Soft Core Karaoke

Filipinos love music. How do I know this? It's not because almost every Pinoy household has a piano or guitar that no one ever plays (because they do). It's not because the ghosts will eat your food if you sing at the table (because they will). It's because almost every Filipino family has a karaoke machine/set-up of some sort. I've told Stink Pants #5 about the Filipino karaoke phenomenon many times, but he first experienced this musical miracle in San Francisco, at the house of my Tita Ding Ding and Tito Boy.

Dad's cousin Mai-mai came over to visit with us. She brought her son, daughter and boyfriend, all of whom are weird (that doesn't really have anything to do with the story, I just thought they were weird.) Now, Mai-mai moonlights as a professional wedding singer, so she was the catalyst that started the whole karaoke reaction going. We all knew, Mom, Stink Pants, Tita, Tito and I, that Mai-mai would be coming, and that she'd make us sing. Don't get me wrong, having a karaoke machine is awesome, but it's awesome in the same way singing in the shower is awesome. Singing with a professional singer who likes to show off and take karaoke super seriously is a little like standing in a room with a woman you hardly know who loves being naked. Starting at 12:00am, this whole thing could've been full of horrible torture, if not for two hilarious, life-saving events and a catalyst of our own.

When they started setting up the microphones, I was dead tired. We had spent the whole day cavorting around the San Francisco Bay area. My tiredness was wiped away by my knight in shining armor, Stink Pants #5, stepped up to the mic.

The love of my life volunteered the first song...in Tagalog.

Yes, Stink Pants #5 sang first in a language he barely knows, and he was awesome. He did better than me :-). His song was a love song in a classic duet style with Mai-mai singing opposite him. I laughed hysterically for three minutes straight. It was so awesome, I'm giggling to myself as I type this even now, a whole week later. Tee hee!

Oh yeah, I said two events, didn't I? You all might be wondering about the soft core part of the title. Tito Boy got his karaoke DVDs from the Philippines, and the video that played behind the song that Tito Boy sang was of a woman showering. Lots of suds, leg, back, and bulgy boobies, sans nipples of course. It was even more hilarious when, after much scolding from my Tita Ding Ding, Tito Boy switched the DVD only to find that the next one he put in had the same woman showering with different words scrolling across the bottom. Hurray for the cheap production practices of the Filipino karaoke industry!

We then had to listen to Mai-mai sing two songs in a row like she was a diva. We all cheered for her, of course, because she does sing very well. I'd have to train a lot to get my voice to do what hers does. It was just the air-punching and head-shaking that annoyed me.

At 1:00, Mai-mai and her family left. When Mai-mai came, she brought a bottle of champagne, which was left in the refrigerator forgotten, until this point. It was Mom's birthday (August 20th), so we opened it. We then continued to drink and sing until three o'clock in the morning. I begged Tito to change the DVD to one with songs in English, so I'd at least sound less like a drunken idiot. The only DVD he could find with English words though contained songs by people like Andy Williams, Perry Como, Julio Iglesias and Elvis. These songs are normally okay, but a bottle of champagne makes them awesome!

So, while it started out slow, Soft Core Karaoke night turned out to be a night filled with soapy boobies, champagne, and my honey bun winning my heart all over again!