Tom turned 22 tonight. All of our toasts were “to turning 17!” but none of the bartenders or hosts seemed to bat an eyelash at it. Our night’s entertainment was karaoke at Yakitori Boy, a karaoke bar on 11th St. One can either join the general bar scene there and pay a buck to be added to the karaoke queue or rent a room. Rooms came in sizes to support anywhere between 8 and 24 people and I had reserved an 8 person room for 90 minutes. I was called the day before with a note of “dress code requires no hoodies or excessively loose fitting clothing. I was curious if this place had a problem with people packing automatic weapons, but when we arrived and I was made to sign a release everything made sense. The place had a $200 uncorking fee. They weren’t worried about people packing uzis but people packing uozo.

Me: So do you have problems with people sneaking in booze?
Attendee: Usually the clinking gives it away.
Me: How about people arriving with say fake legs and being true bootleggers?
Attendee (turns to other hostesses): I think we’d allow that.
Me: The damages are listed as “$200 per hole” what does that mean?
Attendee: Do you plan on breaking anything?
Me: Not this time.
Attendee: Then there should be a problem.

We arrived in the room and there were no holes to be found. Splendid. If I want to sneak booze in next time I may have giant foam fingers made saying “#1 Karaoke-ist” that will secretly contain liquor sleeves. Alternatively, fake legs.

A friend and I met at Yakitori Boy for Friday night karaoke and yakitori, a type of Japanese food which is meats and other things grilled and served on a skewer. I tried the bacon and quail, pork, and short rib skewers and each was tasty but an expensive way to put together a meal.

The initial karaoke crowd was mostly black women singing standards every few minutes rotated in with some J-pop that was inscrutable to me. The crowd built over the evening and my partner and I spent about an hour going through the list of available songs and talking louder and louder at one another as the crowd built. Small groups came in and the average BAC grew. Every third song was dominated by a large white man who would “aide” the person singing. He was loud and largely in tune and at a critical point, it’s the singer’s fault if he or she can be overpowered by a single unamplified person.

My copilot tore up an Alanis Morisette track and I did a mediocre Mr. Brightside. I blame it on congestion and having yelled for most of the evening. I looked through the songbook again and settled on “Wonderwall” as being appropriately within my range. We waited through a few more songs and the rotation came out to 1/2 drunk singing, 1/4 J-pop, 1/8 just bad, 1/8 really good. Finally, Wonderwall came up and myself and tall cross-dressed black man both went for the mic at the same time. We had apparently both picked the same song and both sang. I was more familiar with the verses but he belted the refrain in a cloud of alcohol and rainbows. Every time he did so, I’d laugh and stop singing and he would sing louder to help which was even funnier creating this big gay feedback loop.

After the song we talked and I learned that his name was Geranimo and thought my singing fabulous.

At a pre-CIT tryout pizza bonanza the restaurant at which we were eating was having a kareoke night. This is normally fine as some Doylestown business folks have fine voices, but due to location, this event was mostly occupied by Semi-Inebriated Italian Ex-Pats and Del Val College Hippies.  During a particularly dissonant duet I got fed up and peaked by head around the bar and yelled “pitch doesn’t average!” My hope sunk in my chest when the semi-stoned man replied “yeah, I like that song.”

At a pre-CIT tryout pizza bonanza the restaurant at which we were eating was having a kareoke night. This is normally fine as some Doylestown business folks have fine voices, but due to location, this event was mostly occupied by Semi-Inebriated Italian Ex-Pats and Del Val College Hippies.  During a particularly dissonant duet I got fed up and peaked by head around the bar and yelled “pitch doesn’t average!” My hope sunk in my chest when the semi-stoned man replied “yeah, I like that song.”