Wasted Warbling
New York City is a vertical town, not that many people notice. After all, looking upward is a signal that you're awed by this skyscraping city, a sign of weakness. Hence, a straight-ahead stare-preferably hidden behind dark sunglasses-is as much a part of our uniform as a black shirt. Yet to ignore the cloud-kissing obvious is to miss surreptitious drinking pleasures.
Upstairs is the new basement, with bars like Pegu Club and Angel's Share a story above the sludgy sidewalk. Few parts of town utilize upper floors for eating and drinking as well as Little Korea, those nebulous Midtown blocks near Macy's infused with Seoul. Gander upward, above the DIY BBQ restaurants, and you'll notice acres of neon blazing brightly, advertising everyone's favorite public humiliation: karaoke.
I am a big karaoke booster. It provides a socially acceptable reason to laugh at people. Yet I am not a fan of karaoke pricing. North of $30 dollars an hour (for four people), plus pricey drinks, is not uncommon for a private room at sing-song joints like East Village's Sing Sing. Two hours become three, and you've dropped $50 to croon "Blame It on the Rain."
Then, on a recent Friday night, I met iBop, a BYOB karaoke hideaway high above a refreshing slab of stunted gentrification: 35th Street. With an Irish bar and several seedy-looking Korean restaurants, the block feels like a blow-job-in-the-doorway throwback to old New York. But the prices don't always reflect that. At a deli near iBop, I paid $10 for a 22-ounce Natural Light, a 25-ounce Molson XXX-strong enough to sterilize open wounds-and a Coors Light tall boy. Cheaper than a bar, yes, but three dollars for Natty Light? Please.
Expensive alcohol in tow, I enter dingy-looking No. 25 and climb to the third floor of what looks like a flophouse or shooting gallery. I'm greeted by several Korean proprietors as hospitable and sweet as grandparents.
"Welcome, welcome," they say, smiles as wide as Niagara Falls. "Which room are you in?"
I mention my karaoke organizer, who has reserved a room in advance, which is fine advice. iBop only offers a handful of singing suites, fitting anywhere from 10 to 35 people, and they fill quickly on the weekend. Understandably so, for prices are a palatable $5 per person, per hour. Heck, even a temp receptionist can cut loose and still pay rent.
The hostess leads me down the hallway, opens a door and ushers me into what appears to be a homemade porn set. The room is my-you're-sexy dark, ringed with lounging couches and rigged with enough disco lighting to recreate 1977. A table massive enough for a woman to give birth is covered with 13 varieties of liquor and booze, and there's still space for more. (Harsher narcotics are ill-advised-employees periodically pop inside to take a karaoke head count.) A projection tv broadcasts videos onto a screen, lyrics large, yellow and inviting. Several friends duet Eminem's stalker classic, "Stan." I never knew Dido could look so?drunk.
Yet inebriation, though an essential element to karaokeing, is not as integral as song selection. Stocking classics, like AC/DC's "Big Balls" and Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer," is important, and iBop delivers that. But there's also a supremely unfortunate selection of current hits ripe for butchering. Kelly Clarkson! Ryan Cabrera! Josh Groban! And even Jay-Z. Inspired by "Stan," I plug in "99 Problems." Soon I growl, "I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one! Hit me!" like a coked-up toy poodle.
"There's only one way to do karaoke," says my friend Jose, his mouth agape. "And that's to make a fool of yourself. You succeeded."
The evening progresses. TLC's "Waterfalls" segues into Bob Seger and even Avril's finest hour, "Sk8er Boi." Embarrassments stack up like firewood. Each warbled lyric, each pelvic thrust, works the 20-strong crowd into a hysterical lather. Such is the private room's beauty: It's an open range for shame, shielded from the public sphere. In iBop's windowless room, social mores are smooshed and rearranged like Silly Putty. Beer is chugged without fear of a $50 bar tab. Fists are pumped with pride. Here, thirty feet above the ground, we're a bit closer to the heavens, which helps us delude ourselves into thinking we're stars.