Hello. Can karaoke singers hear themselves? For reasons unknown, we sat in a karaoke bar last night, asking ourselves this question. We were licking up whisky like reservation dogs at a picnic, and there was no noticeable improvement to the braying. I have never been a fan of this ancient Japanese art, however, I do find the phenomenon interesting. As I watched one of the "singers" last night drift about the room with a wireless mic, eyes closed, head laid back, feeling the moment like she was Streisand, I wondered if she was serious, or laughing her ass off inside. What ever the case, she bellowed out as many tunes as time would allow, savoring each flat note.

A microphone does not make someone a singer any more than a guitar makes someone a player. I think many of the people singing karaoke, realize they are bad, but it's fun when you're drunk. There is the rare karaoke-ist that can actually sing. Then there is the signature karaoke master who performs "their song" at bars all over town. Someone apparently told them that their version of "I did it my way" was good. Another unexplainable constant that I've noticed with karaoke is the number of gay participants. What's that all about?

All of these things make me scratch my head. Even as painful as karaoke can be, it remains one of the stalwarts of the drinking world. Part of the attraction must be the fact that drunk people like to laugh at each other. I'll visit a karaoke bar another time in the interest of research, but as the night slipped into the morning my senses had taken a beating. So before someone attempted to perform one of my favorite tunes, ruining it for life...we stumbled home.