[78-L] fwd: FW: Sinatra Song Often Strikes Deadly Chord ^

[David Lennick]

I'm sure there's a moral in here somewhere.  dl

David Weiner wrote:
> 
> From: Jazz Promo Services [mailto:jazzpromo at earthlink.net] 
> Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2010 12:13 PM
> To: Jazz Promo Services
> Subject: Sinatra Song Often Strikes Deadly Chord
> 
>  
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/world/asia/07karaoke.html?th
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/world/asia/07karaoke.html?th&emc=th>
> &emc=th
> 
> 
> 
> Jes Aznar for The New York Times
> Rodolfo Gregorio, right, at a General Santos karaoke bar. Filipinos, who
> pride themselves on their singing, may have a lower tolerance for bad
> singers.
> 
> February 7, 2010
> 
> Sinatra Song Often Strikes Deadly Chord
> 
> By NORIMITSU ONISHI
> GENERAL SANTOS, the Philippines — After a day of barbering, Rodolfo Gregorio
> went to his neighborhood karaoke bar still smelling of talcum powder.
> Putting aside his glass of Red Horse Extra Strong beer, he grasped a
> microphone with a habitué’s self-assuredness and briefly stilled the room
> with the Platters’ “My Prayer.”
> 
> Next, he belted out crowd-pleasers by Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck.
> But Mr. Gregorio, 63, a witness to countless fistfights and occasional
> stabbings erupting from disputes over karaoke singing, did not dare choose
> one beloved classic: Frank Sinatra’s version of “My Way.”
> 
> “I used to like ‘My Way,’ but after all the trouble, I stopped singing it,”
> he said. “You can get killed.”
> 
> The authorities do not know exactly how many people have been killed
> warbling “My Way” in karaoke bars over the years in the Philippines, or how
> many fatal fights it has fueled. But the news media have recorded at least
> half a dozen victims in the past decade and includes them in a subcategory
> of crime dubbed the “My Way Killings.”
> 
> The killings have produced urban legends about the song and left Filipinos
> groping for answers. Are the killings the natural byproduct of the country’s
> culture of violence, drinking and machismo? Or is there something inherently
> sinister in the song?
> 
> Whatever the reason, many karaoke bars have removed the song from their
> playbooks. And the country’s many Sinatra lovers, like Mr. Gregorio here in
> this city in the southernmost Philippines, are practicing self-censorship
> out of perceived self-preservation.
> 
> Karaoke-related killings are not limited to the Philippines. In the past two
> years alone, a Malaysian man was fatally stabbed for hogging the microphone
> at a bar and a Thai man killed eight of his neighbors in a rage after they
> sang John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” Karaoke-related assaults
> have also occurred in the United States, including at a Seattle bar where a
> woman punched a man for singing Coldplay’s “Yellow” after criticizing his
> version.
> 
> Still, the odds of getting killed during karaoke may be higher in the
> Philippines, if only because of the ubiquity of the pastime. Social
> get-togethers invariably involve karaoke. Stand-alone karaoke machines can
> be found in the unlikeliest settings, including outdoors in rural areas
> where men can sometimes be seen singing early in the morning. And Filipinos,
> who pride themselves on their singing, may have a lower tolerance for bad
> singers.
> 
> Indeed, most of the “My Way” killings have reportedly occurred after the
> singer sang out of tune, causing other patrons to laugh or jeer.
> 
> “The trouble with ‘My Way,’ ” said Mr. Gregorio, “is that everyone knows it
> and everyone has an opinion.”
> 
> Others, noting that other equally popular tunes have not provoked killings,
> point to the song itself. The lyrics, written by Paul Anka for Mr. Sinatra
> as an unapologetic summing up of his career, are about a tough guy who “when
> there was doubt,” simply “ate it up and spit it out.” Butch Albarracin, the
> owner of Center for Pop, a Manila-based singing school that has propelled
> the careers of many famous singers, was partial to what he called the
> “existential explanation.”
> 
> “ ‘I did it my way’ — it’s so arrogant,” Mr. Albarracin said. “The lyrics
> evoke feelings of pride and arrogance in the singer, as if you’re somebody
> when you’re really nobody. It covers up your failures. That’s why it leads
> to fights.”
> 
> Defenders of “My Way” say it is a victim of its own popularity. Because it
> is sung more often than most songs, the thinking goes, karaoke-related
> violence is more likely to occur while people are singing it. The real
> reasons behind the violence are breaches of karaoke etiquette, like hogging
> the microphone, laughing at someone’s singing or choosing a song that has
> already been sung.
> 
> “The Philippines is a very violent society, so karaoke only triggers what
> already exists here when certain social rules are broken,” said Roland B.
> Tolentino, a pop culture expert at the University of the Philippines. But
> even he hedged, noting that the song’s “triumphalist” nature might
> contribute to the violence.
> 
> Some karaoke lovers are not taking chances, not even at family gatherings.
> 
> In Manila, Alisa Escanlar, 33, and her relatives invariably gather before a
> karaoke machine, but they banned “My Way” after an uncle, listening to a
> friend sing the song at a bar, became enraged at the laughter coming from
> the next table. The uncle, who was a police officer, pulled out his
> revolver, after which the customers at the next table quietly paid their
> bill and left.
> 
> Awash in more than one million illegal guns, the Philippines has long
> suffered from all manner of violence, from the political to the private.
> Wary middle-class patrons gravitate to karaoke clubs with cubicles that
> isolate them from strangers.
> 
> But in karaoke bars where one song costs 5 pesos, or a tenth of a dollar,
> strangers often rub shoulders, sometimes uneasily. A subset of karaoke bars
> with G.R.O.’s — short for guest relations officers, a euphemism for female
> prostitutes — often employ gay men, who are seen as neutral, to defuse the
> undercurrent of tension among the male patrons. Since the gay men are not
> considered rivals for the women’s attention — or rivals in singing, which
> karaoke machines score and rank — they can use humor to forestall macho
> face-offs among the patrons.
> 
> In one such bar in Quezon City, next to Manila, patrons sing karaoke at
> tables on the first floor and can accompany a G.R.O. upstairs. Fights often
> break out when customers at one table look at another table “the wrong way,”
> said Mark Lanada, 20, the manager.
> 
> “That’s the biggest source of tension,” Mr. Lanada said. “That’s why every
> place like this has a gay man like me.”
> 
> Ordinary karaoke bars, like the Nelson Carenderia here, a single room with
> bare plywood walls, mandate that a singer give up the microphone after three
> consecutive songs.
> 
> On one recent evening, at the table closest to the karaoke machine, Edwin
> Lancaderas, 62, crooned a Tagalog song, “Fight Temptation” — about a married
> man forgoing an affair with a woman while taking delight in their “stolen
> moments.” His friend Dindo Auxlero, 42, took the mike next, bawling songs by
> the Scorpions and Dire Straits. Several empty bottles of Red Horse crowded
> their table.
> 
> “In the Philippines, life is difficult,” said Mr. Auxlero, who repairs
> watches from a street kiosk, as he railed about government corruption and a
> weak economy that has driven so many Filipinos to work overseas, including
> his wife, who is a maid in Lebanon. “But, you know, we have a saying: ‘Don’t
> worry about your problems. Let your problems worry about you.’ ”
> 
> The two men roared with laughter.
> 
> “That’s why we come here every night — to clear the excesses from our
> heads,” Mr. Lancaderas said, adding, however, that the two always adhered to
> karaoke etiquette and, of course, refrained from singing “My Way.”
> 
> “Misunderstanding and jealousy,” in his view, were behind the “My Way”
> killings. “I just hope it doesn’t happen here,” he said.
> 
>