Karaoke Funeral

It's not sad. I promise.

For my last semester of coursework, I am taking a class on grief and loss, which brings me to the verge of tears every week. However, it's given me an opportunity to reflect on my life and the things I have yet to do with it, the things I need to change, the things I need to do. It puts my life into perspective and reminds me each week of what's really important to me. But the thing I have thought about lately is what I want my funeral to be like. It's morbid, I know, but it may not seem so morbid when I explain it:

Actually, this is an idea I had on my mission. Tracy, you will probably remember this. In my will, I plan to assign all of my friends and family a song to sing on a karaoke machine. The catch is that they will either be songs that are humorous for their personalities or just generally funny because of their campiness. Why would I do something like that?

• I love karaoke. And I believe, secretly, in their hearts of hearts, everyone else loves it, too. I think, as people, we all like to believe we are self-conscious about our abilities to perform in a crowd because we recognize that, were we to be featured on American Idol, Randy Jackson would be covering his face with a notebook to hide his laughter. So we all pretend we don't like performing because we do not want to have it widely acknowledged that we can't sing. We want to acknowledge it before anyone else does.  The mistake people make is acknowledging it by refusing to perform. I believe that for karaoke to work, you have to take the exact opposite view: I will acknowledge that I have no musical ability by standing up in front of family and friends and showing my lack of musical talent loudly and unabashedly to the tune of "Mr. Roboto," and possibly making that acknowledgement accessible via the worldwide web. Once you realize that this is the real point of karaoke, it becomes a very freeing experience. I have a video of Shane singing karaoke in Japan that, I believe, proves my point, but he has asked me not to post it. If you were to see that video, however, you would see him singing "I Believe I Can Fly" with courage and passion unmatched by even R. Kelly himself. However, it took him 30 minutes of flipping through song catalogues and pretending like the only reason he came to the karaoke place was because I made him to get him to that point. Also, I believe your more resistant person just needs the right song. I have yet to meet a person who didn't have a special song they had always longed to hear themselves sing without the backup support of the professional artist.


• There are members of my family who would only sing karaoke (Supposedly. Refer to above bullet point) if it were a last request.


• I love songs that are funny. There are certain songs that have always made me smile because of their enormous popularity despite, or because of, their obvious absurdity.


• It's pretty hard not to smile and laugh when people are singing songs like this. I would hope that, while people would express grief and sorrow at my death, they wouldn't forget the way that I lived: arms flailing, singing atonally, and laughing at irony.

Here are some examples of songs I would like to be sung at my funeral, which will be further detailed in the body of my will:

"Copacabana (At the Copa)" Who can resist 8 minutes of love, murder, and excessive drum breaks? Plus, Barry Manilow is one of those musical artists who is just funny without meaning to be. Sorry, Mom.

"It's Raining Men" A classic. And an homage to Homer Simpson ("Aw, 'It's Raining Men'?" "Yeah, not no more, it aint.") And funnier when sung by a man, which is probably why it's become a gay anthem.

"Close to You" Homer and Marge's song. I believe the Simpsons reference songs will be an important element of my karaoke funeral, as, for years, we could not have an entire conversation as a family without it degenerating into reminiscences of our favorite Simpsons episodes. 

"If You Wanna Be Happy" It brings to mind some truly haunting and hideous ward lipsynchs. It is borderline offensive to women, and yet it does teach something about not looking at a person's outward appearance.

"Bohemian Rhapsody" Queen. Wayne's World reference. Strange lyrics. Headbanging. Enough said.

"Somebody to Love" I think the first line alone makes it great, and it just gets better from there. Plus, it truly describes the plight of single people across the world. 

"Dancing Queen" Who doesn't love ABBA? And how can you not dance while you sing it?

"I'm Too Sexy" Right Said Fred was one of the best one-hit wonders of my generation. And the person who sings it better do a little turn on the catwalk. On the catwalk. Yeah.

"Love is Strange," by Mickey and Sylvia. For those of you unfamiliar with this song, it has only about eight lines, and then, in the middle of the song, for reasons never fully explained, Mickey and Sylvia have this conversation:

Mickey: Sylvia?

Sylvia: Yes, Mickey?

Mickey: How do you call your lover boy?

Sylvia: (roughly) Come here, Lover Boy.

Mickey: And if he doesn't answer?

Sylvia: (seductively) Oh, Lover Boy.

Mickey: And if he STILL doesn't answer?

Sylvia: I simply say, 'Baby, oh, baby, my sweet baby, you're the one.'

Obviously, this one would have to be a duet, like it was for Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing, and for Suzanne Sugarbaker and Anthony Bouvier in a memorable performance on Designing Women when she goes out on a public stage wearing blackface.

"Summer Nights" from Grease. I think this will be an ensemble piece, since it is a huge crowd pleaser and reflective of my love of Broadway musicals.

So that's it, in a nutshell. I plan to meet with a lawyer in the next couple of weeks to firm up the details, so everyone get ready. Reply to this post by giving me suggestions of the songs you would like to sing, and I will take it into consideration as I am preparing the legal document. I will also take into consideration your suggestions for songs you think other people should have to sing.

Let's go to Vegas!

For the third weekend in a row, I went out of town. This weekend, it was Las Vegas.

