June 26, 2003

     What is it with karaoke?

     What is it with karaoke that makes people think they can sing? What makes them think just because they can hold a microphone and read off a prompter the words to "My Love Will See You Through", they sound like Marco Sison?

     The awful truth is they sound awful. They sound more like Marco, the waiter at Four Seasons.

     It's horrific. It's terrifying. It's torture.

     A song by Cat Stevens can actually sound like a cat - being dissected alive. And it's not just the tune that's bad, mind you. How would you react if you're Eric Clapton in a room full of drunken guys singing your song "Tears In Heaven" and you hear "Turs In Hibin" over and over again? You'll regret the day you learned music and it would have driven you to take up cross-stitching instead.

     Who gave these people rights to butcher songs in the name of karaoke?

"You may sound like a garbage disposal but your score may say "98" with this line at the bottom - "You are a perfect artist!" Isn't there a law for fraud? For deception? That's why these people are encouraged and come back to sing again. They are being misled by these stupid scores."

     They sing "e" as "eh" and "p" and "f" or vice-versa. "Puff the Magic Dragon" could easily be "Fupp the Magic Dragon". Frank Sinatra turns in his grave everytime somebody out there sings, "an I ded et my weeee...!" Good Lord, the end is really near.

     Believe me, they can't sing along. They can't pronounce words. They can't read. They sound bad, Rey-Valera-in-a-nursing-home bad. April Boy Regino's voice is irritating enough, imagine April Boy walking in hot coals. That's how bad they sound. And once they get their hands on a microphone, they don't stop. They do duets. They do medleys. They do falsettos to Air Supply songs. It's horrifying. It's like watching a group of people with protruding, bleeding, painful hemorrhoids.

     I'd like to make a contribution to the war on terror. Let's have these people sing outside of caves in and around Afghanistan. I guarantee you within 30 minutes Osama Bin Laden would run outside with his hands up begging for them to stop.

     You can defend karaoke all you like but all it does is encourage people who have no musical talent to scream and shriek into a microphone that amplifies the fact that they have no talent.

     So what is it with karaoke?

     Is it the beer?

     Let's ban beer then. Or let's have a breathalizer in every karaoke bar. Yes, the one that cops use to nail drunk drivers. Let's have a law that would punish SUI (Singing Under the Influence) with two life sentences. Anybody with a blood-alcohol level of more than .05 should not be allowed to hold a microphone. Let's spare the world from bad singers who don't realize they're bad.

     I heard this story a long time ago which I refused to believe then - singer Matt Monro is actually half-Filipino whose real name is Mateo Monroy. Crazy, isn't it? But after I heard "Born Free" more than a hundred times at karaoke bars over the years, I am inclined to believe now that this story is true. (And it was also alleged that he has a sister, Marilyn Monroy, a beautiful blonde who used to date a U.S. President.)

     Don't laugh now. Singer Burt Bacharach's real name is actually Bertong Barako!

     (More on Matt Monro, or Mateo Monroy, if you will. The inspiration for his signature song, "Born Free", was explained by a simple wall graffiti. Back in College, we went one summer to Mambucal, a beautiful town in the Negros province famous for its hot springs. Medical students have limited budget so we, five handsome guys, rented a cottage for 25 pesos a day, that's 5 pesos each, the cheapest we found. The cottage's walls were graffiti-filled, most were useless information but one stood out. It told a story of how Matt Monro/Mateo Monroy longed for his Filipino-father whom he never met. One day, he asked his British mother, "Mommy, where is my Daddy?". His mother replied, "Son, you don't have a Daddy, because, you were...'born free'!". So there.)

     I'm not that old but I've been around long enough to witness the phenomenal growth of karaoke (damn drug reps). I had a friend who worked for a multi-national drug company and who used to take me to Taps, the first popular karaoke bar in the city. It was situated in the Sarabia Manor building fronting the hotel. This friend was a karaoke addict who would call me at least once a week. It later occurred to me that he loved to invite me (and probably a different doctor every night) so he could charge it to his expense report. Who cares, free beer and chicken wings or skin are always good. Besides, I was a girlfriend-less loner then who nobody wanted to date so I was always available. If I had a bad day with the crush, it was always nice to get something out of my chest with songs like Ric Segreto's "Kahit Konting Pagtingin", or Nonoy Zuñiga's "Doon Lang" .

