Two Duck Feet hit the road!

Back in mid-June, I officially announced that I had hung up my karaoke jockey mic. I intimated that something was going to fill that void, but at the time, I was close-lipped about it. It's time to lift the tarp and have a look at what I have been hiding. Here it is:

A duck?  What?

This is not just any duck. This duck is the logo and mascot for our new business venture. My wife (Madelaine, the Gypsy Songstress) and I have started the company Two Duck Feet. Our goal is to provide website development for small companies that see the need for a website that is distinctive, but yet competitively priced. Getting you feet on the web...

Visit our site. Tell us what you think. And help us out... We are looking for a name for the mascot!!

Thanks for everything, Julie Newmar!

Google Analytics is a great toy. I use it to track the number of visits that my websites get. This particular blog (http://john-the-revelator-does-karaoke.blogspot.com/) is pretty busy, I am proud to say. Since January, this blog has been visited by 3,007 different people from 1,457 different cities in 111 different countries. I have had visitors from every state in the nation, with the exception of Alaska. Sarah is just not that big into karaoke, I guess.

I just noticed something odd, though. A post of mine from the beginning of April suddenly started getting a lot of visits.

From the date I posted (April 3, 2011) to July 22, the page was viewed a total of 177 times by 108 different people. That's kind of impressive, but not totally surprising. I mean... it's about Julie Newmar! And patents! What could be a better prescription for a popular blog post?

But on July 23rd, it took off. There were 27 page views on that one day, and 37 on the next. As I write this (July 25 at 8:30 PM) there have been 15 today.

It is not totally weird for a page to get that many visits. I have a number of popular posts: My post on tele-osculation devices has seen 258 visits in the last month. And nobody even knows what that word means!

What is weird is that it suddenly took off. Up until the beginning of July, the site had not seen more than 9 visits in a day. Holy blog post about Julie Newmar, Batman! I need to get to the bottom of this!  Why am I suddenly getting so many visits?  Could this be the work of the Riddler????

My fingers flashed over the keys at the Google Analytics site. I quickly found that this was probably not the work of one person. The visits came from 62 different cities, with Oxnard, CA, Louisville, KY, Dunn Loring, VA and Parsippany, NJ heading up the list. I am hard pressed to see a pattern.

It occurred to me to check the news to see if Julie Newmar happened to have been in the mews - excuse me - the news recently. Sure enough. I found that, along with Adam West and Burt Ward, she spoke at Comic-Con in San Diego on July 25th, celebrating the 45th anniversary of the Batman TV series.

So, I missed by big chance to see Julie in person. I could have gone to San Diego. Of course, I would have been mostly bored by the conference cuz I am not really all that into comic books. But... I hold on to the hope that Julie herself might read this blog post and send me an email. Maybe she will visit Milwaukee and we can go to Starbucks and talk about patents?

Then again, maybe this post is all about the power of the internet to connect things and also about how to get your website noticed. That part is kinda cool.

Passing the baton...

I got into this hobby job -- being a karaoke DJ -- a bunch of years ago. I described the start in my first blog. I chronicled the start in two more blogs: Singing to the Choir, and Encouragement from my Wife.

I had a lot of fun in this hobby job. Hobbies are supposed to be fun, right? And it's great when you can earn enough money at a hobby to buy the toys that you need to do that hobby. That I did.

But, it was not about making money. And it wasn't even so much about singing karaoke. I could have sung karaoke at any number of places any number of times per week without having to schelp several times my weight in equipment.

It was about people.

I remember vividly a dream that I had while still in high school. I was at a bar (go figger) and Mr. Dumbrowski (proprietor of the bar affectionately known as Dumbo's) was talking to me. "Life..." he said, "... is pipple. Jus' pipple.  Thas it." He held his fingers together, holding his hand up as he said this. Then he poured me another tap beer. I'm not sure what the beer symbolized in the dream. Clearly, it symbolized something else that's important. A few more years of therapy, and perhaps I'll figger that one out?

This blog marks the ending of another era in my life, the ending of the "John the Revelator, KJ par excellence" era. I am stepping aside, and passing the mantle on to a very good friend of mine, Anthony "Sven" Chojnacki. Anthony knows that it's all about pipple. That's how I knew I could pass the business along to him. I invite you to have a look at his site, just unveiled this week.

What's next for me? Stay tuned for the next blog post!

Jack Black karaokes for UNICEF

He played a rocker wannabe in Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny. He played a rocker wannabe in The School of Rock. He played rocker wannabe Paul McCartney in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

Yes, I am talking about Jack Black. It should not be a surprise that he sang a little karaoke for the recent UNICEF benefit. The pic is of him singing War Pigs from Black Sabbath.

