MAR 13, 2000

Mariah, can I hold your hand?

Wish Upon A Star

Offers galore flow in for R&B queen Mariah Carey as she prepares to take Singapore by storm tonight

By ARTI MULCHAND

"GIVE me Mariah, and I'll make her feel, oh, so good."

Or so goes the lewd-sounding promise made by an assortment of people who have called the Life! newsroom, the Mariah Carey concert promoter and the publicist.

One person wants to give her -- or the members of her entourage -- a good rubdown. Considering there are 80 members in her group, that person would certainly need a good rubdown after all that effort.

Three self-proclaimed psychic volunteers want to read the diva's palms. But then, isn't Carey a star already? So why the need to check her stars?

There was even an offer of private time with the pink dolphins in the Dolphin Lagoon of the Underwater World, which has not even opened to the public yet.

The things that people would do to get a sniff of stardom.

Says Mr David Tan, general manager of the Underwater World in Sentosa: "One member of my staff used to work at a dolphinarium in Australia a few years ago. Mariah liked it so much she booked the whole place for herself, so she could spend time with the dolphins. So we thought, why not?"

Even the American School in Woodlands wants to get in on the act -- she is American, after all. Its students are apparently rooting for the singer-songwriter to give them an inspiring speech. Singing, after that, is presumably optional.

These are only some of the more serious and credible proposals. Consider other wacky ideas that probably got slam-dunked into "the file for weirdos" by concert promoter One Management.

An eager 17-year-old called the newsroom to find out which hotel she was staying in, so he could volunteer to work there during his precious school holidays.

Another self-proclaimed die-hard offered to "help out" during interviews, if there were any.

What exactly he could do is anyone's guess, but he promised to keep really quiet while he was doing it.

One of the lesser-known pubs on Orchard Road, which One Management declined to name, offered to give Carey and her crew free beer all night, if she would "get up on stage and do a couple of ditties".

Get real, say some people who have paid $260 a pop to catch Carey live.

"It's not every day that you get Mariah Carey in Singapore," says Ms Marcia Mengelberg, 55, a professional sports-massage therapist.

"It would be fun. I would love to be able to massage her and, if she felt like talking, hear about all her experiences."

So would the scores of journalists who have approached Empire Consultants, the event publicist, for one-on-one interviews with the R&B queen.

They even have Carey's comfort in mind, and suggested to Empire spokesman Mary Loh that the diva be soaking in a hot tub while they shot her their questions.

One can imagine a possible question: "Mariah, what makes you such a hotshot?"

Don't ever say it again that Singaporeans are short of imagination.