Killing me softly? I wish.

This is the story of two vastly different musical experiences.

Last Friday night, a group of 10 or so (extremely beautiful) friends kicked off an extended celebration of the Joyce's birthday by over-dosing on three favourite, though indulgent, luxuries: fine food, fine wine and karaoke. Lucky Voice was our venue of choice and, to set the scene, you need to imagine a dimly lit, leather padded sauna with a large flat screen, a couple of mics and a hoarde of inflatable saxophones and bright pink afro-wigs. I admit that I was slightly sceptical about the whole thing. I've only done karaoke a couple of times before and last time I chose to do "Hey Jude", which is a great song and easy to sing for the most part, except it has about 4 minutes of "na na-na na-na-na-naaaaaaas" at the end, which gets a bit tedious for both the singer and the audience. But all it took was an explosive r-r-rendition of "Boom Shake the Room" by Brendan to turn me into a believer. Who would believe that anyone could mimic the s-s-s-stutter of the Fresh Prince so perfectly? After that followed a cavalcade of hits all sung in fine style. The highlights were simply too numerous to mention them all here, though special mention should be made of Yalin (the only one of us who might actually sound good to an independent third party - the man can sing and he's got soul), Huy's (perhaps overly?) sensual dancing to "Genie in a Bottle" and Jenny's dramatic and heart-rending intepretation of "Total Eclipse of the Heart". I was blown away by our collective talent, flair and sense of drama. It was fun.

On Sunday night, I went to see Lauryn Hill, acclaimed R&B superstar, play her comeback gig in London. I was excited at the prospect of seeing L-Boogie in the flesh. And, for the 20 seconds or so between Ms Hill being announced on-stage and the time when her microphone started working (I mean who lets the lead singer get on stage without checking that her microphone works?!), those hopes were sustained. It was at that point, that Lauryn started shouting (not singing, oh no, she didn't do much of that) the lyrics to Bob Marley's "The Heathen" backed by a 14 piece band that was loud, but unfortunately not quite loud enough to drown out her squawling. She then proceeded to shout and rasp her way through what I had thought was an impressive back catalogue of tracks (including a number of Fugees tunes that she massacred by forgetting half the lyrics), before caterwauling through a number of Bob Marley covers (it took me about 3 minutes of listening to "Zimbabwe" before realising what she was singing) and then finally showing no mercy for her tortured audience by forcing them to listen to new material that sounded a whole lot like two cats fighting in a metal rubbish bin. She was bad, folks, she was BAD. Have you ever seen a crowd of several thousand people stand dead still and with their arms crossed throughout an entire 90 minute musical performance? I have. Half-way through the show, Lauryn asked why everyone in the balcony was so quiet. It was because they were LEAVING Lauryn. It's a shame. She used to be so good.

Next time I want to hear good music, I'm going back to Lucky Voice ...

Huy Le, Egomaniac - Part 2

Here is a picture of Huy Le, egomaniac, looking typically smug.

This is now three posts in a row in which I have written about Huy, which will no doubt only feed his ego further (it really doesn't take much). And my next proper posting is likely to be about our karaoke experience yesterday, and will no doubt feature a fairly favourable review of Huy's R&B stylings on the microphone. But after that I'm going to do my best to make sure my next few postings are Huy Le-free. Sorry, Huy.

Shout outs

So since my readership seems to consist predominantly of three people - Tim, Huy and Joyce - I thought it would be appropriate to give them some props by promoting their own writings.

Huy has been blogging for longer than all of us, and his experience shows. Although it pains me to say it, his blog is tremendously funny, well-written and entertaining. I strongly recommend you become a regular reader, but please don't leave too many complimentary comments, as flattery to Huy is like chocolate mud-cake to a diabetic fat man (too much isn't good for him). http://huythelad.blogspot.com

Joyce is taking a slightly different approach to blogging by writing fewer entries and packing more into them. Basically, it's a necessary step, since Joyce doesn't have much free time and needs to schedule blogging entries between gigs, theatre, weekends away and culinary excursions. Reading a post on Joyce's blog makes you realise just how much is going on out there in the big city and also just how much of it involves Joyce (i.e. a lot). http://jetsettingjoyce.googlepages.com/

