Friday, January 23, 2009

The Halls Are Alive with the Sound of Music

One of the things about blogging is that you reach a point where you have written so much about the little things in your life that you have to debate whether to reveal some things about yourself that in every other instance you would just as soon not let other people know.

I'm not talking about deep, dark nasty secrets. I don't imagine that just writing a blog would make you suddenly want to tell everyone that you are wanted by the authorities in five countries or can't quite cure the infection you got in Bangkok. No, I am thinking more about the sort of stuff that we do that we are embarrassed about doing, but not so much that we stop doing it.

Which leads to this post. But wait. I can hear some of you thinking, "You have written extensively about your physical shortcomings, your personality flaws, and most of your recent screw-ups. What secret could you possibly have?"

Well, the truth is I am writing a musical. Sort of. Right now there's just a couple of songs, and none of them have original music. Kind of like Weird Al Yankovic, I use music and put my own words to it. The difference is that Weird Al can be quite funny and he makes money out of it.

Oh, I should also tell you that there will never be a performance of the musical mostly because it will never be completed, but also because it is meant as a private thing between Linda and me. Or was meant to be until I started writing today.

This all probably had its origins in a very annoying habit of mine. For some reason, quite a few years ago, I took the part of My Sharona where they go ma-ma-ma-my Sharona and when LK and I were alone in the car or at home, I would sing ma-ma-ma-my Babushka.

Now I have no idea why I did that. Maybe babushka seemed like a funny word. Don't know why else I would have chosen it. But, as most of you would know, I am prone to excess. And I believe I must have been singing ma-ma-ma-my babushka to LK quite a bit. I guess I assumed she thought it was cute or funny or at least OK.

But alas I was in the car with my beloved one day and was just getting ready to ma-ma-ma when she said a word she very seldom uttered. "No more f***ing babushka songs!" she snapped. And so I stopped mid-verse.

Initially in my mind that became the Day the Music Died. Afraid that I was annoying the woman I loved rather than amusing her, I stopped singing.

But then one day it hit me. It probably wasn't the idea of me singing to her. It was probably that there was only that one line over and over. And over and over. I knew what I had to do.

And so, when the time was right, longer songs with a message and a story began to be formed and sung to her. Songs like "You're Young and Unlumpy" and "The Underpants Man", and even the little ditty, "The Mojito Song".

But this post is long enough today. As I said at the top, this was all something I kept from others. I guess partly because I didn't think it would be a good message for the head of a publishing company to be known as the writer of "The Underpants Man".

Anyhow, the cat's out of the bag now. Next time, lyrics and music to my musical.

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