Another happy Friday to you! Later this weekend I’ll be headed to the great state of Maryland, to visit friends in the Baltimore area. I’ll be taking advantage of a promotion from Megabus that’s enabling me to get from New York City to White Marsh, Maryland for zero dollars round-trip (plus a fifty-cent service charge). In honour of that trip, this week’s featured photo comes from one of my many previous visits to Maryland (I did my undergraduate university studies at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, so I’ve spent quite a bit of time in that state). The image is of an abandoned house in the town of Sudlersville, on Maryland’s Eastern shore:
As you can see, this erstwhile residence is heavily overgrown with ivy, and generally has that “life after people” look about it.
This photo was taken in September 2005. So the house is probably even more decrepit now!
Sharing is caring! If you liked this post, please tell people about it!
In the post that celebrated my first blogoversary earlier this month, I mentioned that I was looking forward to attending the latest Santacon as eagerly as I was awaiting any of my upcoming international travels. And this past Saturday, Santacon once again exceeded my expectations.
For the uninitiated, Santacon is an annual, all-day-long gathering of thousands of people dressed as Santas as well as an assortment of other characters (some of whom relate to the holiday season and some of whom have no particular connection to this time of year). The Santaconners run around throughout the city, pausing at various landmarks as well as watering holes. Santacon is held in dozens of countries around the world, but the one in New York City generally has the largest turnout. Ellen of the travel blog “The Time-Crunched Traveler” included Santacon on her list of “10 ways to celebrate Christmas in New York City”. (However, Ellen and I have a friendly disagreement about Santacon, as she doesn’t appreciate the event in the way that I do. In fact, she wrote, “[Santacon] is not really something I have a desire to actually participate in.” But as far as I’m concerned, she’s missing out! :))
My blog post about the 2011 edition of Santacon, which you can read here, provides more background on what Santacon is all about.
The 2012 Santacon in New York City got underway in Hudson River Park at Pier 84, at 10:00 a.m.
Some of the many assembled participants at the starting location: Hudson River Park at Pier 84. Of course, there were far too many Santas to fit in the frame of a single shot.
This is what happens when Santas start drinking at 10 a.m.
In the backdrop in these shots you can see the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, a floating museum built on an aircraft carrier. The Intrepid was where I visited a Space Shuttle in August 2012.
Here I am at Santacon 2012, with one of the best Santas I’ve ever seen:
The guy standing next to me here looked the most authentic of any of the thousands of Santas in attendance, even though he wasn’t actually wearing a traditional Santa suit.
One of the things that makes Santacon so special is the boundless creativity displayed by the participants. Continue reading →
This past Labor Day weekend (a holiday weekend in the United States that falls in early September), I visited Los Angeles for a few days. Prior to September 2012, I’d been to that city four times. I therefore had already experienced many of the area’s signature attractions, such as the La Brea Tar Pits, the Griffith Observatory, the Universal Studios theme park, the Getty Center museum, and Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. This time around, I focused on investigating some of L.A.’s lesser-known treasures. Of course, as with just about any H-Bomb vacation, I also searched for karaoke. 🙂
Somehow, even though over three months have gone by since that trip, I haven’t yet blogged about it. It’s time to get caught up already! This will be the first of two articles recapping that weekend.
I arrived at LAX late on Friday night and headed to my hotel in Hollywood, near the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and North Highland Avenue. I really like staying in that area. In contrast to much of the sprawling, freeway-centric metropolis that is Los Angeles, that section of Hollywood is easily walkable — an important consideration for me, since I refuse to drive ever. Even in California. 🙂 It did help, though, that I have friends with cars who live in the area and were nice enough to take me around town. At the same time, it was good to be able to walk around on my own in the vicinity of my hotel.
A MACABRE MUSEUM, A QUIRKY HOUSE, AND A BREATHTAKING VIEW
Okay, so I’m a little late with last week’s Friday photo. 🙂 But thanks to the magic of backdating, this post will still appear in my archives as a Friday entry!
The Boneyard is a junkyard of discarded neon signs in downtown Las Vegas. The signs date as far back as the 1930s. Public tours of the Boneyard are offered by the Neon Museum, which opened a brand-new Visitors’ Center last month.
My favourite section of the Boneyard is what I call Fast Food Gulch: a grouping of signs from some of Sin City’s more healthy dining alternatives.
This photo was taken during my visit to Las Vegas in March 2009. It came at a price: after I wandered away from the tour to photograph these fast food signs (which were tucked away in the back of the lot), I accidentally got locked in to the Boneyard. Luckily the Neon Museum folks hadn’t wandered too far from the gate by the time I noticed that they were gone, and they quickly unlocked the gate and let me out. 🙂
Click here to follow me on Twitter! And click here to follow me on Instagram!
