The Mic Sounds Nice, Check One

As you might know, I love some karaoke, so yesterday when I was flipping through my Working Mother magazine and came to this headline--"How Singing Karaoke Launched My Career"--I had to check it out.

Can I be frank? I'm pretty good at karaoke. Sure, anyone can scream, "You got a nice white dress and a party on your confirmation!" but I can do "Love Shack." The Kate Pierson part.

You don't get to be looking for the love getaway by accident. There is some practice involved. There is learning how to project. There are weekend nights when your child plays his Gameboy and learns the contradictory lessons that only the good die young and that one should not go chasing waterfalls. Occasionally, when the song calls for it, there are dance moves.

[Let's pretend there's a segue here--do you do this? Reread your posts and realize they don't make as much sense as you thought they did?]

This is all to say that I'm fairly impervious to inspirational stories because any inspirational story worth its salt contains that moment when everything falls into place.

Take this, from "How Singing Karaoke Launched My Career": "I was taken completely by surprise. I thought, Where is that voice coming from? I didn't even know I could hold a tune."

For real? You didn't even know that you could hold a tune?

I just don't know why this sort of detail is supposed to be inspirational. If a talent is innate, then you're basically saying, "Hey, check out my good luck!" Of course the flip side is that there are no such things as talents, or luck, and with enough hard work, anyone can launch a career through karaoke. In my experience, it's a little bit of both.

Also in my experience? Almost anyone can sing this: