Tuesday, December 26, 2006

How Great Our Joy

Breakfast on Christmas Day this year at Mom and Dad’s was, delightfully, normal.

Last year, Mom was drawn and tense, and looked like she hadn’t gotten any sleep. It was true. The tumor on her spine had begun to hurt, and the worry made it worse. Even though it was Christmas, it was also Sunday and she had to go to church to play the organ for the service. She sat at the head of the table, sporting a poinsettia themed vest, unbrushed hair, and an expression of exhaustion and irritation.

My sister, Joy, had sat to her left; my partner, Rolf, to her right. Daddy sat at the other end of the table, happily talking about how good life was still going to be even if Mom didn’t survive, while Joy, who’s divorce had been final for only a few days, cheerily assured him that any new husband of hers would have to accept that Daddy would be living with them.

Watching Mama as this happened; I could also see Rolf’s pale expression of appalled shock.

Afterward, before Rolf and I bolted to spend Christmas Day with his family, I scolded my dad. He assured me several days later that there was no more talk of cancer or her death unless she brought it up.

__________

What a year.

Chemotherapy. Anguish. Fear. Broadway. Italy. Richmond. Bemmy evicted. Forever Plaid. WATCH Awards. Our 25th Anniversary. Vodka martinis, gimlets, cosmopolitans too numerous to count.

And now: Christmas again. This Christmas breakfast was not rushed to accommodate a church service; both Joy and her son Russ are engaged to marry; and Mom feels fine.

What a year.

Friday, December 15, 2006

This is your note; are you listenin'?

The University Club
16th St. NW
Washington DC

It was a scene right out of Trading Places, with me instead of Dan Akroyd, a tall thick flowingly dreadlocked replacement for Eddie Murphy, plus Bette Midler wearing flats and blond hair (wouldn't that be a fun cast?,) in the blue-blooded social hall of the rich and richer.

Eddie and I, along with an adorable friend of his (that I shall call Lithe Ashton) were waiting for Bette (who had the costumes and the contacts) in the ever so posh lobby (mahogany, leather, brightly lit Christmas Trees, candles, snooty staff.)

And she was late.

Eddie was trying to contact her on the cell phone when a stuffy woman with an unidentifiable middle eastern accent, scolded:

"We are sorry sir, but the use of cell phones is a prohibition here."

We laughed, as he put away his cell phone, and Bette entered the door carrying our costumes. While she checked in at the desk, a cynical butler . . . who happened to have dreadlocks too, but much shorter than Eddie's . . . strode over with his nose high in the air and said to Eddie's friend, Ashton:

"We are sorry sir, but the wearing of jeans is prohibited in the club. You may find you are more comfortable at the sports bar down the street."
____________

Wearing Victorian Costumes, complete with Top Hats and Bonnets, Eddie's dredlocks draping to his lower back, we stroll into dining rooms to the warm greetings of and delighted guests, and sing "Deck the Halls" and "God Rest Ye Merry."
_________

"I couldn't believe it," says Bette as we walk from one dining room to the next marking time as we wait to sing for the main party we we were hired for. "At the last minute, the other agent, my friend who I put this together for . . . He called. I picked up the phone and said 'You had better not be canceling on me' And he wasn't but he said that they weren't willing to pay for four people, so I had to call my friend. . . the alto from the opera society I told you about . . . and she was really looking forward to it too. . . "
_______

I only met her a week ago. A friend gave her my name because she was looking for a baritone to sing carols with a quartet for an office party. I didn't know it was a quartet, I thought it was a trio and that I'd be singing more in the tenor range. But it was traditional carols, sung from a traditional book, but sometimes with untraditional harmonization or words; and I was sight-reading the painfully low bass line. The first time, we sang in a marble and glass clad atrium at a Christmas Party in the Homer Building right next door to the Warner Theatre. >>

It was so much fun, mostly all fun. The tenor was a regular with the Washington Opera, the alto, although working as a legal secretary, has a master's degree in vocal performance, and the soprano was Bette who has operated this agency for years placing not only Victorian Carollers, but musicians of every type for any event.

The "not fun" part was things like trying to improvise a bass harmony to "Winter Wonderland."

"Oh, let's do 'Sleigh Bells Ring,'" she says. "It's not in the book, but you know all words. . ."

"Sure, OK," I said unsure that I'd ever heard a song called "Sleigh Bells Ring."

And while I tried to grovel out some low notes, singing "Sleigh Bells Ring, are ya listenin'? In the lane snow is glistening" I wondered to myself. . .

"WHAT IS THIS SONG?"