Today’s featured photo is of a bizarre-looking home in Naucalpan, a suburb of Mexico City. The residence is called the “Nautilus house” due to its resemblance to a nautilus shell:
I saw this house, which was designed by Mexican architect Javier Senosiain, during my visit to the greater Mexico City area in May 2011. I actually toured the Nautilus house as a special guest of the owners (who can be seen entering the house in the photo above). To read more about that trip of mine to Mexico City — including the night when a taxi driver robbed me and left me in the middle of nowhere — go here.
Click here to follow me on Twitter! And click here to follow me on Instagram!
Space flight is the fulfillment of mankind’s deepest aspirations and impulses. While an inveterate traveler like myself is proud of the wanderlust that pushes me to circle the globe, I’m in awe of those courageous individuals who slip the surly bonds of Earth and voyage to the outer limits of the distances that technology permits us to traverse. Just the fact that astronauts can put up with g-forces and weightlessness is impressive to me; I would never survive a single session in the “Vomit Comet” that astronauts are taken up in as part of their training, and even a ferry ride in choppy seas makes me queasy. And over a half-century after Yuri Gagarin etched his name into the history books, space travel remains a dangerous proposition (just as ocean crossings on this planet once were). I salute the men and women who place their lives on the line in service of the advancement of science — and of helping to push the human race forward.
On a Saturday afternoon in August 2012, I paid homage to the American space program, and some of the hardy individuals who’ve populated it, by visiting the original Space Shuttle. Continue reading →
One increasingly popular variant of karaoke is “live band” karaoke. As its name suggests, the instrumental accompaniment in this version is supplied by actual band members rather than CD’s or MP3’s. (A scene from a typical night of live band karaoke, at some random bar in North Carolina that I’ve never been to, is shown in the photo on the left.) I’m not generally a fan of live band karaoke, for a couple of reasons. First, the song list is limited to the repertoire of the band. Typically this results in a choice from among a mere several hundred tunes, rather than the tens of thousands of song offerings at the best venues for “traditional” karaoke. Second, because the song isn’t coming from a pre-recorded medium, there’s no source of data to feed the lyrics to a video monitor. Thus, in the live-band karaoke format, you either must have the words memorized, or must supply your own copy of them. (To meet that need, you might end up referring to the lyrics in the form of a printout you made from the internet, or on the screen of your smartphone. This creates an additional drawback: reading from an elevated screen, as you would do at an ordinary karaoke venue, can be like reading a speech from a teleprompter, in that it allows you to still engage with the audience. In contrast, repeatedly staring down at a cheat-sheet that you’re holding in your hands is much more likely to get in the way of your making eye contact with the crowd.) Relatedly, you’re largely on your own for synchronizing the vocals with the instrumental backing. While the band will provide you with some cues, you can’t rely on every single word of the song changing colour at the appropriate time to prompt you throughout the song.
For some people, these disadvantages of live-band karaoke are outweighed by the benefits of an experience that simulates fronting for a rock band. I have to say, I have an enormous amount of respect for lead singers of real bands, who are required to memorize the words to dozens of songs at any given time, and who need to have perfect timing as well as superior vocal abilities.
Despite my general disdain for live-band karaoke, one night each year I participate in an activity that closely resembles it. Continue reading →
I was just in Las Vegas. The impetus for the trip (as if an excuse is ever needed to travel to that city) was my participation in the second annual Trivia Championships of North America (TCONA). But I couldn’t go to Las Vegas, of all places, without getting in some karaoke! And so, while I enjoyed immensely the various tests of knowledge that brought me to town, and while it was fun hanging out with the interesting people who were my fellow TCONA attendees, I had to tear myself away from all that. I needed to hit some karaoke venues on the Las Vegas Strip. Over the course of the weekend, I proceeded to sing at the two places that are, in a city that doesn’t lack for karaoke options, my very favourite karaoke haunts. I’m happy to report that at both of those places, the karaoke was just as spectacular as I’d recalled it being. Continue reading →
This Thursday, I’m flying to Las Vegas. Naturally, I’ll be doing some singing while in town. My upcoming trip to Sin City will be my fifth time there; and as it approaches I’m reminded of some of the great times I’ve enjoyed in Las Vegas in the past. But I’m also reminded of a colossal disappointment that I suffered at the hands of Barry Manilow during a Vegas vacation in 2009. I’m going to reprint here, verbatim, the text of a heartfelt letter that I sent to Mr. Manilow (with a copy to his agent) in the aftermath of that incident; the letter speaks for itself regarding how Barry wronged me. Then I’ll share some parting thoughts.
