Roxanne

Years ago, my friend Mr. Mike used to get drunk, play his guitar, and make us sing "Roxanne."

Mike didn't know how to play guitar.

Luckily, the rest of us knew how to sing, or at least play an instrument. Heck, one of us is a Professional Musician (In the pic, Markie's the one in the middle, also the one you hear singing. If your computer has sound, that is.)

Someone would usually take the guitar away from Mr. Mike and give him another beer, or shot of tequila or something.

Then someone else would play and we'd change the words to "Abilene" around in ways that were only funny to us.

Flash forward more than a decade: The Jesus of Cheese and I were just starting to date. We had just discovered homebrewing, and were sampling our very first product: basic mead.

I had quite a bit of mead. Mead makes you happy.

Apparently it makes the Jesus of Cheese play his guitar. I decided it would be great fun to jump on his bed and sing along.

If any of y'all ever witness him playing his guitar, you will find one truth: he never finishes a song. Ever. Unless it's "Roxanne" and I'm drunk.

Then I make him finish it, so I can sing it.

The latest development: we bought the video game RockBand. You get a standard set of songs, the result of which is that Simian Boy's current favorite song is "Mississippi Queen," which seems to have superseded "Ring of Fire," "Weather With You," and "Walking On Sunshine," among others.

It took us a little while to figure out how to use the microphone as a player--the guitar and drums just plug in--but we finally did it. Apparently, I'm the only one in the family who can sing. And I always thought I sucked, but I will at least do it.

My family seemed rather eager to have me sing while they did their bits. So I did. I discovered a couple of things. One of these is that I really don't know the words to "Mississippi Queen," or even "Blitzkrieg Bop." I can fake it pretty good, though.

The Jesus of Cheese bought me "Roxanne" to sing, because it's not part of the standard set.

To do well on the singing in this game, I've found it's best--if you know the song--to NOT look at the lyrics and prompts or hints. Maybe some karaoke performer can verify this for me.

So I just sing it. Sometimes I pretend Mr. Mike is playing really lame guitar with me, and sometimes I pretend I'm jumping on the bed that I eventually conceived my children on.

Do you have any idea how many times "Put on the red light" is repeated in that song? Neither do I, but it's a lot.

Speaking of repetition, I wonder if they have "Love To Love You Baby" or "I Feel Love" for purchase.

Now THAT would be cool.