Turn Around Bright Eyes by Rob Sheffield Read Free Book Online Page A

guy has the shades and the ’burns; more than anything, he has the conviction. He does “American Trilogy,” which I’ve never heard before. He begins with “Dixie,” segues into “All My Trials,” then unites the nation with “The Battle-Hymn of the Republic.” Here is the entire Civil War in five minutes, ending with a pietà of the Elvis Guy holding President Lincoln’s body in one arm and Elvis Aron Presley’s body in the other, sobbing over both fallen kings, yet somehow rising above to proclaim, “Glory, glory, hallelujah. His truth . . . is . . . marching . . . ONNNN!”
                      At our table, nursing our nearly-sixty-minutes-old pitchers of Bud, we all still think Aunt Caroline deserves the trophy. But I’m not really surprised when the Elvis Guy wins.
    1992: The Crying Game hits the Seminole Theater on Route 29 in Charlottesville, Virginia. It’s an Irish film about an IRA assassin who discovers his humanity—where else?—in a karaoke bar. He falls for the femme fatale, at the place where she sings “The Crying Game.”
                      The movie is surprisingly forgotten these days, especially considering how many other movies have copied the karaoke-as-exposition motif. But at the time, it’s a huge crossover hit. Boy George sings the theme song, doing for karaoke what Casablanca did for “La Marseillaise.” Karaoke is officially a “thing now,” in the nineties idiom of “that’s such a thing now.” Such establishments in the United States might still be scarce as hen’s teeth, but this movie plays in malls and multiplexes around the country.
                      My local Top 40 station in Charlottesville gives away a movie poster, autographed in a gold Sharpie by Boy George himself. I win by being the first listener to call into Z-95 when the morning DJ plays “Karma Chameleon.” The Crying Game poster hangs proudly in my bathroom for the rest of the nineties. Boy George’s handwriting is as fabulous as everything else about him.
    1993: My town finally gets a karaoke joint, when Mingles opens on West Main Street, across from the Greyhound terminal and the statue of Lewis and Clark. At Mingles, the slogan on the napkin is W INKIN ’, D RINKIN ’ AND E ATIN ’! The napkin doesn’t mention “singin’,” but that’s the novelty that brings most of us in. It’s a mixed crowd, mostly happy-hour partiers straight from the office in suits and heels. Feisty paralegals hop on the tiny stage to sing “Bang a Gong,” while their tipsy bosses go for “Love on the Rocks.” Gongs get banged; drinks get spilled. The manager likes to get up and do mid-period Billy Joel songs such as “Tell Her About It.” And the Elvis Guy sits by himself at the bar, brooding, awaiting his turn at “American Trilogy.”
                      Do I ever get up the nerve to sing at Mingles? Not in my ungodliest nightmares. Do I have fun watching everybody else express themselves? Always. Mingles goes out of business within a year.
    1997: Julia Roberts stars in My Best Friend’s Wedding . Straight male America’s long, slow, denial-ravaged march to the reluctant realization that Cameron Diaz is not going to appear naked in this movie is only partly ameliorated by Rupert Everett’s climactic rendition of “I Say a Little Prayer.”
                      As a Hollywood rom-com, this gets much bigger exposure than The Crying Game . It’s safe to say that this movie is the real fountainhead of the Hollywood karaoke scene as we know it. From now on, what the “recognition scene” was to Shakespearean drama, the “awkward eye contact during oldies duet scene” is to the garden-variety worse-than-rubella romantic comedy. At this point, even normal people know what karaoke looks like.
                      (Postscript: A couple of years later I interview Rupert Everett and he is possibly the