Fear Of Karaoke

I'll watch others get up and belt out a song with abandon, joyously making an ass out of themselves or killing it. Doesn't matter. They march up with intent of purpose in hand and let it rip. I've seen people who still spell "S.E.X." let their freak flag fly to the tune of a Sinatra song. They bond with all of the other karaokers because each stepped up and took it on, all members of a Song Singers That Could Club. I look on with envy but cannot. Bring. Myself. To do it. I will fail. Microphones are my friends but not this time. This time I want to run away from its potential evilness. Something inside says karaoke will eat my soul.

Fear is usually rooted in something that is driven into us via nature or nurture. Snakes, bears, even little bitty spiders can actually harm you.  A needle is something puncturing your protective skin. A dentist may have caused you pain when you were too young to understand the intrinsic reasoning. Too many horror movies at a young age? Those clowns will get you.

It seems from the list of phobias that I just read that given enough time, people can be afraid of just about anything.  Fear of dolls, peanut butter being stuck to the roof of your mouth and FLUTES all have real phobia names. So far I see no phobia word for the fear of karaoke, though. I feel illegitimate.

Stage fright, public speaking, being stared at when you are in danger of being publicly humiliated is a huge issue with many many people who are raised to not draw attention to themselves,the opposite of safety. Which is why, as a comic and a performer who puts herself in often emotionally (and occasionally physically) precarious situations, my fear of doing karaoke makes no sense and pisses me off.

Can I sing? Yes. Have I sung in awkward situations in public? Yes. Have I made an idiot out of myself in front of hundreds of people? Hell yes with a capital H. What is it about this particular situation that is so daunting? What was done to me in the past that dictates this irrational behavior? I suspect church choir but can't prove it.

I will over come it, though. I have friends that share my plight and have made strides to conquer this. It is not something that will effect my life if I don't act on it directly but I will know that it is there. It controls me on a small level and this is not acceptable.

So there's a new sheriff in Fear Town, Karaoke, you clown under my bed. You creepy elf on a shelf. You peanut butter on my rooftop. I won't accept you. You won't scare me no more.

Pictures to prove it to follow. Please play the theme song to "Rocky" in your head when you see them.


Update 7/23/15 : Nope. Not yet. But I'm not dead yet.

Other Roadside Distractions

Back when we were little, my sister Chrissy and I had a special relationship with vending machines in hotels, particularly cheese and cracker combos, the unnatural orange kind that came in a six pack of little sandwiches. Getting money to put in the vending machines was clarification that we were not in our house and chances are wherever we were had an indoor pool. The whole place smelled faintly of chlorine and if we played our cards right, one of us might be walking with a little bar of soap. Our older sisters were off in big girl land and the two of us were angling for tv in bed with a remote control and a can of Coca Cola, baby!

The United States back in the day had a plethera of Howard Johnson's and I think that if eating chicken in a basket and playing logic puzzles in a restaurant slash adjoining motel was a career,sign me up. There will always be the thrill of seeing the first signs of Spanish Moss on the trees and pecan bars being pimped in rest stops insinuating escape from the cold of the north and the nearness of the round accents of my relatives in my heart.

My grandfather's house was in Siesta Key which is part of Sarasota Florida. He was a blind retired southern colonel which I equated with being just like the Kentucky Fried Chicken guy only my grandpa was a quarter Spanish and the other colonel struck me as pretty anglo. My grandfather was like a sleeping lion. I knew he could be fierce and frightening because I had heard the stories but he was always in bed. His house smelled like bay leaves and the Gulf Of Mexico outside of the window. We would walk down to the beach wearing flip flops so the coral wouldn't cut us and spend the day playing with sea urchins and little shrimp, Even the air felt alien compared to  our home in the Catskills by the woods. It was different and different was important.

