this is what you want to happen when you kara-ogre it up.

so yeh first nite in town wheeeeeeeeeee i need a lot of makeup apparantly kuz chica does make-up for celebs or whatever and we're tipsy and eccentric zing bang pow!



i had to give that shirt back to the spaniard.




then of course there is the requisite so damn cool i am on the subway it is 4 am etcetera etcetera poseur shot



and just in case you are not a smart person, this is what i look like these days when i am wearing a different hat and there is bad camera lighting.

ok so jamie and i have been discussing this new wave blogthingy and all the pain it brings back of that week we hung around one another because well, that's what pictures do. ps it is jamie's birthday tomorrow so if you are a nice person which i know you are, you will say something nice to him and also ps john lennon's birthday would have been saturday if that prick wasn't a big selfish douchebag and made catcher in the rye his bible, FUCK!



ok so that's the jess-man and i at the korean karaoke place somewhere and my friends were upstairs and didn't think to come down and know i was down there doing the funkydace and jesse was kicking over this big basin of ice and beers across the floor because he is awesome and a klutz.

karaoke-hopping is what you have to do if you're gonna take this shit seriously. you can stay at the same place all nite all week long or you can be superstar and spread yer shit waaaaaaaaaaay out there, so do that, make friends all over town, especially one like this guy



because that is what karaoke is all about, peace brotha, muthafuckin' peace, i am singing my song and you are singing your song and when you take my picture i take your picture when you clap for me i lose my fuckin shit for you and go yeah yeah YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and then i talk about you for a long long time and so does jamie because we remember everything and i remember pokey told me why karaoke made her feel all awesome for days and days afterward because people come up to you and are all wow you were really good and yeh usually they're drunk but so what, the emotion is there, the feeling, the intimacy, whathaveyou, karaoke + you = rockstar.

oh and ps this is still my favorite karaoke picture. it's emotioneric. he takes pictures of hisself acting out emotions. fucking brilliant.

so there i am wearing my big-boobed friend's wig first nite in town wearing the spaniard's shirt and the fakedidas jersey from honest ed's and my party pants which i still own to this day and i actually wash them now...



and jamie is all this is nucking futs!

but before all that jamie and i are at planet thai eating vegetables and complaining about the sound of water and i was such a dirtbag and greasy and felt rude for it but could ya tell?



all i know is i had to drink coke and eat every single thing on the menu at the same time and pretend my picture was not being taken while it was being taken 'cos although yes, i like my picture taken i also am shy about it in public so i make this dumb hee-haw sneer and it is called the "angry face" though it should be called the "shy, loser-idiot face"



oh look there i am again.

this image i entitle adoraoke because essentially this is what karaoke is all about. you see the hot thing looking up at me and then dude in the back is all this is pretty good i feel it not gonna show it though and then other personnes there sort of rocking out talking boozing shakespearean posing figaro figaro style, whatever, this all began at blu lounge in williamsburg, brooklyn and this is the nite i met the spy who was a host there and he had a buddy who co-hosted and to this day they are doing funny little karaoke party-things all over nyc and i have never been to one but jamie has and he was like yah they did axl and slash and whatever and i was like that's fine....



see that's i and the spy.

lots of drama happens with karaoke, people want to fuck each other and out rock one another and everyone wants the last song and sid told me he spits at people when he sings and i was like what if they spit bullets at you? um hello? this is new wavaoke here not tonite i'm gonna dieaoke.

so the spy and his buddy started out here and i have no idea how it's going for them tho i do get the forwards and no i am not gonna link and/or promote it/them, the way i see it, really, karaoking these days, finding the karaoke stars and where they be at is like brandon and that make-out slut trying to find the rave in 90210 and they have to bring a friggin' egg to this shopkeeper and he tells them where it is and brandon and the girl are all fucked and making out on the hood of some car and the walsh's were like brandon! and i was all grade one styles and shouldn't have been watching 90210 but come on, 90210!

so yeh new wavaoke equates raves before they got gay and yes when i say gay i mean homosexual as in 13 year olds on e/mdma with glitter in their eyeballs giving massages on the floor and dying because THEY LOVE THE MUSIC SO MUCH!

right....



