this world is only gonna break your heart

I have crammed this week to bursting, and we just passed the halfway point.

On Monday I took the train to work for the first time in a while. I enjoyed the chance to skim the morning’s news on an inky copy of the Boston Metro, and I got some reading done on the bus ride from Central to the office. I took the office’s complementary shuttle back to Cambridge for the train ride home. It says something of urban priorities that what might sound like a slur in certain parts of the country - “he takes the bus to work, man” - sounds like a bonus here.

I also auditioned for ImprovBoston’s next round of casting. Ten other guys and I filed into IB’s spacious new theater, warmed up briefly, then did ten minutes straight of freeform improv scenes. I feel reasonably confident in what I did - I forced myself off the back wall, made offers, heightened offers, responded well to others’ input. With the virtue of hindsight I can say this wasn’t enough, since the director said we’d hear back by Wednesday evening at the latest, but I’m glad I got myself out there.

I took some time off from jiu-jitsu in order to pack and move, so returning on Tuesday felt phenomenal. I had been looking for excuses to punch, throw or grab something for a week at least. Working out in a converted warehouse in a 10-pound cotton gi when it’s 90 degrees out left me swimming in sweat but otherwise healthy.

Melissa and Fraley invited me to their ice cave to watch the Celtics, so I changed into a clean shirt and drove straight there. Despite the Celtics’ sloppy play I had a hell of a time. RJ already documented some of the best exchanges; I’ll merely include one:

(during iPod commercial)
Melissa: Ugh. Coldplay.
Me: You have a problem with the non-threatening U2?
Fraley: How do you get less threatening than U2?
RJ: You could be Keaneand be a non-threatening Coldplay.

Wednesday saw me reviving two more dormant traditions - the gym and writing. I probably undid all the efforts of the former by gorging on ice cream and brownies during a sales meeting (hey, they know how to guarantee my attendance), but the latter felt productive. Then I hit up karaoke, singing “This Is How We Do It” at birthday girl Sylvia’s request. Hitting that titular declaration in full voice, right off the 4-count lead in, really cements the song’s success. Pull it off and soar; fumble it and crash.

And I’ve already got busy nights lined up tonight and tomorrow as well. The Fortress of Solitude hasn’t hindered my style (yet).

you’ll never watch your life slide out of view

For this week’s Friday Feedback, I want Five Different Versions Of The Same Thing.

To get us started, I select the song “Common People” by Pulp.

First, here’s the original music video:

Second, here’s a short comic by Jamie Hewlett illustrating the lyrics:

Third, here’s William Shatner, Ben Folds and Joe “Into The Night” Jackson covering the song on the Tonight Show:

(Sweet tapdancing Christ, Joe Jackson looks like Gollum fucked Abe Sapien)

Fourth, here’s Chris Sims’ Photoshop of an Archie Comic strip:

And Fifth and Finally, here’s a personal anecdote about the song:

Not this past Wednesday but Wednesday a week, I hit up karaoke at the Asgard - voted Boston’s best karaoke in the Phoenix - as per usual. I covered Fiona Apple’s “Criminal” with Rachel V. for my first song and, for lack of inspiration, fell back on “Common People” for my second.

As a sop to irony, I usually sing it in the style of Shatner / Jackson, as pictured above: a staccato, querying monotone for the first verse and a half, then a bolt-upright trill for the remainder of the song. So I’m sitting on the corner of a table, nursing half a shooter of Jameson and murmuring into the mic, when I think I hear someone say: this song sucks.

It doesn’t ruffle me; nothing ruffles me when I’m putting on an act. But if you’re going to hate on the current singer in karaoke - a favorite pastime of mine, don’t get me wrong - you never do it loud enough for them to hear you. Sure enough, I hear it again a few seconds later: boo. Terrible song.

A woman in her late thirties, early forties stands at a table at about my ten o’clock. I suspect she came with the larger and equally drunk party that monopolized the mic earlier in the evening. I remember one intoxicated night hag faking a grind on one of our friends while he sang, after stumbling up to the DJ booth to put in her own request. Those folks had left half an hour ago, or so I thought. Apparently two of them remained.

