No, I haven’t become incredibly stuck on myself! The reason for this title comes from something said by someone else, and noted near the end of today’s column.
A few weeks ago, the Winston-Salem Dash had their auditions for singers of the National Anthem for this year’s baseball season. If selected, the singer gets to sing at one game. Annual audition is required, not just to make sure any previous performer’s voice hasn’t gone to seed in a year, but to make it possible for more people to have that chance.
At this audition, I also had “new parts,” both hips having become ceramic and titanium! But I don’t think the voice’s “resonators” extend to the hip (maybe Elvis, and some Super Bowl half-time performers excepted).
A bass singer at Appalachian’s Music Dept. told me basses draw from deeper down than the diaphragm for their vocal support. He mentioned the innards, or rather, those innards’ “end,” that opposite part of the gastro-intestinal tract which, like the mouth, opens up to the world (can’t say it much nicer).
Back to “higher things,” or the musical part of the gastro-intestinal tract (some claim to make “music” with the opposite end; and a certain campfire “chorus” scene in “Blazing Saddles” (1974) might seem to give questionable credence to that claim).
On the way to Winston, I hummed my beginning note of the National Anthem now and then to get it ingrained in my mind. There is no musical accompaniment at the audition, so a capella is the theme of the day. Of course, it’s important to begin the Star Spangled Banner low enough to avoid its ending’s high note leaving the singer “flapping” in the wind.
I took my cane, just to be sure (surer-footed) in Winston-Salem’s Hanes Mall, where the auditions are held. At last year’s auditions, before any of my hip replacements, I had fallen and gotten “stuck” on a downwards-moving escalator there. Descending, and seeing the steps’ teeth-like edges, I felt like Robert Shaw (the actor, not the “choral” guy) in that “Jaws” (1975) scene where he’s gradually being swallowed by the shark. My son Jeremy, and a man riding behind me, helped me up, saving me from being “consumed.”
Oh, and about that man behind me who also helped me up. Being arthritic, and at that time “prior sock horse” (which I later received in rehab), I wasn’t wearing socks, and one shoe came off. The man, seeing my “mangled” foot had a look of horror on his face, thinking it was the result of the escalator; but that “mangling” was instead, due to genes, resulting in hammertoes, bunions, etc. Put another way, to imagine my feet, think of H.P.Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror,” the velociraptor in “Jurassic Park” (1993), and the toes of the gargoyles perched on the edges of Notre Dame Cathedral (the Historic Salisbury Station’s tower has gargoyles; and although they are a work of art, I’m sure their toes are not pretty either).
When I reached the registration table, I told those there that I wanted to be called “Mack” (middle name) instead of “Jay” (first name) when it came time for the audition announcer to introduce me (for the audition is also a public performance, being held in the mall’s open space).
In line to sing, I heard stirring renditions. Competitors were friendly, enjoying their common bond (just picture it, the relatively few participants in that thin waiting line, surrounded by the non-participants of the “madding crowd”).
Some renditions were boisterous, others gentle. As for me, and having always loved reading about World war II, I like to “storm the beach” (but with musicality). I save mega-volume for the end, not “blowing it all out” at the beginning. I can sing P (pianissimo), and I can sing F (forte), but I can also sing in between, known as MF (mezza forte), being an “MF-er” when being an “MF-er” is required!
My audition went well, and I look forward to hearing from the Dash; but let me back up just a bit to put the ending on this week’s column. It’s where, at the registration desk I said: “Instead of Jay, please call me ‘Mack’.”
The gentleman who announced me remembered me from before; and prior to my going on stage said: “That’s cool, you’re “the Mack!” (not “the Mack Daddy,” just “the Mack”). I thought this strange, but there was no time to inquire.
Going up the steps, I heard him announce “And now: “Mack!!!”
My request to be called “Mack Williams” instead of “Jay Williams” had become garbled in transmission from those at the registration table to the effect that when it reached the announcer, he thought I wanted to be known “mononymously,” as just “Mack!!!”
So in that respect, I guess I’m now like “Prince,” or for that matter, “Clyde!”