In New Hampshire in the summertime, we would visit the House Of Colors and marvel at all of the different rocks and minerals they sold. Later we would go look for pretty rocks in the mountains and find some in the wild ourselves. We saw the movie "Cabaret" from the back of our station wagon before we drove back to our little cabin on what could be any number of picturesque lakes, hoping in my heart that another bat would get loose in it and give us a that extra thrill of ducking under furniture while Daddy chased it with a broom, forever tying Liza Minelli and bat infestation in the same memories.

Whether it was by monetary necessity or the joy with which my parents embraced natural America, our vacations were simple. We went to some amusement parks but it takes concentration to remember them unlike the roiling pots of quicksand in Homosasa Springs that impressed me permanently. Every time we drove away from our home it was with a wave of excitement that we were going on a somewhat thrifty conquest, embarking on a low budget adventure.

Years later while I was in high school, I had an audition in New York City  so my mom and dad decided to make a big stink out of it. We stayed at the Plaza Hotel, ate at Trader Vics downstairs and had lunch in the Edwardian room just outside of the lobby. I remember that the bathtub being regal. Someone brought me a grand drink with the alcohol removed in a tub of a drinking vessel with a half peach skewered down the middle of it that was delicious. It was a truly wonderful experience but in the scheme of memory things, it still wasn't better than the orange crackers in the vending machine at Howard Johnsons.

The Muse Club

I never could understand how the Charles Bukowski barfly type of writer ever got anything done. The image of the drunk tortured soul writing brilliance from the booth of a bar made no sense. O Henry at Pete's Tavern in NYC. Dylan Thomas at The White Horse. Have you ever spoken to someone in a bar on a bender? The repetition, the inability to complete full sentences, the irrational emotions driving the whole cart, none conducive to concepts that I would find worth reading. It is hard enough for them to walk out of the bathroom without toilet paper on the shoe , let alone complete a 5000 word short story that somehow made it to the publisher without beer being spilled on it. It's times like that that makes me believe in the power of a muse, a very specific voice in their head helping them to tie the strings together and complete the story.

Writing creatively is a heady, lonely thing sometimes. It is not easy to expose a part of yourself in order to make a creative impact. Sometimes you avoid it in order to not have to finish because it is a long arduous process, especially the types that are long form like a 3-act play or a novel. The critical voice in your head can derail the whole works. Procrastination is a creative thief if you give it enough time to dig its heels in. No matter how brilliant you are if you can't finish your works or even get a decent start to it, you ain't nothing but a person staring at a sheet of paper or a blank screen.

The reference to a muse normally makes me think of either a hot woman that a musician keeps around to write songs about or the hooker of legend whom Van Gogh cut off his ear to give to her. She is a person who is lusted after in a most unrealistic way, on a pedestal that usually is very unsteady. Tragic or romantic or both.

I suspect that for some writers a muse is something more basic. They complete the need for a person to be heard, give a place for ideas to be processed and feedback to be given and, sometimes, to be written about if they fit the bill at the time. Maybe they are a literary agent or a wife or the support buddy from a writers group (sort of  a prose driven AA sponsor if you will). Or a  friend who understands the need to do this thing, at times not even aware of their position. Maybe even a child, forcing the inner voice to produce or else fail as a role model.  There is something about that person that inspires safety and/or makes the writer feel like they will be accountable to them.  Romantic inspiration lasts only so long. Utilitarian muses are stable, even if they may be temporary.

I always wondered if I have been someone's muse. I think I have. I think most of us have been. No one has sung a song just for me that I know of and I've never known me to inspire a line in love poem. I've read a lot of other people's writing, though. Listened to many jokes. I have  heard words fall out of the person, form something beautiful for the first time, witnessing creation that was talking to me first, have had ideas given over to me because I made them feel safe. I'm not sure if I've even given them a need to create but I have inspired trust, made them feel like they could be great when they completed something. And if I am very very lucky because I can say I was the first to this beautiful thing come to life and go on to become a success.

