HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2003-03-05, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 2003. PAGE 5.
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A little karaoke? Okey-dokey!
I remember the headline clearly. It read:
KARAOKE BOOM IS OVER. I also
remember my reaction clearly. It ran: “And
the down side to this news is....?”
Karaoke, for anyone who’s been living on
Arcturus and thus fortunate enough to have
missed it, is a phenomenon in which tone-deaf
amateurs who’ve had too many beers are
encouraged to get up in public and emulate
singers with actual talent. This makes it
possible for patrons to have their dinner or
their private tete a tete interrupted by an
accountant from Surrey caterwauling the half
remembered lyrics to My Way a la Sinatra.
Karaoke began, as do many ominous
phenomena (Godzilla, Pokemon), in Japan.
In 1971, a Japanese rock drummer who
couldn’t read a note of music hit upon the idea
of bringing members of the audience up on
stage and prodding them to sing along to
popular song tracks.
Who could have guessed there were so many
people out there who believed (erroneously)
that they could sing?
Karaoke swept across the globe like an
influenza virus. In no time there were karaoke
bars in Paris and Parry Sound, Moscow and
Moosonee.
But the motherland - and the mother lode -
for Madonna wannabes and Elvis Also Rans
— continued to be Japan.
The Japanese are traditionally a reserved and
modest people, especially in public. Karaoke
changed all that. The fad gave the Japanese the
opportunity to shed their decorous shells and
unleash their inner crooners.
Milking votes out of Israel
One of the most tragic events of modem
times is being played out in Israel, but
some Ontario MPPs are milking votes
out of it.
MPPs have mostly shied from commenting
on the struggle there between Jews and Arabs,
recognizing it is not in their jurisdiction, so
they don’t have to speak on it, that it has two
sides and is dangerous ground on which to
tread.
But Mike Colle, a Liberal MPP, had no such
compunctions when he went to a rally
supporting Israeli Jews and said they “suffer
terribly from cowardly terrorist attacks” such
as suicide bombings, committed by Arabs.
Colle said it is a difficult time for Israeli
Jews and their many friends and relatives in
Canada, but they are not alone and he will
stand with them and together they will defeat
the terrorists.
Tina Molinari, a Progressive Conservative
and associate minister of municipal affairs,
went to another gathering and expressed
concern at the “brutal deaths” in suicide
bombings. She said she hopes there will be no
more such tragedies for the sake of all families
who have suffered, but did not specify whether
these include Palestinians.
Colle, an aggressive backbencher on many
issues, and Molinari, almost invisible as a
minister, do not have much in common. But
both have substantial proportions of Jews, who
are among the most educated, public-spirited
and politically aware residents, in their ridings.
They tend to vote and their votes could make a
difference in half-a-dozen ridings and most,
although by no means all, are highly
supportive of Israel in the dispute.
Some recently organized a boycott of The
Toronto Star, Canada’s biggest newspaper,
which they claim favours Arabs in its
reporting, and cancelled advertising and
subscriptions.
The charge is untrue, but the case for Israel
Arthur
Black
They grabbed the opportunity - and the
hand-held mike - with both hands and
made karaoke the biggest thing in Japan since
sushi.
Karaoke is Big Business in The Land of the
Rising Sun. It generates more than $10 billion
annually. There are half a dozen karaoke
channels on Japanese cable TV. Japanese night
schools offer courses in karaoke singing.
And Japan doesn’t just have smoky karaoke
bars - it has karaoke mansions — huge, multi
storey edifices where hordes of patrons line up
nightly to spend their money, drink their
saki and sing their musically-challenged
tonsils off.
How many people? Well, bear in mind that,
even in Japan, the karaoke business is in steep
decline and has been for the past few years.
Experts estimate that the number of karaoke
singers has dropped by 20 per cent since 1994.
And yet there are still 48 million Japanese
who go out to karaoke bars and sing, on
average, 10 times a year.
Karaoke took off like disco - and it looks
like it’s about to flame out like disco, too. It’s
taken two near-fatal hits in the past few years.
First, a moribund Japanese economy that
Eric
Dowd
From
Queen’s Park
has long enjoyed favourable coverage in news
media and its supporters have difficulty
accepting the Palestinians’ side being given
anything close to the prominence of their own.
The power they hold was shown when the
Tory government, which normally is incensed
when unions boycott business, failed to utter a
word of protest.
If Colle had wanted to be more even-handed,
he could have mentioned Israelis have killed
nearly three times as many Palestinians,
including many women and children, not using
suicide bombers, but with soldiers, tanks and
helicopter gunships.
He could have mentioned Israeli soldiers,
not Palestinians, recently shot dead a United
Nations relief worker from Britain and
prevented an ambulance reaching him that
might have saved his life and soon after killed
two other U.N. relief workers.
Or Amnesty International charged Israel has
been engaged in indiscriminate killing of men,
women and children and should be prosecuted
for committing war crimes.
Or an Israeli opposition party leader
confessed “it is no longer possible to explain
or justify how so many innocent men, women
and children are killed by our army.”
Final Thought
Thinking is one thing no one has ever been
able to tax.
- Charles Kettering
refuses to turn around is keeping would-be
warblers out of the bars and close to home.
