Rambling Rhodes

The Best Thing You'll Read On The Internet Today

James Lileks rocks the Internet with double barrels of truth:

Last night I was a mediator in the great War of the Karaoke Clan. We went back last night to the Carousel, and found for the third straight night – the same three kids caterwauling songs they had no idea how to sing. One of the kids was doing some sort of popping-and-locking dance which looked cute the first day, but after three nights you’re sick of the little exhibitionist. I should note that it was 23:30, and it was a bar, so the idea that the place shouldn’t become the exclusive domain of three boys who could not sing and spent the previous two nights proving that fact loudly wasn’t exactly high-handed. Or was it? After they sang some 60s song – and by sing I mean they shouted tuneness syllables into the microphone – one of our party told them they should sing something they knew, because they sounded horrible.

How dare you , she hissed. How dare you . She sailed off, followed by tall-blonde mom, who really lit into the critic for having crushed the boys’ spirit. I wanted to stand up and say well, mission accomplished, ma’am, because those little presumptuous brats of yours needed their spirits crushed. Here we thought they were running wild without parents who could take them aside and explain that the rest of the world did not find their artless yawps to be the ne plus ultra of entertainment, but it turns out they were doing so under the watchful eye of two generations of enabling women, eh? Well, at some point they’ll be free of you, as sure as the ship slips its moorings, and they’ll be out in the world amongst professional practicised soul-crushers, and they might remember this moment and conclude that no amount of mugging to “YMCA” – a song about anonymous sex, incidentally – is going to endear them to the world.