The Daly Blog

NEWS ITEM: Cafe's 'Naked Karaoke' Upsets Neighbors

Oct 31, 8:37 AM (ET)

BERLIN, Conn. (AP) - You'll need to strip yourself of more than your inhibition and bare more than your soul if you want to take part in karaoke at the Berlin Station Cafe.

Cafe owner Marty St. Pierre says he was just kidding around when he advertised "Naked Karaoke" in front of his bar. Then he got volunteers. Lots of them.

"It honestly started out as a joke," he said. "But there were people signing up, so I just let it run."

But not everyone warmed up to the idea.

The cafe's neighbors called Town Hall to complain, and town authorities went to warn St. Pierre he could face fines or arrest if he operated the naked musical performance without a permit required under a town ordinance.

David E. Koskoff, co-owner of the building since the 1980s and a lawyer, is suing the town.

Koskoff also contends the business isn't "dirty."

"You're not talking about the Bada Bing!" he said, referring to the strip joint in the television series, The Sopranos. "Nobody who knows our operation would think that suggestion is anything but funny."

Tonight I ran my first karaoke night at Cafe Eclectic in downtown Montclair. I was nervous as hell because I didn't know what to expect. I'm used to doing these shows at bars, and for most people it takes a fair amount of liquid courage to make them get up and sing.

As I was setting up, these two young women, sitting on a couch in front of the small stage, voiced that exact thought. I started to get nauseated. Cold sweat streamed down my face. I'm pretty sure I went pale.

What if nobody sings? What the f*** was I going to sing? What's the capital of Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh?!?!

As it turned out, I'd worried needlessly. One of the aforementioned women was named Shayna, and before the night was over, she'd sung everything from Aretha to No Doubt and back again, and very well at that. Completely saved my ass.

Coffee John, so named because he works at the cafe and there are just too damn many Johns at the West Side on Thursday nights, did his usual complement of Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Springsteen and Kid Rock. Entertaining as always.

Fred stepped up late with an authentic Tom Petty imitation. Julio, the owner, joined in the fun by joking his way through "Piano Man."

I gotta say, I like this gig. It's an early night (I got home before midnight), the cafe's got a great vibe, and there are no obnoxious drunks to spoil the fun.

I've got three more weeks left in my trial run there, but it looks promising, so come on out one of these Wednesday nights, ya know, have some espresso, a little dessert, rock the mic a few times, it's all good.

Oh, and by the way, the capital of Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh is Des Moines.

...one letter, actually. Or, to be more precise, one e-mail. But there's no song I'm aware of yet that goes, "E-mail, we get e-mail," which is no surprise, given how awkwardly that lyric would fall from the tongue. But I digress.

John of Wayne, NJ, writes:

"I'm enjoying the Daly Blog I must say. I request commentary on the insanely catchy new Pink single, 'Trouble,' cowritten by Tim Armstrong from Rancid. That's no shit."

Okay, so I went to my favorite illicit music-downloading portal and attempted to acquire the song. First, I must warn that there is a really, really crappy MP3 of the tune being circulated. Can it be chalked up to ineptitude or dia-bo-LIC-al sab-o-TAY-gee? I have Oliver Stone checking it out.

So then I went to launch.yahoo.com so I could check out the song and the video simultaneously. The verdict: Both are undeniably yummy, but I must say that there are other flavors in the musical-confection section of my grocer's freezer that I would choose over Pink's "Trouble."

These past couple o' weeks, the flavor I can't get enough of is Outkast's "Hey Ya." This is what I call insanely catchy, in that I can't get it out of my head, and there seems to be no logical basis for it ever having gotten in there in the first place. It sounds like a cross between War's "Why Can't We Be Friends" and Toni Basil's "Mickey." It's upbeat and catchy and it's got all kinds of cool noodly sound effects, but it still exudes the unmistakable aroma of da funk. I, mean, come on..."Shake it, sh-shake it, shake it like a Polaroid pick-cha?" Etrange, mais merveilleux!

