1/13/11

The Majak Mixtape - Mixtape-oke


Ciao amici! Welcome to another stunning, flawless, amazing, critiquing your karaoke performance while guzzling vodka better than your favorite edition of the Majak Mixtape, the place where pop culture goes to when its get injured on the "Spiderman" musical. Today, we're tackling the hot mess that is our Thursday nights at La Crosse watering hole Recovery Room. But before we get to that, we've got the kettle on and the bell just dinged so its time for us to:


Continue reading to find out why Charlie Sheen didn't make it into work yesterday, a catfight between Hugh Hefner's current and former loves, the Hollywood Baby Boom, the award nomination that left us scratching our head and much more!

First up, we've got another update in our on-going coverage of all things Charlie Sheenius with another edition of:

So as we've already discussed, Charlie Sheen went on a "Lost Weekend" style bender the past weekend but managed to still show up to work on time on the set of "Two and a Half Men" and get the job done. Well apparently Mr. Sheen couldn't make it to the set of the show on Wednesday. And why was he absent from the show? Was it held up in some hotel doing blow with a bunch of hookers in Vegas? Nope. Was he destroying another hotel room in New York City? Not that either. Was he watching the entire filmography of Denise Richards? God we hope not.

According to TMZ, Charlie Sheen couldn't make it work because of an ear infection. That's right  everybody. The man who survived boobs, broads and Bombshell McGee this past weekend was temporarily out of commission because of an ear infection, proving there is something other than court-mandated stints in a rehab facility that can keep the hard-living Sheen down.

Speaking of hard living, someone finally had a come-to-Jesus meeting with common sense and YouTube star Ted Williams is off to rehab to deal with his drug and alcohol dependency issues.

2011 seems to be the year of the Hollywood baby as half of Hollywood seems to be knocked up which means the other half is waiting to take a paternity test.


Kate Hudson, "The Game"/"Sister, Sister" star Tia Mowry, Jewel, Owen Wilson, Kevin James, the Beckhams and Marion Cotillard have all announced they will be parents for the first time or again this year. Though Cotillard is happily married, we're still going to say that being in the same film as Tom Hardy caused her to get knocked up, as explained by the gif below:



In other bits of news, former Hugh Hefner girlfriend and current E! reality star Holly Madison is making like a palm tree and throwing all sorts of shade at Hef's fiancee in an interview with Life and Style Magazine, saying she thinks that Hugh could do better than his current flame Crystal Harris.

Holly, who spent years humiliating herself on "The Girls Next Door" chasing after Hefner who kept saying he wasn't ever getting married again, came out swinging, saying:
"No one knows much about her. Plus, she's very young, probably too young to settle down. I've seen a lot of girls try to date Hef, and some have ulterior motives. I don't think it would be a bad idea for him to get to know her a little better. I think it's possible Crystal could break Hef's heart. They could end up divorcing, and she could take half his money."
Apparently while we were brewing some tea to be spilled, Holly Madison went to Sam's Club and bought a whole warehouse of Haterade. Let's be honest here, most women at this point, including you Ms. Madison, aren't after Hugh Hefner because of his amazing body. Hell, it's so abundantly clear that money is the main objective that we consider marrying him for love to actually be an alterior motive.

When reached for comment, all Hugh Hefner would say is:


Lastly, Justin Timberlake is nominated for a NAACP Image Award for his role in "The Social Network." Let us commence with some good ole-fashioned SIDE-EYEING.


Whether they intend to or not, the NAACP Image Awards every year show the lack of quality roles for African-American actors and actresses in the industry as they always end up being filled with nominations of people who got nominated not because they were necessarily good in the role but because they were Black and the nomination committee had some categories to fill. How else do you explain Jaden "I whip my nepotism back and forth" Smith being up for Best Actor or the stink bombs like Queen Latifah and Common's film "Just Wright" as well as not one but TWO Tyler Perry films being up for Best Picture. It's moments like these that we wish "In Living Color" was still producing episodes to make fun of this stuff:


Now, let us move onto today's Mixtape. Oh Thursday nights at the Recovery Room, how we love you. Located on 7th Street near Viterbo, Recovery Room is like the Dr. Who Tardis of bars, infinitely bigger on the inside than its slightly modest front would have you surmise. Offering up big strong tasty drinks for wonderfully small prices, it's a popular place for a wide spectrum of patrons as everybody from townies to professionals to students seem to end up filtering through the place on a nightly basis.

Monday night you can get a hamburger for one dollar, which there is never not a good time for a Recovery Room hamburger and fries to be totally honest. Wednesday night, while you're getting your drink on, you can listen to the sound of local group Kin Pickin' while milling about the place, playing darts or pool.

But Thursday? Thursday is where it's at for us. We were first introduced to the magic of Thursday nights at Recovery Room by our friend Seth two years ago when he had his 30th birthday party there and have been hooked ever since because the combination of the atmosphere, the food, the drinks and karaoke on Thursday night make it splendid existence. We mean, we've heard everything from an octogenarian singing Ricky Martin's "She-Bangs"


to "That's What Friends Are For" (featured below in a live performance including Luther Vandross and Whitney Houston)


to "Minnie the Moocher"


and "The House of the Rising Sun"


to some truly impassioned takes on "Ballroom Blitz"


and Aretha Franklin's "Think"


Now do we sing? For the most part,that's a big hells no to that. Until karaoke comes with Autotune, we're pretty much going to sit this one out. Besides, as anybody who has read this blog for a few second knows, judging the life choices of other is what we are infinitely more talented at than anything else.


Whether it's crammed into a booth or huddled around a table, we're always in good company with our gang of theatre-centric friends who always come to Recovery Room. Though most of the singers are actually pretty great at Recovery Room, we're extra happy that we have these ringers there because we at least we know there are some people who actually went to school to know such little things like pitch and key are taking hold of the mic. Besides, without them, we'd be hard pressed to get moments like two guys singing "Endless Love" to each other which is a lot less awkward than when Rachael and Mr. Schue sang it on "Glee."


We have done some fabulous back-up dancing as our friend Emily busted out some Lady GaGa "Bad Romance." Below, we offer up "The Sing-Off" contestants On the Rocks working the hell out of Lady Gagalupe's ubiquitous hit:


We've also put a ring on it to Beyonce's "Single Ladies" as well.


Our friend Steve routinely shuts the place down with a live rendition of "Saving All My Love For You." Even after one of Recovery Room's strong drinks, Steve is still more lucid than Whitney's been in the past decade and a half when singing the song. Here, we flashback to Whitney, working her best Brady Bunch outfit, while singing the tune in Brazil.



One of our fondest memories is getting up with everybody--young and old, student or not, local or from out of town-and dancing to "Twist and Shout" because nothing brings together the people like the Beatles. Unless you're a Rolling Stones stan.


In a world filled with chaos, it's always nice to go to a place where everybody not only knows your name but drink and song of choice.


And with that, we end another edition of the Majak Mixtape. As always, we wish you love, peace and downloads. NOW BRING ON THE DANCE MASH-UP OF BILLBOARD'S TOP 25 of 2010


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