Last night I went to live band karaoke.

Well that’s not true.

I’ve opened my podcast with a lie.

Last night I went to karaoke with a live piano player who are so much better than dead piano players.

Your Daily Lex.

I have friends who go to this karaoke somewhat frequently.

This was our second time.

Our being Lauren and mine.

The guy who runs it is well known in the theater community and so a lot of theater community people go as to a bunch of other regulars and it’s in the beautiful Asbury Park Hotel in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

He does it every Tuesday and you know he’s a very accomplished pianist who knows a whole lot of songs by heart and then you know he has an app where he can get sheet music for almost anything and if he can have music he can sight read it and play it and you sing.

The first time I went I just watched.

The second time I went, which was yesterday, I got a song on the list.

Now I didn’t get a song on the list by talking to him which I could have done.

I did it by talking to a friend of mine who was there, Joe, because Joe is in with the piano player Bob and he texts him, hey I’ve got my friend Lex here he’s gonna sing this and Lauren’s gonna sing this and so and so.

So we got in that way and one of my karaoke mainstays and I’m curious what are your karaoke mainstays?

What are your go-to karaoke songs?

Well one of my karaoke mainstays is What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong and I like to sing it in my impression of Louis Armstrong’s voice and what happened last night is a classic example of how it goes where you know it’s karaoke people are doing their own thing and then sometimes if a song is really good they’ll stop and take notice in my case I mean is it really good I can’t answer that but is it noticeable yes people look up and then they do a double take when they see that that voice which is not really my voice is coming from me and I even took a moment during one of the breaks in the song to say yes that is my real voice in my normal voice but so of course when you’re doing the Louis Armstrong impression it’s like I see trees of green red and it’s funny when I go up and tell the guy hey this is the song I’m gonna be doing he’s like uh just from my saying hello to him he’s like you sound like a baritone do you want me to transpose it down a couple steps I’m like I don’t know and he’s I said I’m gonna be doing it in the original voice though I’m gonna do the voice and he goes oh if you’re doing the voice let’s keep it in the original key and I was like great I trust you and it went well uh and uh I will say before I did it getting really for a moment I was asking some friends there like is it cultural appropriation to do Louis Armstrong’s voice I’m a white man imitating a famed black singer’s voice uh and we concluded no that it’s an impression that it has nothing to do with his race it’s just his very distinctive voice uh and try to pull that off uh I think that uh when I did it just now on this podcast it was a little bit more close to um like my Trekkie Monster voice or somewhere between Grover and Cookie Monster uh but when I’m really in the zone I can I can nail that voice pretty well and so it went well it was fun uh and what’s weird about this karaoke besides the fact that it’s karaoke at all and that there’s this you know piano player playing your songs live is that because it’s in the lobby of a hotel uh you can do anything you want by which I mean yeah there’s a bar there and there’s also a coffee shop there but when you’re at a hotel as a guest you can you know order food to your hotel room you can uh it’s a pet friendly hotel so there are often dogs in the lobby and then there’s people often bring food and it’s funny to see outside food in a place that looks like you’re at a bar because there is a bar there uh but you know people are ordering dominoes or bringing in cookies last week or two weeks ago somebody brought in pumpkin pies uh now I will also admit that because I’m so thoughtful about my own food intake I didn’t have any pumpkin pie two weeks ago and have any cookies yesterday uh that didn’t stop me from having a drink but that’s fine uh but anyway I uh I sang What a Wonderful World and now my thought is what song would I do the next time because I’m sure I’ll be back in the next two month period let’s say um and I’m trying to think what’s a good song that sounds good on the piano that I can sound good on without having to resort to funny voices I don’t know the answer yet but I’m still thinking about it but yeah do tell me what’s your go-to karaoke song if it’s like soundtrack karaoke where they’re you know they’re actually playing a backing track I really enjoy singing Bill’s Bill’s Bill’s by Destiny’s Child I thought you should know.

Lex.