Karaoke:
‘There’s Always Somebody
Worse Than You Are’
[Adapted from The City magazine, September 1992.]

     The comic strip "Real Life Adventures" recently defined karaoke as "the combining of people who shouldn't be drinking with people who shouldn't be singing." Actually, it's the closest you can get to singing in the shower--only on stage, with your clothes on.

     Lately, hundreds of San Francisco Bay Area people are doing it every night in karaoke bars. They get up on a stage. A DJ slips a disc into a player, and within seconds their song begins. Maybe "Hound Dog" or "Like a Virgin." (There are a thousand hits to choose from in rock, soul, pop and country.) Whatever the tune, it sounds like the real thing, minus the lead vocals.  On a TV monitor, the performer sees the lyrics, which are highlighted as they're supposed to be sung.

     And they sing.

     Some are dynamite, some bomb.  No matter which, they usually come back for more.  Singing with your clothes on can be addictive.

     Kathi Kamen Goldmark, a book publicist who sings and plays guitar with local bands, introduced me to karaoke. "If you're not involved, it seems real obnoxious," she says.  "But when you do it and get into the swing of it, it's really fun. It's a way of acting out a little fantasy of being a singer."

     Karaoke hit the United States in the early 1980s, drawing Asians singing native songs.  It still does.  Nostalgic for the sounds of their homeland, they gather at bars in Japantown, where they can sing not only Japanese but Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese songs.

     For those of us born in the U.S.A., it's still something of a novelty, but it's growing.  Five years ago, says Tony Manas of Karaoke Warehouse, which sells karaoke systems, there were a dozen or so karaoke bars around the Bay Area.  Today, there are more than a hundred. 

     In San Francisco, there's karaoke at singles bars like Pierce Street Annex, where one recent night the crowd included Olympic gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi (she didn't sing, drink or skate; she just got mobbed by admirers). At Kanzaki's Lounge, TV anchor Sydnie Kohara and playwright Phillip Kan Gotanda have been spotted whipping through Motown classics.  And novelist Amy Tan (The Joy Luck Club) karaoke'd several weekends in the bar at Yet Wah, a restaurant in a neighborhood shopping center.

     For my karaoke debut, I chose the Yet Wah.  The cocktail lounge used to empty out soon after the restaurant closed at 10 p.m. until Louis Chan, the owner, decided to try resuscitation by karaoke.  Since setting up his system less than three years ago, Chan, who also plays DJ-host, has turned Thursday through Saturday nights at the Yet Wah into one of the more remarkable social scenes in town.

     One recent Friday night, the room is packed to its capacity of 50 or 60 people.  Regulars spot and greet each other.

     There's Kathi Goldmark and her 8-year-old son Tony, who has an encyclopedic knowledge of oldies and whose favorite karaoke number is "Tutti-Frutti"; Marcia Zwick and her 8-year-old daughter, Meredith Appelbaum, who team up for "Da Doo Ron Ron"; “Stompin’ John” Stadlberger, a machinist who'll—well, stomp his way through "Gloria"; Annette Pacheco, whose version of Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" is perfection, and Domingo Aquino, a percussionist who's one of Yet Wah's stars, cheered for his soulful interpretation of "Me and Mrs. Jones."

     At stageside, Ted Guerrero and Kam Wong sit together.  After Guerrero belts out a stirring "Earth Angel," Wong gets Chan to slip in a Cantonese song whose title translates into "Restricted Area of Love." A Latino businessman, after sitting quietly for an hour, takes the stage and lights into a ferocious "La Bamba."

     A New York couple makes their karaoke debuts.  Writer Holly George-Warren, ex of Das Furlines, an all-woman polka-rock band, marches merrily through "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'." Robert Warren, formerly with the Fleshtones, ignites the room with a blatantly professional reading of "Born to Be Wild." Meanwhile, Stompin’ John roams the room, offering free Pepperidge Farm cookies.

     It's a family affair; a musical open house; the proverbial melting pot at a fast, friendly boil.

     “It's completely egalitarian entertainment," Goldmark says. "Anybody can do it.  There's always somebody worse than you are; and there's usually somebody better, but if you're not a great singer, it doesn't matter; people are very generous in their praise."

     It was Goldmark who got Amy Tan to the Yet Wah to practice up for her stint at the American Booksellers Association convention in Anaheim this spring. She was part of a rock band put together by Goldmark that consisted of best-selling authors, including Stephen King, Roy Blount Jr. and Dave Barry.  "She had no experience getting up in front of people," Goldmark says.  "It was a very big step for her, from getting up there with a bunch of us and having nothing come out of her mouth, to singing 'Bye, Bye Love' with me and taking the lead."

     Tan not only survived Anaheim, she wowed 'em with her flashy rock and roll outfit, topped off by a wig and shades.  Two weekends later, in her own hair, she's back at Yet Wah. "Here I was, a wannabe," she says.  "In Anaheim, I became a 'was.' Now I'm a has-been." Karaoke, she adds, is "a test in life. Everybody is up there testing some part of themselves."

     I discovered the Yet Wah early this year through Goldmark. A prototypical frustrated pop singer since I failed a talent show audition with Elvis' "I Beg of you" in the eighth grade, back when that song wasn’t an oldie, I'd foisted my Elvis impression on friends at private parties a couple of times. But never in front of potentially hostile strangers. At Yet Wah, hostile is a foreign word, and once I got through my first song, "Don't Be Cruel," the crowd...well, I like to fantasize that they loved me tender.

     Having done voices most of my life, I've mimicked Dean Martin, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, and Nat “King” Cole. I've also learned, the hard way, that "Tossin' and Turnin"' and "Old Time Rock & Roll," among many others, are beyond me.  As Robert Warren puts it, "Karaoke teaches you what songs you can't sing, too.”

     Although I've always enjoyed singing, I'd never learned projection, breath control or stage presence.  I'm still no master, but at least I've found a classroom.

     Thing is, I find myself comfortable with tunes like "A White Sport Coat (and a Pink Carnation)," "He'll Have to Go," and "Beyond the Sea.” And I find myself shocked.  I'm verging on lounge, singing the songs I used to put down. Is this a mid-karaoke crisis?

     But there's redemption in being able to pull off perennial rockers like "Don't Be Cruel," "Teddy Bear" and "Hound Dog." They don't have "I Beg of You," the song I screwed up in the eighth grade, on karaoke (it was, after all, a flip side), but no matter. I feel as if I've graduated.  At last.

A 2000 update: The Yet Wah continues. Only some of the regulars have changed. Kathi Kamen Goldmark now works as a marketing director at Harper San Francisco; she created the Rock Bottom Remainders, the fabled band of best-selling authors, including Stephen King, Dave Barry, Matt Groening, and, yes, Amy Tan. She is also the woman behind the CD, Stranger Than Fiction. Her son Tony now has two CDs under his belt, and is a devoted “Weird Al” Yankovic fan. Soon after the original article appeared, Ted Guerrero became a KJ (karaoke jockey) for Louis Chan, met Maura Vorchheimer, a customer, and married her. They have two kids. “Stompin’ John” and his girl friend, Martha Rodriguez, had their wedding onstage at the Yet Wah, with your faithful correspondent serving as officiator.

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