Before I get to the letter, I also want to apologize to you, my readers, for the long interval between blog posts. In my previous article, I promised that the subject of my next posting would be my September 2010 trip to Easter Island. I’m still working on that essay; it’s a wide-ranging account of my experiences on the island also known as Rapa Nui, and it’s taken longer than anticipated to edit my recollections and photos into a coherent form that’s ready for publishing. (Also, in all candor, it can be tough sticking to a regular schedule when you’re writing for your own blog and don’t have an editor pushing you to meet deadlines.) However, I’ve reached the point where I no longer want my entire blog to be on hold just because of delays in completing one post. So while my Easter Island memoir will soon appear in this space, I’ll publish articles on other subjects in the interim — including some dispatches live from Las Vegas later this week! And now, without further delay, here’s the letter that explains my antipathy towards Barry Manilow.
Dear Mr. Manilow:
I am writing to express how upset I am about your last-minute cancellation of your Las Vegas concert on Friday, March, 20, 2009, which my friend David and I had tickets to attend. Enclosed is a copy of my ticket order confirmation. Continue reading →
Several nights before I flew to Mexico City, I was shaken up by a disturbing nightmare. In the dream, there was a cloud on the ground and I stepped onto it; the cloud was then magically transformed into a glacier. Walking on the glacier, I fell into a hidden crevasse and started plummeting for what would certainly be hundreds of feet. Even if I survived the fall, I knew I would end up too far below the surface to ever climb out or be found by rescuers. And I thought to myself, “This is what it feels like to know I’m about to die.” Then I woke up.
One year ago this weekend — Memorial Day weekend in the United States — I flew to Mexico City because I’d never been to Mexico, and that city was geographically close enough (roughly a four hour flight from Newark Liberty International Airport to Benito Juarez International Airport near Mexico City) that it would be easy to jet down there for a long weekend and check off another country on my World Karaoke Tour. The concept here was similar to the reasoning I’d employed when I added Canada to the tour via a weekend jaunt to Montreal in August 2010. I’m constantly looking to increase the tally of countries in which I’ve sung; and while I understandably get enthused over exotic locales like Easter Island, there’s no reason for me to overlook the “easy” destinations (especially those that are immediately adjacent to my home country). Still, as I headed to the airport, my excitement was tempered by a sense of disquiet. I wondered whether my nightmare portended a tragic outcome for this journey. My initial reaction was to associate the dream with my fear of flying, and to interpret it as a premonition of a plane crash (This speculation was heightened as a result of bad weather in New York on the day of my departure; I become especially nervous when there’s a predicted risk of thunderstorms around the time of takeoff). But did the dream serve as a more generalized warning regarding my impending travel? In the dream, stepping onto the cloud seemed innocuous enough at the time; but it became the type of fateful and irreversible decision that would inexorably lead to my demise.
Saturday morning and afternoon: sightseeing
Things started out innocently enough. I arrived in Mexico’s capital city on a Friday night. On Saturday morning, I headed out to Mexico City’s newest museum: El Museo Soumaya (see photo, above right), which had just opened about two months prior to my visit.
This museum displays the art collection of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú, who according to Forbes is the wealthiest man in the world. The emphasis of the Soumaya’s holdings is on European and Mexican art. Among the highlights is a large trove of Rodin sculptures, including a copy of “Le Penseur” (“The Thinker”). Also included are works by such artists as Picasso, Monet, Matisse, Renoir, Van Gogh, Dali, Miró, El Greco, Tintoretto, and (as you would expect in a Mexican museum) Diego Rivera. Moreover, the Soumaya is one of those museums whose architecture is as notable as the treasures it houses. As shown here, the interior of the Soumaya is evocative of New York City’s Guggenheim, with the focal point a gently sloping ramp that curves upward and gradually ascends to the top level. The concept may not be original, but it’s well-executed.
After getting some culture in the museum, I explored Mexican history at the Palacio Nacional (National Palace). One of the signature attractions of the palace is its murals by Diego Rivera that vividly dramatize his country’s past.
Then I had a stop to make outside the city. I made an excursion to the suburb of Naucalpan, to experience a very distinctive-looking house. That home is known unofficially as the “Nautilus house,” due to its resemblance to the sea creature of that name. I’d come across a photo of the Nautilus house on the internet, while perusing a website that showed examples of unusual architecture from around the world. When I realized that this unique home was located in the vicinity of Mexico City, and that I would be visiting that very metropolis, I knew I had to see such an architectural gem in person. Only one problem: despite my formidable googling skills, I couldn’t find an address for the Nautilus house. What to do?
I took a chance and emailed the architect who had designed the Nautilus house. I didn’t even expect to hear back. But his firm responded and contacted the house’s owners (yes, there’s a family that enjoys the enviable distinction of living in this remarkable abode!). The result: I was invited to visit the Nautilus house as a special guest of the owners.