Thank you for being there all these years, my friends who have read for me, helped me form my ideas and kept me going with encouragement. "Muse" is an uncomfortable title but that is what you have been to me along with "friend."

Scar

Just before my right elbow on the forearm, there is a round mark. It is from throwing myself across the stage face first. The specifics of what exactly I was catapulting myself into vary a little depending on the day....golden grahams, a giant exercise ball, one especially memorable container of yogurt. It wasn't in the script. It evolved from a moment of "where can I go with this stoned lunatic" that I was portraying, into taking the skin off of my arm every performance until it stayed with me forever.

I live in a world of envelop pushing. In the Neo/Alt Burlesque part of my universe, it is an imperative part of the stew. Do something new and unique and see how far you can go with it. It is exciting and stimulates the imagination. It also very often takes brass balls to execute and can be scary ride. It is emotionally dangerous because, among other things, you literally expose yourself and maybe put yourself in a situation that you never dreamed you would be. It is about committing to an idea so completely that you are willing to go outside of your comfort zone to make it great.

Sometimes its just a matter of taking a chance and risk having something fail publicly, humiliating yourself by choice, leaving yourself open to the harsh judgment that some other members of humanity feel entitled to inflict on others. Even if it is just a kiss in an uncomfortable place. If those things don't work, the scars go on the inside and the scab gets picked every time you see something that reminds you of that moment until they fade into a flinch and grimace and then later, if you are lucky, just a flashing "oh" resonating in the pit of your stomach. 

Dancers usually try to deter damage so that their bodies will last but, really, have you seen their feet? Circus performers put  themselves constantly into precarious situations, abusing their bodies to be super human.  It is like a badge of honor to see how far an actor can mess with their physicality for a role (or just to get work) gaining and losing unhealthy amounts of weight, injecting botulism into their faces,subjecting themselves to awful elements to make their work look authentic. Artists, if they are worth their ilk, are often a pigheaded lot ignoring upbringing, pain and common sense to bring their innards out for closer examination. 

I am proud of my scars and the residual pain that I live with today. They are not the choice that one would make to keep and I would prefer not to have them. They are, after all, the results of error. But they are also my story of how I was brave that day and did something difficult in my life, how I gave the audience my all and then some. Win some lose some but the story is still out there. Or embedded in your forearm to remind you forever.

Graveyards Are Nice

The other day I was walking through Prospect Hill Cemetery in Brattleboro VT and I noticed how a couple of tombstones where knocked over. They looked like a giant came through and gave them a good smack, tumbling them forward onto their faces with their backsides showing. The lawn was mowed around them but those headstones probably didn't have anyone around to bitch about their condition so they were left to be as is.

On the edge of the property, one or two headstones be had been enveloped by the outlying forestry. They seemed to be single lone people, pushed out from the edge of the acceptable cemetery area. I wondered if the lady who was crushed behind two trees did something to deserve being hidden in the woods for eternity.

Years ago in the midst my youthful indignant eco-friendly phase, I raged against the waste that cemeteries are, all of that land that could be used for something else smack in the middle of city blocks.  My aunt, a historian, pointed out that now we may have a way of leaving a trace of our existence with the internet but,unless someone happened to pass their name in a census records or obituary, without headstones many people without recent direct descendants would have faded into the past. A headstone is an instant record of existence and sometimes all that is left to tell you a person walked the earth.

My dad died and we cremated him per his request but a plaque for him remains in the cemetery where his parents are buried.  It says "Valleau Edward Curtis Korean War Aviator" capturing precisely who he was.  None of his physical remains are there but it is still a place to say hello, a tin can at the end of a string to the hereafter where you hope he can hear you.

A cemetery has never been a creepy place to me.  Unless you were very fortunate, many times it is the last vestiges of personal history.....who you were, where you died and sometimes who you loved, if you were alone, possibly your social standing and, in one case that I know, how much you liked NASCAR.