Tim's blog is relatively new, but I'm sure he'll soon overtake all of us both on number and length of postings. He also tends towards weightier topics - his insights into politics, literature and film are well worth reading - even though you have to sift through the odd piece of drivel about a now-defunct football team known only as the "Bears". http://walkaboutcreek.blogspot.com

Huy Le, Egomaniac

When I started writing this blog I had no intention for it to become a forum for airing personal greivances. Unfortunately, that was somewhat naive of me. After all, blogging is all about the disenfranchised seeking a soap box from which to whinge. So listen up, good readers, and hear me complain about my "friend" Huy Le. Huy has an ego that is OUT OF CONTROL. It's evident in every aspect of his behaviour. Who else could care so much about the tightness of his shirts, about the number of mirrors in his one bedroom apartment and the amount of sweat that can pour from a bald guy's head? He's so self-centred that he complains about the fact that I don't write about him in my blog. I mean, it's like he's just ASSUMED that I have nothing better to write about than him and his total lack of perspective on the world. I mean, it's not like there aren't plenty of interesting things happening in my life that are far more important than Huy's warped sense of fashion. So listen carefully, Huy-Pac - my readers don't give a stuff about your super-pointy shoes or your skin-tight, stove-pipe, straight-leg, flat-front black pants. They're interested in more important issues. And I'm fully intending to write about some of those issues some time in the near future. So there.

Inspired?

Here's my latest art work for your review. What do you think? A work of rare genius? Or merely the greatest artistic statement of my generation? I will let my public decide.

How sad am I?

Pretty sad is the answer. I'm bored at work again. I mean, I've got a few things to do, but I'm not exactly run off my feet. I went through a brief (3 day) busy period last week when I had to work late, but that's over now. Sitting around for hours on end is pretty mind-numbing and right now my mind is so numb that I probably wouldn't feel anything if you opened up my skull and poked my brain with a fork. I mean I'm following the US Open golf online by watching the scores tick over on the leaderboard. And I've started to read up on golf statistics. For example, did you know that Ernie Els' average score per round over the 2004 golf season was 68.98. Not bad, hey? Um, yeah.

All the world's a stage

Jenny and Rob were in London last weekend and were kind enough to stop by my place to say hello and spend a bit of time with me exploring London. We managed to pack quite a bit into only a couple of days, but the highlight for me was definitely catching a show (an utterly fantastic production of The Merchant of Venice) at Shakespeare's Globe theatre on Southbank.

For those of you not familiar with the Globe, it's a fairly authentic recreation of the theatre in which Shakespeare used to put on his productions some 400 odd years ago. It's got a great atmosphere, because the seats go straight up, rather than on an angle, which means the whole crowd stays close to the action. And for the punters without much cash, there are £5 standing tickets, where you get to watch the play from the Shakespearian equivalent of a mosh pit.

We'd actually been hoping to get some cheap seats, but they were all sold out, so we went with the standing option, which turned out to be a brilliant choice. The standing crowd gets right up close to the action - you can even lean on the stage if you like (though you need to watch out for actors randomly vomiting off the stage during certain scenes). Being so close to the actors really gets you involved in the play and engages you in an entirely different way.

The play itself is of course a work of genius. Despite the blatant anti-semitism in parts, which is pretty confronting to a modern audience, the themes of love, trust and revenge that run through the play have enduring relevance. I've got to admit that I haven't always been a big Shakespeare fan - mostly because I'm not sharp enough to take in all the dialogue at the speed at which it's delivered. I mean, I did study The Tempest and Hamlet at school, but I didn't ever feel like I got a good handle on them. Even with this play, I got lost in parts, but the acting was good enough to carry me along anyway and even when the words were lost on me, the drama of the events unfolding on stage was not.

As you'll have gathered by now, this is not so much a blog posting as an excited rant about how great the Globe is, so I'll end it here and put you out of your misery. But next time you get a chance, I highly recommend that you get along to the theatre and check it out for yourself. You won't regret it.