A bunch of drunken fools at the Comet, Wed May 22.

To truly love karaoke, you've got to be in the kinda mood to drink lots--enough to deafen that little voice that tells you when you're making an ass of yourself. When the cracked confidence runs high, though, there's nothing better than anxiously staring at a video prompter, mic in hand, ruining songs with respectful abandon--but secretly hoping you were a thousand times better than the last guy who squeaked through a tone-deaf rendition of "Rapture." In the music world, karaoke is the great equalizer. It's like a booze-filled, back-alley Star Search where the only real prize is having your drunken friends hoot for you when it's over because they're gonna hoot no matter what. That's what drunken friends do.

The Comet has a great karaoke night every Wednesday, and the last time I went, hair-metal ballads, '80s standbys, and country classics went head to head in a sloppy showcase of two-bit talent (and I mean that in the most loving way possible). The theme of the evening was duets, as two '80s-fashioned girls did a gigglingly heartfelt version of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'," DJ Frankie Chan rocked Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive" with a female companion, and another couple attempted Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart"--which turned into a solo performance once Sonny decided to clam up and stare blankly at the video screen. For every duet, though, there was a strong stag singer--such as the man who delivered a fierce "Shout at the Devil," the Seattle Weekly's music editor Bob Mehr with his graceful rendition of "Family Tradition," and one inebriated girl who didn't realize that her beer bottle was not, in fact, the mic, and spent her time in the spotlight singing into her own backwash. But in the words of Homer Simpson, "Trying is the first step towards failure," and I think it was pretty much agreed all around that those who fail at the Comet--and at karaoke nights in general--at least make for some great entertainment.