Libby Cudmore is an MFA candidate with a dual concentration in pop fiction and CNF with the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast program.  Recent publications include regular contributions to Pop Matters and Hardboiled, as well as The Southern Women’s Review, Shaking Like a Mountain and the upcoming anthology Quantum Genre on the Planet of the Arts (w/Matthew Quinn Martin).  Additional publications include Sage of Consciousness, Crime and Suspense, the Subway Chronicles (Essay of the Year 2004) and Long Story Short (Author of the Year, 2004).  To this day, she still has not managed to sing a note of karaoke.
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Sing Your Life 


It was Lent, so my BFF wasn’t drinking.  With my BFF not drinking, I wasn’t going to drink either, and this singular fact should have been our first indication that karaoke was a bad idea.

I’ve always been a little afraid of karaoke.  It’s not necessarily my deep hatred of hearing other people sing, the same audible chafing that prevents me from watching American Idol or listening to pop music, nor is it my overwhelming desire to scream at girls singing in their prettiest pretty voice, “Pick a fucking note!”  Rather, this irrational terror stems from seven years of voice lessons and an ill-fated attempt at a musical theater major — it’s not the fear of singing badly that frightens me, but rather, the fear of being seen as a show-off.  It’s only recently that I even started singing in the car and this, like all my other vices, is all my BFF’s doing. 

With my boyfriend back home and my BFF’s wife out of town, we are free to act like the dorks we adore each other for being.  We can drink too much coffee, watch bad 80’s movies, and give his cats a private Duran Duran tribute concert.  We are on the verge of our semi-annual Jeff Goldblum Pajama Marathon when I confess my karaoke virginity.  He stops midway through cracking open his brand new special edition DVD of Buckaroo Banzi and sets it on the coffee table.  “Whip out your Metrocard, kiddo,” he says.  “We’re going downtown.”

We get to the Village around 11.  There are three notable times for clubgoers; at 11, everyone is pre-game drunk, pushy and loud.  By 1 am, they’re cheerful and silly and that I don’t mind, but by 3am, they’re back to being dickbags.  Tonight’s crowd is getting a head start on the 3am rush.  Someone offers us cocaine.  Two guys dragging their small Asian girlfriend push past us and I am fully prepared to kick all three of their asses if she pukes on my Doc Martens.  I watch the rhythmic rise and fall of a skank’s heels lifting out of her too-big borrowed stilettos, like she’s playing dress-up in her mom’s closet.  I squeeze my BFF’s arm and grit my teeth.  The whole scene makes me tense, irritated and a little bit dizzy.  I hate the artificialness of the scene, I hate crowds, I hate club girls and guys who dress in Ron Burgundy irony, mustache and all.  I hate people who think that they’re so fucking clever when they’re drunk or stoned or coked up, and right now, I am on the verge of hating my BFF for dragging me out here.
“I know what you mean about being the only sober person in the room,” he says.  “Drunk people are obnoxious.  Am I this much of a jerk when I drink?”

“No,” I assure him, which isn’t entirely true because I’ve seen him be an enormous dick, but one of his better qualities is that he can be an enormous dick even when he’s sober.  “You’re sort of sweet and dopey.”  I wrap my arm around his and put my head on his bicep.  “But I like you best during Lent.”

“I know, I know.”  He ruffles my hair.  I love when he does that.  “You and my wife both.”

The first bar he has in mind isn’t doing karaoke.  We navigate the crowded streets for another few blocks to the next bar, which is packed with pasty Brooklyn Beyonces.  There’s hope for a quiet night in yet.  My BFF looks just a little disappointed; he was really psyched about popping my karaoke cherry.  Prom night déjà vu.

Buckaroo Banzi will always be there.  I breathe out all the night’s irritations and smile up at him.  “Isn’t there a karaoke bar on St. Mark’s?”

His eyes get wide and he grins.  “There is,” he says, channeling Goldblum.  “Yes, yes, there is.  Shall we?” 