When I die, I hope that I have left enough of my mark on the world that I don't end up in the hedge with my headstone knocked over, at least for the first couple of hundred years. But just in case I will write something clever on the tombstone to make sure that it is interesting enough to get a little extra attention like, "Don't touch this" or "World's Best Toomler" or "Hated Zucchini." Maybe  get one of those benches so people can sit there and get a little peace in the hectic world that I no longer have to deal with.

 I don't care what you do with my body but it would be lovely to have  nice place that maybe they will remember me for a second like I do for other people now. I pray I am not buried in the hedge but if I am, make it a nice hedge of something that maybe the bees enjoy. Make it nice for the people because it is really for them. Because really, really? I will be dead.

Goodbye, Astro. I Hope You Gave Them Hell

Astro disappeared a couple of nights ago. We don't have high hopes. Too many wild beasts in them thar Vermont woods and she is a dainty wee thing. It hurts that she is gone but we do have the comfort of knowing that whoever or whatever was stupid enough to try to take her down, regretted it immediately. It was like trying to grab an adorable looking Cujo. There are a lot of species-unspecific females like her, including myself. Sometimes I wonder if it is who we really are if we weren't told that we needed men to protect us.

Many years ago when I was little, being a princess was THE primo career goal and the very best type of princess was one who was rescued by a man. It was their job to protect us and I hoped to find one capable of fulfilling the job description, preferably with a horse.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), I spend my early adulthood living mostly alone in some of New York City's not yet desirable neighborhoods where white knights were usually dating women in better income brackets. The men in my world were usually too busy with gigs or hiding from landlords. It was not safe. I accepted that and learned how to think and watch and listen whenever I walked alone.  In 17 years I wasn't harmed and I am positive that it was from doing everything in my power to not let the bad guys get near enough to touch me. That and stupid luck. And being 100% confident that I would tear out their eyes if they caught me.

The other night my friend did not protect a woman who was being harassed by a man. Or, at least that is how he felt later on in a pique of failure. Really, the woman wisely chose not to confront the crazy person who was bothering her and my friend probably did the instinctively intelligent move to not antagonize a lunatic. The society that he was reared in ingrained the message, "to be a man is to fight."

Another male friend of mine is a hot head. In the right mood, he will confront anyone who looks funny at him. I like him but he is an asshole. I prefer to not walk down the street with him . In the case with the aforementioned friend, he would have escalated the situation and may have gotten someone hurt.  He is such a "man" that his ego goes straight to testosterone and passes the "think" part. And it never occurs to him that a woman might be able to handle the situation on her own and doesn't want his help.

Oh sure, if someone takes it upon themselves to start beating on me because I am smaller, please do step in, larger person who may be a man. The intellectualizing part of the show has left the tent.  But please know that I got some shots in first and was glad I had given it my best to not be in this situation.  Because, like Astro, I know when I am beaten but you aren't taking my vulnerability with you. I don't think a person is less of a man if he takes the time to choose when to confront and avoid it. In fact, I respect it because, if I am standing next to you, I have a better chance of surviving if you do.

*One week after her disappearance, Astro knocked on the door and came in for a bite and a nap without a scratch on her.

How To Tell If You Have A Hex Upon You

In 1678 my Great many time over Grandfather John Stebbins was allegedly murdered by witchcraft in Northampton, MA. That or a log rolled on him randomly. One of them. Either way, someone must have been angry enough at him to make them think he got the stink-eye.

We know that the Puritans were a little zealous on the superstition front. It was probably something simple like an actual homicide. I am wondering what the other circumstances around the "witchcraft incident" that lead to this interpretation of his demise and, if I were of the same frame of mind in this day and age, would I come to similar kind of conclusions in my life now. For instance, there was this week and a half in June......

