoke, I was just starting my diet, and caught up in the zeal of caloric aversion I resolved that I wasn't going to drink at all. From this, I confirmed, as scientists have long hypothesized, that intoxicant-free karaoke is not as much fun. This time, then, I carefully saved up points during the day so I could drink without guilt. Indeed, I was so disciplined that I calculated that, in principle, I could have x drinks without going over my points, where the quantity x was clearly too many. Then, being someone who strives always to live up to principles, I went ahead and had x drinks. (A mistake, yes, I know, believe me.)

Erica The Bartender did seem confused when I changed my usual Vodka-Cranberry Juice order to Vodka-Diet-Pepsi.

Anyway, the original careyoke-declared theme for karaoke was Krazy Outfit Night, although this then changed to the theme of "Inside Out", where people were supposed to wear their sense of who they are on the inside as their outfit. I'm not entirely sure if some people were following the Krazy Outfit Theme night or the Inside Out theme. In my own case, it turns out that my inner self is a lot like the clothes I happen to have worn to work that day, only with a black feather boa that I expropriated early in the evening.

The insides-out of others:

priorities

I have got so much to do before I leave Thursday to go apartment hunting in Boston. But, of course, I can't miss the last karaoke night with Ms. Careyoke herself in residence. Especially since it is also a Dorotha-birthday-and-various-other-departures blowout as well. Forgive me, social science, for all I am about to not get done.

the missing link

I finally found the mini-USB cable that links my digital camera to a PC. It had somehow ended up in a dusty corner of the RV; the best working hypothesis is that it was carried there by the occasional bugs I see that everyone insists are Not-Cockroaches. Anyway, the missing cable has kept me from taking photos for something like a month. The last pictures are from a karaoke excursion long enough ago that the details are hazy, even with the mnemonic benefit of a blog-recap. I'm sure there would have been good stories to accompany each of these photos, for instance, but instead they are lost to karaoke-antiquity:

come on, feel the noise. or, at least, come on watch jeremy make a fool out of himself and creep people out.

Bloggger dinner at Tom's last night (photos, including two of the remarkably photopathogenic yours truly, here). Tom cooked a fabulous-fabulous meal, so good that it had me licking the plate like some kind of feral cat when I was done. Among the evening's conversational highlights were Nina regaling us all with songs from the musical Chess and stories about how her daughters used to play "Cold War Conflict" with the special "Behind the Iron Curtain" Playmobil set she bought them one Xmas.

Meanwhile, I kept trying to convince attendees to join the sociologists at karaoke night next Wednesday, especially Tonya, who has an impressive home karaoke setup of her own (scroll to photo at bottom of link). I told them that The Divine Ms. Carey-oke herself is leaving Madison even sooner than I am, and so who knows what the future of Madison Sociology karaoke is.

This got me thinking of the karaoke legacy I will be leaving behind when I follow the crimson brick road to Harvard later this summer. Judging by the karaoke recaps, Madison will apparently be a much less disturbing place without me. Here are excerpts from Careyoke's Official Recaps from the last two sociology karaoke excursions I intended:

(1) Then the Growly Twins, Dorotha and Jeremy, with “Take me to the river.”
- Someone wrote something suggestive…
- I wrote something far less suggestive, sort of: “Growling is their fave.” Jeremy basically gave up on any semblance of singing and growled the whole thing. “Competitive growling.”
- “Most disturbing performance EVER.”

(2) Then I heard some careyoke reminiscing…
- Lisa: “Remember when Jeremy was Earl?” So what does she do? She sings “Goodbye, Earl” of course! And Jeremy plays Earl again. Hilarity ensues…
- Earl explains to us what the FFA is and argues Earl’s innocence. Then he “dies.” Though he does and then is resurrected (Happy Easter!) so that for every new chorus he can die again. Seriously. You need to see this. It is crazy. I’ll try to describe…During one death sequence, he knocks over the stool on the stage, drops the microphone, and flails around so much that Lisa has to get off the stage.
- Ang adds: “Awesome convulsions!”
- Lisa then puts her foot on his stomach, indicating how she has conquered Earl. Well done!

