Blankie gets it right

Blankie told me my new mantra: DO IT, GET THROUGH IT, YA DON'T DIE. It really is a balsm, a salve, an ointment, an elixir and a tonic (sorry, I can't say the word balsm without going through all the cinnamons I can for that word. reflexive autistic tick). I said it when I walked into my first musical audition in nearly 20 years. For a Disney show. I sang "Ain't Love a Kick in the Head." Prolly not the standard 16 bars, but they let me sing the whole song through.

And I said it all through my experiences in Cut-Throat Caroling. Oh yeah, one year you're the Fah-La-Lah, and the next, you don't got a bell, and you're yuletide's in hell. I'll get to that.

But first ... Today Blankie and I went to the Surplus Store. Our mission: to not be be-headed whilest stealing a look. To not spend money. To get a shot of me looking like a drill sergeant, without spending any money. Of course, the overly helpful sales lady kept hanging around while Blankie couldn't get the camera to work. Finally, the phone rang, and the flash popped, and we got our shot. I'll buy the hat and get-up if I get singing telegram work, but I don't want to be spending precious $$ on costumes for gigs I don't have. I also met my pal, Merv, for the creation of our own caroling culture. We are attempting to subvert the market with a People's Republic of California look. Goodbye hand-mufflers and fey arrangements, hello coronas, buds, board, broads and, oh yes, christmas carols. How did I arrive at this caroling chasm? What was my caroling crisis? This caroling connundrum? This aliteration alacrity?

It begins in the O.C., as do most dirty tales. In those cul de sacs, when they aren't swinging, eating bad snacks, or reading the Newsmax site on the web, they are caroling. Hatching caroling schemes and caroling dreams. The Christ Child is Born and we are going to take you right into that manger, with four part harmonies, do-do-dos and Victorian Garb. Victorian Garb made for frigid London nights, the kind a Dickensian beggar would starve on, and the Upper Crust man would push the beggar's carcass out of the way with his walking stick. Those kinds of nights. Not 72 degress, at the Promenade, the Del Ammo mall. Did I tell you the girls stick their hands in the muffs? Yes, they do. I signed up to carol, to learn 66 songs in five weeks. Nay, to MEMORIZE 66 songs in five weeks. To wear Victorian garb, to over-annunciate my words and sing yucky manhattan-transfer (remember the 80s?) harmonies and try to maintain a hint of straightness and dignity. Don we now are gay apparrel indeed.

When I asked why we couldn't have our song books in front of you (ya know, like the currier and ives prints we were trying to emulate with our GARB), they said: "We have a muff." Yes, you do, and the girls get to stick their hands in them, meanwhile I have to memorize fah-la-fucking-lahs in minor modes. I literally sat under a blanket in my living room, with the CD player on repeat for most of the week. "This is a tale, a fairy tale about a funny snowman. He put on a hat, a high silk hat, and he came to life one day." I think Frosty clocked in at over 34 listens. And yet, when it came my time to sing with the quartet, I was rifling through my songbook, for the words I didn't need, to a song I did know. But I was scairt, so I paged through, and guess what: I missed the pitch pipe blowing. Next thing I know, people are singing and I'm trying to find my place, without the pitch pipe. That pitch pipe is gonna be my pavlovian bell for the rest of my life, it will make me launch into anxiety-ridden performances of Carol of the Bells, etc. I was bounced. Bring a torch Jennette Isabella took me down. The greche in the stall was a floater, it would appear. Cut as a caroler, two practices in. It was lemons-to-lemonaide time for me.