So on the Saturday afternoon of my weekend in Mexico, I ventured out to Naucalpan (my mode of transportation was a private car service arranged by my hotel, and that was a good choice because even with detailed directions, the house was hard to find. My driver, however, was able to telephone the house and converse with the residents in Spanish to obtain the necessary navigational assistance). The Nautilus house is situated in a gated enclave that abounds with elegant homes, but those other residences are attractive in a much more conventional way. I could only imagine what the neighbors think of this bizarre habitation in their midst.
Upon my arrival at the Nautilus house, I was treated to outstanding hospitality by the occupants. They welcomed me inside and gave me a full tour. As you can see in the photo on the left, the interior was just as spectacular as the exterior. (More photos taken inside the Nautilus house can be seen in the full album of photos from my Mexico City weekend, which you can view here.) The patriarch of the household and his son then took me for a walk around the neighborhood. By the way, it turned out that conversing with the family was not a problem, as its members spoke English fluently.
Saturday night: karaoke
I’d already had a full day and seen some cool stuff; but after I circled back to Mexico City, it was time for the activity that supplied the principal purpose of my trip. I was off to sing karaoke! Continue reading →
When most people from other parts of the world think about New York City, they visualize Manhattan. But the Big Apple’s most populous borough, and one whose grittiness perhaps better represents the real spirit of New York, is Brooklyn. Indeed, if Brooklyn had not been consolidated into New York City in 1898 but had instead remained independent, it would, even today, remain the fourth largest city in the United States — just as depicted on the sign featured in the opening credits to Welcome Back Kotter. I enjoy spending time in Brooklyn; visiting Brooklyn Bridge Park, and strolling the boardwalk at Coney Island, are two of my very favorite things to do in this city.
One thing that my forays into Brooklyn had never included, prior to Sunday night, was karaoke singing. In the over 16 years that I’ve been a New York City resident, I’ve sung in Manhattan on hundreds of different occasions; and I’ve also made multiple karaoke appearances in the borough of Queens. But Brooklyn had never witnessed an H-Bomb performance. Until now. Continue reading →
Two weeks ago, Portugal became country no. 24 on my World Karaoke Tour. This is the first in a series of posts that will review the first 23 countries on that tour. Today our topic is the place where it all began — the U.S. of A. In this, my most personal post yet, I discuss how I was first exposed to karaoke nearly 21 years ago, and how that hobby gradually came to assume a position of pre-eminence in my life.
It started with a nursery rhyme. Although I’ve sung hundreds of different songs over the years, the very first time that I grabbed a karaoke mic the song I belted out was “The Farmer In The Dell.”
The first ten years: 1991-2001
On the night of March 4, 1991, I was celebrating my 21st birthday. I was living with my parents in my hometown of West Orange, New Jersey; the previous year I’d graduated from Johns Hopkins University, and I was in the midst of a two year stint as a paralegal at a small law firm in Newark. My enrollment in law school was still nearly a year and a half away.
This was the milestone birthday on which I became “legal” to purchase alcoholic beverages in the United States. Of course, it was not as if I’d never imbibed (or never become intoxicated); but reaching the magic age of 21 still carried a certain symbolism.
To honor the occasion, I was hanging out with my high school friends Jon and Andrew, who had also returned to West Orange after their university studies. During the course of our evening wanderings, we entered a bar in West Orange that happened to be holding a karaoke night. Karaoke was relatively new to the United States at that point. The first karaoke bar in the country had opened in Burbank, California in 1982; nine years later, karaoke was still relatively unknown in the U.S. I’d first become acquainted with the concept while watching an episode of The Simpsons that aired on January 24, 1991. In that episode, Bart and Lisa Simpson had sung the theme song from Shaft at a Springfield-area sushi restaurant.
Now, less than six weeks later, I found myself in the presence of karaoke for the first time. I flipped through the song book, in search of a song title and number to submit to the KJ. Continue reading →
I’m in Washington, DC right now. Back in November, I took a ride in Joel Laguidao’s karaoke cab in Northern Virginia. That went pretty well and I had a great time. So this week, Joel called me and told me that a TV news crew from a Taiwanese station, TVBS, would be filming a segment in his cab; and he invited me to go for another ride with him, this time in the presence of the Taiwanese TV people. I took Joel up on his offer and rode the train down to D.C. on Saturday afternoon. On Saturday night, the TVBS cameraman filmed me while I was singing in Joel’s cab (I sang “La Bamba” and “New York State of Mind”); and then a reporter from the station interviewed me. There’s no guarantee that any of this raw H-Bomb footage will make it on the air; and even if it does, I may not like the way I look. 🙂 But if there turn out to be any videos worth sharing, you’ll see them here. And hopefully, this will be just the first of many opportunities for me to gain international media exposure for my World Karaoke Tour.
The wheel. The printing press. The telephone. The automobile. Aviation. Radio and television. The internet. These are among the transformative inventions that improved the quality of people’s lives and changed the course of human history. If you ask me, karaoke belongs on that list. But where did it come from?
