January 26th, 2024

Today’s Playlist: Favorite Karaoke Songs

I’m 42 years old and a father of young kids, so I don’t do much, if any, karaoke these days. However, it used a to be a huge part of how I spent my free time, so here are my a few of my karaoke favorites:

We Didn’t Start the Fire (Billy Joel)-A go-to for me and one of my boys from college. We chose this one mainly for two reasons: Because we’re children of the ‘80s, and because in the pre-smartphone era this was one of the best ways to figure out the lyrics to a song.

Islands in the Stream (Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton)-This is a great song to do at karaoke early on in a relationship. First or second date, even. If he/she doesn’t know the song, that’s a huge red flag. If there’s no chemistry between the two of you on stage, that’s not great either. But if you don’t hook up that night after sharing space in the overwhelming aura of Kenny Rogers’ sexual magnetism, then there’s almost certainly no hope for the two of you as a couple going forward.

Neon Moon (Brooks & Dunn)-My future brother-in-law and I would knock this out every time we went to karaoke, which was many times over a several year period. The most memorable time we sang this song wasn’t at a karaoke bar, though, but rather in Las Vegas on the monorail, right after a Brooks & Dunn concert. I was roughly 27 drinks and several Oxycontin deep at this point and had in my possession one of those super tall beers that you see at ballgames. My BIL and I, super drunk yet energized by the excellent show Ronnie and Kix just put on, let fly an inspired rendition of their ‘90s classic while riding back to our hotel, with my 3-foot beer serving as my microphone. When we finished singing, a woman that I’d guess to be around 40-years old at the time (I was in my mid-20s) said to me, “If you’re not careful, that beer’s gonna end up in your lap.” I immediately responded, “Darlin’, if you’re not careful you’re gonna end up in my lap.” Easily one of the best lines I’ve ever said, but it unfortunately led nowhere, as I had but a few moments of consciousness left in my evening.

Can’t Help Falling in Love (Elvis Presley)-Overall I’m a shitty singer, but there are a few circumstances where I’m not totally inept. When I can get really deep with my voice, I feel like I’m at least passable. This song is a good example, but it’s gotta be the Elvis version. The one by UB40 is way too high.

When You Say Nothing at All (Keith Whitley)-If you’re in your twenties and want to get laid, just sing the shit out of this at any random karaoke bar frequented by older women. (Or men. Surely it’s not just the fairer sex that’s susceptible to the stylings of Mr. Whitley, right?) You don’t need to do a particularly good job, or even know the whole song. Just look sincere, emote, and, most importantly, really sell that you mean what you’re singing during the chorus. Do that, and the thrice-divorced 42-year-old with the fake hammers and too much makeup will be putty in your hands. Bourbon-soaked, cigarette-stained, HPV-positive putty.

No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn (Beastie Boys)-Rap/hip-hop at karaoke can be tricky. If you’re a huge fan of hip-hop like I am then you might want to pay homage, but you have to be careful. Rapping is incredibly difficult to be good at, especially when having to do it quickly for 16+ bars, so you need to be smart about the song you pick. Some dudes will get up there and try to knock out ‘Back That Azz Up’ by Juvenile or ‘Break Ya Neck’ by Busta Rhymes, but those are just way too fast. Great songs, yes, but they will 100% expose your amateur breath control and cadence, especially after a few beers. It also helps if you choose a song that doesn’t require you to sidestep the n-word. I’ve seen way too many drunk white dudes stumble into that particular briar patch. Never ends well.

Meet in the Middle (Diamond Rio)-This list is skewing country, and there’s a good reason why: Good country music is typically easy to memorize and sing along with. The best karaoke happens when the whole bar is singing along with you, and country classics like this one give you the best chance of making that happen.