(3) Jeremy’s shirt says ‘Bacon is a vegetable’ and a guy [Justin] has Jeremy’s initials shaved in his head for which Jeremy paid him $90. [Apparently, Dorotha brokered the deal and took at 10% cut of the profits.]

(4) “Jeremy & Carey[oke] – Mama Said Knock You Out – Jude says this is the whitest performance he’s ever seen. [Inconceivable!] It’s not clear what Jeremy’s job is except to say “out!” and “justice” ... Jeremy gets a high five from old guys [in the audience].” I think this starts their constant post-performance high-fiving for the evening. Why I didn’t get high-fived and Jeremy did makes no sense to me. Maybe it was congratulating him on taking credit for a performance he added to little to. Or maybe it was just because he got to be on stage with me.

(5) “Jeremy attempts [and succeeds!] to bribe the Karaoke Kid workers [with $10] to play ‘Stacy’s Mom.’” [...] This sets new records on the creep-o-meter.

a cautionary note to my most demonstrative fans

Should the spirit ever move you, like it did this fellow, to shave my initials into your sideburns, keep in my mind the implications of your looking in a mirror while you do it. Otherwise, you could end up like this:


(the "J")


(the "F")

Yes, the sideburns were unveiled at Sociology Karaoke Night. Where the inverted J and F, incidentally, made this newcomer look extra-hip on stage:



So much so, in fact, as to induce swooning and seizures among some in the audience:

[photo removed at the behest of the seizing swooner in question]

Is there anything more to say about Tuesday night's karaoke? Our tradition of taking fieldnotes during karaoke night was continued with particular panache:



But whether any synopsis of these will make it into the blog of our official online chronicler, the redoubtably divine Carey-oke herself, remains to be seen.

livin' la vida karaoka

How tired was I last night? So much so, that I decided that, despite feeling wheelbarrows full of enthusiasm, I just had to get some sleep rather than go to the sociology department's karaoke night. How badly does karaoke need me? So much so, that when the Karaoke Kid heard I wasn't coming, they decided not to open last night, leaving scores of eager sociologists dismal in the snow. Sorry, all. I didn't realize I was so crucial for everyone's good time.

ocean's twelve (months)

Yesterday, Nina celebrated her first anniversary of her blog with a rousing brunch that included her husband,* her two relentlessly smart daughters, Ann, and myself. When you are invited to eat over the Camics, you can count on three things: (1) great food, (2) great conversation, and (3) prior to either of these, something getting torched in the kitchen. This time, the bacon Nina had put in the oven started burning just as Nina began talking smack about something in my blog, providing further evidence that God Loves JFW.

Blogging was indeed the most prominent topic of conversation, and the fuzzy world of blogger ethics were recurrently addressed. I was judged a web-weasel for sometimes changing the times of posts, but, despite the reproach, I will persist in the practice as I see fit. I was surprised later, however, when Ann, Nina, and All The Other Camics readily agreed that if you send an e-mail to a blogger, that e-mail is fair game to be posted to the blog without further consent. In a spirit of nostalgia, then, I thought that--even though I haven't explicitly gotten Nina's okay to do this--I would go back and look up the very first e-mail that ever I received from Nina. Sent 1/14/04, here it is:

Ever since my daughters have pointed me to your blog, I've been periodically amused by it. I keep a blog, but mine really is quite primitive -- intended for friends rather than for the general public**.... I steered a colleague of mine at the law school to your blog just today because she was interested in starting one, and I thought yours was a better illustration of a really nice style than mine was. She was equally impressed and launched one just today.*** So, you've been an inspiration !!

[a couple general questions about blogs]

Just to buy answers to my questions, I'll include a REALLY DUMB JOKE that I learnt back in the 60s when I was in school:

So on a chilly December day, in the city of Leningrad (we are in the 1960s), a rich American couple is touring the city in a limo, chauferred by one of those dour looking Soviet drivers by the name of Rudolf. The husband looks out the window of the limo and says in delight "look, dear, it is snowing in Leningrad!" The wife, feeling at odds with her husband, looks out and sees only the wet drops hitting the windshield. The husband is adamant: "It's snowing!" He exclaims. "Raining!" She counters. "Snowing!" He insists. She turns to the driver for verification-- "Is it raining or snowing?" she asks coyly. "Da, raining" he answers gruffly. She turns to her husband with a smug smile: "Aha! You see! Rudolf the Red knows rain, dear."

Anyway, it's late and I'm tired, so I don't have the energy to type something appropriately gushy and mushy about Nina's blog, even though gushiness and mushiness are deeply deserved. Although, let me tell you, if you only know Nina through her blog, you are really missing out.

In addition to being arguably the single most irrepressible spirit to walk the earth, Nina is also one of the most generous people I know. As a small example, she goes all the way to Poland and New York City, and she took the time out to get me some magnets. Including three in her campaign to get me back to blogging:



You're the best, Nina! Happy anniversary! I raise a steaming mug of vegetable broth to my screen in your honor!

* Who, incidentally, said he would rather be forced to spend a year blogging--even blogging exclusively about either (a) obituaries that he read in the newspaper that morning or (b) irregularities in the UW library fine system--than to spend a moment inside a karaoke bar.

** Of course, she did not stay huddled beneath this cloak of secrecy for very long.

*** Yes, she was talking about Ann's blog.

what to do? sociology karaoke and a blogger dinner are both on for tonight!

Update, 6pm: Hell hath no fury like three lawyers scorned. One has already drafted an ad searching for my Blogger Dinner replacement.

Update, late: I did both, starting with the bloggers at Griglia Tuscany and ending up at the Karaoke Kid.

the unbearable lightness of bacon

People have been asking me all day, "Did you go and check out the free bacon?" The answer is yes, but at what cost? I suspect, for instance, that the integrity of my sleep will be for a long time compromised by memories of the horrors that I witnessed last night. I feel fortunate that I and my digital camera survived. The story turns out not to be a happy little paean to the pleasures of pork, but instead a cautionary tale about human powerlessness in the face of cost-free bacon and its potential to bring out the most fiendish elements of the human soul.

Two persons gamely volunteered to go with me on this trip that would take us to Wando's, in the heart of Madison's untamed Undergraduate Bar Scene. To preserve their anonymity, let me refer to them here as "Thelma" and "Louise," a choice of pseudonyms that also emphasizes what good friends they were to one another at the start of our expedition.

Thelma and Louise were saavy enough to realize that my own plan--just walk in and get some bacon--had no chance of any of us getting out of there alive. Instead, they insisted, we needed to enter the bar incognito, disguised as undergraduates ourselves. They went to some impressive effort in this regard. Myself, I had no idea what possibly in my closet would serve as such a disguise, so I just put on my intentionally-completely-garish UW hockey jersey.

1. The evening began with much enthusiasm and merriment, perhaps masking the trepidation we all felt within. Witness here Thelma's thrill at first seeing the street sign advertising the All-U-Can-Eat bacon to be found inside.



2. As we were nervously pacing around outside, trying to muster the moxie to enter, we learned that, in fact, the bacon was not quite available yet. Fortunately, we happened to be less than a block away from the Karaoke Kid, which we thought would help raise our courage. Hastily, Thelma, the karaoke genius of our little group, did her best to put together a medley of appropriately-themed songs. She did Madonna's "La Isla Baconita," followed by a rousing rendition of Miami Sound Machine's "Baconga." Then, we decided that a song from The Breakfast Club soundtrack also seemed a propos for an evening about bacon (breakfast, bacon, get it?), and so below we have Thelma and Louise doing the gestures for the "rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling down" line from "Don't You Forget About Me."