Boo. What an awful song.

Maybe she just dislikes Shatner’s delivery, I thought - shocker, I know - so I went out of my way to sell the hand-off. “But … but she didn’t understand,” I mumbled. “SHE JUST SMILED AND HELD MY HA-A-AND!” I took off like a rocket.

This song sucks!

Despite the gentle pleading of her hopefully sober friend, she continued to repeat the same three or four criticisms every few seconds, in increasingly louder tones. Clearly she wanted more than to make her opinion known, since everyone within three tables knew it by now. She chanted her condemnation like a litany against taste and soul. Protect me from my betters, she seemed to say.

Boo. Terrible song.

She spit that last one during the four-bar keyboard solo that made up the bridge. “Thank you, ma’am,” I told her, looking her dead in the eye.

No, it’s — you’re good, the song sucks …

“No, thank you. Really. I appreciate it. You’re a big help.”

Four, three, two, one, and, “Sing along with the common people! Sing along and it might just get you through! Laugh along with the common people!”

I strutted up to the edge of her table, pointing right at her face. At 6′5″, my armspan covered half the distance between us. “Laugh along with them while they’re laughing at you! And those stupid things you do! ‘Cause you think being poor is coo-oo-ool!” She didn’t seem any more conscious of it than anything else I did; maybe she was that drunk. But I wasn’t doing it for her benefit.

Returning to my corner of the stage, I chanted the song’s abbreviated close (”I want to live with common people like you”) into a slow, steady crescendo. Applause, handshakes, high-fives. Then I hit the road.

Your turn. If your Five Different Versions of the Same Thing are also media-heavy, feel free to post them in your own blog and link to them in the comments.

white people - do the humpty hump, just watch me do the humpty hump

As a helpful service to our readers, I give you a list of Ten Hip Hop Songs White People Can Sing At Karaoke, No Problem:

(10) In Da Club (radio edit) - 50 Cent. To sanitize this club anthem for radio airplay, Dr. Dre surgically removed all references to “n—as” and most references to drugs. This makes for the occasional awkward stretch (50 sees Xzibit in the cut and observes a moment of silence) but no one will hear it over the tinny blare of most karaoke speakers. You can also earn some instant street cred by changing it up for the original hardcore lyrics if you know them, while still avoiding anything racist.

(9) Regulators - Warren G and Nate Dogg. This song celebrates two elements of street culture which white people have no problem appropriating - carrying unlicensed firearms and picking up women for one-night stands. Plus, it boasts that smooth Michael McDonald hook. Michael McDonald resonates with Caucasians on a genetic level, meaning this song will bring any crowd to its feet.

(8.) Poison - Bell Biv Devoe. Most people don’t actually know this song as well as they think they do, as illustrated by the mumbles you hear about midway through verse two. But everyone recognizes the drum break. And everyone knows never to trust a big butt and a smile; big butts are Serious Business.

(7) Hey Ya - Andre 3000. Does “Hey Ya” count as a hip hop song or a pop song, technically? Dre wrote the music himself, rather than sampling it, and he sings rather than raps. Additionally, the song studies different themes than traditional hip hop subject matter, including a rather mature questioning of whether a modern relationship can survive OH WAIT HERE COMES THE CHORUS SHAKE IT LIKE A POLAROID PIK-CHA!

(6) Gangsta’s Paradise - Coolio. Every person in America, white, black or otherwise, started out as an angry teenager. If you spent your teenage years between 1990 and 2000, you remember Coolio asking for something to learn but “nobody’s gonna teach [him].” This song comes from the 1995 movie Dangerous Minds, though nothing else worth remembering did.

(5) Mama Said Knock You Out - LL Cool J. “Don’t call it a comeback,” yells LL Cool J, coming to us from an era when most of us hadn’t even heard of him to begin with (come on - tell me with a straight face you listened to LL before “The Booming System”). This song requires good flow, excellent delivery and exceptional breath control - it’s a tiring four minutes and fifty-eight seconds.

