Portland resident, ComicsAlliance editor, and insane karaoke addict Laura Hudson begins her 7-day karaoke marathon, hitting up a different Portland hotspot every night and reporting her experiences back to Blogtown.

Day 1: Stripparaoke at Devil's Point (Sunday nights at 9 PM, 5305 SE Foster Rd)

Stripparoke: Definitely the only karaoke experience I've ever had where a half-naked woman stuck her head in my crotch and vibrated her tongue against my inner thigh. People tend to overuse the word “unique,” but Stripparaoke really is a unique karaoke experience — not because it uses hot, naked women as a supplement to the singing, but because it completely flips the script on what it means to get on stage and participate in the exquisite art of karaoke.

Karaoke, at its core, is the singular experience of the lead singer stripped (no pun intended) away from the dynamics of a band. It is you, a microphone and an audience, and whatever gold you manage to spin out of that straw through the sheer force of your performance. But when you get up on stage with a dancer at a strip club, all of that changes because you realize — or you should — that you're in her house now. This is not your show; this is not your spotlight. Her body is on lead vocals now, and no matter how fucking hard you rock it, you're just here to be her backup band.

Maybe, if you're lucky, you can be the cool bassist that she grinds on a little bit during the instrumental break, but for the most part you're just there to lay down the right kind of tunes, add some energy to the equation, and then get out of the way so she can work her magic.

The shift in power is even reinforced by your physical position on the stage: Unlike most karaoke venues, where standing absolutely motionless off to one side would be a sign of a lackluster performance, at Stripparaoke it's actually required. Seriously, hold still, because if you get overexcited and lunge forward to croon the high note on your monster jam, there's a pretty good chance you'll get kicked in the face by the elegant pole ninjustu of a smoking hot lady.

Turning the spotlight over to someone else isn't the worst thing in the world, and if you're still feeling tentative about getting up in front of a crowd and singing karaoke, Stripparoke could be the perfect intermediate step between singing songs in unison with your friends and stepping out for a solo performance. Assuming, of course, that you're able to stay focused on your song despite the in-your-face T&A display whipping around in front of you. (Brodie, for example, was mesmerizing.)

But then again, if you didn't want to see naked ladies you wouldn't have come to a strip club, would you? And getting distracted is almost half the fun. It was pretty entertaining when the stripper snapped her legs into a split every time my friend Derrek sang "keep 'em separated" during The Offspring's “Come Out and Play,” but it was even more amusing to see him completely forget the lyrics when she started motorboating me beside the stage.

As far as the basics go, the karaoke song books at Devil's Point could use a little work; the song selection isn't massive (and probably even BIGGER than it should be), and when I reached into the plastic dish tub where the folders were supposed to be I came up with a handful of maybe fifteen random sheets of song titles instead. A few minutes later a woman dropped off full of loose pages at random angles. “It's a mess,” she said, shaking her head. Other books looked to be in better shape, but since I never got my hands on one it's hard to say.

Before the singing began, the KJ announced the rules of the evening, which he distilled down to one very basic commandment: “Don't be an asshole.” This is advice worth heeding, especially because there are very large men there to ensure that you do. There were a number of other fairly terse warnings throughout the evening, particularly that patrons are not (repeat NOT) allowed to bring cell phones to the seating by the stage unless they want to have a very unpleasant encounter with the bouncer. They are also NOT to “accidentally” walk back into the dressing room after singing unless they want to have a very unpleasant encounter with the bouncer.

While I wasn't really bothered by the comments since I didn't feel they were directed at me, several of my friends were put off by what they saw as implicit threats. It was a bit of preemptive hostility to be sure, although I imagine that it came from the same place that most preemptive hostility comes from: the knowledge that these boundaries have already been violated far too often, and that at a certain point a good offense starts to feel like the best defense.

Those more familiar with karaoke than strip clubs should also note that sitting in the chairs by the stage — where you should be tipping at least a dollar for each song as per usual strip club etiquette — can often translate into into personal attention from the stripper, which for one of my friends meant a headstand in his lap and a split inches from his face. Your degree of interactivity may vary.

Song choice is key to any performance, but it is especially important at Stripparaoke because if you decide that tonight is the night to sing all eight minutes of “Stairway to Heaven,” you aren't just punishing yourself (and the audience), you're also punishing the dancer. The very best thing you can do is give the dancer something she can work with, and if you're not sure what that means, either pick 1) a sexy song about sex or 2) a killer rock song with a driving beat.

I would say just use your common sense, but invariably, there are always a few people who don't know how to do that like the guy who decided to sing “Bridge Over Troubled Waters,” a song choice so terrible it caused a visible migration from the stage to the bar. Seriously, guy, what is wrong with you?

That's not to say that slightly left-field choices can't ever work; the highlight of my evening was a performance of “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails where the dancer crawled around on fours half-naked wearing a plastic werewolf mask that completely enveloped her head. I don't know what inspired that particular costume change (possibly “Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose”?) but the end result was that fucked up kind of sexy you end up liking despite the weirdness, or more likely because of it.

Recently, I've asked a lot of people why they like karaoke, and for the ones who get really obsessed, the answer almost always has to do with the spotlight, and how it becomes a drug. It's a powerful thing to realize that every pair of eyes in the room is fixed on you not just because you're feeling something, but because you're making them feel it too. I'm not sure I've ever experienced anything quite like it. One friend of mine says giving a knockout performance at karaoke is even better than sex, and while I think it probably depends on the song and on the sex, I understand exactly what he means.

At Stripparoke, at least you're still getting a little bit of both, even if you're giving up the spotlight. I definitely wasn't expecting to learn anything anything profound from singing at a strip club, let alone have it change the way I saw karaoke, but it ended up teaching me a Very Special Lesson anyway: Despite the fact that karaoke is very often an exercise in egotism, it doesn't always have to be about you. And sometimes it's a lot more interesting when it isn't.

Blogtown readers: I'm still taking song requests, and I'm also interested to hear about some of your best and worst karaoke songs and experiences, and what made them bad or good for you.

Tonight: Karaoke from Hell at Dante's, starting at 10 PM.
Tomorrow: Tuesday night Baby Ketten Karaoke at Mississippi Pizza, starting at 9 PM.