“Freedom must involve unpredictability”
– Author, American historian and professor Dr. Timothy Snyder
from his 2024 book, On Freedom

A popular concept attributed to several motivational influences is “Step outside of your comfort zone. It’s where the magic happens.” The magic is what happened to me on September 25, 2025. Several weeks before, a friend and fellow organizer in Portland, Oregon, Timur Endur, sent this email to his contacts:

“I wanted to extend the invite to the Karaoke Night & Birthday Bash for my good friend (Oregon) state senator Khanh Pham. Senator Pham has been a leading voice for climate action, transportation & housing in the state legislature. I’m a co-host for the event and hope you’ll join me at Mekong Bistro for the event later this month!”

I had lunch with Timur last winter. I met him when he ran for Portland City Council in 2024. I trusted his judgement that this would be a fun party to attend. Even more, I saw Senator Pham post a video from a her previous bash karaoke fundraiser of a mutual friend, KB Mercer, joyfully dancing to the music at this annual party. Sadly, this KB passed away a few days in September 2024. After I watched that video of my friend dancing, I wanted to attend this lively karaoke birthday bash when it would occur in 2025.

The ironic part was Senator Pham and I got off to a rocky start when I met her on January 7, 2021 as part of my climate organizing. I requested a lobby meeting in September 2020 when she ran to be elected as a Representative to the Oregon Legislature in that November election. At that time, I volunteered with Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL). As part of my activism with CCL, I met with Oregon legislators to ask them to endorse CCL’s federal carbon pricing bill, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act H.R. 763. I succeeded in persuading over 30 Oregon legislators to endorse that Congressional bill, including then House Speaker Tina Kotek.

In a lobby meeting with Oregon Representative Tiffiny Mitchell in September 2020, she offered to introduce into the Oregon Legislature a state resolution supporting the federal carbon pricing bill. Rep. Mitchell did not run for re-election in November 2020. She requested Senator Michael Dembrow to introduce this resolution on the Senate floor on February 4, 2021. The resolution became known as Senate Joint Memorial 5 or SJM 5. It had 10 legislative sponsors when it was introduced. I hoped Representative Pham could be the 11th.

I was impressed with Khanh Pham’s background as a community organizer in Portland. She was a founding leader and spokesperson for the groundbreaking Portland Clean Energy Fund Initiative, which was successfully passed in November 2018 by a 2 to 1 margin. It won in large part due to a to a broad coalition spanning environmental organizations, environmental justice groups, communities of color, labor, small businesses and neighborhood associations.

Then she helped start the Oregon Just Transition Alliance, which undertook a statewide listening tour to ask frontline communities what kind of Green New Deal made sense for them. When she won her state representative seat in November 2020, she was the first Vietnamese American elected to the Oregon Legislature. With her strong progressive and climate advocacy background, I hoped she would be an ally in my effort to get SJM 5 passed in the Oregon Legislature.

Our January 7, 2021 meeting felt like a disaster. She immediately refused to support the climate resolution I was advocating. She shared her biggest frustration that advocates of carbon pricing seem to emphasize it to a point that it sucks the oxygen out of the room for other climate solutions. When I humbly pleaded with her that most economists support carbon pricing to tackle climate change, she looked at me like I was mansplaining to her. Of the hundreds of legislative and Congressional lobby meetings I had over the last 11 years, it felt like my worst meeting of all. She acted openly hostile to me. I felt crushed.

I had to work around her opposition to try to organize to get SJM 5 passed in the Oregon Legislature. I almost succeeded. It passed out of the Oregon Senate on April 7th by a vote of 23 to 5, with 6 Republican Senators voting in support. SJM 5 ended up with 30 House sponsors, including 7 Republicans. However, the resolution died in June 2021 when House Majority Leader Barbara Smith Warner refused to allow it to have a hearing in the Rules Committee.

It was a heartbreaking loss for me. Even worse, at a town hall at the end of the session, Representative Pham referred to SJM 5 as a ‘waste of time.’ That criticism stung badly.

In the years afterwards, a thaw started to happen as we on the same side working on many climate bills. She had a fundraiser and forum on democracy that I helped organize in August 2024. She texted me to thank me for assisting in co-hosting the event. I attended two more of her community fundraising events in December 2024 and January 2025 because I believed she was one of the strongest climate champions in the Oregon Legislature.

Thus, I was in the habit of attending her fundraising events when Timur sent me the email in early September to coax me to attend her birthday fundraiser on September 25, 2025. The birthday fundraiser would center around karaoke. I was always intrigued by karaoke, but I had never tried it. I RSVPed for this event soon after the email from Timur.

On September 25th, my wife decided at the last minute she would join me for this fundraiser. I was thrilled to have her with me. We were some of the first guests to arrive to the party. Senator Pham personally greeted all the guests after they signed in at the check in table. She was surprised to see me there. She inquired what brought me to the party.

I responded I saw how much fun our friend KB Mercer had dancing at Khanh’s birthday party from video Khanh posted after KB passed away. We both sighed with sadness that our mutual friend was no longer around. Her eyes then lit up with joy as she remembered KB dancing and bringing so much zeal to her previous birthday fundraiser. Senator Pham then asked if she could give me a hug, which I gladly allowed. She was pleased I was there.

Tanya and I enjoyed the tasty assortments of Vietnamese food available in this restaurant that was solely booked for Khanh’s party that evening. I mingled with friends while Tanya and I ate dinner. The party organizers announced they were looking for people to sign up for the karaoke. I decided on the spot to sign up on the list to perform a karaoke song. As I put my name on the list, I wrote down the song I wanted to sing, “September” by Earth Wind and Fire.

A couple of years ago, I learned in a National Public Radio (NPR) story that song was one of the most popular played songs in wedding receptions in the U.S. I made sure that song played at my wedding reception in November 2015. According to that NPR article, the song “September” ‘made its way into TV shows, commercials, sporting events and video games. In 2008, it played at both the Republican and Democratic national conventions. Taylor Swift recorded a lightly countrified cover in 2018.’

I knew I could not go wrong with that song. I then ran into Timur at the party. We were happy to see each other. It was the first time we talked since having coffee months before. I told him I signed up to sing karaoke. Even more, I wanted him on stage with me since he encouraged me to come to the party. Timur was cautious about my request at first. He asked me what song.

I replied, “’September’ by Earth, Wind, and Fire.”

He hesitated, “I don’t think I know that song. However, if you can get others to join us on stage, I will join you on stage.”

“Deal!” I remarked. “You know that song. You probably have heard it. It’s one of the most popular dance songs of all time. I will get you the lyrics to sing along.”

“Ok,” he responded, “I will see you on stage when the time comes.”

As the karaoke party progressed, I became nervous in the back of the room since I never performed karaoke before. I internally wondered what I signed myself up to do. At the same time, everyone on stage were full of joy singing karaoke. Plus, the dance floor had many of the many of the attendees cheerfully dancing to the songs. 

I then heard this announcement, “Next up to perform Karaoke is Brian Ettling performing ‘September’ by Earth, Wind, and Fire.” 

Gulp! It was showtime. I had a few butterflies in my stomach like it was the first day of school. 

I walked on the stage with Timur joining me. We convinced a middle aged Asian American woman to sing with us. Plus, a 12-year-old girl joined us on stage. 

The music started up. Most of the folks sitting in their chairs were drawn to the dance floor by the upbeat rhythms and melody. Senator Pham was on the dance floor blissfully moving to the song. I started singing the song with Timur and the others joining me. The people on the dance floor had so much fun dancing that they did not know how good or bad my singing was. The song was mostly easy to sing along. I even improvised some song lyrics. 

I was back on stage and loving it. I used to be the center of attention when I gave ranger talks working in the national parks from 1998 to 2017. I acted in plays in college. I have given over 200 climate change talks as a public speaker in 12 U.S. states from 2011 to 2019. However, I fell out of habit giving public presentations in 2020 when the COVID pandemic lockdowns happened. I have done very little public speeches since then. 

I forgotten how much I love being on stage. My wife Tanya smiled with pride as she took photos of me performing the song. I was back in my element! As each song concluded, the karaoke singers were encouraged to express birthday wishes to Khanh Pham. 

When the song was over, I gladly wished Senator Pham a happy birthday on the microphone and thanked her for being one of the strongest climate champions in the Oregon Legislature. 

She was delighted to hear my words. Later, she thanked Tanya and me for coming to her party when we decided it was time to head home. I had the time of my life performing karaoke at that party. I want to do that again sometime. I want to find another way to be on stage again!  

We are living in a time when American democracy is in danger. Experts on authoritarianism, like Dr. Timothy Snyder, advise us to be unpredictable as individuals to help save our democracy. Well, I believe I had a fantastic time being unpredictable singing karaoke at a public fundraiser for a past political adversary now friend in September 2025.