The Japanese origins of karaoke are well-known, although the particular man who is credited with those origins has not become the household name that he deserves to be. Daisuke Inoue, an unassuming Osakan, gifted karaoke to the world in 1971. And yes, I would rank him right up there with the likes of Gutenberg and the Wright Brothers. 🙂
Fewer people are versed in the history of karaoke in the United States. Inoue’s invention reached critical mass in the U.S. in the 1990s, but its American presence dates back somewhat earlier than that. Appropriately enough, karaoke made its American debut near Hollywood, the global epicenter of the entertainment industry. The first venue not only in the United States, but in all of the Western hemisphere, to offer the chance to sing with pre-recorded instrumental accompaniment was the Dimples Supper Club (also known as Dimples Showcase) in Burbank, California.
Named for a Shirley Temple movie, Dimples opened its doors in 1982, and its customers have been singing their hearts out ever since. For anyone serious about conducting a World Karaoke Tour, Dimples is a required destination. If you want to explore La-La Land in all its glory, a visit to Dimples is just as integral to the Hollywood experience as the Universal Studios tour or Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.
Dimples is truly an institution in the Los Angeles area, and has forged a particularly robust connection with nearby Hollywood. Numerous television programs have spotlighted Dimples, and countless stars of TV and film, as well as musical recording artists, have graced its karaoke stage. Some of its walls are adorned with autographed photos of famous guests who’ve dropped by to sing. Oddly enough, one of the celebs who hangs out most frequently at Dimples is Dennis Haskins, who played Principal Richard Belding on the classic Saturday morning television series from the early 1990s, “Saved by the Bell” (he also reprised that role in the spinoff “Saved by the Bell: the New Class”). Hey, I said he was a celebrity; I didn’t say he was an A-lister. 🙂 But he deserves props for his excellent choice of hobbies. Here you can watch him doing a number by Tom Jones. Say what you will about Dennis Haskins, the man knows how to put on a show:
Haskins, who reportedly has been a regular at Dimples since 2002, has actually released a CD compilation of his karaoke stylings (you can also download the tracks individually as MP3s). But I digress.
I’ve been to Dimples twice so far: in November 2009, and July 2011. The decor of Dimples can best be described as . . . garish. The stage area is festooned with props, and singers are regularly encouraged to don bizarre hats and other unusual headgear. For example, the last time that I took to that stage, proprietor Sal Ferraro insisted that I wear a Viking helmet. Because apparently, nothing says “karaoke” like a pair of Viking horns protruding from your head. Naturally, I obliged.
One of the coolest features that Dimples boasts is its live video feed. If you’re singing on the Dimples stage at any time between 6:00 pm and 2:00 am, Pacific time, people all over the world can go online and watch your performance in real time! (another notable karaoke bar with a live webcam broadcasting from its stage is the Cats Meow in New Orleans. As you might expect, I’ve been to that legendary Big Easy karaoke joint too). In addition, after your song is finished, the Dimples management presents you with a free DVD and Polaroid photograph of your performance. Typically, the person bringing these mementoes to your table is Sal himself, who often goes by the moniker “Mr. Dimples” (Sal is an interesting man in many respects, who has visited over 100 countries, thereby qualifying him for membership in the prestigious Travelers’ Century Club. However, the Dimples website, while supplying this tidbit, does not indicate in how many of those countries he’s sung karaoke). Admittedly, the need for such recordings to be supplied by the establishment is greatly diminished in an age where everyone has a smartphone that shoots HD video. But it’s still a nice touch. Plus, the DVD is of superior quality to anything your inebriated friends are likely to produce.
Sal’s restaurant also offers an extensive dinner menu, and it’s certainly a nice bonus when the available victuals at a karaoke establishment extend beyond mere “bar food.”
Here’s a video from my first Dimples appearance, in November 2009. The song is “At this Moment” by Billy Vera & the Beaters, perhaps best known as the love theme for Alex P. Keaton and Ellen Reed on the 1980s sitcom “Family Ties.” I don’t know what the weird background noise is that sounds like running water (I pulled the video off the complimentary DVD that Dimples provided to me). But I wanted to include this video in this post, because “At this Moment” is a reasonable candidate for my best song:
And here’s a video from my July 2011 visit to Dimples, during which I performed a duet of The Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me,” with my friend Erica:
Update (April 2013): My 2011 visit to Dimples was not particularly enjoyable. On that Saturday night, Ferraro, who was acting as karaoke host, was enforcing a policy that, once you’d sung your first song, you would not be called up to the stage again until everyone else who wished to sing had gotten at least one song in (regardless of whether they’d entered the building five minutes ago or five hours ago). As a result, I was made to wait two and a half hours between songs; the constant influx of newly arriving patrons resulted in my being pushed further and further back in the queue. (Most professional karaoke hosts work new singers into the rotation in a staggered manner.) The unacceptably long wait to sing my second song of the evening was upsetting to me, and led me to avoid Dimples during a subsequent visit to Los Angeles in 2012.
