I've said it before, I would love to be a singer. But in a cruel twist of fate, the universe gave me the spirit of a singer, without the actual ability. What I lack in vocal chops though, I always try to make up for in showmanship. This always seems like a fantastic idea at the time, but the following day you are forced to evaluate your behaviour while scoffing Nandos, and sometimes you don't come out on top.
Let me set the scene for you. It's my 29th birthday, I've spent 2 hours getting ready. I'm wearing a Cameo playsuit and Mimco heels I saved especially for the occasion. Guests arrive, partake of the cheese platters I lovingly prepared and we drink wine. About 70% of the first hour at least, we make reasonably appropriate conversation. Except the part when Shaun started talking about the time his friend was on a plane and a woman literally dropped dead right beside him. Oh and we talked about the Michael Douglas cancer thing. And another friend revealed to somebody he'd just met that he steals figs from a tree in Melville street, only to discover he was talking to the owner of that very fig tree.
The hours pass by quickly, more people arrive and suddenly it's 10:30pm and I want to go to karaoke. People don't love karaoke the way I do, so I seized this as my annual opportunity to play the 'it's my birthday, we're doing what I want' card. Three taxis later and we are gathered on the empty dance floor of Montgomery's, the only Karaoke bar in town. I don't even remember who sang first, but after my Musical Motivation, I had one thing on my mind.
When I take the stage to sing some BT, the karaoke machine breaks. It's a devastating blow. What if it doesn't come back on? They actually took the song books away...the outlook was bleak as I sipped my pint and stared at the ominous fuzz on the screen. Thankfully, the birthday gods smiled on me and I was once again, microphone in hand, ready to get my 80s on.
I remember I started strongly with the slow 'Turn around...every now and then I get a little bit lonely and you're never coming round.' It felt good, my spirit mother was with me. My friends, several metres away were staring back, I think, enthusiastically. I decided to make use of the vast empty space in front of me and started prancing around like Roxy Hart if she were a pony high on cocaine.
Then, as always, I made the decision to ad lib. In my mind, I freestyle like Jay Z. In reality, I am singing about turning 29 and the worry that my ovaries are drying up, all to the tune of Total Eclipse of the Heart. Suddenly, as the song built to its crescendo, I dropped to my knees and belted out (probably completely out of tune) 'Together we can take it to the end of the line, your love is like a shadow on me all of the time!' And as I closed the song, looking at the bewildered faces of the other patrons, I felt compelled to shout 'Well, I can't believe I'm sitting on the floor of Montgomery's in $300 shoes.'
'It was horrific wasn't it?' I asked Bec as I left the stage to probably one pity clap.
'No,' she replied. 'That was in the top 5 moment of my life.'
Undaunted by my initial feelings of concern, I then proceeded to karaoke bomb my friend's performances including She's a Lady and some Taylor Swift, failing to notice that I'd grazed my knee during the knee slide and blood was trickling down my leg.
The following morning, in an effort to assuage my feelings of worry that I had completely embarrassed myself, Kel offered 'Well...you made great use of the space.'
No comments:
Post a Comment