Being that we were part of the scenery and decoration for the party, it was fine. My embarrassment worsened tho after I suggested that we sing "Lo How A Rose." Because, concentrating on the printed bass notes, I didn't notice that the book had different words than I was used too. Instead of Lo how a rose e're blooming, it was Low how a rose upspringing followed by something else strange. And while I was panicking the harmonization tanked. I was ashame-ed.
_________

That was on Wednesday 12/6. And on Friday 12/8 I got to do it again, but this time there were just three of us: Bette, the Master's Degree Alto, and me - and I was free to sing tenor. Eager to erase that bad moment from the otherwise wonderful treat, I suggested "Lo How A Rose" again promising that with me as Tenor, and knowing in advance that the words were screwy it would be great. . .

yeah . . . not so much. Lo how a Rose. . . we started out with Bette getting flatter on every note, such that by the time we sang upspringing we weren't all even in the same key. We're dressed in Victorian cloaks, in a tiny black marble clad lobby of an office building, with employees getting off the elevator unaware and uninterested in distractions. So, I just laughed it off. We all just laughed, and Bette says "Let's do Sleigh Bells Ring instead."
_______

Like the first two, I escaped for yesterday's first gig by taking a long lunch. And it was a gift the employees and tenants of the building. Yesterday was at Le'enfant Plaza, just across the street from the Smithsonian Institution and a half-mile from the Washington Monument. The other singers were to die for. . . well except for Bette and me. The alto is a member of the Air Force Singing sergeants, and the Bass is a member of the Army Chorus. He was kind of cute, too.

"Let's sing 'Lo How a Rose,' says Celia. I could have thought, "what the hey, really hardly anyone will notice," but I really didn't want to go down that road again, so I whined that it was too hard. . . but they knew better, what they didn't know what that Bette is tone deaf on that song! So, we sang it, and with two professional singers, and me (and my self-esteem rising by leaps and bounds) we went ahead. And I was pretty happy when it was done too, because the bass and alto were in the exact same key as me, and I'm pretty sure I was in the same exact key as when I began. I don't know what Bette was singing, but as the adage says: "If you're going to get that close to the note, you might as well go ahead and sing it!"

We wandered from building to building, cloaks flowing, heads head at odd angels to keep the hats on, singing in the lobby and also in the grand courtyard. People came up from the metro and were so happy to hear us. Honestly, every where we went, people were delighted. For me, it's just not Christmas until I can make musical Christmas magic for strangers. Some people tried to just seriptiously follow us around, listening and enjoying, but pretending that we just happen to be sharing the same space.

In addition to the quartet, this event had a guitarist, a violinist, a harpist, and a pianist, each playing alone in the lobby of the four buildings that make up Le'enfant Plaza. The evening job had come up unexpectedly late the previous evening. When Bette called to confirm the job in the morning, she asked me if I would like to do the evening job too. She wasn't sure it was going to happen, it seemed. So, although I was supposed to go to Paxton's open house, I told her I would. (Hey it's for money! And I wanted Rolf to go to Paxton's party and tell them that I was hired to sing at a party. He-he.)

When she introduced me to the dreadlocked keyboardist, she said "He sings too, and he said he'd come and sing bass with us tonight! Isn't that great!" "If you're game, I'm game," I said, shaking his hand while checking in with my gaydar to see if it was going off. I decided it was probabaly shorted out, and I'd try again later.

Of course, we sang Winter Wonderland once or twice. But you know, these two service persons, were just having a grand time improvising harmonies, and I got in there some too. I was so delighted with it, that I sang it in my head on the way back to work on the metro.

I thought: "it's all good until you get to 'In the meadow we can build a snow man. . .' where is the tenor line there . . ."
_______

Up to the second floor of the University Club, Bette declares she couldn't possibly sing alto with me as the lead, so we continue on with Eddie, who doesn't really know these songs too well either, but he is a fine musician, and of course I continued to sing Tenor, but if the alto part was low, I'd switch up to that once or twice, and Bette continued bouncily along with her jingle bells and "I'm gonna sell this" attitude.

We got to peak inside the grand hall where a pianist was playing, and we could see four tables of handbells. They'd hired us, the Victorian Carollers, a pianist, and a professional handbell choir.
While we waited for them to finish their appetizer to the accompaniment of the pianist, we strolled first into the billiards room, occupied by a St. Elmo's Fire crowd of young capitol hill staffers, smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, still wearing ties. A table of three young women were centered near the door, as the boys played pool and threw darts in the back. "OH Carollers!" one of the young ladies shouted with egg nog enhanced glee. "Oh, I don't think I can take the smoke," Bette said. And believe it or not, these kids rushed to put their cigarettes out, and begged us to sing for them.

Damn, I love seeing smiles like that. Some sang along, and they applauded after each one making us promise to come back after we'd sung in the other rooms. We passed out of that room into a grill not to much different than a Chili's restaurant really. There was a big mohogany bar, of course all the tables had obviously finer linen on them than I'm normally accoustomed to. I'm sure we cut quite a sight ourselves, even more so because Eddie is so tall, and just has a huge amount of hair, and being black with a joyous, but peculiar smile . . . well, it was funny. I probaly looked the more normal than he did, but his head was so big with the dreadlocks and all, that I had to give in and switch top hats with him. So both of us had hats on that were exactly two sizes to small. We had to walk like we had books on our heads.