The bar on St. Mark’s is equally crowded, but the dry-erase board proclaims it’s only an 11 minute wait.  I browse through the song book while my BFF gets us two Cokes and two song tickets.  We know our first pick; Human League’s "Don’t You Want Me, Baby?"  We rock this song as the synth-pop duo the Manic Pixie People, appearing one night only in my BFF’s rental car.  We were hoping for Electronic’s "Getting Away With It", the very first song that ever reminded me of him, but we settle on the Pet Shop Boys’ "Opportunities".

I expected at least a platform; instead the bar is a small room with two flatscreen TVs running the lyrics and occasionally, a really bad, public-broadcasting quality music video.  Singers sit hunched around the bar, like a circle-jerk in a Tom Waits song.  A pork roast in a black bra and a glittery backless dress keeps grinding her backside against mine, completely oblivious to my presence.  I step in closer to my BFF, but she continues invading my space, the dance never ceasing.  The fear instilled in me is not a fear instilled in anyone here. 

It isn’t until after we’ve turned in our tickets and cracked open our drinks that the bartender moves the bottle obscuring the white board, turning 11 minutes into 110.  The money’s already spent, there’s nothing we can do but wait.  The screen shows the names and songs of the next three singers; first up is Jeff singing Bob Marley’s "Redemption Song".  I roll my eyes, of course, white-boy reggae at karaoke, how original.  Kat is up next to sing a song I don’t recognize, then Jeff again with Shaggy’s "Angel" and back to stumbling over the lyrics to "Endless Love" with Kat.

Everyone except for us is singing along.  The pork roast is dancing with the stars in her eyes.  My BFF and I relocate to a corner and drink our Cokes and he squeezes my elbow and smirks.  Most of my friends would be complaining about their boredom or casting blame, but not my BFF.  He understands, we share this appreciation for the strange, subtle moments in life.  We journeyed all the way out here and we are determined to make the most of this moment.  We will savor the absurdity and soon enough, I will blow the house down with my karaoke debut.  He assures me it will be well worth the wait.

Half an hour passes.  Jeff and Kat are forced to surrender the mic, but sing loudly enough to drown out whoever so rudely steals their spotlight.  Andrew picks Billy Joel’s "The Downeaster Alexia" for reasons neither my BFF nor I can fathom.   A sorority blonde at the other end of the bar refuses to pick a note on Alanis Morissette’s "Mary Jane".  I was always under the impression that karaoke was supposed to make people dance and laugh and have a good time, not force listeners to contemplate stepping into traffic.  Kat does an interpretive dance and warbles over the blonde.

The pork roast moves on, so my BFF and I take two of the three barstools her posse leaves behind.  A man in a bad suit takes the third stool and growls a series of demands to the bartender.  “Settle down Beetlejuice,” I mutter.  This makes my BFF laugh so hard no sound comes out; he squinches his eyes shut, grips the bar and hisses to catch his breath.  He has the best laugh of anyone I know. 

It is now nearing 1 a.m.  We are silly with sleep deprivation, we are over-caffeinated after a day warding off sleep deprivation with bottomless cups of coffee, we are exhausted.  Wonder Woman and Thomas Jefferson order drinks beside us.  Only in New York.  It is now the Bill and Andrew show and they are loading heavy on the classic rock hits.  Kat and Jeff show no signs of giving up.  They may not have the microphone, but this does not mean they will ever stop rocking.  Bill orders up Kansas’ "Dust in the Wind".  This really gets the crowd going. 

My BFF swallows the last of this drink, cups his hands around his mouth and sings in perfect time with the chorus, “Why don’t you let someone sing their fucking song?!” 

Most girls (including his wife, he later tells me) would take this as a good time to end the evening and catch the first cab uptown, leaving him there to finish the fight.  If there was ever a moment in his presence when I thought, “Let’s run away together right now,” it was right then.  Finally, someone who gets it, someone who isn’t afraid.  I’m not usually the type to yell out my internal monologue, but with no liquid courage, with no real prompting, my BFF says what everyone else is thinking.  I am in awe of his bravery, his big mouth, his refusal to care what anyone thinks of him.  He is Ducky.  He is Han Solo.  He is the Best Friend Forever I’ve been looking for my entire life.

I show my appreciation by punching him in the arm.  He grins at me and squeezes my shoulder.  “Come on kiddo,” he says, standing.  “Think you can stay awake through Buckaroo Banzi?”
Libby Cudmore