Nice and Slow (Usher)- First off, it’s a legitimately great song that was huge when I was in high school. But the second reason I like this one is way dumber: In the middle of the song, there’s a part where Usher sings, “So call out my name…They call me U-S...H-E-R…R-A…Y-M…O-N-D…now baby tell me what you wanna do with me…” If you’ve ever heard the song, you know exactly what part I’m talking about. Well, my name is also twelve letters long and my last name ends in a letter that rhymes with ‘D’, so I can substitute my name here very easily. And have, many times. Like I said, super dumb. But when it’s already 1:00 AM and you still haven’t sealed things up with your buddy’s stepmom’s best friend, you do what you gotta do.

Born to Run (Bruce Springsteen)-I like ‘Dancing in the Dark’ as well, but ‘Born to Run’ is the slightly superior karaoke selection. It’s a great song that most folks of a certain age will know, and it’s a fairly easy sing.

Dixieland Delight (Alabama)-Easy to sing, a lot of folks know it, and there’s an extended fiddle solo towards the end that allows you and your buddies to two-step or hoedown around the stage. It’s my favorite karaoke song of all time, and I have dozens of wonderful memories of singing this song with my friends. ________________________________________________________________________________________

Once again, I’ll describe myself as a baseball guy. If you know anything about baseball, you know that most ballplayers have a ton of personality. They’re usually funny and quick-witted and that, combined with the egos involved and a propensity to creatively use profanity, can lead to many hilarious situations, both on and off the field. Here’s a power-ranking of some of the best such examples from my career. Names changed to protect the guilty.

10) Omaha, Omaha! 54’s the Mike!

One from my college playing days. We played a series at home against a team in our conference, and when the other team took the field for pregame in-and-out, you couldn’t help but notice that their shortstop was wearing a helmet. Not a batting helmet, mind you, which you’d sometimes see, but an honest-to-God football helmet, with a giant face mask and everything. (Apparently this young man had suffered a concussion the week prior, and this was the solution. 2002 was a wild time.) So of course, we’re hammering this poor kid about his helmet all weekend. He was really talented, though, as most college shortstops are, and the helmet didn’t stop him from making all sorts of plays. One of our best hitters, who I’ll call Kid, was robbed of base hits twice by this guy in the first game of the series, and you could tell he was pissed about it. Towards the end of game three of the series, Kid hits a missile right at the shortstop. This ball was SCALDED. It hit the lip of the infield, and then smoked the dude right square in the facemask of the football helmet he was wearing on a baseball field. To add insult to CTE, Kid gets to first base and yells, “Should have called an audible, cocksucker.”

9) Shoulda Valeted It

This was in college, and it’s late in a game where we’re getting blown out. The guy pitching for us gave up three LONG homeruns in one inning, and our hitting coach asked our head coach, “Hey, you gonna leave this guy in?” The head coach, a bit taken aback, said, “Yeah, we’re down 10 runs in the 8th. Why waste someone?” The hitting coach said, “No, it’s not that. But I just bought a new truck and it’s parked behind the left field fence, so if this guy’s staying in, I’m gonna go move it.”

8) You Ain’t That Tough

This is a second-hand story, but a gem. In my first year playing college baseball, our second baseman was a senior that was a four-year starter. He was a hell of a ballplayer that was talented, tough-nosed, and he didn’t take shit from anyone. I’ll call him Marty. (He’s a sweetheart off the field and is now the head football coach of a successful program in Texas.) The year before I got there, they were playing a game somewhere, and they were getting the shit kicked out of them. Marty didn’t take kindly to this, and apparently took his frustrations out on a freshman that just happened to be standing in the wrong spot at the wrong time. I wasn’t there, but in the retellings, Marty was very discourteous to this kid, in a loud and aggressive way. The next inning Marty’s roommate and best friend, Wyatt, decided to have some fun. He waited until Marty was about to hit, then put on a full set of catching gear like Mr. Miyagi in ‘The Karate Kid’ when he taught Daniel how to punch. Shin guards, mask, chest protector, the whole rig. He then walked right behind him and said, just loud enough for him to hear, “I tell you what, if Marty ever talks to me like that I’m gonna whip his ass.” Marty jerks his head around, looking for who said it (and probably a fight, as well), finds Wyatt geared up head-to-toe, and, despite his best efforts, had to laugh.

7) BOOM!

