Listen to yourself churn

I love karaoke night, but so often I fail miserably when choosing the song to sing. A few weeks ago, four of us were at my favorite watering hole -- the Neighborhood Inn in Hoffman Estates -- and we were taken aback by the large number of attractive young women dancing in front of the karaoke stage. Some dude was up there singing "Livin' La Vida Loca," of all things, and the place was going nuts.

I decided to take action. If they love something as stupid as that, I thought, then they'll really love this.

So I grabbed a pencil and a slip and wrote down the silliest song I could find in the book: "The Power of Love" by Huey Lewis and the News.

I went up there to sing, and everyone turned away and stopped dancing.

Now, it didn't help that the karaoke version of the song was in a completely different key than the original -- a fact my buddy Jim backed me up on. The first verse must have sounded like it came from the lips of a tone-deaf idiot. After that, any cheesy charm the song might have provided was dead, dead, dead.

Picking bad karaoke songs didn't used to be a problem for me, but a guy can sing "Jeremy" and "Better Man" only so many times. I think I fared much better this past Saturday at the 'Hood, where a much more enthusiastic crowd (and a generous amount of Newcastle) helped me pull off a virtuoso performance of "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)." I think the part where I thrashed around and inexplicably repeated the chorus in my best James Hetfield growl was particularly good.

Shortly after that, a girl who was front-and-center while I was on stage pulled me back out on the floor to do the "Cha-Cha Slide." Jackpot, I thought. But that was it -- she pulled me out there, and then proceeded to talk to all the other guys around us. Oh well.

Later, my roommate insisted we go up there and sing "The End of the Road," which went much better than it should have, thanks to our friend, bartender and sometimes-karaoke hostess Hollie, who bailed us out with her gorgeous voice. But at least we gave it a shot.

I'm hoping Saturday was just a warm-up for future karaoke successes. I could use your help:

• What songs should I sing?

• Where do you like to go in the 'burbs for karaoke?