I Sing, Therefore I Am...

I am walking down the neon lit streets of downtown Daegu, deep in thought and more than a little broken. My moment of inspiration only moments earlier had led me to invent a new sport that would sweep the globe to rapturous praise, but my colleagues either scorned me or looked mildly amused. And not amused in the way someone is by a fantastic comedian, but more how they snigger when someone dancing, slips and falls into a table, badly injuring themselves.

Although my friends were still with me in the flesh, I could feel I had lost them in spirit. I had slipped in their eyes, gone from being a role model and perhaps even an icon to being the class clown. Maybe even an object of mockery.

This was serious. I am the one who does the needless mocking and covers up my own inadequacies by picking on people in my circle of friends. I needed Tiny and Little Spoon to look up to me once more (as I am sure they always did) and not in the physical sense.
I needed Justice and Dubs to forget my moment of insanity with the "Small Off" and again see me as a mind of infinite wisdom and wit. At the moment the only virtue I would still be recognised for was probably my humble modesty.

Little Spoon suggests going to a Norebang. Jackpot.

Norebang is Korean Karaoke, you have a private room with hundreds of songs to choose from, snacks and an overpriced bar. Overpriced bars are not usually my thing, but I enjoy a snack and I felt confident that I was probably one of the best vocalists currently alive.
No sooner had I fallen from grace, than a chance to redeem myself had arrived.

We all agreed, it was time to sing. Ha. I very much doubted that this band of English teachers were much in the way of singers. I've never sang in a karaoke back home, but the more I thought about it, the more it became obvious that this was simply because it was too small a stage for my talents.

Time to go to a shop and buy cheap booze to smuggle into the Norebang. Spoon and Tiny pack their oversized handbags with Soju and beer.
We approach the front door. I look at my hapless friends, smiling away, unaware that after my first song they will be too ashamed of their voices to dare touch the mic. Tonight will be an audience with Monkey Roberts.

We walk in and I push my way to the front; out of my way amateurs I'm the greatest front man who lived on my way to the stage.
We choose our booth and Dubs has had the nerve to pick up the song book. Give me that book boy, I'm Otis Redding reborn.
I pick the song, the music starts. I'm Mick Jagger.

I sneer at my friends as they take a seat and I grab the microphone. I'm James Brown.

I sing.

I'm fucking dreadful. Absolutely appalling.

I glance around to make sure an impostor has not sneaked in and begun wailing like a demented baboon in order to ruin my moment of redemption.
I see myself in a mirror, my mouths moving. This cacophony of hellish sounds is coming from me.

There is a mixture of shock and fear upon the faces of the people who had come here to hear me perform. I should stop. I must stop. But the failure, the shame, the final nail in my coffin.
No,I will not stop. I will sing louder and I will climb up onto the table in the middle of the room.

I knock over the bowl of snacks. Fuck it, if these bastards are hungry they should have eaten before we came out. I begin jabbing my finger angrily at each of their startled faces and my off-key, flat warbling turns into a bestial howling.

It works. Justice is ad libbing parts of the chorus. Dubs is grinning like a mad man who just had his strait jacket cut off and Tiny is laughing and bobbing her head. There is another screeching sound that is cutting through my nightmarish performance like finger nails down a chalkboard. It's Little Spoon. She is also ad libbing. Only she has her back to the screen with the lyrics and is just roaring and screaming unintelligble gibberish.

I'm back. I've won. Come Monday, I can once more swagger into school with my head held high and look my workmates in the eye with my steely gaze.

My debut album will be out next year. This was Monkey Roberts.