It's raining here tonight, and so quiet and boring that I feel like crying from boredom and isolation, which is made more acute because owing to bad timing, I am not in LA to celebrate my dear friend D'Arcy's birthday, and for that I am truly sorry.

I didn't get the evite in time, and now it's 9:30 and what am I doing? Listening to the stupidest possible radio show EVER, featuring Ray Manzarek explaining for the 7,335th time why Jim Morrison was a Magical Entity Deserving of Our Fascinated Attention 23 Years After His Death. I am so sad, because instead, I could be down at the Smogcutter with you, singing "Hello, I Love You" in tribute to you on your birthday.

I really, really wanted to go, too, because as irritating as karaoke is, there are times when it is a totally appropriate method of communication. (Those times = occasions when I personally am singing.)

So, in honor of your birthday, D'Arcy, here is a list of a few "numbers" I might have sung, none of which are technically "rehearsed," or even "familiar," but which I swear I would have delivered with a maximum of heartfelt enthusiasm directly proportional to the number of beers I'd consumed, and none of which technically are birthday-related:

1. Feel Like Making Love (Bad Co!)
2. Oh, Mandy (Manilow--only for you!)
3. Solitary Man (I'll be what I am!)
4. Two More Bottles of Wine (Emmy Lou shares my pain!)
5. Fast Car (The Keelhauler suggested this one, and I don't know--it seems a little "gay" for me to sing it to you, but if it makes you happy, I'd do it!)

One song I would not sing is: "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide," by Z Z Top. Sure, it might seem cool, but between the second and third verses, there's an extended musical break that leaves the karaoke singer with little to do but sway self-consciously, wearing a sheepish grin, bar after interminable bar, until the tension becomes so acute that she jumps off the stage, shrieking in horror. Not that I have personal experience with this.

Star of the day. . .Raoul