Hey, you remember when I told you all that I was busy, and as a consequence you should go and read my karaoke article, and then I didn't say anything else of interest except to call some imaginary people Cathars? Remember that? Because that was like yesterday or something.

Anyway.

If you liked my karaoke article and felt that you could literally hear Zubazz groaning out the chorus to "Sister Christian" and you could almost, well, hear my sinusoidal buzzsaw of a voice reading the article out loud, then you're clearly cursed with an excess of imagination. But who needs imagination when you can just listen to me on the radio? Last Thursday afternoon, just at the mold-growing stage of 3:00 PM office slack, just when I was surfing the web and thinking if I have to phone up one more person and entice them to pawn their tragic past for a few minutes of television exposure I'm going to lose my mind, a friend at CBC radio called me up and asked me if I'd like to make a short radio documentary based on my karaoke evening at B-52s. It'll run at some point between Dec. 15th and Jan. 1st, with an option to expand it for a national broadcast in 2004. After four years of life in the underground tunnels of the culture industry, mining the sweet and the bitter for cable television, this feels like sunlight. This feels like arrival. Maybe it's not, but who cares? I'm just pleased that CBC likes my stuff.

So tonight I'm going back to the karaoke bar on which I based my article. Everybody from my original piece has agreed to be there (which isn't saying too much - they're always there). Now I have to persuade them to sing the same tunes they did last time (again, not a tough task), from Black Crowes to Reba MacSitcom. I need to scribble down a few questions. I need to prepare myself for the fact that I will be at work tomorrow morning grumpy and hungover. I need to reconcile myself with the fact that I'll hear at least three Goo Goo Dolls tunes tonight. And for some reason I need to shave.

Tomorrow night I'm going to Jackie and Paul's for vegetarian chili (chili con vehiculo). And then I'm going to a Christian rave (delirio con idiotas), another one of those affairs that attempts to weld the pious and the profane together and then give it a little push down the driveway. The event is called Skycalled. Skycalled? How about Sunburnt? How about Kitschkicked? How about Godsmacked? This rave features: a thunderous light-and-sound effects show (I wonder if they'll pipe in a big booming voice?); interpretive performances by DJs doing freestylin' beats; hip-hop*, jazz, and ballet dancers improvising on a stage; and visual artists, all expressing themselves and their relationship with D'Lord through... through... through whatever is they think they're doing there, gyrating away or splattering Christ's face onto a canvas or laying down beats both phat 'n' holy. I can't wait to go. I'm also curious to see who attends. Back in university the hallways were always clotted up with Campus Crusade for Christ kiosks, manned by the processed and clean crusaders themselves. Is it that stripe of future insurance salesperson and hotel manager who attends these events? Only ten dollars Canadian (25 cents US, I think) to find out.

*If we lived in the universe of Golden Axe, it'd be hip=hop.

parode - exode