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You Are Not Who You Were Two Weeks Ago
At 22, I was a confused but earnest kid. At 27, I was a reckless searcher who smoked too much. Who am I now?
Not too long ago, I performed at a live-band karaoke night for my friend’s birthday party. We all did U2 songs. I sang “The Fly.” I wore pleather pants. It was a whole thing.
There was a time in which karaoke was a much larger part of my life. Over a certain stretch, it became a sort of slam-dunk, no-doubt, end-of-night activity after I’d been out with everybody drinking all evening but wasn’t quite ready to wrap it up yet. I once went to see a band play at 7 p.m. and ended up, about 10 hours later, squawking out Johnny Cash and June Carter’s “Jackson” at a bar I’d never heard of in a neighborhood I’d never been. From, say, 2002 to 2007, all nights eventually led to karaoke.
I’m a terrible singer, but I am excellent at karaoke. The key is not caring whether you can sing and simply embracing the performative aspects. I had four primary songs back in the day that alternated depending on the feel of the evening. The first and without question the most common was REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t Fight This Feeling.” I’d throw myself into it, crawling across the floor and coming crashing through your door. It was a feeling I could not fight anymore. The others were Meat Loaf’s “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” (great for screaming, but you need a willing partner and a patient audience), Digital Underground’s “The Humpty Dance” (it’s always good to have a song you can rap from memory), and The Misfits’ “Last Caress” (when I was trying to seem tougher and hipper than I was).
Anyway, my point is that anyone who has known me for a long time would probably expect me to go a little apeshit on the mic. Which is why it was so surprising to me, then, to see my friends’ reactions to my performance of “The Fly.” They were shocked. I mean, full-on flabbergasted. They acted as if the mild-mannered science teacher with the pants pulled up to his chin had suddenly put a lampshade on his head and started moonwalking to Linda Ronstadt. “Will! We had no idea you had…
