ACLEA, Tequila and Karaoke ... Oh My!

This week, I made my semi-annual pilgrimage to the mecca of CLE -- the ACLEA Mid-Year Meeting.  I was particularly excited about this conference because it was being held just outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico.  New Mexico was one of the six states I had yet to visit (despite living in an adjoining state) and I was eager to cross it off my list.  Furthermore, I was eager to renew old friendships, learn of developing trends in the world of CLE, and forever tarnish my reputation within the industry.  Sadly, I was only successful in one of these endeavors and I think you can guess which one.

One of the best things about ACLEA meetings is that the people who attend them actually like each other.  As a result, the extracurricular activities are as well attended as the educational sessions, if not better.  In fact, if truth be told, there are a few individuals (who shall remain nameless provided they call me immediately for a booking) who only attend the extracurricular events ... but I digress.

On Monday evening, dozens of us dined at a Tex-Mex restaurant that served ... you guessed it ... margaritas (oh, and I think they served food too).  Afterwards, we returned to the hotel and not being able to bear the thought of being apart for an entire night, we assembled in the bar for a night of karaoke.  It was here where I got the idea that I could save a lot of time and effort by simply drinking tequila straight from the bottle as if I was in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland.  In a sense, I was "cutting out the middle man."

After my third, fourth or two-hundredth shot of tequila (one tends to lose track), I had an epiphany -- I must perform my own karaoke song.  There was just one minor problem -- my singing voice should be registered with the FBI as a deadly weapon.  My voice is so bad that even the judges on American Idol would be shocked if they heard it.  I can imagine Randy Jackson sitting there dumb-founded with blood trickling from his ears just mumbling, "Dawg.  Dawg.  How could you?"

Now, there isn't enough tequila in all of New Mexico (or old Mexico for that matter) to make me forget that I can't sing.  As a result, I searched the song sheet looking for rap songs, finding just two -- M.C. Hammer's You Can't Touch This and Sir Mix-a-Lot's Baby Got Back.  Realizing that I neither danced well enough (nor owned pants baggy enough) to pull off an imitation of M.C. Hammer, I opted for the latter song.  And by "opted," I mean that my former good friend, Stuart Teicher, pulled me up to the karaoke machine yelling, "This is going to be so good!  I'll do the song with you!"

Before I knew it, the music had begun and there we were -- Sir Drunk-a-Lot and Sir What-Do-I-Care-If-We-Embarrass-Ourselves-I-Am-New-Here-A-Lot.  To my surprise, the women in the room responded to the thumping bass line with incredible enthusiasm.  They jumped to their feet and started screaming like 13-year-old girls at a Jonas Brothers concert.  I thought to myself, "What was I worried about?  This is going to be just fine."

Of course, at this time, the first lyrics had yet to appear on the screen and I had no idea what was coming next.  After all, Baby Got Back was originally released in 1992, back in the days when the only people on the Internet were Al Gore and Screech from Saved By the Bell.  I hadn't heard this song in at least a decade and had completely forgotten that the song starts with "I like big butts and I cannot lie ..."

And it only went downhill from there as the lyrics became increasingly provocative (and even racially-polarizing).  It then started coming back to me -- MTV had banned the music video for this song at one point.  That's right!  The same network that brought us such "family-oriented entertainment" as Jackass, Beavis & Butthead, and The Osbournes,  drew the line at a three-minute ode to the virtues of an ample backside.  And they were right to do so!  Unfortunately, I didn't have the benefits of a network censor (or a fully functioning frontal lobe) at the time, so I had to stumble my way through the rest of the song.

To my amazement, the ladies in the bar didn't storm the stage demanding apologies (or at least assurances that their butts weren't the ones I was rapping about).  Instead, they clapped and cheered.  Yet, I could tell that something had changed and that our relationships would never be the same.  And how could they?  In just three minutes, I had transformed from a mild-mannered humorist who tells innocent stories (many involving his wife and four young children) into a butt-obsessed misogynist with unresolved racial biases.

Therefore, I want to take this moment to apologize to the women of ACLEA.  I want to apologize on behalf of myself, my partner in rhyme, Sir Mix-A-Lot and every man who has ever judged a woman, not by the content of her character, but the size and shape of her derriere.  And if you allow me to return to future conferences, I promise that I will never perform karaoke, chug tequila, or air my videotaped footage of several of you singing and dancing to I'm Too Sexy.  Do we have a deal?

I thought so.  See you in Salt Lake City!