I’ve never understood the deep discomfort that people have with karaoke, one of my favourite activities from my days before kids. Seal’s “Kiss From a Rose”. Montell Jordan’s “This Is How We Do It”. I used to rock on Magic Mics from the Philippines and shoot for a perfect score with every performance.
We worry too much about what others will think. That we might not sing the greatest or that we’ve forgotten a few of the words in a song. Karaoke is meant to be fun, yet societal pressure builds it up as more than what it is. And a lot of that comes from what we pick up as kids—whether the people around us bolstered our confidence or just broke it down. We need to give our kids the space to enjoy their lives, and I feel like I’m doing that with the VTech Kidi Star Karaoke Machine™.
My love for Netflix runs deep. It’s on when I work on the blog, it’s on for my date nights… the streaming service’s grown with me, and now my eldest son’s experiencing the same!
One recent offering for your child’s insatiable appetite for content? Netflix’s Beat Bugs—an animated show with singers like P!nk, Aloe Blacc, Eddie Vedder and Sia weaving well-known Beatles songs with uplifting stories and life lessons!
To spread the word about Beat Bugs, Netflix sent its Stream Team members boxes of Beat Bugs swag to film our own “All You Need is Love” music videos, covering the show’s opening theme!
And for me, sinking my teeth ever-deeper into Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro, putting something special together was an opportunity I couldn’t resist!
You can check out the Palmers’ take on it right here:
Blogging and trying to do it well takes time. At first, I was thinking that I’d be able to do my series on Africa over the course of a week, breaking down the trip into individual stories, but when I sat down and tried to express everything I’d experienced in words — I realized that my stories were far grander and embedded deeper within me than I’d originally thought.
So, much like they had us climbing Kilimanjaro, I’m blogging about the trip “pole pole”—Swahili for “slowly, slowly”; making sure I write everything I want to and making sure that I’m using the right photos and videos from my collection that really help to tell the story.
But just because I’m taking my time doesn’t mean that the world will stop revolving on its axis—case in point, last night I was at DefineTO, the event that succeeded last year’s Twestival Toronto. While definitely a lot less packed than last year (personally, I suspect that it was due to the name change and few people knowing that it had formerly been called Twestival), it was still a good event with great organizers!
While my primary focus was preparing to rock the crowd at the #Twidol karaoke competition, there were lots of other things going down that evening, like:
Meeting Fahima, the event organizer, and scoring an early T-shirt for helping open a box
Throwing down on the dance floor with the likes of Corey Herscu
SweetGIF.com: A creation by Matt Read (who I’ve indirectly blogged about before) that takes 12 snapshots of you and makes an instant animated GIF file—awesome fun!
Performances by June Ballentyne, Marie Coyle and SepTo on The Remix Project, and Ryan Creelman
I’d love to see it grow next year, with even more word-of-mouth and getting #DefineTO in people’s mouths where Twestival used to be.
As for #Twidol, despite an early lead in the competition, my buddy Jaemeel revealed that he had a genius self-marketing strategy put in place days before the event, and we all simply fell victim to it. It’s all good—he needed a new phone anyway.
Until next year, DefineTO; I’ve got me some blog posts to write!
(You can also see mi amiga Reggy’s breakdown of the night’s events on her blog post here!)
Tell your wife, tell your kids, tell your husbands:
Within the first night of being back, the word on the street wad that it was time once again for me to pick up the mic and prepare for battle in one of the most dangerous forms of combat known to humankind!
Yes, my friends, it’s time for some karaoke.
Last year (when DefineTO was still Twestival Toronto), I hit the crowd with a rendition of Montell Jordan’s “This is How We Do it”, but it wasn’t enough. While other contenders included Sean Ward‘s crooning Nelly’s “Hot in Herre” with female accompaniment and Michael Nus‘ singing of the forbidden one-hit kill karaoke song—Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing”, ultimately the crown went to Reggy Sy (with a song I can’t even say I know—maybe it was done by Sheryl Crow?).
Y’all good, I’ll admit it, but I’m far from done. In this year’s Twidol (Twitter Idol, since it’s a singing competition), I’m coming back swinging. What I don’t have in formal singing training, I have in showmanship. What I do have in singing ability is being honed to a fine-tipped point.
Yes, it’s a great event for everyone to come together.
But they don’t call me Karaoke King for nothing.[ref]No one really calls me Karaoke King…[/ref] (All of a sudden…)[ref]Biggie reference. R.I.P., man, over 15 years later.[/ref]
If you feel like relieving yourself of $20, feel free to buy a ticket and come out on Thursday to cheer me on! (Or if you use Twitter, seriously just vote for me. Keep your eyes peeled Thursday night for the appropriate hashtag!)
–case p.
Tell your wife, tell your kids, tell your husbands:
