The Friday Five: Five Rules for Choosing Your Karaoke Song

“For this I will lament and wail; I will go stripped and naked; I will make lamentation like the jackals, and cry out like the ostriches.”

…That verse from Micah (chapter one, verse eight) probably marks one of the earliest references to karaoke in the Old Testament (that’s the first half of the Bible, to all you pagans out there). The simple fact of the matter is that at some point in your life, you are going to have to sing (or at least co-sing) a song in some sort of karaoke situation. Oh sure, I’ve heard all the excuses before “I’d never let myself sink that low” “I’m too careful to end up like that” “I’m a good person”, etc. but the fact of the matter is you can either prepare mentally and spiritually for this kind of thing, or you can just live in denial and be caught totally off guard when it happens to you (and trust me, it will). Bachelorette parties, housewarmings, cookouts, bar mitzvahs…technology has progressed in such a way that karaoke can strike anywhere, at any time, and even if you take every precaution available, karaoke will find you. And when it does, karaoke will show no mercy. Luckily, I’m here for you, and if you follow a few simple guidelines, you can survive karaoke as unscathed as possible…and heck, you might even come out of it with a good story to tell.

Five Karaoke Rules that will keep you from ending up like this guy. You’re welcome.                                                     (Note: The National Anthem is not a great karaoke song choice)

Rule 1: Know your level of vocal ability.
I always think this one is a no-brainer, but then every year I see a new set of American Idol promos (I haven’t watched an actual episode of American Idol since the Clay Aiken/Ruben Studdard season, I was too hurt after watching Clay unjustly lose to ever go back…plus those types of shows are pretty played out) where an astoundingly high number of people can’t sing. It’s one thing to be blissfully unaware that you’re singing is off-pitch (shout out to whoever was standing behind me in church this week*, but you do you, homeslice), but there’s a special level of pain I feel for people that are terrible singers and have NO IDEA! Like whoever is the Paula these days will be like “sorry sweetie, you’re no good” and the contestant will be all like “Psh YOU DON’T KNOW MY WORLD SON, I’ma take my voice and go out and make a million dollars without your show! I voted green party!” and then we never hear or see them again, with the sort-of exception of William Hung, who is on national TV about as often as I am (AKA not very). The moral of the story is: it may be painful, but do whatever you have to in order to figure out how good of a singer you are BEFORE you find yourself in front of a group of people at a karaoke bar or a panel of Randy Jackson types.

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Why Latin is the Best Language

Someone said to me the other day (or maybe today or maybe not at all…honestly does the setup really matter?) that the best language is English. These are the sort of deep-thinker conversationalists with whom I am forced to interact. Then they made the mistake of asking me what I thought the best language was. What a boron!

(Boron is a word I made up that means boring moron — I invented this word by combining the words boring and moron. Boron is also the chemical element of atomic number 5, a nonmetallic solid/metalloid, if you’re ever on Jeopardy)

They’re not dumb for asking that question, they’re dumb for not already knowing the answer! Everybody and their step-brother from Daddy’s first marriage knows that there is only one best language (duh, that’s what “best” means), and that language is: Latin.

What’s that? You aren’t 100% sure that Latin is better than any other language that has ever been invented or will ever be invented (probably by JRR Tolkien or more likely by George RR Martin because Tolkien died in World War I fighting off the Nazis and syphilis)? Well take a second to pull the suppositories out of your ears and the Q-tips out of your ass, because you’re about to absorb something more useful than the Plan B you took with breakfast this morning.

For starters, Latin is a dead language — meaning the Italic Latins and Ancient Roman civilizations that spoke that language went extinct probably ten or more years ago. But hold up, even though native Latin speakers are as extinct as the dodo bird or the commercial market for dodo bird leashes that I invested heavily into in the 90s, people all around the world STILL KNOW AND SPEAK THAT LANGUAGE. That means Latin is actually an undead language, a zombie dialect, and that already makes Latin badass enough to be the main bad guy in the next season of The Walking Dead.

…Why won’t you die already?! What kind of language are you??