You just had to smile when you saw us. As we sang a couple of carols, one of the men got up and joined us which made everybody laugh.
_________

We found a bench and rested a bit before going on. We'd already missed a set by the bell-choir, so we arrived back a little early because we wanted to hear it. Me especially, because when my grandmamma, beloved to me, who passed away before I turned 16, when her estate was settled a gift she left to my boyhood church was used to buy a set of handbells. I got to play in handbell choirs for four or five years before I left home, on those handbells, and so now handbells always make me remember how much she loves me. And I know she misses me too.

Once they had finished their set, we were ready to go in. I guess they were on their second course. We'd decided to sing "Deck the Halls" first, when someone came yelling for us begging us to go in another room to sing. We were really being pulled in to directions, but eventually we were sent to sing for the cigar smokers. A tiny boardroom full of a bunch of drunk sons of bitches. Smug. Smug, drunk, Son's of Bitches. I hated them. . . but you know what? They all sang along, and eventually they all smiled. But we still got out of there pretty fast, smelling like cigars for the rest of the night.
________

The grand ball room had one table. Around it sat seventy-five people (?), all the men wore tuxedos. I swear, I don't know what the women were wearing. Of course, they were all seated, so I didn't get to see their dresses. There was plenty of between-course conversation going on when we started to sing "Deck the Halls," and we were as happy as clams at high tide, until the old man at the center of the table starts hitting his glass with his spoon, making us think that maybe he had something to say, so we should stop singing. . . but no. He wanted every one to be quiet to listen to us. A flat soprano, a tenor trying to sing alto at times, and a big black guy with huge dreadlocked hair trying to sightread both words and music to carols he does not know.

I could have done without that. But they loved it.
________

It was a long night, but we had plenty of breaks, sitting and laughing in the grill. We sang more for each of the rooms (except the cigar boys.) But mostly we took it easy until it was time to go back in the grand hall.

We should have left well enough alone.

Let's sing "Winter Wonderland!" I said. "It went really well this afternoon, do you know that?"

"I'm not sure" said Bette, even though I was asking Eddie.

"Sure, we sang it today. . . " she stared at me long and hard, seemingly trying to figure out who I was. . .

"Oh! You mean 'SleighBells Ring'! Yes let's do 'SleighBells Ring'."

"Um, I'm not sure I know that. . .the words are in here?" Eddie asks. I nod.

"you know it, Sleigh bells ring, are ya listenin'? In the lane snow is glistenin'. . . walkin in a Winter Wonder land. . ." Bette cheers him on.

"Well, I guess I can just put in a bass line, even if I don't know the words. . "

"Yeah, yeah, that will be fine, you'll be fine, you'll know this one" I said.

So, we stroll in, and sing something or other else first. And yes, the old gent had banged on his wine glass until everybody shut up again. Then get our note for "Sleigh Bells Ring", which was a "C" because it's in the key of C. The first note of the melody is a "G". And the first note of the tenor line is a "B".

So, Eddie hums the C, Bette says ok "This is the note" singing the "G" above that, and I say "But my note is this" and I sing the "B". To which she seems to look at me and wonder who I am again. She turns to Eddie and whispers the words to him, and he says he's just going to doo wop and ooh and bass line so it will be fine. She turns to me again and sings the "G", I sing the "B" and we're off!

Except she's singing my note. She's singing tenor with me, but trying to get to the melody, all the while going flat anyway. Eddie has this look in his eye that's like "uh-huh, I ain't lookin' at you, you're going to crack me up" as he sings "bob doo oooh do dod su wah" Bette and I are going down fast fast fast.

All I can think is that I've got to switch to the melody, but I can't remember what it is either! Until we finally got to the unison line "In the meadow we can build a snow man. Then pretend he is Parson Brown. He'll say 'are you married?' we'll say 'no man, but you can do the job while you're in town' " Whew. Then I knew what the melody was. And I sang it. She did too, and boy oh boy were we happy when that was done.

"We Wish You a Merry Christmas" was the last number we sang, and although the talking had resumed some, I noticed the old man didn't try and stop them. But still, they smiled and applauded when we were done.

And it was very very nice.

Merry Christmas.


Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Happy Birthday Trey

I can not use my apostrophe and I can not comment on Treys blog. what is wrong?

Trey - I wanted to wish you a happy birthday. I hope it was wonderful. I was sending you wishes for a happy day. What did you do?

And why can not I use my apostrophe or comment on your blog?

hmm.

Friday, December 08, 2006

For Tomas


Our friend Tomas always poses for pictures like this. In Sorrento, we decided to start doing a parody of him. I wish we had started in Venice! We laughed so much.

In the first picture, on the far top right, you will see that our hotel is bolted to a cliff.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Ahhh, Sorrento

Ponte Veccio - Florence

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Firenza - Florence

Friday, December 01, 2006