Baked
Yo. SHIT WENT DOWN TONIGHT, MAN. I show up to S.C.’s place with Morgana, and we roll into this tight-ass basement in the ground. THERE ARE BOOKS EVERYWHERE. I’m absorbing the knowledge through my eyes. HOLD UP. We’re on a porch now and M.E. texts me. What does everyone want to drink? I WANT TO DRINK THE MOON, SON. BRING ME THE LIQUOR STORE, SON. Next thing I know, D.Panda rolls in with M.E. and I lose it. They didn’t bring the moon. WHY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT SKYLER WHITE?
Friends Karaoke is HERE. I go up the stairs and I think I see the Devil, but at this point, I’m like fuck it, we #rideordie tonight, bitches, because I #cantstop. Warm smell of colitas rising up through the air. Rrraaaaaaadddiooooo Heeeeaaaaaaddd. I fist pump with Morgana and D.Panda to some Fitty, but then I realize that life is so meaningful that I have to sit down for a moment. I take a picture of this madness and send it to K.S.P. WHY AREN’T U HERE, BITCH?? He asks me to “rank Tits, Nuggets, Ass.”
AND I’M LIKE, “1 Ass 2 Nuggets 3 Tits. DUH.”
“What would you do if a naked Lena Dunham showed up at your door?”
AND I’M LIKE, “JUZT SAY NO.”
The videos at Friends Karaoke are so fucking random and have nothing to do with the song. THERE IS A DUDE FLYING IN CALIFORNIFICATION. That’s some existential-level shit, kids. But Friends Karaoke also got your back, you know? There is a dude outside CONSTANTLY watching the door to make sure the fuzz don’t take me. The room is so dark and the couch is like the warm, soft hand of God. I wanna live on that hand. I scream something about being wasted and pass out.
— DAILY ARTS WRITER
Buzzed
The songs that make it glorious are never the good songs. No one sings Radiohead. No one wants to hear that tasteful Led Zeppelin lullaby. Sing karaoke like you’re a one-man opera, and if you’re not actively attempting to make fun of yourself, the booze will take care of that for you, no worries. Destroy your secret favorites, destroy your favorite secrets, bond over the mutual giggling shame. You like REO Speedwagon? So the fuck do I! Duet me, baby. I just want to add, as an addemdum, that in our Friends sesh, I absolutely smashed my rendition of Hilary Duff’s magnum opus.
Friends is all about looking backward and also looking forward. Going back, back to the beginning, back to when the earth, the sun, the stars were all aligned, and reliving the past in new time. It’s about washing away your sanity.
Stop trying to fit a square into a circle, that’s no life. You have to defy the compulsion to run screaming from the embarrassment. You have to find a pigment of truth beneath your skin. Because you want to feel the thunder, you want to scream. Karaoke is all about that, starting again, coming clean.
Friends teaches you, in baby steps and huge handles of alcohol that, wait, dear lord how did we drink all of that how are we still alive what the jesus, that you really can trust your friends. They won’t attack you when you show them what you really are, and what you really like. They’ll be right there, singing their heads off with you and for you. Being fools together, that’s what Friends is, and it’s what friends are.
— NOAH COHEN
Bored
I don’t know what I did to deserve this, but I’m crowded into the corner of a sticky leather couch, watching D.Panda attempt to spoon a puddle of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream into his mouth. And I’m at a karaoke lounge. Sober.
Karma is real.
Vengeful, I slip the carton from Panda’s hands, hand him a microphone and hope — in my own sober amusement — that maybe he’ll try to eat that, too. But he doesn’t notice, so I paw at what’s left of Liz Lemon (Daily Arts has good taste in TV and dairy treats), praying that no one’s found their way to Don Mclean’s eight-minute “American Pie.” To take advantage of my unaffected sense of good judgment, I pull my phone from my purse. Say cheese, bitches.
Because this piece is only 200 words, and a picture is worth so much more, the rest of my sobery-soberiffic-sobertastic night can be described by a series of photos: past, current and future editors lined up like a shit-faced family of Russian nesting dolls; a blossoming bromance huddled around a microphone; fists and bottles raised to rock music as we stumble over verses in “Mr. Brightside”; that one writer going solo because, dude, nobody else knows that song, hurry up. And many more too incriminating for publication in a newspaper. Or on Facebook, for that matter.
Until I’m 21 and can party like it’s, according to our musical selection, 2005, let’s stick to our day jobs. All right, guys?
— BRIANNE JOHNSON