Secondly, karaoke just ain’t ‘in’ anymore.
Japanese teenagers regard karaoke as, well,
dorky. Something dated and dopey that only
their parents would consider doing in public.
Will it die out completely? I doubt it.
Karaoke may be painful, pathetic and corny,
but it’s powerful. And there’s enough sugar-
cured ham in most of us to ensure that karaoke
will always have the raw material to work
with.
Because let’s face it: most of us - right down
to the last superannuated hippie - secretly
believe we’re Couldabins. If I’d just learned a
couple more guitar chords and spent the
summer of ‘65 hanging out in Greenwich
Village, I couldabin Bob Dylan. You couldabin
Diana Krall if you’d stuck to the piano lessons
and stayed away from the banana cream pie.
We just didn’t get the breaks, is all.
In the meantime, the movers and shakers
behind the karaoke phenomenon in Japan
struggle to re-invent their golden egg-layer.
Deep thinkers at Toyota, believe it or not, are
lashing out big bucks to marry karaoke and
driving.
Some day soon we’ll be treated to the sight
of commuters stuck in traffic jams with one
hand on the steering wheel and a cordless mike
in the other, belting out Bom To Run by
Springsteen or Beauty and the Beast by Celine
Dion.
Which is fine.
As long as they keep their windows rolled
up.
Or the U.N. World Food Program reported
Israelis blew up a warehouse clearly marked
and containing $221,000 worth of food it had
obtained for Palestinians suffering from
malnutrition.
Or Nobel Peace Prize winner Bishop
Desmond Tutu, so admired he is one of the few
outsiders ever to speak in the Ontario
legislature, said Israel’s humiliation of
Palestinians reminds him in some respects of
whites’ treatment of blacks during apartheid in
South Africa.
Or the Canadian government has formally
complained to Israel that its troops destroyed a
water pumping station Canada built to supply
Palestinians, without the slightest security
justification.
Or 600 Israeli reservists take the stand the
Israeli occupation of Arab land is illegal and
say they will not serve there and perpetuate
military rule over another people.
Or successive U.S. governments which
support Israel have protested they have
difficulty making peace because every time
they come up with a new proposal the Israelis
have built more settlements on Palestinians’
land.
Colle did not say any of these things which
would have helped provide a more balanced
picture of this tragic struggle, but they would
not have won him votes.
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Please iUep your letters brief and concise.
Bonnie
Gropp
The short of it
A balancing act
A letter to the editor in last week’s issue
of our paper brought a number of
calls.
A disgruntled hockey mom, frustrated by
the amount of time her child wa.s playing,
expounded passionately on her perception of
what was the cause. He was, she felt, not being
treated fairly, not being given the same
opportunities to be on the ice that the stronger
players enjoyed and thus his abilities were not
being perfected because of lack of
encouragement and exposure.
It’s not an easy balance. Coaches are first,
and I think this fact is sometimes forgotten,
volunteers. Most of them are simply doing the
job the best way they know. It is often a
thankless endeavour with parents quick to
judge and lay blame. If a weaker player sits,
the coach takes abuse from his or her parents.
If he gives ail his players the same time on the
ice, chances are he won’t have a winning team,
which then brings flack from the victory-at-
all-cost fans.
However, many argue that the bottom line of
this is, when it comes to playing in minor
sports, be it hockey, baseball or soccer, every
child pays the same registration fee and should
be, therefore, entitled to the same amount of
playing time.
Some good coaches will offer as explanation
that they only put the weaker players on the
bench during ‘crucial’ playoff games. Bui
even then, isn’t there an attitude here which
leads to negativity?
Kids recognize differences and can be quite
unkind in their perceptions. When they see one
of their teammates spending a fair amount of
time on the bench, particularly when the going
gets serious, they know it for what it s. In the
best case scenario they will think themselves
better. Worst case scenario they will think their
teammate a loser and treat h;m or her as such
This situation can, of course, be lessened
through strong leadership. It takes not just a
bom coach, one sensitive to issues occurring
outside the rink or off the field to deliver any
other message, but parents should be cautious
their attitude does not exacerbate the problem.
My boys played baseball and did it well
enough. But I have watched the face of a
young hopeful in a dugout, and have heard the
taunts of his peers — the regular players, the
ones who, and don’t kid yourself they discover
this at an early age, are confident they’re far
too good to be spending time on >he bench.
Conversely, I have also watched teams
sporting a number of weaker players, who
enjoy equal time on the ice or field and face
with their mates, almost constant defeat.
In a perfect world, I suppose winning really
wouldn’t matter. But despite what anyone says
about fun and sportsmanship being the main
goal, there is little doubt that not icing or
fielding a winning team can diminish the more
positive attributes of playing. Often in crunch
games, weaker players have asked to sit so
their team can have the best chance at
winning.
To be a key player, it takes talent, but it also
takes work. Extra time honing their skills can
help weaker players hold their own and best
support their teammates.
It’s not an easy answer. Parents hurt when
their kids hurt. For coaches it’s a balancing act
to see that kids have fun, learn the finer points
of the game — and win. Some are just better
at it than others, but most are voluntarily doing