Luck Be A Lady

So I hear it through the grapevine that the Moshannon Valley Super Bowl is having a Karaoke contest. Took me a while since the start of the thing, but last Friday, I finally made my way up the hill to the lanes and took the mic.

Talk about fun! The joint was damn near packed, which rocked, since that gave me my largest audience in quite a while. And as the title of this entry proclaims, my weapon of choice that night was none other than the Chairman of the Board, Frank Sinatra.

It was a slightly chilly Monday night in Manhattan, but I still decided that a long sleeved shirt was enough to keep me from shivering. The lights of Times Square were bright, and even though it was nearly midnight, things were as busy as ever. It was my first time in the City that Never Sleeps, and having already done the two things I'd set out to do (see Ground Zero and get a picture of me flipping the bird to MTV Studios, when I find it I'll repost it), Justin and I spent some time wandering up and down Broadway.

After getting a beer at Tonic, served by the single hottest straight-off-the-boat Irish girl I've ever seen (another picture I'll repost when I find it), we walked up the legendary street and came to The Colony Record and Radio Center. I'd heard about the place before - to any music afficionado, it's pretty much the place to find hard-to-find recordings and related media. It's also the home of the single largest in-store Karaoke CD selection I'd ever seen in my life.

This was our goal, to freshen up the songbook at Electric Avenue with some new discs. The associate, Joe, was a true New Yorker if I'd ever seen one. He had it all: The golf cap, the south Brooklyn accent, and the lines of years spent honing his craft on one of the busiest streets in the world hewed onto his brow. He asked us what we were looking for, and I'd already had the answer in my head for some time.

I was looking for the definitive Frank Sinatra collection, and Joe knew right where to look. "If you want Sinatra," he said, "then this right here is the way to go." I got the impression that he'd made this suggestion to quite a few customers before us, because this man didn't even flinch. It didn't take him a moment or two to scan the shelf and find it, he was on top of it like Brad on Angelina.

"It's the original orchestrations," he explained, "basically a carbon copy of Sinatra's studio bands. You won't find anything better, period." He handed me the case: It was a four disc set, replete with pretty much every single major hit the Chairman ever released, and then some. I quickly skimmed over the track list, and found the song I'd been looking for.

I'd sang it before, Tag has it in his collection. But that version (I can't remember who the publisher was, but it wasn't this set or any Sound Choice disc) lacked the intro to the song, pretty much castrating it and starting cold when the music hits full swing. I wanted that intro, because it established the song as a whole, and it made for a right-sweet opening once the full band hit. That extra 45 seconds is the difference between singing the song and giving a performance of the song, at least in my twisted little brain.

Somehow, Justin managed to get that set, valued at $150 by itself, as well as another $150 worth of Sound Choice and Legends discs, all for... You guessed it, $150. I couldn't wait to get back to the Avenue and pop disc three into the CD+G box, but at the same time, I still had the concrete jungle of New York City to explore, and plenty of time to do it in...

Since most of the crowd was the older set, I thought that Frankie would sit well with them, and I was happy to discover that I wasn't wrong in the slightest. When the music started, I noticed several folks make "oh my goodness" faces and comments amongst themselves. Others took a bit more time to realize what the song was, but when they did, they got big smiles as well. With the right song chosen, all I had to do was nail it.

And since it'd been almost four years since Justin and I had found that Sinatra CD+G collection at The Colony, it came like second nature.

But even the best laid plans of Nerds and Men go awry, and my performance was marred by one of the more embarrassing things that can happen to a man such as myself: My top teeth, which are false, de-suctioned themselves from my gums and decided to freefall to my bottom teeth, which are my own, just as I was hitting the last word. That note is probably the highest in the song, and since it's one of those "big finish" situations, you have to go for broke.

In what proves that I have a big mouth, I opened a bit too wide, and my choppers got away from me. Awk-ward!

That aside, I still managed to tie with the other qualifier, and it wasn't an easy win, either. The other four people who entered were all very good in their own rights, and each deserved to join us in our trek to the finals. This contest is no joke, the competition is hot, and I'm going to have to find some even bigger guns to pull out for subsequent rounds...

(This is the first time I've ever told a story within a story, or at least I think it is. Didn't turn out too badly, IMHO. I don't think it'll be a regular thing, but it's always fun to try something new...)

Mister, Take Us To The Show

Meet "Joe."

"Joe" is just about the luckiest son of a bitch on the face of the planet. He's a regular guy, just like you and me. He's not connected, he's not in-the-know, he's not pulling cash out of his ass on a whim.

He's just... "Joe."

And yet this man, alone and armed with a camera phone and a Super Bowl ticket stub on a lanyard, managed to have any sports fan's soggy dream day come true: Without even really conning anyone at all, this guy was on the front line (FT) of the biggest party New York has seen since "America's Asshat Mayor" threw one for the Bronx Bombers.

And he's got some pretty convincing pictures and video to prove it, too.

Step by step, and without a net, this guy managed to pull off some pretty impressive stuff. The key to it all was the fact that the Giants' win - Not only a Super Bowl title, but the David-like halting of the Goliath Patriots' quest for perfection - created a super euphoria that gripped that town like nobody's business. While security was, indeed, tight, the avenues he took were crafty, as they'd actually provide the least resistance.

Now, mind you, this guy didn't plan on doing this at all. He just sort of lucked into it.

His first dose of WIN was putting his ticket stub on the lanyard. This is actually his key move, as it opened the flood gates of opportunity to him in the first place. Given the euphoria, and the fact that any real Giants fan - press or civvy or whatever, except cops - was wearing whatever Blue and White they could find (including what had to have been quite a few jerseys, especially Manning), no one in the press section's entryways made much effort to check credentials. The lanyard, coupled with the ticket (which had logos out the ying, no doubt), probably looked enough like a press pass to allow him to slip in.

Once there, the Cascade Effect took over. His next batch of WIN was in the form of deciding to stick with the owners' group instead of giving in to his desire to catch the players' bus. Because the owners' group was so freakin' huge, and most were probably wearing jerseys and other team colors, he fit right in. The lanyard again saved him because, since he was in such close proximity to the owner himself, security barely gave him a glance.

Are you gonna hassle the boss during his big victory party? Hell no! You want to party, not get fired and end up motherfucking the whole deal, right? Right! So, you hurry up and wave the boss' party through. Duh.

Score for "Joe." This bought him a free ride directly to Giants Stadium, and his ticket into the coveted players' areas.

With all the right moves made so far, and the big decisions conquered successfully, Karma had to be flowing through our friend "Joe," giving him concious knowledge of his WIN, and he decided to roll with the flow. Our friend ended up in the tunnel with Giants Head Coach Tom Coughlin, who was carrying the Vince Lombardi Trophy with him. The picture of Coughlin alone is worth getting into the tunnel, but Karma kept pushing "Joe" onward - nay, WINward - and our dear friend ended up getting some spiff video as he trotted out onto the field.

But it doesn't stop there. That bit of WIN allowed him to nuzzle right up to the front of the stage, where he shot some wild clips of different parts of Giants team speeches, and took some killer pics as well. After regaining access to the locker room by way of Super Bowl hero David Tyree and family, the adventure peaked as he came away with some killer memories.

But the swag, that's what we all like to hear about, right? What'd he get for his unprecedented, unassisted run through the ultimate victory celebration's red carpet? All told: Eli signed both his ticket stub and his jersey, the whole team signed his hat, a City Hall access pass signed by Michael Strahan, and Gibril Wilson's signed game sweatshirt. Not to mention the digital proof of it all thanks to his cell phone.