This is my song

Intro

I’ve just finished reading the book behind the movie “Precious”, and it was written from the perspective of a teenage, illiterate, African American, obese girl from Harlem named Claireece “Precious” Jones, who’s been through more crap since the age of 12 than you or I can imagine or endure. Had to remind myself, why, this shit ain’ real-like.

The language in the novel is quite colourful, but it's interesting to read. Forgive me if I start lapsing into her kind of speech throughout this post, but it’s damn catchy.

Verse

Friday night, Vay meets me at Town Hall. It’s Linda’s pre-birthday party tonight, and we got nothin' for her. Well we better done come up with something soon motherfuckers, else she gon’ be real disappointed-like. (Alright, I don’t know if I can keep this up for long, heh heh).

I was thinking of gifting a purse stuffed with gift vouchers, but unfortunately, that idea was already taken by Tomsie (that’s Chanthary to you). Damn, and now we really got nothin', like I said.

Ned’s Dad: We don’t believe in rules, like, we gave them up when we started livin’ like freaky beatniks!
Dr. Foster: You don’t believe in rules, yet you want to control Ned’s anger.
Ned’s Mom: Yeah. You gotta help us, Doc. We’ve tried nothin’ and we’re all out of ideas.

So we is in JB Hi-Fi. I tested my ipod on the various ipod speaker docks, it felt quite good cranking Chris Brown’s “I Can Transform Ya”. But no, Vay had to get all "will you turn that shit down?" on me, the party pooper. We finally decided on a GENUINE Sorny. Linda’s gon’ appreciate that, fo’ sho.

Homer: [gasps] Look at these low, low prices on famous brand-name electronics!
Bart: Don't be a sap, Dad. These are just crappy knock-offs.
Homer: Pfft. I know a genuine Panaphonics when I see it. And look, there's Magnetbox and Sorny.

We met up with Tomsie and she helped look for a suitable birthday card, cos I couldn’t decide, being an indecisive Libran an’ all. Vay and Tomsie: “Any funny ones ‘round here?” (Much later) Vay: “Just get anything for fuck’s sake”. But all they seemed to have were artsy fartsy ones, and NO ONE’S gonna find that shit funny. I finally came across a lovely card with a picture of an elegantly-dressed woman posing languidly on a chaise longue, and it was entitled: “Queen of Fucking Everything.” Alright people, we got our card. The three of us signed it while having Maccas, as you do, trying to outdo each other with witty messages. We had to hand it to Vay though, with his simple, heartfelt message: "Merry Christmas". It just makes you wanna groan, giggle and wish you'd thought of that all at once, really. The bastard.

Chorus

It was about 7:30pm when we checked in at Big Echo. Linda, her friend (I think it was Lee? shit I'm bad at remembering names) and Vuthy turned up about 8pm, with Linda all hyped up she'd driven all the way to the goddamn CITY in peak hour traffic with only her wits and Vuthy's vague instructions to get her by. I was rather impressed and envious (see hun, why don't you ever take me drivin' like that?).

ANYway, we loaded up some songs to start off with, while Vuthy mixed the green tea and Chivas so that it tasted decent, unlike someone's earlier efforts, hun. We took turns belting out tunes (except Tomsie (she don' do that kinda shit)), and feeling on top of our games. Vinnie and his friend, and friends of Tomsie dropped by, turning our party of five into a party of ten. The beers and Smirnoff double blacks and icebuckets ("Hey, hey slow down, do we need that much ice?") kept coming.

Pretty soon, we were all pretty comfortable with each other (but not THAT comfortable, dang), and singing our hearts out to classics by Usher (Vay: "Alright, I gotta stand up for this"), Taylor Swift (Linda and friend) and Empire of the Sun (Vuthy: "You gotta sing it like me, man"), in only about oh, I don't know, FIVE hours worth of karaoke. It was actually supposed to be only 3, but I was politely asked to loosen up about my curfew. Besides, it was Linda's birthday for god's sake. Now, lemme tell y'all somethin' 'bout kar-a-o-ke. The unofficial rules is, when your song comes up, you gotta say, "This is my SONNNG!", and make sure you grab someone's mic off 'em 'fore they know it. Alternatively, you could also say "JamON!", in the style of Michael Jackson, and take a swig of courage juice while you're at it.

Dave Chappelle: "What the fuck is juice?! I want some apple drink!! 'S greeeeen."

Yes indeed. We even had a few nibblies (you got any of dem round, uh, I mean, fish balls? Tha's some good eatin'). But next thing you know, some of us had to call it a night around 1:30 am, and all of a sudden it was back to the five of us.

Bridge

Walking back to the car park, Vay and I were trailing behind Linda and Vuthy, and I was getting pangs of envy watching the two of them hold hands. (Vay: "What's up with you, I know you enjoyed yourself") Yeah it's not that, I just wish we could be like them, you know, close like that. (Vay: "But they done been together for 8 years") So? We been together for at least 2, an' where's my love, muthafucka?

Verse

After being ripped off badly by the carpark (Linda: "That's bullshit!"), we were just making our way out of the city, when Tomsie calls in sick. All we had was someone's giftbag to give her till we could make a pit stop at the nearest service station ("UGH, it's leaking on my leg...!"). At the service station: "Can't you spare a bag?" We only managed to get one small plastic bag, so we had to resorted to giving her the bucket, and hoping for the best. Poor Tomsie, now there's a night she'll never forget. An' it weren't even her birthday, heh heh.

Outro

So we were on our way again, and I was sitting in the backseat in the middle between Vay and Linda, with Vay wrapping his arms around me, like a human seatbelt. I couldn't remember the last time he hugged me like that (was he a bit tipsy? It's just so unlike him), and I wasn't sure if he was just doing that cos Linda suggested it ("You can still hold her you know"), but all of a sudden I didn't care what time we got home, I didn't want the ride to end.

And that's my song.