so i email/call jamie and say i am coming there because i am trying to make karaoke happen in toronto and ride my bicycle and pay rent and have relationships on top of relationships and friends who i adore and admire and they are stepping on my heart and everything is too raymi right now here i come can you help me and he is like sure! and i am like cool! and i am like see ya toronto and ps that picture up there is me not in toronto, like on the way to gayaoke or some other something i was dragging jamie to all over town that week, sorry jamie.

i'm gonna post this now before i have an aneurysm.

hi, i'm lauren, pronounced luh-ren, though you may know me by raymi or raymi the minx or something like that.

anyway.

i have not "blogged" in a long time and now, here i am, "blogging" and fiddling and tinkering and getting mad at my memory and inanimate objects and looking at old photos on ten trillion CD's and then i thought alright fine, i'll tell them how i invented karaoke, and no, not literally invented karaoke, because when i claim to have invented something, i say it in this voice i have, you know, anyway, i've been saying "i invented: < insert something i didn't invent here > " for awhile now, all over the place, in real life, email, to the cat, to the moon, cigarette packs, you get the idea.



jack falcon and i coined the term "i invented it" along with many other suppose to be funny terms, irrelevant i know, off-topic, no shit, important? Absolutely.

why and how come?

well my friends, everything that i tell you is important, because it is how i am, what i am, and, that i am.

ok so, karaoke, right, jack and i use to live together with our pals in Brooklyn and we were all, for the most part, pretty broke, and, if you were a person living in any borough of NYC from 2000 to now, you were/are broke too, and you were prolly called a hipster 'cos well, you are arty and poor so you wear garbage-clothes and you look really fucking cool and you have "massive sex appeal" and wear flip flops with corduroys and carry stacks of books around and smoke butts on the curb and the only reason you are cool is because you are not from new york city, you just live/d there because you can be away from all the retarded puckbags you grew up with...

jack and i had zero dollars and we fought a lot because we were starving and it was really hot that summer in nu yawk and i was pretending to intern at this magazine-thing and bartend their boozefests on Fridays and live off hardware store savings from Canada and jack was doin' art-installations, programming, whathaveyou, but what we really did was this totally frigginly awesome thing, the awesomest of all awesomes, something they all did, to forget about being poor and hot and hip unemployed drunk not in-shape or having long pretty girl hair...



and yes it was called karaoke, that awesome something, and it was/is the second-bestest thing next to grabbing a microphone up off the pukey floor and screaming into it with some faggot on the decks going i am amazing and soon i have to cart all the records in the entire universe across the city to another bar so another amazing screamer can go BLARGGGH RAGE BLAAAAAAAAWHHHH FREESTYLE RAWR!!! into a microphone and then everyone starts screaming and discussing the original rhymes or whatever, pfft.

oh right, freestyle, what a farce that crap truely is.

i mean, you come up with something amazing and beautiful, or aspire to anyhow, and then people hear it at the show-thing, that way, just the once, and they is never going to hear it that fuckin' cool ever again.

like a snowflake, NO freestyle jibberjabber dub-stylee garage rap bluesy fauxtown trip hop i don't give a shit, is, will, ever, be the same, ever, so deal with it, rapstar.

and ps garage music sucks.

moreover, karaoke is better by far because you have the words you have the little dance you do and you have lists of songs that you know, not only that, you go with your loser friends and you get to do all your inside joke over the mic banter and call them fat and they won't go choke choke eminem blargh 8 mile holy wow on you, they won't sit there shaking their head silently dissappointed that you did not or could not out 8 mile road the other guy because they are too busy laughing and crying and hugging everyone else and going that is my friend and he just sang that Neil Diamond song SO GOOD!

you know what i mean.

So we went to this spot near Union Square, Manhattan and did that a lot, we dragged friends there together as well as independently and had a lot of fun and i will never ever forget this one guy singing new york, new york around the room and it was the last time jack and i went there together before i went back to Canada and after 9/11 and everyone was united and it was bittersweet and we were poor and drunk and awfully sad and this guy was singing new york, new york and it was a beautiful moment.

so eventually, i was back in canada and jack stayed in brooklyn then went to the east coast where i met up with him for a bit and we karaoke'd over there awhile and all over in-between with a re-visit to the spot near Union Square in Manhattan during a visit around st.patrick's day and all this other stuff happened and so on then i moved back to canada when i turned 19, and lived in toronto for about a year and that, my friends, is somewhat, how this anthem begins.