Do politics and karaoke mix?

Senate hopeful Rodney Glassman is trying to unseat McCain. While this isn't exactly karaoke... it might as well be.


Shannon Roberts has her eye on a house seat in Florida, and she is throwing a little karaoke party this coming Saturday. Cost is only $10!

Blogojevich is no longer in politics so he figgers he can come out of the closet and sing a little Elvis at a block party.


In Wisconsin politics, Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker is not ashamed to admit that he met his wife while singing karaoke at Saz's. Risky....

And the final karaoke / political mixing...

Ron Johnson directed and starred in a short movie called "Karaoke King". The movie is a mockumentary about a guy who made it from karaoke singer to stardom. Clearly this was a mockumentary, since no one ever got discovered singing karaoke.

Ron Johnson is running against Russ Feingold for Wisconsin's US Senate seat. Johnson says that the scientists who have demonstrated that global warming is the result of human activity are crazy. Johnson said "It's far more likely that it's just sunspot activity or just something in the geologic eons of time." Since Johnson almost has an MBA and is the CEO of a sheet extruder company, his opinion is clearly more credible than the hundreds of scientists who have spent their lives doing research.

Ron Johnson opposed the Child Victims Act, which would allow prosecution of pedophiles when the statue of limitations has run out. He explained that  the act "could actually have the perverse effect of leading to additional victims of sexual abuse if individuals recognize that organizations are at risk of becoming less likely to report sexual abuse".   What?

These are actually two different people. The first guy?  He believes in karaoke and he would like to believe in the myth that someone could become a star by singing karaoke. I think I could vote for that Ron Johnson.
The Ron Johnson who is running for Senate believes in his own myths. I don't think I could vote for that guy.

World record karaoke marathon

Five hundred artists from all around India have just taken the world record for the longest karaoke marathon in Vashi, India. They sang over 7,000 songs to log a total of 579 hours. (That's 24 days and 3 hours.)

http://www.worldrecordsnews.com/2010/10/worlds-longest-karaoke-marathon.html

This shatters the previous record set in China of 456 hours, 2 min, 5 sec.
http://community.guinnessworldrecords.com/_Longest-karoke-marathon-by-multiple-participants/blog/223028/7691.html

Other karaoke records:
The largest group of people to sing karaoke simultaneously was 160,000. This was at a NASCAR race in Bristol Tennessee. They sang Garth Brook's "Friends in Low Places".

http://community.guinnessworldrecords.com/_Fast-Furious-at-Bristol-Motor-Speedway/blog/593332/7691.html

I don't think this has been ratified by the folks at Guinness, but the longest karaoke song that I am aware of is Don MacLean's "American Pie", which is 8 minutes and 47 seconds.

Karaoke robot

The VCR was invented in the mid sixties to free us from the drudgery of having to watch television. Texting is a more recent labor-saving device which allows us to avoid the drudgery of actually having to speak with other people.

Finally, Japanese scientists have developed a robot that can save us from the drudgery and humiliation of having to sing karaoke.



What's next? I have just applied for a patent for a robot that can swim laps for my wife, thus saving her from all that wasted effort of exercise. Once the Swimbot is perfected, she can just send this device to the gym, hit "snooze" on her alarm clock, and catch a few more zzzzs.

I have another labor saving device under development to compliment the lap swimming robot. I am calling it the Excuse-o-matic. Whenever my wife says, "Hey, you wanna go swimming with my Swimbot?" the Excuse-o-matic will generate a quasi-random excuse. "I need to get to work early, like before noon." "I have a headache." "My arm hurts." "I really should, shouldn't I?"  Then, we will be able to cuddle up, both of us guilt-free, knowing that our responsibilities are being taken care of through the wonders of technology.

Waiting for the call

I have been sleeping with my cell phone on the night stand... making sure that it is always fully charged. I keep expecting each morning to get that early morning call that all Nobel laureates get. "Hello, is this John the Revelator?"

So far, no call. I guess the Nobel committee is still in deliberation on the 2010 award for karaoke. That's good. I certainly wouldn't want them to give me the award frivolously.

I'll keep you posted.

Home made guitars and spaghetti sauce - marketing appled to romance

Warning -- for those of you expecting a dorky blogpost about karaoke, please check out my previous blogpost. Or I'm sure my next one will be more on the topic of karaoke. For those who are ok with "sappy" -- read further.