In recent years, it wasn’t just me who’d been turned off by Dimples. The bar was perceived as being in a state of decline. But it’s recently undergone an extensive makeover that was overseen by the reality television series, “Bar Rescue”. You can read about that overhaul here. The changes that have been made — including a revamping of the bar’s interior and the promotion of a staff member to replace the octogenarian Ferraro as karaoke host — should reinvigorate Dimples. Although I’d previously felt that I didn’t need to go back to Dimples again, I’m now inclined to give it another chance during my next visit to the area in September 2013. It’s also good to know that a venue with such an illustrious history now has a bright future.
If you enjoy karaoke and your travels bring you anywhere near Los Angeles, you should give strong consideration to spending an evening at Dimples. At the very least, you’ll be able to say that you sang at the place that introduced Daisuke Inoue’s invention to North America. Note that if you go, the renovated interior will look considerably different, and much less garish, than in the photo and videos above.
First of all, I want to say that I’m blown away by the response that my previous post (the one about Santacon) has generated. I never would have expected an honor like the “Freshly Pressed” selection just four posts into my blogging career. In fact, I had not known that this coveted endorsement even existed. On Monday morning I was just some guy bugging my Facebook friends to read my latest blog entries. And now . . . I’m pleased to report that this site, launched a mere 11 days ago, has already welcomed visitors from at least 102 countries.
So thank you all for coming, and for taking the time to read my little jottings. I’m particularly excited about the geographic diversity of you, my readers. This site is global in scope (being that it focuses on my world travels), and it’s important to me to hear perspectives from people in every corner of this big blue marble we call Earth (and yes, I’m aware that spherical objects such as marbles don’t have corners. Work with me here).
With Santacon now in my rear-view mirror, I’m preparing for my long weekend in Lisbon, for which I leave on December 29. While there, I plan on indulging in some karaoke singing, which would make Portugal country no. 24 on my World Karaoke Tour. Any singing that I do in Lisbon will most likely occur in a pub or restaurant. An eatery or drinkery is, of course, the standard setting in which karaoke is delivered, at least in the Western world (a variation, popular in Asia and some parts of the United States, involves renting a private room with your friends and singing only to each other. In a future post I’ll have more to say about private-room karaoke, often dubbed “karaoke box,” which was made famous in a scene in the 2003 film “Lost in Translation”).
But in a growing number of cities and towns around the world, a very different type of karaoke experience is available. Some enterprising taxi drivers have installed karaoke machines in their vehicles.If you’re lucky enough to hail such an enhanced cab, you and your fellow passengers can sing while en route to your destination. Or you can board the taxi without even having a particular place to go, because if you’re like me, karaoke is your destination. 🙂 There is generally no charge for the opportunity to sing, beyond the fare that you’re already paying for the journey (although grateful passengers often tip extravagantly). And best of all, you don’t have to wait behind a long rotation of singers for your next turn at the mic.
As I will discuss below, I recently had the pleasure of taking a ride in a “karaoke cab” in Washington, DC. A search of Google and YouTube indicates that similar taxis have proliferated recently — sometimes using names like “Cabioke” to brand the multifaceted service that they offer. In addition to the capital city of the United States, they now roam the streets of such metropolises as Bangkok; Singapore; Taipei; Budapest; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; Dallas; Nashville; St. Louis; and Charlotte. They’ve even cropped up in smaller municipalities including Tacoma, Washington; Provincetown, Massachusetts; and Chico, California. So pervasive has this trend become that a filmmaker in Thailand is raising funds to make a movie about a karaoke cab. That one is so going in my Netflix queue when it comes out . . .
The man who made possible my Washingtonian karaoke cab experience is Joel Laguidao, who drives for the Red Top Cab Company in northern Virginia. A charismatic Filipino, Joel was recently featured with his vehicle on a segment of the American morning television program, the “Today Show”:
Joel first came to my attention this past summer, when one of my Facebook friends linked to an article about him on NPR’s website. Let me backtrack a little here, because my November 2011 ride with Joel marked the culmination of a nearly three-year quest.
2008: the Memorex fiasco
My odyssey began in December 2008 when I received a call from my friend Colin, who told me that he’d just taken a ride in a karaoke cab right here in New York City. A Google search quickly informed me that a fleet of six karaoke cabs was being dispatched from selected points in the Big Apple. It was a promotion sponsored by Memorex: if you sang and permitted Memorex to videotape your performance, you could earn a free ride in the cab. I would be only too happy to sing for my fare.