Karaoke Suicide - the play

I missed this play: Karaoke Suicide is Painless. I kick myself. But, I was busy that night. Or maybe I wasn't in Seattle? I don't remember. April was sooooo long ago.

The play is described as "A multimedia karaoke comedy that explores the correlation between air guitar and personal choice." That sounds like my kinda stuff. Intellectual and stupid at the same time.

This is a pic of the actress, Teri Wegant.  It really looks like I missed out. I understand that she was in Cider House Rules (I loved the book and was disappointed by the movie.) and also in The Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe.  My daughter did a reading from this Lily Tomlin book when she was in high school, so I have a deep personal connection.

The judge at the forensics meet did not give her the grade that my daughter deserved, by the way. My theory is that crazy people make judges uncomfortable. Like, it's too close to their own inner outer-limits?  I have no clue what that means, but I thought I would throw it in just in case someone thinks I'm brilliant.

Terri Wegant is holding a Shure SM58 mic, BTW. Oh, and she got a great review for the one woman show.

You know... I may have come off sounding a bit sarcastic about the play? Seriously... I do wanna see it. Someone bring it to Milwaukee, ok? Or Madison. I'd drive to Madison to see it. Meet me there. We'll go to Karaoke Kid after and have a good time on State Street, having gyros and way too much beer.


Sigh... just before I posted this blog I heard about yet another karaoke play that I missed, this one in Bloomfield, NJ. This one is a murder mystery, entitled "Karaoke Kills".

Various Paradises

It all started with Bach's Prelude #2 in C minor.



At least, that's what Wikipedia has to say about Stevie Wonder's song: "[Pastime Paradise] drew on the first eight notes and four chords of J.S. Bach's Prelude No. 2 in C minor (BWV 847)"



I had to listen to both songs many times to finally get it. It's there, though. Same chords. But I dunno. Did Stevie Wonder about Johann Sebastian's Box? It seems a bit of a stretch.

Pastime Paradise is track 8 on his Songs in the Key of Life album, which was released in 1976. Rolling Stone ranked this album 56 on their list of 500 greatest albums of all time. I have that album. The song caught me the first time I heard it.

What does the song mean? Back in those days (I should explain), songs had to mean something. ABBA came out with Dancing Queen in that year, and, speaking of Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody came out that year as well. I tell ya, songs meant something back when I was in high school.

Here is what Rolling Stone magazine had to say about the meaning of the song -

"Pastime Paradise sounds like a parody of a well-meaning protest song with its meaningless shuffle of words ("Consolation/Integration/Verification/of Revelations ... Though the words to "Pastime Paradise" may make you want to run from the room, the music will keep you there."

Nice. Remember, these were the guys who put the album at #56?

Rolling Stone may not have thought much of the lyrics, but I find meaning in them.
"We've been spending too much of our lives
Living in a pastime paradise
Let's start living our lives
Living for the future paradise"

In 1995, Coolio did a rap remake of the song. In his version, the words are less hopeful. And it comes along with an admonition for young black men.



I know it may be hard, but try to see past the silly hairdo and listen to the depth of the words:
"Tell me why are we, so blind to see
That the ones we hurt, are you and me"

When this version came out, I instantly recognized it. Of course, in 1995, our electric toothbrushes and sandals didn't come with Google search apps installed. Back in those days, we had our internet delivered to our doorstep every morning.

So it took me a while to track it down. But when I did, I dusted off the turntable and played it for my daughters. If you can say nothing more of my fathering skills, I took my kids' music education seriously. From the way they rolled their eyes, I could tell that they were very proud to have a father who was practically a professor of musicology. Or, maybe they just saw me as a fat old man trying to convince them that the 70's were cool?

Then, of course, Weird Al made a parody called Amish Paradise. This continues to be a popular karaoke song. In some circles, anyway.

What brought this all up? A good friend of mine, Steve, sent me this video. He knew that I would enjoy the song, since I am also a bearded, singing scientist who is just a bit nutty. Steve did not know my rich history with previous versions of the song.



You may not recognize the rapper in the video. He is IBM Fellow Dr. John Cohn. He is actually a very good speaker and a champion of the cause for getting kids interested in being engineers. If this video can reach just one aspiring rapper and inspire him or her to take a serious look at MIT...

Penelope Cruz - Karaoke junkie

Who woulda believed it?  Penelope Cruz? Karaoke?!?!?!

Here is a quote from her:
"I've gone to karaoke bars in almost every city I have been to. Every time I am on a movie location, we find a karaoke bar and take the crew out."

And another:
"I have a karaoke machine at home. I'm one of those people who do it by themselves when they are alone and I'm not embarrassed to say it."

Her go-to artist? Eminem.

But can she sing? Her singing voice was dubbed in the movie "Volver", but here is a clip of here singing in Nine.


But can she sing? I'm having trouble paying attention to the music.