A Complete Moron's Guide to Karaoke

Only morons think karaoke came from Japan. Anyone with half a brain knows it actually started right here in America back in the 80's. There was this Irish girl in Boston, you see, and her name was Carrie O'Kay. One night, Carrie is just minding her own business, selling booze to drunken Red Sox fans after a big game, and some moron spills his beer on the jukebox, totally screwing it up. Somehow, the music would still play, but there were no vocals. Now the music sounds like shit and the natives are starting to get a bit restless, and old Carrie has to think on her feet. Luckily for her, the song playing was one she knew, and she jumped up on top of that broken jukebox and blasted out the lyrics at the top of her lungs. The crowd loved it and she spent the rest of the night taking requests and making huge tips. Apparently, some Japanese guy who happened to be in town on a business trip or something saw this whole thing go down. He took the idea to Japan, talked to some engineer friends of his or something, and before long karaoke had become a huge deal and poor Carrie is now 50 years old and stuck in a bar slinging cheap whiskey and singing "Danny Boy" on top of a broken jukebox.

This story always inspires me. It's important to know what can happen if you fail to capitalize on good fortune and God-given talent. That's why you need my help. I can show you how to fine tune that talent until you can't help but succeed. I can show you the difference between drunken scrub and true entertainer. You just need to follow the rules.

Yes, there are rules. Karaoke is not something you just show up, get drunk, and do. It's an art. You have to rise above the level of drunken amateur and seek to become an entertainer. The audience is there to be entertained, not to witness your embarrassing cry for attention in the form of a terrible My Chemical Romance song. It takes practice to get good, and I don't mean singing in your car practice, I mean full on, standing in front of the mirror, perfecting your intonation and rhythm and gyrating like a porn star practice.

You should know a song front to back before you ever think of performing it in front of people. That's not just a rule, it's a law. If you remember one thing, remember this: know your song. You'll never develop a following if you go out and sing new stuff every night like goddamn amateur hour.

Rule number one: Absolutely no slow shit. No ballads, no love songs, and for God's sake no Barry Manilow. I don't care how well you think you can sing "I Wanna Know What Love Is," nobody wants to hear that shit. People don't come to karaoke to fall asleep, they come to be entertained. That's what entertainers do, they entertain people. Save your whiny Foreigner ballad for the shower, don't bring that crap into my bar and sing it in front of my people.

Remember this always, it's always true. There are absolutely no exceptions to this one. If you ever get to thinking about making an exception because you find yourself in some situation where you think a ballad is appropriate, don't. You're wrong. There is no situation where it's appropriate. You do not want to put anyone in your audience to sleep with your slow crappy song. Have you seen what happens to people who fall asleep in bars? It's not pretty, and you do not need to be the cause of that kind of crap.

Rule number two: be respectful. Not everyone has had the benefit of my advice. I don't see how they can stand the embarrassment of singing without it, but they do, and that kind of courage is admirable. You must clap for every singer. No matter how much better you may be than the common scrub, you must at least show that you appreciate their effort. Failure to clap leads to resentment, both from the other bar patrons (who are most likely already jealous of you, no use making it worse), and from the K.J. Piss off the K.J., and you might as well go home--you'll find yourself at the bottom of the order quicker than you can chug a lukewarm Budweiser.

Rule number three (and it's so friggin' obvious I can't believe I need to say it) is: be mindful of you audience. Don't stare at the screen with your backside to the crowd, face them. Memorize the words to your songs if you need to, but you must face the audience. And you must never, ever sing while sitting down. Every time I see someone singing while parked on their talentless ass I have to stop myself from jumping into the crowd and tearing the mic from their talentless hands before beating them within an inch of their talentless life. Seriously, if you don't have the balls to stand up while you sing, you have no business even entering a karaoke bar. Just stay home, drink your Pabst Blue Ribbon, and sing along to your Ricky Martin CDs far from the ears of any living thing.

Rule four: stage presence. Do not stand still while you sing. Do not stare intently at the floor or the monitor while you sing. You must move. You must make eye contact with your audience, engage them. You don't need to dance around in a carefully choreographed routine like an N*SYNC reject, but you do need to be somewhat animated up there. Personally, I find holding a full beer and taking long swigs from it between verses is a crowd pleaser, but each person has to find their own thing. I move around, walking from end to end of the stage. I double over when I belt out especially high notes. I feel the music, and to be a true entertainer, you must feel it too.

And for God's sake, do not close your eyes when you sing. You look like a damn douchebag. There are only two kinds of people who close their eyes when they sing: people who can't sing for crap and think they can, and Celine Dion. Actually, I guess that makes only one kind of person.

Rule number five: know your strengths. Maybe you're not the best singer in the world, not that I know what that's like, but that doesn't mean you can't still entertain people. A basic ability to hit different notes and a sense of rhythm are important, but beyond that one can always fake it. I used to know this guy named Milty. Milty was not the best singer in the world, in fact his voice sounded like a pregnant wolf with a pound of gravel in her throat, but the man knew how to perform. His singing was secondary to his performance. The guy was so amazing; I used to think cordless mics were invented just for him. Milty always had something to say before his song started, sometimes he'd just greet the crowd, introduce himself, and leap into his song, and other times he'd insult the whole audience to laughter and applause. He didn't sing well, but people always paid attention to him. Milty was no stranger to climbing on tables and kicking chairs. Watching him sing was definitely never boring. He'd stalk through the crowd, singing directly to each lady in the audience one at a time, sometimes draping an arm around their shoulder as he gazed directly into their eyes. Angry boyfriends often disliked his style, but he was usually charismatic enough to avoid any serious trouble. Usually.

Man, I miss that guy.

Now, I'm not saying it's ok to not sing well. If you have the range of Barry White, for example, then maybe that Christina Aguilera song is not the best choice for you. Don't subject yourself to the embarrassment or your audience to the sheer agony. For God's sake, pick a song you can sing. If your voice is terrible, we'd rather you didn't even try, but if you must, then at least find a way to make it interesting.

Rule six: know your audience. This is especially key in locations like redneck bars or trendy downtown clubs. Most country folk will not react well to you singing the Backstreet Boys or New Kids on the Block, no matter how much you sound like Jordan Knight. Likewise, that David Allen Coe song is probably not going to go over well in the middle of some fancy downtown arts district.

The nice thing about this rule is that it can go both ways. Maybe you don't look like the normal patron of some small town dive bar, but sing a little Hank Williams Jr. and they'll welcome you like a brother. Hell, I sang Hank Jr. in this dive bar in New Mexico one time, and I swear to God they loved it so much a rodeo broke out in my honor right then and there. Clowns and barrels and rodeo princesses just started coming out from behind the bar and under the pool tables. Pabst flowed like wine and they gave me one of those huge goddamn belt buckles and a nearly-new John Deere tractor.

Maybe you won't always find yourself proclaimed the rodeo king, but pick the right song, and you might at least get yourself a free beer or two.

Which brings me to rule seven: song selection. In general you should stick to the classics. You know, Bon Jovi, Skynyrd, Poison, the good stuff. The classics are appropriate in almost any situation, show me any bar in America and I'll show you a crowd that will absolutely dig "Wanted Dead or Alive." There are situations where you can certainly wander slightly from this formula (like the redneck bar, for example), but for the most part, they will never do you wrong. Master them. Have five or six awesome songs you can always fall back on.

Get good at "Sweet Home Alabama," for example, and you'll own any hick bar in America. The whole place will sing along, guaranteed. I've seen 300-pound farm boys tear up during a well-sung Skynyrd song. It's like the redneck national anthem.

"Ice, Ice Baby" is another standard you can always count on. If you can nail the lyrics to that one without looking at the screen, any group of 20-30 year olds instantly becomes a posse of your best friends. Busting out the running man during the chorus doesn't hurt, either.

Singing the right song can open all kinds of doors, if you know what I mean. It certainly does not hurt your chances with the ladies. You may not be a rock star, but I'm willing to bet you will be the closest thing in the bar on any given night. Singing the right song at the right time almost guarantees you a happy ending to your evening. Every woman has a song, the trick is figuring it out.

Example: say you're in a decent place, the karaoke is going well, and you spot a girl lingering by herself near the bar. She keeps checking her phone and sighing between sips of a bright blue drink that you recognize as an AMF. She's decent looking, wearing a nice skirt and a pair of black wire-rimmed glasses. Her hair is pulled up tight into a bun on the back of her head. Basically, she looks like a librarian. A really hot librarian. An idiot amateur would look at this girl and think she's a total snob, but a practiced observer could determine otherwise. She's a tiger just waiting to be let out of her cage.

She's standing, not sitting, and checking her phone constantly. This girl is waiting for someone and he's obviously late. Perhaps a date that stood her up or maybe her boyfriend ditched her for some hot waitress at Red Robin or something. This girl is upset. Women do not drink AMFs when they are waiting for their boyfriend to meet them for a few drinks before a movie, they drink AMFs when they want to get drunk and do something they'll regret.

Play your cards right, and you could be that something.

Sometimes you have to go romantic, and sing something like "Keeper of the Stars." I realize I expressly forbid you from singing slow crap, but all's fair in love and war, as they say. Just don't go thinking you can make exceptions to the other rules. You absolutely cannot. They are absolute.

This girl, however, is not interested in romance. She's angry. She doesn't need some sensitive shoulder to cry on. Oh no, she needs a man to take charge. You need to go the direct route. I don't always recommend raunchy songs, but in this case, an outright come-on may be just what the doctor ordered. "Bad Touch" is the song you want to go with here. Trust me. You'll thank me when the two of you are doing the horizontal mambo later in the night. It pays to have songs ready for situations like this.

Trust me, it will work. I have a 100% success rate in these complicated scenarios that I make up in my head. I never fail. I'm like Sherlock F'in Holmes. Just remember, confidence is key.

If, somehow, it doesn't work, well, you can always hit on the other women in the bar who should be totally into you because of your amazing stage presence and voice. So what have you got to lose? The single greatest benefit of being an entertainer is the amount of tail it will score you. Not that I'm interested in that aspect of it. I am an artist, interested only in improving my ability. I merely include it here for informational purposes, and as an example of the potential benefits of karaoke dedication.

Dedication is key. You're not going to be able to make a living singing in bars every night, that's obvious. You will need a day job, and probably you will be surrounded by people who do not understand your true calling. This is to be expected. Just remember that most normal people will not be able to appreciate you as an artist.

So what if your boss catches you practicing the opening verse of "Talk Dirty to Me" in the men's john? So what if he thinks you're coming on to him in some bizarre backwards way? He doesn't understand what it means to be an artist. He doesn't understand what dedication is. So what if he suspends you for sexual harassment and poor job performance? Now you have more time to rehearse.

What does stocking the milk cooler matter when you are having trouble with the high notes in "Livin' on a Prayer"? Who cares if the bottle return machines are full when compared to the task of memorizing all the words to "Baby Got Back"? Karaoke is life. Everything else is simply a way to get enough money to afford to drink and sing every night, no day job could possibly mean as much as being an entertainer. Helping old ladies with their groceries pales in comparison to the joy I can bring to an entire room when I gyrate my hips and sing "Sweet Child of Mine." The world needs entertainers, it needs to be entertained. If a few welfare moms don't get their free cheese this week, I'd say it's a small price to pay for bringing so much happiness to the world.