Posted in: Short 'n Curlies by Si Spurrier | Tagged: short and curlies, si spurrier

Short 'n Curlies 32 by Si Spurrier

Kultcha:

Quezon City: most populous berg in the Already-Pretty-Fucking-Teeming Philippines, where overworked and creatively-stunted businessmen have taken the ancient martial art of Karaoke to a whole new level of rabid frothing seriousness.

(An Aside:

Personally, I've always been gently mystified by the phenomenon.  And no, it's not that I begrudge it per se — rampant personal bitterness about having a voice like a narwhale reaching sexual climax in an echochamber made of tombstones notwithstanding.  In fact I quite enjoy a bit of a singalong, and absolutely love listening to tone-deaf delusionauts manifesting the life-held misapprehension that they can string together two fucking notes in abject contradiction of The Facts.  I'm just not convinced I could ever do so with a straight face.)

Here is the Truth.  At its best, Karaoke represents a cruel and petty sort of gratification: the lemony amusement gained from seeing people making a Right Old Tit Of Themselves.  Or, I'll concede, the even lemonier and nastier amusement to be gained from Making A Right Old Tit Of Your Actual Personal Self, By Choice.

Even during my occasional trips to Americky, where (it must be allowed) you people take the Art Of Doing Musical Impressions Of Dead People a little more seriously than us teasippers ever did, I've noted there's still an underlying flavour of tongue-in-cheekness about the whole thing.  There's nothing more socially awkward (on either side of the Atlantic), than someone really genuinely and actually putting their heart and soul into singing Karaoke.  It makes my fingernails itch just thinking about it.

(See also: challenging a toddler to a running race then actually sprinting.  See also: discussing strategy and tactical awareness during a game of Snap.  See also: Cunts Being Cunts when they Should Be Having Fun And Not Worrying About Winning.)

The same does not hold true in Quezon City.

In Quezon City Karaoke is taken seriously.  In Quezon City things are getting Nasty.  In Quezon City a recent rash of murder-death-kills have been directly attributed to the pursuit of Unwinding After A Hard Day's Work By Clambering Onto A Stage And Singing In The Style Of Foreign Devil Celebrities.  In Quezon City, and this is absolutely true, Frank Sinatra's I Did It My Way has been directly linked to the deaths of six people.

In Quezon City, in 2007, a nightclub security guard unloaded his pistol into the chest of a singer because, quote, He Was Singing Out Of Tune.  I'm not even making this up.

Ahahaha.  Way to relax, folks.

Still: even better than this rampant silliness is the ingenious way in which Quezon City club-owners have responded to the emergent trend.  They've thought long and hard about this, and decided that the majority of Fight Breakout Moments are occurring as a result of misunderstandings between large groups of ferociously and defensively Heterosexual Males, responding incorrectly to the performance of Romantic Songs, Aggressively Confrontational Tunes, and Lustful Lunging.  All it takes is two separate tables of boozed-up suits, shooting competitive looks at one another, getting the wrong idea about That Guy Snapping Out CrotchThrusts On Stage, and generally feeling the throbbing egowound of Impugned Sexuality — and it's bulletdodging time.

Solution: Hire a Gay Guy.

Yes, most Quezon City karaoke bars now make a point of putting a rampantly camp bloke at the Front-of-House so — in the event of Trouble Brewing — he can rush out to reassure the wounded parties that No Funnybusiness Was Intended.  Oh daahling, he declares, that silly man wasn't making Big Gay Eyes at you. And I Should Know.

And who's going to argue with a guy wearing rhinestones?  Not Quezon City Businessmen, that's who.

So: Problem solved, stagedeath averted, and Karaoke Culture abruptly transformed into something far, far less brilliant.  I anticipate a Will Ferrell movie on the subject within two months.

And IT!

Won't!

Be!

Funny!

BrainFart:

I've always thought it would be kinda fun — and totally worth the galactic quantities of money, effort and manipulation involved — to fake a series of elaborate Ontological Marvels in a Judeo-Christian tradition: life-saving angels, shimmering desert-based visions, cloud-bothering SkyDaddies, and the spontaneous incendiary Smiting of Annoying Wankers Worldwide.  Something massive and All Pervading like that, to convince every human on the planet that — yep, sorry — that pesky bible thingy was bang-on the money all along.

This complex species-wide fraud would pay-off in the three mighty, invaluable, better-than-all-the-money-in-the-world ways.  Behold:

First: Getting To See The Look On Richard Dawkins's smug, acidic, dogmatic face — as Realisation sinks into his spiny little nonsoul like oil into a crispy seasponge — how thoroughly and beautifully WRONGWRONGWRONG he's been all this time.  And then offering him a cassock.

Second: Witnessing the catastrophic collapse of the entire US military complex, as it dawns on the brass-wearing Squarejaws that Without Angry Islamists They Are Nothing, and that ever since Final Proof Of Jehova's Existence got out, all the uppity little jihadists have been shuffling their feet, acting sheepish, and Reassessing Their Lives In A Non-Explodo Spirit.

And Third: Giving the Creationists, the Priests, the Rabbis, that Pointy-Eyebrowed monkeyman in Lambeth Palace, and aaaaaall the rest of them exactly one year of smuggery, We-Told-You-So-ing and unbearable Self Satisfaction, before revealing to them Exactly How The Trick Was Done.  Then standing back to watch the fireworks.

It's the Metaphysical Mischief which just Keeps On Giving.

This Week I Have Been Mostly Hating:

People with yachts.

Oh, you awful awful people.  You terrible humans, with your cosmic sense of entitlement, your Sunseeker baseballs caps, your floppy-haired Aryan Angelchildren (look at them, you wankers, dressed exactly the same as you, with the same perpetually Kinked upper-lip and the same Satsuma Ubertan), and your sprawling team of hate-fuelled Puerto Rican slavechimps.  You have jetskis, you have pool tables, you have blowjobs-on-demand, and you have fucking napkins made of Money.  I Hate you with every inch of my miniature, envious, petty little heart.

But you know what? Oh-ho-yes, listen. When you boil it right down, thou galloping smuganism, it's still got ceilings lower than a ducking dwarf, beds like boomerangs and a big tank full of Your Shit sloshing right next door.  Yes yes yes, chum, you may indeed have paid eight billion quid for it — congratulations — but it's still just a fucking caravan with added seasickness.

Find Me @:

Twitter: @SiSpurrier

WWWebbage: www.simonspurrier.blogspot.com

Send wurdz, thoughts, stories, Hatings, and Zuk to the Only Checked Occasionally And I Might Not Bother Replying At All Ha Ha Ha email address:

Contact@Chop-This-Bit-Outsimonspurrier.co.uk

Or the It Might Not Get To Me At All But If It Does I Promise To Recycle It snailmail address:

C/O William Christensen,

Avatar Press
515 N. Century Blvd.
Rantoul, IL 61866

(Disclaimer: Secretly, I'm nice.)

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