07/24/2005 - 12:07 p.m. | bits and pieces 1

People say that sleeplessness eventually makes it to where you are the equivalent of being drunk. I am not sure of this, but I did have to sort through some evidence the morning after. I checked my download folder. What on earth could have compelled me to get "Will Smith - Nod Ya Head (Black Suits Comin)"? From the Men in Black II soundtrack? LET ME SEE YOU BOP YOUR HEAD NOD YOUR HEAD COME ON (like this) So maybe there is an argument for.

This sparked a little foray into the world of Will Smith by Kyle and myself, sitting side by side on the loveseat as he downloaded tunes, and we sat there critiquing them. Poor Will Smith doesn�t get any respect. He came out with this new album, and everyone was downloading it out of irony, saying stuff like, �There goes what little street cred I had.� But oh look, Will Smith is still a fucking genius, and everyone loves his fucking album. We certainly did � we didn�t stop listening to it on repeat all day long. It�s sort of funny, though � every song it�s sort of like he rips off some other famous rapper. In one he sounds like Ludarcis, another like DMX, another like Eminem. Key among tracks were his lessons on raising children and dancing. And how different he is from other rappers. I forgot where I was going with this.

Not to sound like a standup comedian, but did you ever notice that when you�re driving on the highway, guy doesn�t decide to get over into the left lane until right until you�re about to pass him? I mean, what�s the deal with that? Is he staring back at me, waiting for the proper moment to strike, so as to inflict as much annoyance as possible? And while I�m at it, same old story, am I right? My car just gets to 150 thousand miles (I cheered as it rolled over), and my brakes suddenly turn to shit, making noises like thunder, just like Missy�s did when we were in Texas. I have a feeling this won�t be cheap, but then, what ever is?

We've all grown tired of drinking. We don't mind being drunk, of course, but the getting there is so long and tedious that it hardly seems worth the time. Me especially, man. I can't even do a shot anymore. I practice taking
shots of other stuff (water, Kool-Aid, soda), but it doesn't help. I get that shitty vodka in my mouth all at once, and I have to spit it out. Then I usually puke a little after, too. Maybe that's the purpose college is supposed to serve; get all your drinking out of the way, so you never, ever
want to do it again.

But anyway, we got to it, because we had some karaoke to get to. I bought this stupid apple cider that eventually reminded me of piss, but there was this trick I wanted to try. When I was Kansas Missy�s friend O-Ring (is this correct?) opened a bottle so crazy!! He took out a butter knife and started striking the sides of the bottle with it. He�d then wail on the bottle cap for a little and then repeat the process. After the second time he did this, the top of the bottle exploded off � not just the cap, but an entire chunk of the bottle, leaving you a deadly shard to drink from. Still, it was cool as hell, but I have not been able to recreate it.

Karaoke was good for everybody; OK, clearly that is not true. Kyle and I had visions of this being our new bingo � we�d come every week and get belligerent, everyone would learn to know and love us, so on and so forth. I do not think this is to be. Shelly hates it, I�m fairly sure, and has already threatened not to return. Kyle kind of just ignored this ultimatum and was like, �OK! Whatevs!� It takes a certain amount of balls to actually go up there and enjoy yourself on stage. Tebben came, and Kyle invited this stoner from his Spanish class (who looks just like Harry Osborne from Spider-man), and while they at least went up, they didn�t have the confidence to sing the songs loud and proud, whether they knew the words or not. Between Kyle and me, I think we have some serious charisma. He can handle the middle to high registers, and I can get the low to mid ones. Plus, I�m not afraid to dance around and act all dramatic; we call that stage presence.

Kyle rocked some Fiona Apple and Garth Brooks. We paired up for �It�s the End of the World as We Know It,� and I did a pretty fair job of �Man of Constant Sorrow,� if you�ll allow me to say so. Tebben wanted to do �Bohemian Rhapsody,� but they made some sort of error and started playing �The Devil Went Down to Georgia,� so I ran onstage to help him out. He eventually did get his �Bohemian Rhapsody� (as the last song of the night), but he made the newbie mistake of thinking he could probably figure out the song as he saw the words. You have to know it heart and soul, brother! Everyone had been summoned onstage for this final performance, and though I knew it marginally at best, I was the main source of volume, so it was on my shoulders to go back an forth between high and low parts. Did I rise to the challenge? That remains to be seen.

Allison Helm was working, so a few of her friends were there. Emily Johns seemingly does not despise me anymore (which is a plus), and Shelly even speculated that she was makin� eyes at me, but I�m having none of that. Allison�s other two friends could not sing at all but kept going onstage together anyway. As per karaoke etiquette, I whistled and cheered for them as much as anyone else, though, which they might have mistaken as flirting. Then again, I make the mistake of thinking any girl who touches me is flirting, so I might be wrong about them there. One guy was a total badass with his goblet of beer and and cigarettes and thrift store jacket, all cool as hell while singing the two Cherry Poppin� Daddies songs they had. It was actually a pretty young crowd, which might have explained why it was so dead and why karaoke ended an hour early, but the older people had their representative. He moaned like a spectre, and I honestly cannot say if he was singing or pleading for help. But, as I said, I�ll clap and whistle and cheer for him like anyone else. Except that Pink Floyd shirt �Clocks� faggot.

While Kyle went through the jukebox, I started listening in on this war of words between two of the other singers from that evening. The one guy, Chris, was actually the brother of that fat girl that usually comes and had actually inherited her vocal talents. This talent, in my opinion, is wasted in that they both sing boring ballads with all those trills and bullshit. Use your powers for entertainment, fools, not sleep-inducement! The other guy, Jesse Whose Birthday It Was (And Who Therefore Wanted A BJ From Allison) pretty much screamed the whole time he sang, all heavy metal and Audioslave and shit. Anyway, they were arguing for their respective musical stylings, which was pretty pointless, but the closing argument was noteworthy: �Well, I�ll just keep on masturbating on stage and you can go right on cutting your wrists.� Those are metaphors for their particular styles, see?

I managed to destroy two articles of clothing during the same evening. On the way to Geo�s when I was still sort of drunk, I walked into a street sign and scraped my arm along it as I tried to escape its clutches. As such, both my shirt and right bicep are sort of torn up. My �Ride Free or Die!� shirt :( And then during my dramatic performance of �Devil,� I slid to my knees at the conclusion and ripped a big gash in my jeans. Oh swell � the one semi-decent pair I had left. They were only like 80 bucks.

Kyle got, not one, but two baskets of fries.

While we waited for Allison to get off work (Was I hardcore jealous that Tebben was flirting with her? Maybe a little), we said, �Fuck karaoke! We�ll just sing!� and Shelly, Kyle, and I stormed the stage to scream �You Oughta Know� into ketchup bottles. The crowd was somewhere between appreciative and confused.

We all walked back to our place when Geo�s closed. I might have grabbed an office chair, but it was out on the sidewalk, and common law more or less says it was Urbana�s (mine) anyway, correct? Our hosting skills have gone down the tubes, I�m sad to report, as the next 2 or so hours were spent either listening to more Will Smith songs (gaping at the lyrics on the TV) or looking at old pictures of the days when we used to do stuff. Ah, the days when alcohol was still novel and sitting around drinking could still be construed as a fun thing to do. We used to go to parties and stuff � we had people over. What have we done with ourselves? The old drugs don�t work anymore, boo hoo hoo!

Speaking of emaciated heroin addicts (he segues ham-fistedly), I don�t look quite as scary as I used to freshman year. Frankly, it was sort of embarrassing to see me all brown haired and banged with tiny little arms. You couldn�t tell it unless you saw the proof, but I bulked up some. We also learned that we can make some hilarious animated GIFs if we put some shots in a row. Remind me to add them later:

As well as the picture here where you can visibly see the terror on my face that Tebben is wasting one of my one dollar Polaroid pictures on some shot without Rhett Miller or Ted Leo or Kyle in it:

Everyone left at about 4, but it wasn�t until after 6 that I finally hit the sack. I was well sobered up by then, so Kyle and I drove to get bean dip in lemonade so that we could be well-energized while watching cartoons. Actually, he had some sort of paper about Judaism due at noon, but I was content to watch the one hot anime chick on �Ravemaster� and say nasty things about her.

Speaking of which, when Kyle nears exhaustion, pretty much all of his remaining energy is focused on creating new concepts in pornography. This morning�s was called �Assistant Coach.� It would star Dauber from the hit ABC sitcom �Coach,� and it would be an episode-by-episode story-behind-the-story of what he was doing off camera (HINT: Something erotic!) It would correspond to each episode, though, so for example, on the one we watched where he went on a fishing trip while Hayden stayed home with Christine, we would get him the same outfit ten years after the fact (only now with track marks on his arms), and he would fuck some nasty skanks in an ice fishing hut. Showing his pale Nordic retard ass for all the word to see. Good one, right? Well, we couldn�t stop laughing about it anyway, very similar to the evening before when we ROFLing so hard about fucking Tim Allen and his confused/enraged grunt in the �Home Improvement� intro music. �ERRRGHUH? Doondoondoon!� You�d have to hear it out loud to really understand, and we do take requests! And share the combined IQ of the common ground squirrel.