Being the good little students that my friends and I are it took us exactly two weeks before we just couldn’t take it any longer and had to zip out for a night of karaoke. Saturday night was a special night because it was the first true group activity of the 4th Floor Team 2006. While not every member was in attendance – Jessica was conspicuously absent – all of our new additions made it out and the overall attitude and pervasive style of the group was firmly maintained by Satoshi, Taw, and myself.
So, without drawing this out any longer than necessary, the new miscreants are as follows: Curious George(C.G.), Haruna, and Yumiko…
As well as Jane – center here between a very silly Taw and I…
And Atsushi, my new RA, or Dorm Counselor as they’re known back West…
Jane is an interesting person to take to a karaoke place. You see, she’s a classically trained opera singer… meaning that while the rest of us scrubs are busy yodeling out various Top 40 hits she patiently waits until her song queues up and then floors the lot of us with a near perfect rendition of Whitney Houston’s Greatest Love of All…
Notice, however, that I said “near perfect,” the truth of the matter is that I had to give her a little help from time to time during the harder bits, but overall, yeah, she’s pretty good I guess…
Lastly, I have finally found my niche during these karaoke trips. You see, if Ben & Jerry are famous for ice cream, and Neil Armstrong is famous for doing the Moonwalk, I am roughly equivalently famous for having the incredible ability to sing an entire song in only one note. Now there are some who would choose to denigrate such a profoundly, err… stunning gift, but I choose to stay on the bright side of things and as such have embraced my vocal encumbrance. When a weakness is exposed, one must counter with a strength! “So,” I thought to myself, “what can you do better than anyone else in the room that could apply to karaoke…?”
The answer? I can read! Well, I can certainly read English better than anyone else who went(at least one would hope so!)… So if you combine an ability to quickly read the lyrics off the screen with the ability – dubious as it may seem – to belt out measure after measure in the same monotonous drone… you get…
RAP! Freaking perfect!
So that was that. A little Eminem here, a little 50 Cent there, and a little Tupac over there and you have the makings of a seriously mesmerized audience. Not only are they routinely blown away by the rapidity of the rhymes, they are also floored by the – shall we say – overabundance of obscene words. As it happens, when held up against the full Japanese vocabulary, English has a veritable plethora of profanity – we’re just a more creatively descriptive people I guess…
Nothing makes me prouder than to know I’ve just spent several hours dirtying young, innocent ears with good ol’ Gangsta Rap!