A friend of mine is building his own guitar. I think that's pretty cool. You can follow his progress on Steve's blog. The picture below is from his blog. Note the clever product placement. Steve really knows how to market stuff. I imagine he is getting some big bucks from Miller.

I ran into Steve last week. When I mentioned this to my wife, I was reminded of the crucial part that Steve played in me meeting my wife. In a previous blog, I admitted that I kinda like my wife.I lied. I really like her. I am totally infatuated with this woman, and have been for almost six years. And it's all because of Steve.

Well, maybe not all because of him. But he did play a small part.

I admire Steve because he does a lot of totally different things well. He was originally trained as an engineer, but he wound up in marketing - market intelligence to be specific.  He also is a pretty decent photographer, does woodworking and has an outlandish blog about pencils and pens and PDAs and notepads and notebooks, and other stuff. And he has a blog about numbers. I typed in the number 12,647 (a favorite number of mine) and found out that this was the population of Brigantine City, NJ in 2008.

Six years ago, Steve gave me some practical advice about profiles on match.com. He said "John, you gotta put something in your profile that will set you apart from all the other schmucks out there." Rather than have the usual "I am incredibly good looking and very smart and successful and I love NASCAR" type of profile, he changed his profile to a description of the perfect date. I guess chicks really dig that whole "holding hands while you walk on the seashore" bit, cuz he found a lovely woman who he married.

I took his advice to heart and changed my profile into my recipe for spaghetti sauce, starting with the smell of garlic in olive oil and ending with the choice of wine.

It worked. The Gypsy Songstress took my bait. Within hours of me changing my profile, I had a date with Madelaine. Nine months later we were married.

Thank you, Steve.

Undercover karaoke, the TV series!

In a previous blog I told about a great gag from the folks at FunnyOrDie. For this video, they recruited Jewel to dress up, or rather, to dress down and visit a karaoke bar. The results were hilarious. One patron consoled her about her looks: "You can be an ugly girl with a voice like that and get laid all the time." The video of this charade has had over three million views.

And now the idea has been taken up by TBS. They will be running a series called "Undercover Karaoke". In each half-hour episode, some rock star will don a disguise and rock out at some unsuspecting karaoke bar.

I would urge all my readers to start visiting unsuspecting karaoke bars on the off chance they might get to hear Mick Jagger or Cher.

http://zikkir.com/et/47233
http://www.deadline.com/2010/10/tbs-back-in-the-reality-game-with-funny-or-dies-undercover-karaoke/

Bad karaoke dates, and one good one

You may wonder how a date that includes karaoke could ever be bad... or then again, maybe you never stopped to think about it.

Well, a karaoke date could go bad, I suppose, if your date strips down to his pants while singing "The Real Slim Shady". Or how about if your blind date takes you to a private karaoke room and starts off singing "Springtime for Hitler"? Could be risky.

I was running karaoke one night when a fellow dropped off a slip, telling me that he wanted to impress the gal he was out with cuz it was a first date. When he got to stage, he announced that to the whole crowd, and yes... he was impressive. Excellent voice. The two of them left rather quickly after he sang. That was either a very good sign or a very bad sign. I never found out.


Despite the fact that I spent a lot of time in karaoke bars between marriages, I never met anyone while singing karaoke. I thought I made it pretty clear whenever I got the mic that I was single and looking. I dunno, maybe women don't go for that whole "single and desperate" vibe?  Or maybe I just should have read this advice back when I was single and looking?

Josh suggests that the girl maybe better not suggest karaoke for a first date, cuz he's gonna be trolling for his next first date. I learned from a pool shark that you always need to think about lining yourself up for the next shot. It never occurred to me to apply this strategy to dating!  


The folks at match.com also figger that karaoke on a first date is just not conducive to romance. Maybe their advice is worthwhile. After all, match.com did find me a wife. She sings karaoke, by the way. and I kinda like her.


As I write this, a memory comes back to me of a very special night at Clifford's, one of the karaoke places I frequented when I was single. There was a couple who were regulars. They often sang duets together. Cute couple. Nice people. One night, he proposed to her on stage. It was beautiful. Maybe karaoke can go together with romance.