3. Finally, we returned to Wando's and walked in. Despite my best effort to look like a happy-go-lucky-causal-bacon-enthusiast-undergraduate-senior, the bouncer was having none of it and waved me in without checking my ID. "Nice jersey, Professor," the bouncer whispered to me as I passed, "You're not fooling anyone." Thelma was also dismisively waved in without having to show ID. Thelma was then insulted when the bartender not only checked Louise's ID, but, with obviously great suspicion, subjected it to a range of forensic tests to ensure that it was genuine. Thelma may be the karaoke master among us, but Louise is apparently the master of disguise.

As soon as we were inside, we could see the undergrads all gleefully milling about and feeding obscenely from the little red and white cartons of bacon. Some were using both hands to cram the bacon into their already-grease-drenched faces as fast as they could. We quickly deduced that the hellmouth from which all this bacon was coming had to be located somewhere near the end of the downstairs bar. Soon we were there, and with an appropriate drink order, a carton of bacon was ours:



4. I thought we might pause for a few moments and just enjoy the splendid site of the bacon--Our Free Bacon--sitting there on the bar. Not so. "My precious," said Thelma immediately, in this raspy, otherworldly voice, and she scooped the bacon up off the bar, including even the stray pieces that had been sitting on the bar for who knows how long. She began immediately stuffing the bacon into her mouth with a zeal akin that seen in those films of the rescued Antarctic explorers having their first real meal after having survived for months on only sawdust and the remains of fallen comrades.

Louise and I both entered Wando's as professed bacon abstainers. We just wanted to see the free bacon, not actually taste it ourselves. While the uncompromising character of my own dietary discipline is well-known, Thelma began to try to entice Louise to try some of the bacon:



5. Louise, after some initial horrified meat-is-murder-and-don't-you-remember-Charlotte's-Web protestation, quickly caved and began having some of the bacon herself. For awhile, the two of them seemed a perfect picture of friendship: just two pals standing around, swapping stories and sharing bacon.



6. Things became ugly, however, when Louise accused Thelma of actually hoarding the best bacon for herself. Indeed, Louise all at once appeared consumed with rage at the thought of an inequitable distribution of bacon strips. An argument ensued, culminating in Louise taking the bacon away from Thelma and holding it up out of the shorter Thelma's reach.

At first, Thelma seemed to react to all this reasonably amiably, as in her smiling pose in this photograph:



7. But it turned out this was simply a ruse to lull Louise into complacency. Suddenly, like a mongoose to a cobra, Thelma struck, putting Louise in a skullcrushing headlock and pile-driving her into the floor.



8. A series of violent maneuvers followed, which Thelma had apparently learned from watching many hours of professional wrestling, as well as some combination she learned from the karate-death-match sequence in The Neverending Story. "And that's for all those snide little comments you've made about demographers," I thought I also heard her say at one point.

The reader might ask why I did not intervene, to which I can reply only that one should not judge me if one has never seen the spectre of two people completely in the thrall of bacon bloodlust.

In the end, Louise lay huddled against the Galaga machine in the corner, sobbing. Thelma, meanwhile, turned to me, as if nothing had just happened. "Yummy bacon," she said as she popped a particularly massive piece of coagulated fried pork into her mouth. "Are you sure you don't want any?"

five things you missed at karaoke (unfortunately, after mucking with photos, who has time for captions?)

[note: the authoritative recap, drawing once again on an assiduous set of fieldnotes, has been posted by Careyoke herself here]

1. [this was really hilarious! i wish i could insert a witty caption describing what you missed here!]



2. [this was really moving! i wish i could insert a witty caption describing what you missed here!]



3. [this was really sublime! i wish i could insert a witty caption describing what you missed here!]



4. [this was really touching! i wish i could insert a witty caption describing what you missed here!]



5. [this was really creepy! i wish i could insert a witty caption describing what you missed here!]

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."