The Tao of Karaoke

It's been a trip, as they say. I'm in, perhaps, my least favorite work destination on Earth in many respects. Kingston is the capital city of a very poor country, and it's part of the whole experience. And most times I'm here, I have a raft of challenges to overcome to just be able to carry on business. But this week, it's been a trip indeed.

I came here straight from New York. The trip to New York was not all good. I didn't arrive here in a good state of mind. And I will be in Kingston a total of about two weeks -- the longest business trip I have yet made in my career. The recipe was for a big, spicy pot of disaster.

And yet, as things have evolved in my little seaside redoubt, I once again was struck by how grand silliness is woven into the fabric of life just at the right moments. And there is always a lesson in it, if not always a reason.

It began the first night. My room at the hotel overlooks the grounds, where there is a huge pool and a garden. On Monday night, at about 7pm, what sounded like a bad wedding band started up after a series of Jamaican-accented sound checks on the blaring sound system. I was instantly annoyed, and my first instinct was to call the front desk to complain until I realized how dumb that would be. This is the hotel's entertainment. Right away I thought (in my grouchy haze nonetheless), why do I have to be in a hermetically sealed container of grumpiness and pain? (I'd also injured my back the last day in New York.) The music kinda sucked, but I let it go.

On Tuesday, at about 7:10pm, suddenly I heard a loud "whoooo!" start off a reggae set from a different area of the garden. It was so loud a starting-yell that I could hear it echoing off of buildings around New Kingston. It rattled me, and I was pissed. I stormed out onto the balcony and saw it was a small stage, and there were a couple of people lounging around the pool and not much of an audience. I couldn't hear the TV. I got all upset. It ended around 9.

On Wednesday, my back was much better and my mood was more sad. I was getting lonesome and homesick. A steel drum band was playing a bit more softly until about 11pm, and it just made me feel more wistful. Something about steel drum music - it has a joviality that is sometimes deceptive. There's also a layer of saudades under it sometimes. Very expressive. But it also irritated me.

On Thursday, it was Valentine's Day. I was stopped and cornered by every female in Kingston, it seemed, all day. "Happy Valentine's Day!" over and over. The chambermaid left me chocolates and a note. But nothing from Vini. Granted, our Dia dos Namorados is celebrated in June, not in February. But it was still sad. The only thing that could have lifted my lonely and sad mood would have been an email or a message of some kind from Vini. Just one line. He was home sick with a cold. I ended up calling him, but he wasn't in the mood to talk. I got very sour. I think my last post showed that.

I was anxious as 7:00pm approached, and I could see them setting up tables by candlelight around the pool, and the sound checks began. I had a lot of work to do that night. And then the music started. It was a local woman singing love songs, a bizarre combination of 70's pop ballads and the occasional old standard. She wasn't a bad singer, but her set went on and on and on for hours. She was tireless. I was increasingly angry and sad and self-pitying as it went on. This is a business hotel, I raged to myself. What the hell is wrong with these people? Her set ended with a very soulful, predictably full-throated rendition of And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going. Kind of a strange choice to close a Valentine's Day set, huh? I have to admit, though, it made me chuckle. (Vini also loves that song.) But I was still far too tense to sleep well, and needed a pill.

On Friday, the level of tension was at a peak for me. I was incredibly, incredibly tense and very, very homesick, while it was dawning on me that I was only halfway through this trip and was going to lose a weekend on top of it all. I was going to facilitate the highlight business meeting for this trip beginning at 8am on Saturday morning and I had to be very prepared. I was imagining that maybe on a Friday, the hotel's entertainment office would ease up a bit and let folks go out and soak up some local color instead. No such luck. Promptly at 7pm, I heard the booming voice of a woman "welcoming all ye" to the show to come. I rolled my eyes and shot out onto the balcony, and saw they'd set out literally hundreds of chairs in theater rows, facing a stage on which a very substantial Jamaican woman (all 200 pounds of her) was hosting some sort of show that clearly was a draw for many local folks. The place was packed, and people were in a buoyant mood.

It was karaoke night in New Kingston. Little did I know.

I was so angry and desperate, I can't even describe how much. I ordered the biggest room service order of the trip and proceeded to gorge myself with comfort food as I struggled through my preparatory work, unable to shield my room from the escalating noise coming from the grounds. One after the other, people cycled up to the stage and alternately belted out -- or simply howled out -- a string of pop songs like it was Jamaican Idol. The occasional duet. Many, many awful singers that Simon Cowell would have dispatched with ice picks. The occasionally talented one. None were professionals. And the audience was absolutely enraptured.

It seemed the more awful the singers, the louder and more adoring the crowds. It was like I'd stumbled onto a gigantic family reunion. No one would be booed off the stage. It was insane. I was pulling my hair out. I was afraid to go out onto the balcony again for fear of leaping to my own death in desperation.

And then, it happened again. It just broke, like an infected sore. This woman got onto the stage and began to caterwaul at the top of her lungs with such brio, such oomph and confidence that I was absolutely knocked over. She was easily the worst singer, but also the most unselfconscious, and the audience was on its feet, clapping and cheering wildly.

That was when I got it.

The tao of karaoke. The joy and pride of being yourself, and letting it shine.

That was what made them stand and cheer. That's what made them feel happy and joyous. It was almost a religious experience -- for them, and for me. It was almost intelligently designed to crack open my despair and make me give it up.

I grabbed my digital camera and captured a minute or so of her song (see above), but failed to get the truly best moments. You can get a sense, though. I stood out there and looked out over the crowd under the trees, and the New Kingston skyline in front of the mountain in the distance that trails into the Caribbean Sea off to the right, still and beautiful. And it all just suddenly seemed so funny and wonderful.

And my despair was suddenly so clear to me: I was so depressed and sad lately not for all the apparent reasons around me. Not in New York, not in Kingston. Not back in São Paulo off and on for the last year. Not because I missed Washington or missed Vini or missed my family, or missed Elaine. It's because I desperately miss being myself.

Something happened to me almost a year ago when I moved to Brazil. I don't know why it happened, or what was behind it. I almost don't care at this point. But I stopped being myself. Really out there, karaoke-night-style. Like I had been back in Logan Circle, to the 'nth degree. No wonder I have been so horrendously unhappy so often. It's no way to live.

And as the night went on, and I sat out on the balcony laughing and clapping along with the crowd several stories below, I realized that it was time to figuratively put my name in for the karaoke night of life, and get back up to microphone damn soon.