Earlier this week, I took my friends Michael and Sabine to dinner at Allswell. Michael and Sabine got married a few months ago at city hall here in New York City, but they had an actual ceremony in California with friends and family and all that jazz yesterday. Unfortunately, due to budget and time constraints I was unable to attend. They did send me this lovely invitation, though.
Dinner was magnificent and we were graciously taken care of by the ever-lovely Sarah Shields. I had the pork skewer with cranberry beans and fennel, but I think we might have shared nearly every small plate on the menu. The octopus was killer, the ham and persimmon was amazing, and the mushroom toast was a piece of garlicky wonder. At the meal’s end, Sarah brought us both desserts. The chocolate pie with hazelnuts was semi-sweet (perfect) and perhaps one of the best desserts I’ve had in ages.
Enough about dinner. It was awesome. You should patronize the restaurant.
Afterward, we headed over to the Manhattan Inn for another drink because it’s a nice place and it was Tuesday night and what the hell, right? As it turns out, Tuesday night at Manhattan Inn is live piano karaoke. Who knew?! Anyone who knows me in meatspace even as a passing acquaintance knows that I am an inveterate karaoke fan. I think karaoke is incredibly fun and something not to be take seriously at all. It doesn’t matter if you’re good or on key or in time. What matters is if you are going for it. Get up there, kill it even if you can’t sing, and it is awesome.
But this time I didn’t really feel like singing. I sort of just wanted to chill with my friends and have a beer and relax. I enjoyed the hell out of the people who did go up. Live piano karaoke is intense because there’s no real cue to get you started. You really need to know the song.
I casually perused the list, which was incredibly short by karaoke standards, and saw that they had “Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt 1” on there. The song is one I’ve often thought would be an amazing karaoke song but I have never actually see it on the list. But there it was. And I wasn’t going to sing karaoke.
The drinks flowed and the night got late and then Michael signed me up. Jerk. I was the last name called for the night and went up and sang Yoshimi and it was awesome. I was drunk enough that I could barely follow the dude playing piano and had to keep asking him where we were. All in all, a highly successful karaoke performance on my part. But at least I went for it.
I actually had no idea The Flaming Lips had made a video for this song before. It might be my favorite Flaming Lips song. You know what? It is definitely my favorite Flaming Lips song. I can’t think of another that I like more than this. “Do You Realize?” is a close second. I just love the whole album. It is so good.
And as such, in honor of Mike and Sabine and our live piano karaoke last Tuesday, here is the music video for “Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt 1”. Enjoy.
