brian's song

my good friend brian, seen here in my new place by my tulips, is visiting from new york city for a week and a half to do some research for a book he is writing on karaoke. brian is an amazingly smart and funny writer, having penned stories for such rags as ew, gq, spin and now as the head honcho over at idolator. he also has a blog about, you guessed it, karaoke. last night we met at a place called guy's bar in west hollywood for their tuesday night karaoke party (hosted by a nice girl named bowie, who we thought looked like kirsten dunst in 10 years with a 2 pack a day habit) and following are the blurry masterpieces of what we witnessed (you can click on each image for even bigger blurry goodness!):


this guys would do anything for love (but he won't do that).


these sassy pals got up and sang 'lady marmalade' and then joined this white rapper for a rendition of that song that goes 'i like BIG butts and i can not lie!'


these boys performed the who's 'teenage wasteland' ooops, i mean 'baba o'riley' (remember that great scene from 'freaks and geeks?'). they hammed it up for me when they were done, not realizing my camera-phone was capable of NOTHING detail-wise!! sorry boys, but thanks for the sexy posturing (speaking of sexy, i don't mean to be crude but when you click on this image and look at the boy to the left, do you see what i see?)!


this motley crew sang 'freedom' by george michael and included none other than former ew employee caroline kepnes who moved out to los angeles three years ago. what a surprise running into her! even though she said she wasn't going to sing anywhere but on the couch, by the time i took this picture she was on stage belting out her third pop hit.

the whole reason i was taking bad pictures was in anticipation of seeing brian in action and capturing it for this here blog, but brian was busy taking notes like a karaoke super-sleuth in probably the tiniest notebook ever. sadly he noted that he had lost his will to sing that night. but brian, karaoke is what you do best in your world of doing things very well!! please get your song back. PLEASE! i guess we'll see what happens this friday at 'the world famous' caffe brass monkey...


FOLLOW UP: brian did a kick ass version of flagpole sitta by harvey danger (why can't you buy this song on itunes?? grrr!) that brought the house down! it even brought him a piece of cake from the birthday party going on beside us! amazing! oh god... oh no... now i hazily remember another karaoke venue that night where i believe i sang 'heart of glass' by myself (pictures don't lie) and then forced brian to duet on 'scrubs' by tlc followed by anything hall and oates, so i could be hall (because i'm blonde and taller) and he could be oates (because he's brunette and a sliver shorter). oh yikes, so sorry brian, but i do remember you got sweet revenge by joking me for ordering a chardonnay at a koreatown karaoke venue and then we boldy 'karaoked and dashed' after 20 minutes because the venue wasn't up to par (i'm still afraid to look at my online checking balance in case they overcharged me for the offense!). wrapping up (i totally 'borrowed' this picture from his site), thanks for the visit buddy and for all of the karaoke exposure. according to b-raf i'm what is known in karaoke circles as a 'flipper' because i like to see what is available to sing even though i'm not planning on singing. can't wait to see you again in august at your wedding in vermont to the equally amazing jenny!