Obama, T. Boone, and Me

I wrote about 200 entries for Time.com’s 100 Most Influential People poll. It was a fun gig, though occasionally maddening, as it’s not always easy to come up with a contextually solid yet slightly breezy description of Carlos Slim at 2 in the morning. Anyway, you should go vote. I’m expecting an Obama/Colbert/moot three-way tie.

A Few More Book Events

Hey everyone,

If you happen to find yourself stranded in the 212 or 610 area codes next week, solutions abound:

- On Monday, 3/23, I’ll be appearing at the “Comedy Central at Crash Mansion” show (which, not surprisingly, will be held at Crash Mansion: 199 Bowery @ Spring). It starts at 8 p.m. and costs $5. I don’t think I’ll be doing anything karaoke-related, but I’ll hopefully be doing something funny-related.

- On Thursday, 3/26, I’ll be reading at Easttown Library. It’s my hometown library, and though it starts at 7:30 p.m., I’ll be arriving at 7:25 p.m., so that I can finally return my 25-years-overdue copy of “The BFG.”

Both events are sponsored by AIG.

Finally, on April 30th, I’ll be doing a show at Manhattan’s Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. It will be an evening of karaoke videos, and it will likely be called “Random Fly Girls, Horny Bugle Boys & Me: Something Something Karaoke Videos.” More info on that later next month.

Seen A Million Faces, Etc.

In what’s shaping up to be a groundbreaking week of comedy-show karaoke cameos, last night’s episode of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon included a bit in which an audience member belted out “Wanted Dead or Alive” with both Bon Jovi and the Roots. I will cop to being a bit jealous here, as I’ve also performed “Wanted” on TV, but it was on my short-lived public-access show, and I was singing it to a frog puppet with a cigarette in his/her mouth.

Fallon, by the way, is an admitted karaoke lover. If you’ve read Don’t Stop Believin’, you know once popped up at a show by the Punk/Metal Karaoke Band. And he also served as the inspiration for what may be the finest bad-pun headline of my entire bad-pun career.

Flight of the Conchords’ Karaoke Video Is Healthier Than A Pheasant

I’m actually surprised Flight of the Conchords made it this far without doing a karaoke-centric spoof, but last night’s episode was worth the wait: As Jemaine bemoans his awkward relationship with an Art Garfunkel impersonator, Bret pops up in a faux karaoke video, singing a garbled Korean ballad about love, pheasants, and beef. The clip gets high marks for verisimilitude: Bret’s stilted body language and constant squinting will look familiar to most karaoke-bar patrons (and performers), as will the video’s nonsensical background imagery (Big Ben, airplanes, waves crashing on the beach, etc.). It’s the perfect excuse to revisit my brief introduction to the bizarre world of karaoke videos: