Month: September 2021

Is There A Karaoke Limit? And Can We Make It 3?

Deb Zuroski, , , , , Leave a comment

Okay. Just humor me for a minute … could the inventor of karaoke be guilty of a crime? Because the students are doing karaoke on the quad right now — at 10PM on a Saturday and if what they’re doing to Tina Turner isn’t a crime, then we’re living in The Purge. Someone really needs to tell them that Sandra Bullock and Regina King are actors and that’s why Proud Mary sounded so good when they did it in the movie.

Ah. Good news. A drunk guy has taken the mic and is singing The Piano Man. Oh no, make that two drunk guys. Welp, we’ve just disproven the argument that two heads (mouths) are better than one. We’ve also learned that it was a lot easier for Billy Joel to stay in key during that famous la-la-la de-de da chorus than it is for the average drunk karaoke-ers. Also, they can’t follow the prompts and they’ve interrupted the song to apologize for screwing it up. And now they’re volunteering to sing it again. Please no.

Oh thank God. Someone took the mic away.

And now I’d like to point out that I still haven’t learned my lesson … which is that things can always get worse. And they have. Because we now have a man and woman singing the PG version of Cee Lo Green’s Forget You. See … I’m being ungrateful again. I should be thankful it isn’t 120 decibels of the NSFK (not safe for karaoke) version.

I’m both pleased and chagrined that I can’t report on the song that’s just starting. It’s a country song with a lot of OOOOOOOOO-ing. It’s off-key so it’s more like OOOEEEEOOOEEEOO-ing but not quite to the level that it’s EIEIO-ing. 

Okay. Okay. I get it. I’m actually being pranked right now. Right? Right? Haha You guys are funny. You almost got me. But you went too far with the second country song. And the group singalong. Nice touch. How did you get all the students to sing so badly? I hope you realize that I’m sitting in my bedroom so there better not be any cameras around taking pictures of my tiger face mask right now.

Gratitude. Gratitude. Gratitude. It’s my new mantra. I’m in cobbler pose on my yoga mat as I type. It’s a multi-task meditation — just go with it. If I use that word — gratitude — in my meditation right now, will the karaoke sounds fade away or will I come to appreciate them? So far, neither one has happened but I’ll keep trying.

There’s a woman doing a banging rendition of Walk the Moon’s Shut Up and Dance with Me. It’s really rocking. Yeah, I’m just kidding. It’s so awful the slugs in the garden have packed their little slug bags (got to use a bag if you don’t have a shell, you know?) and moved out. I would too but my daughter has the car so I’m trapped here. 

When you think about a song you hope never to hear sung by anyone other than the original artist, you think automatically of Uptown Funk, don’t you? If you were sitting here with me right now, trust me; it would be the first song that came to mind, especially with all 300 enthusiastic young women shrieking “Hot Damn” at every opportunity, whether the lyrics call for it or not.

I know. I know. They are enjoying that as much as I enjoyed singing “The Roof Is On Fire” and all the inappropriate lyrics that went with it. Well, I’m old now (but unlike Yusuf/Cat Stevens, I’m embittered) and I no longer remember how to have fun. I keep yelling “get off my lawn” but the music is so loud they can’t hear me.

Is There A Karaoke Limit? And Can We Make It 3?

Secrets Revealed?

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , 2 Comments

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am the world’s worst secret keeper. It’s not because I don’t want to keep secrets — it’s literally that I forget. I just forget that they’re secrets. So, generally speaking, it’s probably good that I’m not a spy. Or in charge of KFC’s secret recipe. 

If I had the KFC recipe, I can totally see myself making a batch at home for dinner. When one of my daughter’s friends said, “Oh this is soooo good,” I’d be right there texting her the recipe. In like 5 minutes, KFC would need a new secret recipe and a new secret-keeper. 

My lack of secrecy skills is why it should surprise you that I have managed to keep from blurting out THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT. Personally, I’m amazed that I haven’t. But here we are and I can finally tell you what I’ve been keeping to myself for more than a month. 

I had to wait for the contract to be signed but signed and delivered it is so here we go ….

My daughter sold a story to a literary magazine, 34 Orchard. 

Isn’t that fantastic?

I believe the journal publication date is November 10th but you don’t need to keep that date in your head. Trust me; I’m going to get really annoying about this.  It’s exactly the kind of story Haley would write but not at all the kind of story people would expect Haley to write. As such, I’m excited to see what people think of it. It’s really the only reason to look forward to November, in my opinion.  