This is a famous story from the big leagues that most baseball dudes know, but it’s so good. In the retellings I’ve heard, a fairly well-known pitcher was facing the Phillies at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia in the ‘80s or early ‘90s (I’ve heard it was Mark Portugal, but don’t know that for certain). Even though he was a successful big leaguer for a long time, he was struggling on this day, something to the tune of several homeruns allowed in the first couple of innings. Well, back then at the Vet every time a Philly hit a homerun, fireworks would go off. After the third or fourth homerun the pitching coach goes out to talk to this guy, and the first thing the pitcher says is, “I’m fine, go back to the dugout.” The pitching coach’s response, forever etched in the lore of baseball stories, was perfect. “I know you’re fine, I’m just giving that asshole in charge of the fireworks time to reload.”

6) Astronomy Lesson

This happened when I was playing, but I’ve borrowed it many times as a coach. Sometime circa June 2001 in some shithole midwestern town I was in the outfield shagging BP when a pop-up was hit towards second base. Our starting second baseman, who was really good but also a bit lazy, went to catch this pop-up, but at the last second, he peeled away, and we all watched as the ball hit the ground. Our head coach, a guy that was seemingly born as a 37-year-old JUCO assistant with half a can of wintergreen Skoal in his mouth, said “Christ almighty, son, what the hell was that?” Our second baseman, knowing that he was about to be on the business end of an epic ass-chewing no matter what he said, couldn’t have chosen a worse combination of words: “The sun was in my eyes.” Our coach lost it. “The sun was in your eyes? THE GODDAMN SUN WAS IN YOUR EYES?!? You better hope that motherfucker’s in your eyes, ‘cause the day that thing burns out we’re all fucked!!!” 

5) Vision Test

I pitched for a bit in the professional baseball ranks, and on the first day of my only stint with a major league organization I…saw some stuff. A lot of stuff. I walk into the locker room, and literally the first thing I see is a kid I’ll call Prince. Prince was a 6’2”, 180-pound teenaged outfielder from Haiti with 2% body fat and was wearing a leopard print thong. I’d spent the last decade or so in locker rooms, so this was nothing new. I’d seen plenty of dudes wearing thongs, bikini briefs, boxers, tighty-whities, jock straps, or nothing. It’s just part of life when you’re a ballplayer; you see a lot of peen. But what I have never seen before, or since, was the type of unit Prince was working with. I swear on everything I love that bro had a dick the size of a bowling pin. MASSIVE. Why he even tried to conceal it in a thong that was like 140% too small for his crank was a mystery. It was like trying to cover the Gulf of Mexico with a tarp. Later that day our manager, a salty, red-assed lifer straight out of central casting that is one of the five coolest dudes I’ve ever met, asked me, “You see Prince’s dick?” I answered, “Yes sir.” He said, “That’s good. ‘Cause if you can’t see that sumbitch from across the room, you sure as shit can’t see the catcher’s mitt from 60 feet.”

4) Winning 101

I’ve been a coach for many years at the high school level, and I’ve moved around quite a bit. Most times when you change teaching/coaching jobs it’s the same: Go to a few meetings, take a few classes about district protocol, and meet the new folks you’ll be working with. Usually, it’s pretty rote and dull. Sometimes, though, one of the new folks leaves an impression on you that you’ll never forget. One time I went to work at a school north of Dallas. The head coach, a guy in his 50s, introduced himself to me and said, “Hey coach, nice to meet you. Glad you’re here. Tell me, what’s your philosophy on the best way to win?” I’m 27 or so at this time and think I’m hot shit, so I start to give him some longwinded answer about throwing strikes, hitting cutoff men, and being smart and aggressive on the bases. I’m gonna show this dude just how smart I am and how much I know about the game. Instead, he stops me almost before I can get started and says, “Obviously you need talent, but let me tell you the secret of winning ballgames: You need two types of kids on your team. You need the type that goes to Sunday school every week and listens to mama, and you need the type that drinks whiskey and eats pussy.” I was instantly a fan of this guy. We didn’t win much, but I enjoyed working for him and learned a ton. And by the way, he was right about needing two types of kids to win.

3) Put Some Ice on It

Another second-hand story, but one that sums up certain aspects of the junior college baseball experience really well (I didn’t play at a JUCO, but played with a bunch of dudes that did). A longtime, well respected and highly decorated junior college coach was talking to his team once about toughness, and the importance of playing through pain during a long season. Essentially, he was trying to impress upon them how vital it is to know whether you’re hurt, or whether you’re injured. If you’re just hurt, you grind through it. To make his point he asked a kid if he was 100% healthy at that point in the season, and the kid said, “No, my arm hurts a little bit.” The coach said, “Your arm hurts? I bet it does. Well guess what? My dick hurts, but I still gotta go home and fuck my wife. And I can’t call someone in from the bullpen to finish her off when I make a mess of things.” Words to live by, coach.

2) Alarm Side Run

A hypothetical: Let’s say you’re a 22-year-old college pitcher with a really good head of hair. There’s a young lady you’ve been spending time with the last few weeks, primarily between the hours of 3:00-6:00 AM; you may or may not ask her to stop by Jack in the Box and pick up some jalapeno poppers on her way over. Perhaps you had a shitty junior season (ERA of 5.76, what the fuck dude?), and want to do everything in your power to have a great senior year (besides stuff like working out, eating right, and not getting shit-housed every night). Then let’s say you decide one night that you’re gonna float the possibility of having sex on the pitcher’s mound of your school’s field to this young lady. She, in this extremely hypothetical scenario, has no problem with this, so you set it up. But it’s not enough to knock one out on the mound, you need to up the ante. So perhaps you tell a couple buddies. Who tell a couple more. And they tell their girlfriends. Next thing you know, you’re pulling showtime on the pitcher’s mound for a dozen or so people (Note: It likely won’t take you long to realize how massively uncool all of this was. In fact, you’d probably realize it that night, feel guilty, and tell her what was really going on. She might be apt to shrug and say, “I figured something was up when I saw someone light a cigarette. No big deal. Wanna go back and finish?” And yes, I realize that her retroactive consent doesn’t absolve me from being an asshole.) Here’s the point I’m building to: If you ever find yourself in this extremely hypothetical situation, do yourself a favor and tell your all-conference leadoff hitter to not pull the fire alarm, which would set off a bunch of sirens and light the place up like it’s Game Seven. Someone, in theory, could have ripped their favorite pair of jeans hopping the fence trying to get out of there.

1) Rotisserie League

I swear that what you’re about to read is real. You won’t believe me, but this story happened exactly as I’m about to describe it. If I wouldn’t have seen it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears, I wouldn’t believe it, but this 1000% happened. This was in a college summer league I was playing in. We played at a shitty park that was way worse than the average high school field, and our infielders, particularly our shortstops, were making a ton of errors one homestand. Our coach, the same guy that reminded us about the importance of the sun, said jokingly one day, “We need to sacrifice a live chicken or something at shortstop to help break whatever curse we have.” A couple games later, we made five errors in the infield. The next day, our coach goes to the supermarket and buys the biggest whole chicken he could find, about four pounds or so. He then sets the chicken at shortstop before batting practice and said, “I bet I could teach this chicken to field a groundball better than you guys.” One of the pitchers gets his spare glove, then kind of sets it on one of the wings of the chicken. Ha-ha, funny, right? The chicken has a glove on! Maybe we won’t make a dozen errors tonight! We had a good laugh about it. Not two minutes later a ball gets hit, and (I SWEAR I’m not making this up) lands SMACK IN THE MIDDLE of the glove the chicken was wearing. And it stays there. Ummm…did the chicken just catch one? Holy shit, the chicken just caught one! There are some things you never forget, and seeing a dead bird catch a line drive then hearing a grown man scream, “JESUS TITTY FUCKING CHRIST, THE CHICKEN CAUGHT IT!!!” is one of them. 

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That’s all I got this week. Thanks for reading. Don’t be an asshole.