Jazz Hands

"Dear Journal, You missed a freaking CRAAAAAZY week in 7 & Senators!! You seriously shouldve BEEN THERE. OUT OF CONTROL! We had to sing for some old people and some retarded people and both shows were HYSTERICAL and TERRIFYING in that order!"~age 17

Before Glee, and before Zac Efron crooned sweet statutory; being in show choir was just plain "gay", and I LOVED IT. There was nothing better than catchpenny choreography to out of date showtunes and Disney Classics. Occassionally we would get lucky and afford the rights to some hip, pop number; like R. Kelly's "I believe I can fly".

"I used to think that I could not go on
And life was nothing but an awful song.
If I can see it, then I can do it
If I just believe it, there's nothing to it!"

Inspirational. It's especially moving knowing R. Kelly's future. He believed it, and there was really nothing to it. Just find an 8th grader and pee on her. No big.

To truly be a part of show choir, you had to be of a certain stamina. Extreme cheerfulness and a continual, cocain line of energy was expected. Most of us did community theater and had a flair for the dramatic. Tears flowed freely in the choir room; tears of sadness, of joy, of not getting the solo, of it being Wednesday. We were the students with a lot of emotions, and damnit, we just had to sing it out! Nothing can quelch the teenage despair like a broadway ballad. Break-ups, a parents divorce, running the mile- perfect reasons to start belting out a powerful melody. "Les Miserables" was the only thing that got me through mono.

This particular entry was written right before Christmas break, when all the nation's show choirs go flouncing about retirement homes, singing for the local infirms. These types of shows are always excruciating. The geriatrics are usually asleep and we just start clobbering them with JINGLE BELLS, so they wake into a state of screaming, frenzied panic. It's awful.

There are two of these shows I remember with alarming clarity, and I can only assume these are what I was writing about. The first show took place at a home for the severely mentally disabled. We set up our sound system in a room much too tiny to hold everyone in it. We had to short-change our dance moves and were about 1 and a half feet from the audience. In front of ME was a woman in a wheelchair. She was about 50 years old, fasted to the chair with restraints, and was wearing a large,chin-strapped helmet. When I got into position by sitting on the kneeling leg of my song partner Scott, the woman began bearing her teeth at me. Scott sensed my tension and whispered "It's all for the money" into my left ear. This was quite a good joke, considering the complete lack of money we would be receiving. The music was taking awhile to get started, so I moved to adjust my dress. The woman did NOT like that. She began rolicking back and forth, sticking her tongue out, barking and gnashing her teeth. Her helmet was flying everywhere and the wheels on the chair rocked up and down with her convulsive movement. As the music started, I opened my mouth to sing "silverbells" as she brayed the phrase "DIRTY WHORE!" 11 inches from my face. I croaked and Scott snorted/laughed. I was no more than a foot away from this woman the entire song, and she bellowed out a stream of expletives directed towards me the entire time. It went a little something like this:

Me: "City sidewalks/ Busy sidewalks..
"BITCH! CUNT! WHOOOOOORE!"
"Dressed in holiday style..
"DIRTY, DIRTY, DIRTY BITCH"
"In the air there's/ a feeling of Christmas..."
"POOP! SHIT ON YOU!"
"SILVERBELLS/ SILVERBELLS..
"WHORE FACE!"

I was completely traumatized, but Scott was laughing so hard his shoulders were shaking and he couldn't finish the song.

The second number started out better, because we got to move positions and Miss Helmet was no longer in my line of sight. Unfortunately, we chose to sing "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer", which everyone knew. Many of the inhabitants started singing and/or clapping along, which would have been a refreshing delight if one denizen hadn't been smacking all of them across their faces. This particular person felt she was the only one afforded the right to applaud. As soon as another audience member would begin clapping, she would scream "NO FRANK!" and slap them as hard as she could. There were about 18 aides in the room, but nobody acted as if this was something that needed addressed. So we just swayed back and forth singing rudolf, while one woman clapped wildly, and the rest of our audience let out pained shrieks as they were attacked. You will never know how long "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer" is, until you have sang it under such circumstances.

The second show took place in a retirement home which was business as usual; old people screaming, covering their ears, or smiling blankly. Just as we began our crescendo in "Hark How the Bells", the loudest furnace/radiator/ice-maker on the planet began to growl. The sound was defeaning! This beast drowned out our singing entirely. We started to look around, realizing we couldn't even hear the person next to us. Our choir director started laughing and just shrugged "keep on going". But then the old people began snapping out of their trances, noticing our singing was replaced by the familiar machinery rumble they so loved. There was a hoot/ holler, and a maniacal laugh from a woman who was presumed a vegetable 3 minutes prior. They started crowing and pointing, clapping their hands and pumping their arthritic fists, as if to say "WE WIN!"