INTOXICATED MEMORY

Once a week a friend and I end up at a karaoke bar in C'town. We've been going to the same place for about two decades now, except for a three year period while the building was being made earthquake safe.

By the time we arrive it is late, and the owner has had a few. She used to drink cognac, now she drinks tequila. Her changing tipple has not been a good idea, as the high price of cognac meant a greater degree of temperance, or leastways a more careful approach to shots. Mexican crime juice, on the other hand, is cheaper, and affects the brain differently. Key Dutch words that come to mind are 'lodderzat', 'bezopen', and 'zo dronk als een garnaal'.

[Zo dronk als een garnaal means 'as drunk as a prawn'. Why Dutch prawns are plastered I do not know. It's a profound mystery.]


Several weeks ago one of her friends persuaded her to sing a karaoke song.
Until that moment I had not known that she could not sing.

After the first couple of lines, another friend took over. A mercy for both the song and the listeners.
The other friend can sing very well.

The song is actually quite sweet.


你怎麼說
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODpeNXmvxhU&feature=related

我沒忘記, 你忘記我
連名子你都說錯
證明你一切都是在騙我
看今天你怎麼說?

你說過兩天來看我
一等就是一年多
三百六十五個日子不好過
你心裡根本沒有我
把我的愛情還給我!

[Paraphrasis: "I have not forgotten, but you have; you even mispronounced my name! Back then you always wanted to be with me, but what can you say now? You told me that you would be back in a day or two, but you didn't return for an entire year; those 365 days were hard to endure. There is no place in your heart for me, I demand that you give me back the love I wasted!"]


The singer in the clip above is Theresa Teng, who died fifteen years ago at 42 years of age. It was said that her voice was intoxicating, both sweet and pleading at the same time.


As I said, the bar owner is not a gifted singer.
Neither am I -- I will frankly admit that I couldn't hold a tune if it were stapled to my tongue.
For the record, I have only sung one song (月亮代表我的心) at that bar in the twenty years that I have been going there.
It, too, was a Theresa Teng piece.