Live and in-person Gleekiness

The dude who teaches music at the Lebanon Jr/Sr. High School is married to this lady, Gaye, that works with me (this oddly monikered broad being the head of our Development Dept) and Gaye leads this community chorus group on Mondays--Harmony Night. So when there is a Leb H.S. concert it involves the junior high AND these Harmony Night Singers. So it's like a mega-choral event. I know, because I attended one this past Thursday night. Why? Well it's not because I'm any great pal of Gaye's. Rather, I went because I wanted to witness something like this ..

Just jokin'...that would have been SO rad though. I went to the concert because Linette has been doing the Harmony Night thing and was all stoked for the concert and really wanted to have some "fans" in the audience.

Overall the concert was good...though there was this one group (the high school chorus had these spin-off mini choruses) that was outstandingly bad. The real abomination was not their shit-quality singing though. It was that they were shitty and they called themselves Sha-na-na. So it's rather an affront to Bowser et. al

Ohhh, ok, so it might be somewhat disrespectful of me to refer to the whole of Sha-na-na (and now I refer to famous Sha-na-na and not high school Sha-na-na) as "Bowser et al" But Bowser is really the only thing I really remember from their TV show . They sang "Goodnight Sweetheart" at the close of every show, and every time the camera hit Bowser he went berzerker flexing his feeble excuses for biceps. In my defense, I was only 3 or 4 at the time of my ardent Sha-na-na viewership, and whaddya gonna appreciate at that age? Musicianship and first rate harmonizing? Or gimmicks? Also, I know I was going through quite a bass-man kick during this era. The well-worn state of my "Elvira" 45 is a testament to that (Ah OOOMM boppa OOOOMM boppa MOW MOW)

One thing that was unfortunate about the junior high segment of the concert was the annoying "choreography" they saturated their songs with. It was that literal choreography of grade school concerts, which is tolerable from the K-3 set, because they're all at peak adorability. They basically sing the song and accompany every g-damn line with pidgin ASL. Scanning the crowd & doing a hand visor when they sing "look", miming slumber when they sing "dream", etc etc. I don't know why music teachers don't retire that shit. I mean, especially for grades 7 &8.

I realize that rant from the last paragraph makes me sound inordinately ornery... I suppose I can be. I'm sorry...

If you can believe it, my night got even dorkier than 7th grade singing mimes. After the concert, Linette asked if I wanted to go grab some beers & wings at Ramuntos. She said that "some of the girls from Harmony Night are going" but, ahhh.. GINORMO understatement!! 90% of everyone that performed at the concert was there. Worse than the scarcity of elbow room was that I inadvertantly wound up as some sort of glee groupie. EWWww, am I right?

So, as if their life isn't musical enough already, Gaye and her hubby Dan are in an acapella group with another couple. They're called The Honeymooners. I have seen them in action before, as they sang for my agency's "Employee Appreciation Night" (which pretty heavily sucked, BTW). Well, lemme preface this by saying, I have no problem with acapella music. In fact, I really liked that show The Sing-Off that NBC did 2 seasons of(so, like, Exhibit A in my defense there, mmkay?). But it seems like there is a common breed of acapella group (The Honeymooners being one of these) that can't do a song without O.D.ing on hokey. Oh, I dunno, "hokey" is a nebulous thing-- quite identifiable, but hard to articulate. I think a lot of it stems from them being SOOOO damned expressive...so expressive they make silent film actors look stolid.

I'm certainly not the worst audience member (heckling, or fielding calls on my cell), but I am way too honest to be a *great* audience member. Like, if I'm underwhelmed by a performance, I will only "air clap" to be polite. And I've sat out on a good deal of standing ovations. I think the massiveness of a lot of your standing o's are probably due to herd mentality anyway. Awfully, cynical of me, but I do believe it. You know, you can get by being a mediocre audience member in an audience of a hundred or so. But when acapella breaks out...in a restaurant....3 ft from you...it's time to adapt, sport. Yes, The Honeymooners started doo-wopping in the middle of Ramuntos. The crowd had clamored for it (the crowd, excepting yours truly & the regulars at the bar) and they were just absolutely RAPTUROUS about it (both crooners & crowd, that is) And y'know, God love 'em for being so impulsive and fun and uninhibited but... I had a pint + hot wings + bleu cheese at my table. THAT is what I was rapturous about. You know, I'm not such a social ninny that I eschew all social interaction with my comrades once wings are served. But I'm pretty adept at chatting-while-noshing (though, I gotta admit, I'm not sure my multitasking is all that lovely to behold) But add my innate audience-al* mediocrity to the fact that I really just wanted to enjoy my f-ng chicken wings, maaan X the fact that they're doing this uber-emoting a hair's breadth away from me .....well, it all tallies up to = AWWWWKWARD.

The second song in their set was "Duke of Earl" and for all the songs they do this god-awful audience engaging thing where the "lead" on that song directs a particularly schmoopy couplet at some poor sap in the front row, then sings at another sap another line, etc, etc, you get the drift. So, Dan is singing, "Ohhh I--I-I...oh, I'm gonna love you. Oh. ohh.." AT ME and I swear, until he got to the L-word, I was utterly oblivious (blissed out wings trance, annihilating a drummer, smears of fluourescent red on both cheeks, most likely) and then I kind of regained my situational awareness and... saluted him with a chicken wing. Well, not super suave of me, but I do hope it augmented the entertainment value of their show. After that instant, I was faking being as totally rapt as everyone around me--big, broad smile on my face and real clapping. But all the time I was thinking: ohmigod you guys are soooooo unbearably dorky I can't staaaaand it.

It all sorta reminded me of January 2006, when I travelled to Mexico with my sister and her family. For the bulk of our stay, we were in Hermosillo, which was overindustrialized and smelly. But one weekend we spent in the resort town of San Carlos, in this nice resort. We were on the ocean there, and there were a lot of nice quasi-mansions (prob'ly gringo retirees, I'd wager) We dined one night, al fresco, this place overlooking the beach. This lady went table to table selling roses--fine. But then, there were these wandering minstrels that were going to your table and strumming guitars and singing folk songs. And doesn't it just sound idyllic? It totally does to me too but... I HATED IT. If they had been, stationery, in like a stage-area it would have been fabulous, but I didn't appreciate them all up in mah grill like that. You either have to nod appreciatively or just commit to being an overt bastard. If I was aggressive and not so staunchly passive- aggressive, then I probably woulda been fine in that scenario. I know I sound terribly party pooperish, and it sounds all so lovely. My sister thought it was great! Me, I was like: Whaaaat DO YOU WANT FROM ME? No tengo pesos. Will you take a third of my quesadilla and go away??

Well, back to the States, 2011. As I said goodbye & goodnight to Gaye, she's all "Thanks so much for coming! Heeey, new voices are always welcome at Harmony Night!! What do you have going on Monday nights??" The answer to that? I got a fat lotta nothing going on on Monday nights, and that's how I like it. Most Monday mornings I have to promise myself an apres-work nap in order to coax myself out of bed and I like to keep the entirety of every Monday evening free for the occasional occasions that I make good on that promise. But of course, I didn't say that. I think my answer, verbatim, was "Oh. Ha. Well, good night."

Oh, but then on Friday at work, she emailed me reiterating the offer!! And Linette also mentioned it in her daily email howdy to me. Oy. I'm definitely going to have to come up with some fictitious, inflexibly scheduled 2nd job. Although, a non-fictitious 2nd job would do me good. But let's--for the moment-- disregard that whole perpetual miasma ...

*Yes, I made up that word. I had, for some odd reason, tired of typing the word "member"