And now for something completely different ….

Today was the first day of school for my 10th grader. He’s thrilled to be back in school again. Hahaha. We’re actually still homeschooling this year. His doctor doesn’t want him back in the classroom yet. It’s fine — not for the faint of heart — but entirely do-able with patience and practice. This year, he set his own curriculum. It’s heavy on art, mostly digital since he prefers that to drawing on paper. I keep trying to get him to use pencil, charcoal, watercolor but he just prefers digital media. 

He’s also doing a college-level psych class with his therapist. They’re using The Noonday Demon and Behave, two massive tomes. He absolutely loves her and I think he’s looking forward to the class. Personally I find her rather terrifying. 

My favorite thing about her is how she occasionally calls me into her office to scold me and then dismisses me. It’s so deliciously grandparent-like. (She’s 78 years old.) You know — when your child tells their grandparent on you, and you get that phone call? Well, Ian has never really had any grandparents. The last one — my MIL — died before he turned 4; and since she had dementia, they weren’t able to form any relationship. So, instead of telling his grandparent, he tells his therapist and I get a text (or the visit to her office). 

I often wonder whether my grandmother ever called my parents when my sister and I sought her out. Her apartment was an oasis — loving, warm, accepting. But my grandmother and my father were not close. When my father was stationed in Germany (by the way, he was a fantastic secret-keeper, one of the few things I did not inherit from him), he frequently wrote to his father and some of the letters include complaints about his mother. 

Complaining via letter certainly suggests that the mother-son relationship was not even good in his young adulthood. After my grandfather died (when I was 2 years old), Grandma worked to take care of herself but she had no savings. Once she retired, she was entirely dependent on my father. Would she have risked him cutting her off (a thing he would absolutely have done) to defend her two grandkids? It seems unlikely. 

Perhaps, in fact, the scolding grandparent is something rare. I was regularly scolded by my MIL, who knew exactly who I was and often called me out on it. But she was a very balanced woman, really lovely actually (I was abnormally blessed with a wonderful husband AND a wonderful MIL), and just as likely to scold her son as she was to scold me. That’s not to say we didn’t fight. We did but we always managed to work through our differences without any collateral damage.

Before Ian was born, when his siblings were maybe 6 and 4, I planned a Disney trip. Ken had zero interest in going and was happy with the thought that he’d have the whole house to himself for a couple weeks. My MIL, bless her, didn’t like that he wasn’t going. She gave him the tongue-lashing of a lifetime. Of course, he decided to go to Disney with us, where he proceeded to have the worst vacation he ever had. 

The first, and worst part for him, was that it was a driving trip. I actually like to drive (another thing I inherited from my dad) and had a whole exploration vacation planned. He did not like to drive, found car rides quite confining, and was absolutely bored to tears. In addition, on day one, literally, he had an allergic reaction to our Cracker Barrel breakfast. On day three, he nearly got carried off by mosquitoes when we visited the alligator farm in St Augustine. Okay; he actually just got swarmed by them, not actually lifted off the ground. On day four, he pulled a hamstring during his morning run on Disney property. On day five– I’m not making this up — he got heatstroke. On day six, he got food poisoning. 

We left on day seven. What other choice did we have? It was clear he was going to succumb to something horrible if we didn’t get him back home again. All-in-all, it was not a great trip. For the rest of his life, he referred to that vacation as a death march, while the kids and I worked to keep Granny from bullying Ken into doing anything else.  

I did make another trip to Disney a few years later and yes, my MIL was still alive when we went. Ken did not go with us. Everyone was happy, no one more so than Ken who joyfully spent our entire trip at home doing whatever the heck he wanted to. 

And now, because I live next to a college campus and, I don’t know, because it’s Tuesday (?), I need to go outside — there’s a car fire on my street and the police are here. And no, I’m not joking. I think the car owner is like 15; is that possible? Probably not. I must be getting old.

Coming soon … more reminders about my daughter’s story.

Stay safe. Check that fire extinguisher in your car. You never know when you might need it.

Secrets Revealed?

Cinderella Stinks And So Do Her Mice

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , 4 Comments

I asked my daughter if we could live-tweet our impressions of Amazon’s Cinderella but she scheduled a root canal instead. Thus, I had to go it alone. Disappointing but all-in-all I think she got the better deal. 

So many great re-tellings/re-imaginings of Cinderella have been published recently that I should have been able to expect a good story. Alas. It was not to be. Amazon apparently spent the entire production budget on big name actors and song rights because they sure didn’t spend it on the story. 

Billy Porter narrates the beginning of the movie, which opens with a weird Beauty and the Beast-esque version of “Rhythm Nation.” If that sounds uncomfortable and cringy, you’ve gotten the right impression. Then, we meet the cast, including Camila Cabello’s Cinderella, who is supposedly covered with cinders even though she doesn’t ever seem to encounter a fireplace. It’s very confusing. Oh, and there’s a lot of singing. 

Rob Beckett shows up early in the movie for about 30 seconds, playing a creepy suitor similar to Richard O’Brien’s role in Ever After, except that O’Brien’s character is fully developed whereas Beckett’s character has maybe two tiny, messy, confusing and over-acted scenes. 

Then, there’s more singing, a lot more singing. There’s even a rapping town crier which is as out of place as it sounds. And like most of this over-stuffed movie, he also only has like two scenes. 

Not even 30 minutes into this abomination, the writers steal a page from Ella Enchanted and have the prince sing “Somebody to Love.”  It’s nearly unbearable and serves only to highlight how much better Anne Hathaway’s version was. Let’s not even discuss what chagrin Freddie  Mercury would be experiencing if he’d had to listen in.

As I watched, I figured out how this movie was developed:  a group of like 10 writers was brought together and told that each would write 12 minutes of the movie. When they all got done writing, the lead screenwriter shuffled the 12-minute sections together and handed the pages off to the producer. Ta Da. Oh, did I mention that each writer had to include at least 8 minutes of singing in their section? 

There are just two watchable scenes in this movie. First, Idina Menzel — at the 30 minute mark — sings Material Girl. It’s her only good scene. Her character is so badly written that it’s difficult to figure out who she’s supposed to be: Is she abusive or loving? Is she grasping or protective? We never find out. I’m pretty sure Idina doesn’t know. Also, Idina should sue whoever was responsible for her hair, makeup and costumes.

The only other watchable scene is Billy Porter — at the 45 minute mark — as Fabulous Godmother. Billy is lovely for the two and a half minutes he’s on screen — okay, it’s eight minutes. At any rate, it was far less than the impression offered by Amazon’s advertising. I guess they realized they needed to capitalize on his name because there wasn’t much else to promote about this.

The most unfortunate thing about this movie — the list of unfortunate things about this movie is, possibly, infinite — is that Camila Cabello — a heavy autotune user — was cast next to not one but two extraordinary Tony Award winning singers. It’s almost cruel to compare the effortless vocals of Billy Porter and Idina Menzel to Camila Cabello. She is a paper flower to Porter’s and Menzel’s garden.

There’s a princess who wants to be king (yes, I know she would be queen but she wants to be king). I think she’s supposed to be a young, singing Elizabeth Warren, if you can believe that. In addition, we have a fencing queen — played by the ever-marvelous and totally underutilized Minnie Driver. She could have had such a meaty role, if only … if only. 

The prince is supposed to be a stupid guy but that doesn’t actually serve the story because Cinderella would never fall for a stupid guy. As such, halfway through the movie he becomes a sympathetic man trapped in a role he never wanted, Prince Harry-esque, if Prince Harry had been the heir, of course. 

The king is an abusive totalitarian freak, as you would expect of a king, actually, but we’re supposed to believe, by the end of the movie, that he actually loves the queen — who he treats like dirt the entire first two-thirds of the movie. And then he rides up to the castle on a white horse to serenade the queen — but it’s Pierce Brosnan and his voice is nails on a chalkboard so that’s also a bit confusing. 

Really, the entire experience was rather worse than a root canal — though I’ve never had one so I’m just going by the visceral pain I felt watching Cinderella and I’m pretty sure it was worse than a root canal would be. 

I’m fully convinced that Netflix and Amazon are just messing with us, trying to see how awful a movie they have to make for us not to watch it. Amazon has nearly succeeded with this one.  I spared you the retelling of the “now that you’re an orphan” scene, the awful mice (James Corden, ugh), the potty humor, the attempts at feminism, the misogyny … You can have all of those experiences AND MORE, if you watch this movie. Or you can find something worth watching, like paint drying or plants growing or bread molding or … well, you get the picture, probably better than Amazon does.