And so, John, while I indeed like "Trouble," "Hey Ya" has nailed down the honors as my jammy of the moment. (P.S. The retro-style video clip is also the shiznit.)

Most of the time, when people try to get inventive with their answering-machine messages, they fail miserably.

But here's one for the Outgoing Message Hall of Fame. According to The N.Y. Daily News, it's on the machine of actress Tovah Feldshuh, now appearing on Broadway as former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir in Golda's Balcony:

"I read an article that said the way to achieve inner peace is to finish the things I had started. Today, I finished two bags of potato chips, a cherry pie, a fifth of Jack Daniel's, a small box of chocolate candy ... and I strangled the living crap out of someone I didn't like.

"I feel better already. Leave your message at the beep."

You should change the name of your band from Limp Bizkit to Loose Stool.

It's not bad enough that you felt the need to prop up your sagging career on the genius of Pete Townshend. But where in the hell do you get off re-writing "Behind Blue Eyes?" Why not just hurl your feces at the Mona Lisa, you overgrown chimp?

And to make matters worse, where Roger Daltrey's vocal was at once world-weary and defiant, you whine the lyrics as if you just got bitch-slapped by Britney Spears.

May a rogue nation test nuclear weapons in your ass.

A: They needed to make more blood.



I'm driving home from the multiplex, having just seen Kill Bill. I am exhausted from the experience. My muscles ache.

I try to recall if I've ever before witnessed such an orgy of violence, such a cartoonish display of bloodletting. The only thing I can equate it with is the video games I've watched my brother play on his computer.

I dial my cell phone. My brother answers.

"Kill Bill," I intone.

"What?" he responds, as if we've never started a conversation in the middle before.

"You must see Kill Bill. It's every video game you've ever loved, made into a movie."

He's already heard good things. I feed him more.

"When someone gets thrown to the floor, you get hurt."

He looks up the movie schedule on the Web. There's a show he can get to tomorrow after work, at a theater on his way home. I tell him that not only must he go, but he has to call me immediately after seeing it.

Yes, it's incredibly violent. And the blood? Oh, mein papa, you've never seen such blood...unless you're a fan of Sonny Chiba movies from the 1970s, in which case you're used to it. And that's the point -- it's an homage.

Did you find yourself laughing at the part of Pulp Fiction when Marvin accidentally gets his face blown off, and then Vincent and Jules have to clean up the mess? Then you can handle Kill Bill. Trust me. You'll marvel at the scene in which The Bride gets into a samurai sword fight with 70 gangsters at once. You'll get a Yakuza's eye view of what it would be like to be near someone who just got hacked with a supreme piece of Japanese steel, and thrill at having been made a part of the action.

Here's another example, and then I'll stop, because if not I'll just keep spilling details: There's an extreme close-up of a pistol pointed straight at you. The gun is fired, and you watch as the bullet exits the chamber in such slow motion that you can see the rotation of the slug. It's hurtling inexorably toward your skull. And when it hits...you feel it. Literally. The sound and the visual are engineered to make it so.

Lest you think it's all action and no acting, check out the scene in which The Bride emerges from her coma. It's been four years, but from her POV, the massacre that left her comatose happened a second ago. Then she feels her stomach and realizes that the child she'd been pregnant with is gone. It's an Oscar moment. Brilliant.

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT wait for Kill Bill to come out on video. See it in the theater, as it's meant to be seen. Go. Now.

Welcome back, QT.

My world is a pretty surreal place. Throw in all the crazy stuff that goes down on the rest of this rock, and, well...let's just say that the hard drive between my ears exceeds its capacity on a fairly regular basis.

I'm a composer, but often there's a lot more to be said than can logically fit into a three-minute song. I'm a newspaper editor, but much of what I feel compelled to write about would not be appropriate for the publication at hand.

As Robert Plant once sang, "I ain't jokin', woman, I got to ramble." I suppose I could just keep a personal journal, but what good is merely being the center of one's own attention?

Hence, this blog. Because when it gets right down to it, it's all about me, isn't it? :)