There was one problem: I soon learned that the special cabs were only operating in New York on a temporary basis, for a period of just a few weeks. The day on which I received the hot tip was, in fact, the final day of the promotion. Even worse, it turned out that the Memorex fleet of karaoke cabs had been dodging cable cars in San Francisco a month earlier, during the same time that I’d been visiting that city– and I’d been tragically unaware of their presence. So I missed out on them twice!
I regarded the Memorex debacle as a massive intelligence failure on my part. But in fairness, maybe there was no need for regrets. I looked more closely at the website that Memorex had maintained for its vagabond fleet; and I discovered that the singing took place in front of the cab while it was still parked at the curb. You would collect your free ride after you sang. But once you boarded the taxi, the karaoke would be over. How lame is that — a karaoke cab where you don’t actually get to sing inside the cab? As Lionel Hutz would say, that’s the most blatant case of false advertising since The Never Ending Story!
Regardless of whether one of the Memorex cabs would have provided a satisfactory experience, one thing was certain. With the expiration of the Memorex promotion, there were no karaoke cabs of any nature to be found in New York City. That appalling absence continues today: over 13,000 licensed cabs in New York City, and not a single one has on-board karaoke. If I wanted to become a singing passenger, I needed to broaden my geographic horizons. But that was okay; after all, traveling for karaoke is what I do.
2010: the Charlotte incident
My second failed attempt occurred in September 2010. I was flying from Newark, New Jersey to Rio de Janeiro. During that voyage, I was going to have an approximately six-hour layover in Charlotte, North Carolina where I was changing planes (Charlotte Douglas International Airport is a major hub for US Airways, the airline that was conveying me to Brazil). Knowing I would have all that time to kill in the Charlotte metro area, I was excited to learn of the karaoke cab servicing that region. A jaunt in it would be a memorable way to start my vacation. So I contacted the driver. We exchanged voice-mail messages. The message left by the driver (who shall remain nameless) said he would be “glad to pick [me] up,” and he added that I should call him back on Tuesday or Wednesday of the next week (my layover in Charlotte would be the Thursday of the next week) to advise him as to what time I would be arriving in his city. What I didn’t know yet was that I would never hear from Charlotte’s karaoke cab driver again.
The following week, with my departure to Charlotte fast approaching, I called him as instructed. I began to grow concerned when the driver didn’t respond to any of the three voice-mail messages I ended up leaving for him. In those messages, I had attempted to set up a time and place for him to meet me in downtown Charlotte (I felt it would be easiest if he met me there and drove me back to the airport). He was also informed of the time that my flight was expected to land. But as I boarded the plane to Charlotte, I still had not received confirmation from the driver that he would meet me later that day.
My arrival in Charlotte was on time. Immediately after deplaning, I put in a call to the driver, but his phone went straight to voice-mail. So I left a detailed message, and proceeded to the the ground transportation area in the airport. Time elapsed, and my phone didn’t ring. I tried calling the driver again, and again was greeted with his outgoing voice-mail message. Undaunted, I headed to the bus lanes and boarded an express bus to Charlotte’s central business district (What the hell else was I going to do during a six hour layover? CLT had not yet joined the emerging trend of airports with karaoke).
When I reached downtown Charlotte, the karaoke cab driver again failed to answer his phone. I even contacted his dispatcher, who had no better luck than I did in trying to track down the AWOL driver. In fact, she advised that she hadn’t heard from him all day. To this day, I have never heard back from the karaoke cab driver who stood me up in Charlotte.
Happily, though, despite the dismal start to my holiday, my ensuing excursion to South America and Easter Island turned out to be one of my all-time great vacations. Sometime I’ll tell you about my adventures on that trip — including my attempt to outrun killer dogs on Easter Island. Singing in a karaoke cab, however, remained an unfulfilled wish.
2011: redemption
When I learned about Joel and his karaoke cab in Washinton, DC, I just knew that this time things would be different. It helped that D.C. is much closer to New York than Charlotte is. It’s very easy to get down to D.C. from New York for a weekend trip (which I do several times a year; after all, I attended law school there, so I have many friends in the area and I retain an affection for the city). As a result, unlike with my one-time layover in Charlotte, I would feel no pressure to make my ride happen on any particular day. If things fell through for whatever reason, I could just try again.
Using my proprietary research skills, I managed to get in touch with Joel, and to speak with him on the telephone (The fact that he actually answered his phone was the first good sign. Joel is a genuinely nice guy). We quickly settled on a mutually convenient weekend for me to become his passenger.
On Friday, November 11, I took the train down to D.C. after work. The following afternoon, I met up with my friend Becca, who had agreed to serve as videographer for my groundbreaking taxi ride. We took the Metro to the Ballston stop in Arlington, Virginia (I chose that location because the Red Top Cab Company is based in northern Virginia and I wanted to make the pick-up point convenient for Joel, who did not yet know me.). At the appointed time, Joel Laguidao showed up with his cab outside the Ballston station entrance. Becca and I got in and took our seats, and we were off.