     Karaoke originated in Japan about twenty years ago. I'm not sure but I think karaoke is Japanese for "drunken and tone-deaf". Karaoke may have started with the advent of minus ones and multiplexes but it did not really get this popular until lyrics were displayed on a TV screen. Lyrics that change color where you're supposed to sing (thus the other word, videoke). Add to this the video background with women who just failed a modeling agency's audition but are too timid to become strippers. While one person sings, the rest can listen, sing quietly or watch the background video of a woman staring blankly against a Rizal Monument background. All these in-between sips of cold beer.

     Minus ones and multiplexes were and still are mostly used by real singers. Those who can carry a tune. Those who know the words, the timing, the dynamics. Those who can actually sing, unlike Ariel Rivera or that collection of dopes called The Hunks. That explains minus ones' popularity, or lack of it. After videoke was invented, everybody suddenly thought they could sing. Even old people who haven't sang or even heard the Alphabet Song or Old Mcdonald Had A Farm. I'd like to say their age delicately so as not to offend anyone. Let's just say that by this time next year, I fully expect them to be dead. And they don't do hits from the 40's or 50's. They do Reo Speedwagon and Styx. It's scary watching people sing with aneurysms that are about ready to explode in real time.

     Taps at Sarabia Manor was one of the first establishments to popularize karaoke using LD or Laser Discs. These discs were the size of long-playing (LP) vinyl records. If you're not that old to have seen an LP, just look at a car's mug-wheels. A disc contains about 24 songs so you actually need a disc jockey to toggle disks between two or three players if you have a commercial karaoke establishment.

     Then came CD+G (Compact Disc plus Graphics). A CD that contains at least 24 songs and with the use of a special player displays the graphics. The video background could come from a different source. I first saw this used (I assume, it was) at Nena's Manukan along the highway. Since CD+G's are programmed by computers, this is where "scores" started (which has nothing to do with the tune) after you finish a song. That adds to the excitement. You may sound like a garbage disposal but your score may say "98" with this line at the bottom "You are a perfect artist!" Isn't there a law for fraud? For deception? That's why these people are encouraged and come back to sing again. They are being misled by these stupid scores. "Hey people, I'm the next Regine Velasquez!" Right. You need to fix your teeth too, then your nose, then your eyes. Before you know it, six guys in their sixties will come forward claiming you are the daughter they gave up for adoption.

     With the subsequent popularity of DVD's, karaoke on DVD became popular too. Digital sound with crisp and clear background video but I don't think it gives you the dreaded "scores". Then came the MIDI CD. MIDI drastically reduced the storage size of a song so that you can fit as many as 8,000 songs in one CD. You need a special MIDI CD player for this. Then there's this karaoke device which I have seen in almost every party I have attended here in the Chicago area recently. It's called MagicSing, a karaoke machine within a microphone. All you need is a audio-video output on your TV or VCR. The songs are stored on a chip plugged right into the microphone.

     And it is in these parties that women take center stage. You would think they're better judges of dreadful, intolerable display of musical "non-talent". They're not. And they're not even drunk. They always love to sing that theme song from the movie "Titanic" (you should hear the Tagalog version, it's beyond wretched). Can you imagine a Celine Dion singing while being stir-fried?

     Another ladies' favorite is Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive". Nice try, but since they're such slow readers, they could barely survive following the lyrics. At a party we've attended recently, there's this group of women singing The Supremes' "Stop! In The Name Of Love". It was so disgusting, I wanted to jump out of my seat, make the sign of a cross, and scream at their faces, "Stop! In The Name Of God!".

     Back in the days, I used to go with my friend Dexter (Dr. Briones, a cardiologist at St. Paul's), karaoke-bar-hopping. You won't believe if I tell you that Dexter is a very good singer. If you check him out at his clinic at St. Paul's Hospital (please tell him I said hi), you'll probably say I just had too much to drink. It's like I just showed you a washing machine and tried to convince you that it's actually a car that runs like a Mercedez E-Class. Come on, the don't-judge-a-book-by-its-cover thing ain't there for nothing. When Dexter gets his turn on the microphone, everybody's heads turn in his direction. Everybody seems stunned. Everybody forgets who Barry Manilow is. John Denver is dead but he lives on Dexter. Women (if there are any) in the room become misty-eyed, start dabbing their cheeks with little napkins, like they just remembered their wedding song decades ago. As far as I could remember, Dexter never got a score lower that "98" (besides being good, he knew the trick to getting high scores).