(4) Shoop - Salt ‘n Pepa. Ladies, I did not forget you. We can all thank Salt ‘n Pepa for reminding us that girls can ogle just as well - and just as graphically - as guys can. Bring all your friends to the mic and get a round of applause if you know even half the words. Fellas, you can horn in on the spotlight if you know the male part. While we all frown on calling black people “n—as” during karaoke, no one minds if you talk about “sounding like a retard.” I mean, who’s gonna complain - the retards?

(3) The Humpty Dance - Digital Underground. The least serious song on the list. Karaoke draws its appeal from clowning around: getting up on stage and acting drunk and stupid looptid with a mic in hand. So what better song for karaoke than a song so ridiculous that its author only felt comfortable singing it in a Groucho Marx pimp costume? Speaking from experience: never point the mic out to the audience for shout-outs (i.e., “I’m the one who said …”). They never expect it.

(2) Gin and Juice - Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. “I know what you’re doing, Professor,” you might be saying. “You’re just listing the least offensive rap songs ever, right?” Joke’s on you, smart-ass - “Gin and Juice” is a karaoke standard. White people enjoy smoking endo and drinking gin; the song speaks to them on a comfortable level. And the unspoken subtext about the culture of violence and poverty created by the War on Drugs which makes such a hedonistic lifestyle an aspiration, rather than an occasional detour? Man, save that shit for “187.” This is a party song.

(1) Baby Got Back - Sir Mix-a-Lot. I have never seen a black person sing this song live. Ever.

For this week’s Friday Feedback: what’s a song that crosses gender, racial, sexual or cultural boundaries that you still feel comfortable singing?

now she’s with one of my good time buddies, drinking in some cross town bar

#: Unless something changes, I may end up doing karaoke on three consecutive nights this week. I may have a Problem that needs Care.

#: I’m almost done with Scrabble Scrabulous on Facebook. The idea seemed cool enough - play a low-pressure game of Scrabble Letter Tiles with your friends. Let the computer do the hard work of calculating scores and validating words. What I forgot at the time: I’m bad at Scrabble this game. I’m really not good. Sure, I’ve got a decent vocabulary, years of Internet fora notwithstanding, but I don’t have a good sense of the game’s strategy. I think I lost the thrill when Zabeth got three bingos on me in one game. Damn her.

#: I got a massage on Sunday to loosen up after throwing stuff around for two hours on Saturday. A healthy woman named Tamika bore down on my lats and traps with the full weight of her body, delivered via elbow. Sadly, I didn’t realize that most of the soreness wouldn’t set in until two days after the event, so the massage didn’t help as much. I had a stiff but not painful neck on Monday morning. Verdict: Tamika’s not bad, but she’s not my favorite masseuse at Inman.

#: My cooking experiment continued last night, but with new and exciting developments. For the first time in my culinary history, I deliberately diverged from the cooking instructions on the package! The results: pretty mediocre!

Here’s the scoop: I thawed two chicken breasts and pulled down some lemon pepper seasoning while the frying pan heated up. I was supposed to coat the chicken in a mixture of lemon pepper and flour, but I had none of the latter. I pulled down the rotisserie mix to see if that would work, noting that this bottle advised a mixture of seasonings and olive oil. “Well, if it works for one,” I thought, and kneaded the chicken with olive oil and lemon pepper.

Next, I threw the breasts on the greased up skillet. I’m no Gordon Ramsay, but I very quickly feared that a frying pan’s heat might not be sufficient to cook this chicken all the way through. I double-checked the instructions: thinly-sliced chicken breasts. Ah. So I let the chicken grill for a few minutes longer than recommended, until the insides were warm though still pink, and called it a day.

Despite all this it still tasted all right. Cleanup didn’t take too long, and if I had to hover over the stove for longer than I might normally like, the savory smell of the (top quarter-inch of) chicken paid off.