In mid-June a couple whom I knew growing up exploded.* That is to say, their home blew up with them in it, blowing their house and,well, them across the banks of  the Delaware River. I wasn't particularly close to them but their death was so sudden and horrible that for a quick moment I just didn't know how to react. It wasn't in my wheelhouse of bad things. And this paved the way for the rest of June. In Puritan curse credo, this would be the ominous warning not having that much to do with you, just enough to make you feel disturbed.

We were in the middle of packing up our apartment. I knew it wasn't going to be simple but, holy monkey in a hand basket, Batman....we had soooo much stuff. And our new apartment was tiny compared to the old space. Purgatory is paved with moving boxes. No matter how much I packed, there was more. And there was a continual presence of contractors in our space readying it for future tenants. No privacy while I yelled at our belongings that seemed to multiply themselves. Like they were cursed.

The husband was working three jobs. Two in one university and another 110 miles away at a blueberry farm where he was starting up a winery. Even if Jay was more available, he had been very ill, a bronchial thing that made him sound like Brenda Vacarro in a roomful of smog. He packed his office up but there wasn't a whole lot of time for much else while he was giving final exams and when he moved, he hacked away like his lungs had rocks in them. Cooties....or witchcraft?

About this time my hair started breaking off. It had gone through phases but now it was snapping off at the part where the color started in earnest. The top back of my head began to look like a poorly mowed lawn. It ain't the pox or warts but still hex-y, not sexy**.

My daughter was a 14 year old moving from the only home she knew since she was six. She is a good kid, helping as much as she could but she was also enveloped in the emotional dysplasia blues. There is no way I could tell her to cheer the fuck up given the circumstances. The onset of gloom was continuous and grating. And every person who ever perused the horror section of Netflix knows that there is always a brooding teenager when the evil eye is upon a home. 

We were waiting on payment for the husband's summer position, depending on one large check. In the meantime, huge bills were piling up. Fortunately, the circus guild money guy producer (yes, circus) agreed to meet me with a check for a show I was performing in once a month. On the way to the designated central location, I noticed the brakes on our Yaris weren't engaging properly. By the time I got to Somerville, they were barely working at all. I coasted in and called the husband. He came down and followed me back to the MA apartment while I drove as slow as you possibly could without getting rear ended by one of those infamous testy Boston drivers. Three hundred dollars later, I was mobile.  So we have near-ish death experience by bad brakes (1970's murder program plot line, anyone?) AND loss of much needed money. Extra curse-y with a side of Murder She Wrote.

We rented a moving truck and spent the morning loading it.  I had to move-us interruptus to go to a very necessary rehearsal.  My writing partner and I had revamped the circus show script and it was the only time that the director was available to meet before the show that was going back up in 4 more days. After I got home, we continued to fill it up until we couldn't function any more, woke up the next day, loaded it more and then drove off to VT. We started unloading it and then the husband fell off the moving truck and broke his foot.You heard me. Broke his foot. If that don't smell of demons pushing people, I don't know what does. 

The moving truck was positively pregnant with large heavy old furniture and I was alone with it. I started thinking of ways pieces could be dismantled so that I could do it by myself.  I went to the only two people whom I knew well in the Pioneer Valley/Southern VT area and was rescued by Scott (of Jennifer and Scott) at 10 pm, removing the stuff that scared me most. And the next morning when I was again scheming on how the hell I was going to do this again more, Scott texted me and told me he had taken the day off and was coming back. It's things  like that that prevented me from running a muck across Interstate 91. One could say we were rescued by incredible selfless kindness....or one could say that I pulled Scott into the curse with me. Mercy, I didn't think two humans could sweat that much.

We had to keep the moving van an extra day, costing us more.  We also had to cancel a team building event that Jay and I  were both booked on to make desperately needed money. The husband's summer position was done and we had to wait for the end of the summer for the elusive check.  The money is bleeeeding! Curses love money loss!