     But the rest of the guys hate that. They hate the fact that there's a legitimate singer in the room with them. That makes them insecure. Any kind of laugh emanating from that table will be interpreted as ridicule. And I am not kidding. If you read the tabloids, there's at least one murder a day attributed to karaoke. There was this story that happened in a karaoke bar in Manila. A group of people were telling jokes in one table while somebody was singing his heart out in another. At about the same time the singer finished singing, the other table just heard the joke's punchline, which was totally unrelated to the singer or his singing. Everybody at the table started laughing loudly, and before the night was over, one of their companions was stabbed dead.

     I hope my friend Dexter doesn't go to karaoke bars anymore. Since he hasn't e-mailed me in years, I'm concerned about his health. Please, somebody tell me if he is alive and well. He is still single so I'll not be surprised if he is a regular at Sandpipers.

     For the same reasons as Dexter's, I don't go to karaoke bars anymore. Other than the fact that since I got married, I have never ventured outside the house after 7:00 pm. And so I built a little karaoke bar at our basement complete with a karaoke system of 5,000 songs (4,000 English, 1,000 Tagalog) and surround sound (if you're serious into karaoke, buy the real system and don't waste your money on the crappy MagicSing). I love it and my wife loves it. Since we're both the audience to each other, we can't help but be complimentary. My wife couldn't decide if I sound like John of Five For Fighting or Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20. In return, I told her one time, "No Doubt, you sound like Gwen Stefani!" (There's a little joke there but if you're not into music, you may not get it. Gwen Stefani happens to be the lead singer of the group No Doubt)

     My 6-year-old daughter loves it too. Not that she wants to be the next Avril Lavigne, although she only wants Avril Lavigne's music played in the car and nothing else (don't you just hate hearing "Sk8ter Boi" over and over again?) She loves to read the lyrics and believe me, karaoke is not only a great tool to teach kids how to read but how to read faster as well. Some song lyrics don't make sense sometimes so it could a problem. One time, my wife was singing Vanessa Williams' "Save the Best for Last" with these opening lines, "Sometimes the snow comes down in June. Sometimes the sun goes ’round the moon". My daughter started yelling hysterically, "that's wrong, that's wrong, it's summer, it's summer, it's summer, Daddy...the snow doesn't come down in June!" I replied, "This is Chicago, baby. We have the crappiest weather in the universe outside of planet Mars. You'll never know."

     Since I've been away from the Philippines for about 6 years, I couldn't recognize about half of the Tagalog songs on my system. All the classics (by such composers as Rey Valera, Willie Cruz, George Canseco etc.) are still there but looking at the titles of most of the songs, you wonder what these new Filipino composers are smoking. There are titles such as "Aray" and "Nilunok ko ng lahat".

     So you see, I am not totally against karaoke. I am not saying let's make it go away. At least, let's not get carried away with it. Carried away as far as putting karaoke machines on game arcades. Or putting karaoke machines everywhere like they're ATM's or vending machines.

     Three years ago, my wife and I were eating pizza at Greenwich inside SM City. Greenwich happens to be near a game arcade where there's a karaoke machine operated by tokens. That's bad enough. What's worse is they put the machine near the entrance so that half of SM City could hear it. We were eating when we heard somebody singing Freddie Aguilar's "Anak". That was the worst rendition of anything I have heard in my life. That was a nightmare that kept coming back for days everytime I ate a pizza.

     Not a slice again.

     Here's one sign that we don't take chances when it comes to airport security. There's this singing group in Manila that's becoming popular called the Sex Bomb, composed of sexy, scantily-clad women (what better way to hide a bad singing voice). Three of the members were at the domestic airport when an over-zealous fan spotted them and started shouting, "Sex Bomb! Sex Bomb!". A security officer apparently heard the "bomb" part. The airport closed for two hours.

     I was halfway through writing this column when an officemate sent me the file below. What perfect timing. Crank up your speakers, and don't be surprised if somebody gets stabbed at a karaoke bar again.

     You may play this file directly. Just click on the link below. It plays with Windows Media, RealOne, or your default audio player. If you want to save it, right-click on the link and click on "Save As" then save the file to your hard drive.

     LoberLober.mp3

     This week's Top Ten:

     Top Ten Things I Learned In Biochemistry:

     This week's FINAL WORD comes from Liza:

     "I'm not your mother nor your crush...but you really make me laugh with your funny articles :))))"

     You're definitely not my mother-in-law because 1) her name is not Liza and 2) she never finds me a bit funny :((((.

     The author welcomes your comments, good and bad. Please fill up the fields below and click Send to Author. Suggestions for future column topics are also encouraged.

     The author's e-mail address is at drgarcia@wvsumedaa.com

     Views expressed on this column and any other by-lined articles on this site are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organization or its members. For comments, please e-mail the author.