Visualize whirled peas.

It’s sad the level of vitriol this has accumulated.

If you want to add a bucket of burnt hair to it, I mean I probably will pass on having some, but: do what you want.

My college buddies and I do a yearly guy trip to my friend’s cottage on Lake Michigan. Been doing this for 20+ years and have about 24 gentlemen in the mix. Over time, we’ve established a per person fee that creates a sizable budget of almost $4000 that we spend on all kinds of fun shit, including a large fireworks…

This isn’t a firework per say, but....

I got tasked with arranging a training exercise for all the non-flight people in an aviation battalion while we were in the field doing gunner qualification. In English, this means that while the helicopter flight crews were shooting things, it offended the officers in charge to…

This was hilarious, but that last one is horrifying and totally ruined the mirth.

Diamond just has to watch out for those evil Democats.

Forget mayor. I think Diamond could sweet the GOP nomination and be the best republican presidential candidate in recent memory.

To expand on your excellent post: the chi-chi-poo-poo restaurant where I used to work had two sections. The elegant formal dining room had seating times, dress codes, etc., and its sister, the less-formal-but-still-lovely cafe, was smaller and had a generally more relaxed atmosphere. One regular cafe patron, Jodie,…

One time. I was with a couple of friends in the National Cathedral and a group of teenagers stopped under some domed space in the lower level and spontaneously started singing—this was trained choir singing—and it was incredible. I don’t believe in God, but if you’re going to have one, this was exactly the way to…

On about hour 15 of a rural Indonesian bus ride, a friend of mine lost the plot and started belting out a Beatles’ song- the whole bus joined in and it seemed to cheer things up for a bit. Only time such a thing has worked in my experience. I was more surprised than I guess I should have been that all these Sumatran…

One time at rock n roll karaoke at Arlene’s Grocery many years ago, this mousy, quiet girl got on stage and fucking SLAYED Janis Joplin’s “Piece of my heart.” It has stuck with me nearly a decade.

Ugh, I don’t understand why people think it’s okay to subject other people to their singing, especially in places where you’re meant to be reasonably quiet and respectful to others. I went to a regional theater production of Mary Poppins that took place in an amphitheater. A drunk group of women next to me decided…

My dad was a super private person and hated public attention of any kind. Once, my mom let it slip to the airline crew on an international flight that it was his birthday. They brought out some kind of dessert and forced the whole plane to sing.

When I was a kid my parents owned a late night pizza place. The pub across the road closed at midnight and after that, drunks would come in looking for food and they often sang (terribly).

I was at a Tex-Mex place with resident mariachis (a problem unto itself) when one guy got up and appropriated the band to serenade his date in the most amazing Broadway voice ever. I’m someone who cringes at public displays of all kinds but that guy KILLED.

I think the problem is that people who can sing are humble enough to think that they cannot. I used to work with someone who was classically trained in opera. She could belt out an aria like one of god’s own angels but rarely did so, because she thought that she “wasn’t nearly as good as professional singers.” It’s a…

“out of tune ass serenade”

People who sing in public and people who whistle in public. People who whistle tunelessly and incessantly in public. And people who grind their teeth in public, over and over again. They are all the worst.