Since my parents moved back, I only visit Las Vegas about once a year, usually at Christmastime. However, my youngest brother, Danny, is leaving on his mission to Anchorage, Alaska. For the first time since before my mission, the entire family gathered from Texas, Utah, and California to Las Vegas for the weekend. I think it was the first time we have all been together there since before my mission.

I arrived in Las Vegas on Saturday, Valentine's Day. and immediately met the rest of the family at the Mandalay Bay Shark Reef. For those of you visiting Vegas and trying to find things to do that don't involve legalized gambling, this is a good place to start. We saw sharks, alligators, a sea turtle, and pet rays as they swam by in a shallow pool. I got to be Sammie's buddy and make sure she didn't run away. No easy task. After seeing the jellyfish and the fish that looked like Dory from Finding Nemo, she informed me that she was done. Five times. Fortunately, playing with her is always better than looking at fish, and, by that time, everyone else was done, too.

The good thing about Las Vegas is that, unlike Lubbock, you can find great entertainment here. The bad thing is that it is inevitably connected to a casino, which means that, in order to get six adults (Mel, George, Shane, Maria, Danny, and I) and three kids (Sammie, Kevin, and Brooklyn) from the Shark Reef to our cars, we had to go through three smoky casinos, weaving in and out of rows of slot machines inhabited by people with gray skin and fanny packs, while the men in the family argued over which way we needed to go to get to the parking garage. Sammie, fortunately, was in a stroller that I was pushing. Unfortunately, it was one of those umbrella ones, and as I pushed, she was dragging her feet underneath it until her mother made her stop. We rode a monorail from Mandalay Bay to Excalibur, and almost had a group panic attack trying to maneuver our way off of it through a crush of people. Fortunately, we all made it to the cars safely, although the Parkers and I had to take stairs up one floor to the roof where their car was parked.

We had a great weekend, eating pizza, playing cards, looking at pictures, and sharing our favorite Danny moments. One of the great things about being adult siblings is that we have quite a backlog of stories to embarrass one another with, so as soon as we ran out of Danny stories, Melanee and Shane and I turned on each other. Some teasers include Shane's camping hat, pictures of Danny with every school project he made when our mother was ready to get rid of them, and the realization that Melanee and I have gotten substantially more attractive with age. Those are pictures that will never be posted on this blog. In fact, I think Mel might have thrown them away before I woke up the next morning. But here are some pictures:

Here is Brooklyn, who already has a gift for making adorable faces.

A shot of the man of the hour trying to take a nap while the rest of the family talked. Loudly.

My three favorite Valentines playing together before the Parkers went home on Sunday.

And a pre-haircut shot of Kevin. Sorry, Mel.

Monday, Shane, Maria, Brooklyn, Mom, Dad, and I all went out to Red Rock. I hadn't been there since I was much younger, and it was much farther away from the edge of the city. Now, it seems like it's practically in my parents' backyard. I didn't realize until this trip that it is actually somewhat of a tourist spot. I know there are lots of places in southern Utah where the rocks are red, but it's weird to see them in Las Vegas.

Yes, that is snow in the background. It does occasionally snow in Las Vegas, despite the fairly consistent lack of both moisture and freezing temperatures.

Danny cooked us dinner that night (it was mostly meat) and we went to this trendy yogurt place for dessert, called Tart. 

You probably can't tell this from the picture, but we got our yogurt topped with mochi. It looked like marshmallows, but it was definitely mochi. It's strange that, in this economy, people still have the courage to create a yogurt shop based on four flavors that you can add things to like mochi and cereal. Viva Las Vegas!

Washington D.C.

Currently, I am in our nation's capitol, a city rich in history and culture, and I am sitting on the bed in my hotel room watching The Office because I don't feel very well. I credit this with the fact that I didn't sleep much last night, and I spent all day sitting in training sessions and eating heavy foods in between. 

Day 2-more of the same. However, we decided that we wanted to get out and see part of D.C. I wanted to at least see the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Washington Monument while I was in D.C., so we anticipated going to dinner, taking a short tour of the important stuff, and heading home. So, feeling adventurous, we hopped on the Metro.

Here's a shot of Adriatik, Kim, and Laurelle on the Metro.

We made the mistake of thinking we wanted sushi. One of the other girls, Lucy, looked up what was supposed to be a good place on her Blackberry. However, when we got there, this is what we found:

That's the restaurant behind the CAUTION tape. Apparently, it was undergoing some sort of renovation/repairs. By the time we found it, it was after 9:00, and we were starving, so we opted for Thai food, instead.

Also, I discovered that my prior experiences navigating Tokyo helped me in D.C., as I narrowly saved us from getting on the wrong train.

The next day brought more training, more food, more tears, and, by the time it was all over, I was exhausted. Most of the other fellows went to see the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in the city. Apparently, if they had gone on Friday, instead, they would have been there with the Obamas. Oh, well.

I, on the other hand, found sushi on the same street as our hotel, along with a charming candy store where I bought saltwater taffy for my students. 

Here's a picture of the restaurant. As many of you know, I often seek out sushi restaurants when I travel. Sometimes, they are amazing successes. Sometimes, they are not. How did this one rank? Pretty well. They had my beloved inari sushi, as well as katsu. Sadly, as soon as I was done, I had to go back to my hotel room and work.

So, what I have concluded it that it is great when my travel is paid for by AAMFT or Texas Tech. However, I have also concluded that it comes with many strings. I have two other trips planned to D.C. this year. Cross your fingers that, next time, I actually get to see some of it.