Best of 2000: Best Clueless Karaoke

Outdoor Karaoke
Just south of the San Ysidro pedestrian border crossing

Pedestrians taking the Tijuana footbridge across the border must walk a gauntlet of entrepreneurs. On weekend nights on the south side of the footbridge, wanna-be singers croak through concert-size speakers in the outdoor plaza karaoke stage. Drunken sailors, under-21 partyers, and passersby take turns grabbing the mike and singing along to lyrics that scroll on a video screen. A half dozen books list available songs, categorized alphabetically by performer or title or by the song's subject and style -- "Current Love," "Lost Love," "Heavy Metal," and "Rap and Hip-Hop." Nearby sidewalk cantinas have dollar drinks, and by midnight the crowd is thinned down to diehard drunks doing the two songs that DJs say are most requested -- The Doors' "Roadhouse Blues" and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody."