Samantha’s birthday was today, so her husband Iggy arranged a surprise get-together for her at Japas 55 with a tight-knit group of friends and a birthday karaoke celebration, with plenty of gifts, sushi, sake and beer to go around. We started out, appropriately enough, with “Birthday” by the Beatles, quickly discovering, as most have, that we only knew the refrain. (Even more embarrassingly, this happened with Europe’s “Final Countdown,” which I don’t think anyone actually knows the verses to.)
Surprisingly, neither Billy Joel nor Zeppelin made appearances at our party, but we pulled out what are by now, after several karaoke outings featuring most of the same singers, traditional group favorites:
- “Love Shack” by the B-52’s
- “Bette Davis Eyes” by Kim Carnes
- “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)” by Phil Collins
- “Hotel California” by the Eagles
- “Suspicious Minds” by Elvis
- “We Built This City” by Starship
- requisite David Bowie song (“Modern Love”)
- requisite Madonna song (“Like a Virgin”)
We also snuck into the ’60s with “California Dreamin’” by the Mamas & the Papas, “Hazy Shade of Winter” by Simon & Garfunkel and “Daydream Believer” by the Monkees. My shining moment was helping out Katie with the lead for U2’s “One,” which wasn’t a problem, because Bono’s range is nearly as limited as mine.
Sam has a clear, strong, beautiful voice, and can really hold down a tune, so we faded back as she took the lead on “Only The Lonely” by the Motels, “You’ve Got a Friend” by Carole King, “We’ve Only Just Begun” (if memory serves) by the Carpenters, and, oddly but successfully, “Land of Confusion” by Genesis and “If I Only Had a Brain” from The Wizard of Oz. Hooray for karaoke!
My ride home was a barrel of monkeys. You must give credit to the Metropolitan Transit Authority for waiting until the wee hours after midnight to conduct trackwork and construction. Alas, while the number of riders to be inconvenienced is vastly diminished at that time, those riders that there are tend to be very sleepy, drunk or both, making navigation of already confusing rerouting directives and temporary service cancellations moreso.
In my case, the A express train uptown was running on the local track at 59th Street, so I instead took the D express train, exercising care to get off at 145th Street, lest I end up in the Bronx. I then transferred to another A train, also running on the local track, and at 168th Street, to the grumbles of many, the conductor announced that was the train’s final stop.
Then there was an announcement over the PA that the only way to access uptown express stops on the A (like my home stop) was to take a local shuttle train running on the downtown express track. But when it pulled up and its passengers has departed, the conductor shouted to keep off because his particular train was headed back to the station. Neon-vested MTA grunts had to make a sweep of the still-open cars to shoo out the stubborn, the non-English-comprehending and the hard of hearing.
With a sigh, I took an elevator down to the fifth circle of hell, land of the Wrathful, Sullen and 1 train, which after taking a long while to show up, eventually got me home by 2:30 a.m. Yet, as recently demonstrated, subway service is better than none.