My apologies to the neat lady with the black mask and colored bells… you didn’t make the video because my camera battery died, and you were just too quickly gonged…

Kelly O—formerly a Stranger staff photographer, music writer, Drunk of the Week columnist, and more!—finished art school and a soul-crushing internship at a corporate advertising agency in Detroit,...

13 replies on “Stranger Gong Show: The Video!”

  1. I’ve been waiting for this video all day just to see the (winning…?) act I had to follow! It’s too bad you didn’t get any video of me as my friends and I all forgot our cameras. I have to nitpick, though… my act was short enough to get *almost* all the way through before getting gonged. My alien head and wig didn’t slip and fly off until over halfway through the song, and apparently jiggling my boobs wasn’t *quite* enough of a distraction before I hit that last note. I loved every second of it, though. Mwah! Mwah!

  2. I’ve lost some respect for Jen Graves as an art critic as a result of her judgements…

  3. Honestly, the judges ruined the show. It was really disappointing.

    But I’m glad you gave some video time to that guy who went last. He was pretty funny.

  4. Was the guy singing about love handle number 9 Will in Seattle?

    And what’s with the castanets & belly dancing? Isn’t that like eating pasta and rice at the same time?

  5. Castanets, used in Flamenco performance, are made of wood. Metal finger cymbals (“Zills” in Turkish or “Sagat” in Arabic) gained popularity during the Ottoman Empire and still accompany many Middle Eastern dance styles, including belly dance.

  6. The guy’s singing “Love Handle #9” (Dos Bois) were identical twins. I recognized them but I couldn’t quite place them.

    James Parkinson was funny. I gave him props for actually doing some improv based on the earlier acts. It’s too bad the judges didn’t even give him a chance and chattered to each other throughout his whole performance. Not only was it coming out of the front speakers, but during judging “screech” tried to recant a joke that she didn’t think was funny and clearly wasn’t listening at all.

    I was hoping to see a clip of the judges asking for more booze and being resoundingly booed by the audience.

    Oh well. Still worth $5.

  7. I’d like to apologize to Jen Graves and the other judges (for #3 and another one elsewhere). My criticism of their criticism was too personal. I appreciate the courage of the performers to put themselves in that situation – On further reflection, I’ve realized the judges did the same.

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