We didn’t actually have anywhere specific to get to, other than a general desire to end up in the city. So we spent nearly an hour as Joel’s passengers. Joel drove us over the 14th Street Bridge that spans the Potomac River, and we proceeded past the Washington Monument and towards the Capitol building. But I wasn’t in town for sightseeing. While glimpsing national landmarks through the window of Joel’s Crown Victoria, I was doing something that I’d been striving to make possible for almost three years: I was singing karaoke in a moving vehicle! My bucket list had just shrunk by one.
Here is one of my selections from that magical cab ride: John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Fittingly for that anthem of cooperation and harmony, Joel joined in with me (and I apologize in advance for the slight technical glitch with the audio):
And for a much different vibe, here I am performing “La Bamba”:
Joel is a passionate performer in his own right. Here you can watch him belting out a classic ballad by Journey:
Joel has a brand-new Facebook page! So if you like what you’ve seen of him here, please stop by his page and show him some love.
Now at this point, you may be wondering what recourse you may have if you do not live in, and are unable to visit, one of the locales where you can order a karaoke cab. Well, the obvious solution is to buy a car of your own with a built-in karaoke machine. Carpooling with your co-workers will never be the same. And if you scoff at my suggestion, I will have you know that someone else already came up with this idea, all the way back in 2003. In that auspicious year, the Chinese automaker Geely made a karaoke machine standard equipment on its BL (Beauty Leopard) coupe. And while you may not have heard of Geely, the company is not some piddling little buggy-maker; in 2010, it bought Volvo. Admittedly, the BL coupe is no longer in production. (Geely never responded to my email asking whether the in-dashboard karaoke machine is available on any of the models in its current product line.)
A friend recently asked me why I enjoyed the karaoke cab so much, given my previously-stated preference for playing to a crowd rather than singing in isolation. And admittedly, it would seem that the available listener base is quite limited when you’re inside the sealed environment of a motorcar. I guess I can’t completely explain my inconsistency. I’m pretty sure that my voice was audible outstide the vehicle, so that may be a part of it. But only a part, since no one on the street would have been able to hear me for any great length of time. Maybe this is just one of those instances where I have to say “I liked it,” and leave it at that.
By the way, another form of “karaoke on the go” is to sing while on a floating vessel. In October 2008, I took an evening karaoke cruise around Manhattan Island. I understand that karaoke nights are also widely held on international cruise ships, although I’ve never booked passage on one of those behemoths of the sea. One of my work colleagues has suggested that I should take advantage of this phenomenon, and that now that I’ve been able to check off six continents on my World Karaoke Tour, I should set a goal of singing in each of the world’s oceans. Hey, there are only five of them, so that would not be too long of a list to work through. I will say that I’m taking this proposal quite seriously.
Meanwhile, now that I have conquered both land and sea, I am looking upward for my next great challenge. My newest ambition is to sing karaoke on an airplane. I’ve worked out most of the details, and it would go something like this: Since commercial airlines have not yet exhibited the good sense to include karaoke among their in-flight entertainment options, I will need to provide my own instrumental music and lyrics. So I will need to be on a flight with wi-fi; then, using my laptop, I can log on to one of those internet karaoke sites. Ideally, I would like to stream a live video feed of my performance so that people on the ground can serve as a virtual audience. Now, I realize that my fellow passengers will be unlikely to indulge even a few minutes of a singer in seat 25A. To avoid provoking air rage, I may need to hole myself up in the lavatory, as I join my own version of the “mile-high club.” This plan is complicated and has a lot of moving parts, but it just might work!
Whether or not the H-Bomb phenomenon takes to the skies, of one thing I’m sure: I will ascend no higher than cruising altitude. Space will not be the final frontier for me. I hate amusement park rides such as roller-coasters; I get motion sickness when subjected to those g-forces (although curiously, I rarely feel airsick when flying through turbulence). So I could never become an astronaut. Even if I somehow acquired the boatloads of funds that would enable me to afford a private spaceflight, I could never bring myself to sign up for such a mission. The H-Bomb will have to remain earthbound. But there’s a whole lot more of the world left to cover on my World Karaoke Tour!
UPDATE: I’ve discovered that there’s a New Zealand-based alternative rock band called “Karaoke Taxi”! As far as I can tell, however, that band has never actually performed in a taxicab. 🙂
My scenic ride in Joel Laguidao’s karaoke cab included views of the Washington Monument.
Hello there! I'm an attorney and worldwide karaoke singer who's based in New York City. I've sung karaoke in 77 countries around the globe, on all 7 continents, plus Easter Island - as well as all 50 U.S. states! This website chronicles my World Karaoke Tour as well as my general travel adventures. Learn more
H-Bomb's Worldwide Karaoke 