 We did do a second scheduled event the day after that in Cape Cod, driving from VT instead of the sleeping on air mattresses in MA as planned. He was in a lot of pain but got through it.  He took the Pontiac with cruise control, driving with his big ole air cast back to VT. I pulled into our soon to be former MA town and felt the brakes of the aforementioned Yaris starting to lose their power again. DAH-DAH-DUHHH! (That's a musical sting).

I drove the car straight to the garage down the street from our house where it had just been. I explained that I needed the car inspected in order to get the registration that was due as well as rectifying the insidious brake issue. I walked home, continued to finish the last of the stuff in the apartment and did battle with the concept of where the hell do you throw this stuff off with only three garbage cans for two apartments plus recycling. I had run to the dump twice already and donated belongings ruthlessly. It was endless. Again, magicked reproducing belongings. 

In the meantime, the husband has been informed that our large lump sum check is going to be taxed as if single payment is the same as a bi-weekly paycheck for an annual salary, putting us in a tax bracket that I only dream of visiting. We were going to lose another 600 dollars because "that is just the way the school does it." His payment for the summer was going to cover the Amex bill and rent and that was just about all. This is when I really did start wondering if someone had busted out a Ouiji board to call the dogs from hell out on us. Cue the Why Me, Gods.

When I return to the garage the next morning, the car was inspected but the brakes, due to an error in communication from  within, were not examined. I try to explain that I  had to be at pre-show tech rehearsal followed by two performances and was supposed to drive to VT after the show. A stressed out looking mechanic took a look at the brakes. He showed me even more damaged brake parts. It was going to cost about another 300 dollars. This is when I sat on the floor next to my car and began weeping. Poor mechanic. Sucked into my potential curse drama. 

 The car would have to stay at the garage. We would have to find some money somewhere. The trains stopped running 5 minutes after I get off the stage. I had no car, no money, no sleep, no way home, no idea of where anything in my life was with the exception of my family and my costume (which I was terrified of losing so kept with me) and the massive mound of garbage in my former apartment.  I was physically and mentally beaten from multiple layered potential curse effects.

The tech rehearsal was a disaster (for me) due to my inability to complete a sentence. The shows weren't as bad as the rehearsals but that ain't saying much on my part. I dropped lines. I had no energy. My timing and focus weren't just off, they were in a whole other town. And if you were to put the whammy on me, this is where you get me good. Besides my family, my performer's ego is the belly of the beast. Thwupt (that's an arrow flying)....right into my soul. See? Puritan me would have been swarming the neighborhood looking for someone to hang (pardon the pun)  it on. Ruination! Find Satan's minion!***

But in the end, the curse rarely stays a curse if you let it ride out.  The husband drove back on his broken foot and picked me up after the show. I met him somewhere. I can't remember. It is lost in the blur. The car did get fixed the next day.  My mother-in-law bailed us out and the mechanic didn't charge us for labor because they had missed it the first time (and because I am an uncomfortably messy cry-er). Months later I am still unpacking but at least I know where my underwear is and the air quality is better. Our finances will get better because we did move.  I finished up the last show in this run in August knowing all night that it was really be my last because the June one was so unforgivable. And I did what I would have anyway, my best.  I went out with a bang, rose to the occasion, glad that I can't remember the show that I failed because there is the perk in exhaustion and mild brain damage.

So I wonder if sometimes a hex is just the fulfillment of a person's inability to find the silver lining in something? After all, my little story up there is rife with helping hands and kindness. It's harder to find it with Grandpa Stebbins what with him being under a log and all, but still.....in his religion, he is in heaven right now. And he doesn't have to worry about witches any more. So was it a hex or was it just the quick bus to the Pearly Gates?

*This is by no means meant to make light of an incredibly tragic event that took the lives of two very lovely people who were nothing but kind to me the 35 or so years that I have known them. It is merely the uh-oh moment when things started to unravel. 
**Self-indulgent humor to make myself laugh
***And I did get fired from the circus for bad acting. Which is awful because normally I am a really good character actor but great because  I find saying that sentence a little hilarious.