illusionofjoy | Karaoke is Japanese for "sings poorly"

Checking my cheeze meter at the door Sunday night, I went with friends to this mythical institution know as "punk karaoke." I'd heard about this, but had never been able to experience it for myself, as I work Sunday nights. Being that it was the long weekend, and given that not only do I technically work at a bank but also that my Sunday night is considered my Monday, I had the night off. Thus, to "punk Karaoke" I went with my silly friends.

It was fun, I must admit (albeit painful when some guy got up to try and sing Seal's "Kiss From A Rose" in the style of a herion-ODed Mick Jagger). I have no idea why it is called "punk Karaoke," as the selection is far from limited to Sex Pistols and Ramones tunes. Being musically pretentious as I am, I was having trouble finding a song I wanted to sing. The selections of songs by The Cure, Depeche Mode and New Order were in the single digits, and I was certain that I didn't want to sing anything that I didn't have a good lyrical grasp upon.

Eventually I settled on an old Pearl Jam song that I remembered liking in high school: "Black." Strangely enough, I pretty much remembered the whole damn thing...and might I say that I rocked the house (or something like that). Such are the consequences of my misspent youth of buying albums by bands coming out of Seattle's grunge/alterna scene. I still maintain that Pearl Jam's first three albums were quite good, whereas their output from No Code and afterwards has been...painfully lacking in inspiration.

I digress...

Memorial day Monday was pretty good. I went to a cookout, where I met up with the girlfriend. We didn't stay long, opting to sneak off to her place down the road and spend some quality time together before I had to go to work.

Speaking of work, I don't talk about it often here, but last night something happened which I feel I should mention. As it was Memorial day, people were all done up in red, white and blue. Somehow the subject of September 11^th came up, and I mentioned that it was the World Trade Center that was destroyed, not the American Trade Center, my point being that Americans should have more compassion for the rest of the world; that the United States is not the centre of the universe and therefore we should shed much of our nationalism and ethno-centrism for a more humanistic approach.

I got strange looks for that one. I got even more when I mentioned that I had visited France in my senior year of high school and had completely enjoyed it.

Tell me, "what's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?"