Cinderella Stinks And So Do Her Mice

Karaoke in Scooter-ville

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , 4 Comments

If I have to suffer through this, at least I can blog about it. I thought (hoped?) that the abomination that is karaoke on campus had been cancelled for this year. Ever the optimist! Today is the day, loudly announced by a remarkable rendition of “Watermelon Sugar.” Whoever that young singer is, they are definitely optimistic if they think that sounded anything like Harry Styles … or singing. 

A couple days ago, I sent my annual email to the neighborhood’s campus contact, reminding him that students aren’t allowed to park on our street for more than 2 hours.This year, they’ve promised to patrol (campus police have jurisdiction on our street), remind students via campus communications, and, if necessary, write tickets. Since we’ve already had our first student-parked-in-front-of-someone’s-driveway incident, it seems appropriate to get the school involved. 

This might seem like me curmudgeonly asserting that these young kids need to “stay off my lawn.” But those of us who don’t have driveways, including my 90-year-old neighbors, need to have ready access to our houses and we pay an annual fee for that privilege. Since the campus library parking lot is directly accessed from our street, there’s always a lot of traffic during the school year and a couple hundred students try — at least three days per week — to use our street as extended campus parking. 

I wish I were exaggerating but literally every open spot (including driveways) is taken by students and if I’m foolish enough to move my car, there won’t be a spot for me when I get back. My neighbors sometimes use big orange cones — they even gave us some — but it isn’t legal or a powerful deterrent.  

Anyway, I heard back from Campus Dude within an hour. He agrees with my concern, reiterated their commitment to enforce the parking regulations, and then confessed that they have a big NEW concern that has them in a kerfuffle. Wait for it….wait for it … SPIN SCOOTERS. 

Yep. Spin scooters have invaded our city. In case you aren’t familiar, Spin is a company that provides rental scooters. I think it’s 15 cents a mile to rent them and you don’t have to find a station to lock them up when you’re done. You just drop your scooter wherever it’s legal for a vehicle to park. Ta Da — scooters everywhere. 

Yesterday there were at least 10 dropped on our little two-block street. (Yes, our street is literally only two blocks long.) Technically, it’s not legal for scooters to park on our street for more than two hours during the day (after hours and weekends it’s a free-for-all) but there’s no mechanism for ticketing scooters past the two-hour mark and you know those scooters are staying until someone needs a cheap ride. 

They don’t bother me, honestly. I can move a scooter out of my parking spot and I would rather have students using scooters than cars — better for the environment! But Campus Dude likes to shiny-object every discussion and this is his latest attempt. I know some folks are really complaining about the scooters but I’m actually student-friendly and want to encourage them to find effective ways to navigate inexpensively. 

I know you’re wondering what happened to the karaoke updates but they’ve temporarily(?) turned down the microphone so now I’m only getting occasional snippets of sound. I *think* someone is singing Charlie Puth’s “We Will Go” right now but I might have to go on campus to hear better. Just kidding. I’m not moving a single inch closer to that shrieking. 

Are you patiently awaiting the Big Announcement that I promised recently? It’s almost time. We’ll definitely have the great unveiling within the next week and I’m absolutely dying to drop a hint … but I can’t! What is it that those tiktok-ers say? “Like and follow for more!” HeHe

I heard today from a doctor friend that all the PICU beds in Alabama are filled with COVID children. As a parent who has needed a PICU for her child, this is terrifying. Where do they put non-COVID kids who need PICU beds? You already know the answer to this. Please, do your part to end this nightmare. (If you think doing your part is ingesting or inserting cattle dewormer, you actually — literally — are a danger to yourself and to everyone around you.)

When you enjoy your long weekend, Americans, remember that Labor Day is a celebration of workers’ rights. It began in the late 1800s but The Great Resignation of 2021 is a continuation of that desire for fair pay and good, safe working conditions. Be kind to the people who work difficult, often inhumane jobs delivering your packages in less time than it takes my dog to hoover up a dropped apple slice, taking your taco orders, bringing your extra ketchup, warming your not-hot-enough french fries. They’re people and they don’t deserve your discourtesy. 

Now, let’s end on a positive note (yes, intentional pun — come on, guys, I’m a writer) with a really loud, preferably off-key, version of Lizzo’s “Rumors.”

Much love.

Also, I’ve got a bunch of stuff out on sub so if you want to cross your fingers for me, that would be much appreciated. I’ve got mine crossed but it’s making typing really difficult.

Karaoke in Scooter-ville