“I hope I get it…..I hope I get it.”

 Most singers hate auditions. I love them!

Maybe it’s because I overcame my failed audition in sixth grade! The teacher walked around the room while we sang a song, listening for people to join her chorus. I wasn’t one.

My dad, who sang in the San Francisco Opera chorus, was furious. He met with the teacher and got me in.

I didn’t take up choral singing seriously until I was in my 60s, inspired by my daughter’s high school chorus. During voice lessons, I was amazed at the sound the teacher uncovered. I thought I was a bass. He insisted I was a tenor, just like my dad.

So I went auditioning. At one prestigious chorus, I was given a copy of “My country ‘Tis of Thee” to sing. Really? I can handle that one.

Later, I really impressed the director of one of the top choruses in a very big city with a solo while he played. But when he gave me a sight-singing test, I was terrible. “You are a follower,” he said. I got in on a conditional bassis. I have heard that “tenors get a pass.” I thought better of it and bowed out.

I failed an audition for a musical, but I joined the diector’s church chorus for the summer. He got to like me. Next year, he gave me a prized role in a great musical.

The oddest audition came at another big chorus.  The director stopped playing a couple of times while I sang. “This isn’t quite right,” he said. Really? I thought I was singing the right notes on a sheet handed me earlier by his assistant.

“Let me look at your music,” I said. “We aren’t working on the same song!” The director was embarrassed.  I got in.

Not all was smooth sailing. I had driven 200 miles to return home for the second re-audition of another chorus. I got a speeding ticket on the way. Traffic was backed up near the audition site. I got frantic.

I bombed the audition. They kicked me out! Well, I did blame the police stop and the fact that I was not planning to stay in that chorus anyway. But I was devastated.

So I found another prestigious chorus holding auditions that same week. I wasn’t sure I wanted this one, but I thought it would make me feel better if I tried it out.

It was a stormy night. The director gave me a song that I had just sung in church the previous week. I nailed it. After a stroke of lightning, the lights went out. When they came back on, the director looked confused. “You seem to know what you are doing,” he said. God wanted me there! I joined.

Childhood trauma from shrieking high notes

 

My friends know that I love jazz. Few know that I am really an opera child.

During World War II, the San Francisco Opera had trouble finding men for its chorus. So my  dad, Philip Doan, got one of the positions, partly because he had a deferment for working at Standard Oil.

He loved singing the great music of Verdi, Wagner and Puccini, but he was awfully loud around the house. He would swear when he missed a high note, unnerving us all.

As a baby, my parents played opera music around the house, hoping it would stick with me. I thought they said they did that in utero too, but that sounds ridiculous.

Opera didn’t really click with me, but I loved the pop tunes of the early 1950s. This was too early for rock ‘n’ roll. This was Perry Como, Rosemary Clooney and Mitch Miller. That irritated my father, no end. My youthful rebellion.

My biggest exposure to opera came on several train trips to follow my dad and the opera on tour. I’ve told this before: the great baritone Salvatore  Baccalone sat me on his lap and asked if I would be a tenor like my father when I grew up. “Nobody’s gonna make a tenor outta me!” I said (Wrong!)

 The opera company traveled to the unsophisticated sticks: Seattle, Portland, Sacramento. And oh—the sleepy hamlet of Los Angeles, which did not have an opera company!

In L.A., we always stayed at the Figueroa Hotel, which would serve Carmen Salad, Figaro roast beef and Faust potatoes for the whole opera company. I ca’t believe it—I actually sang my pop songs to the old ladies in the lobby.

Once, when I was 10, in 1952, the Long Beach Boys’ Choir did not have enough kids for La Boehme, and my father enlisted me to perform without singing.

Wow, what an adventure that was! They had huge doors at the Shrine Auditorium to  let in horses ocasionally. Really? On stage? I looked off the stage and realized that performers can’t see the audience because of the lights.

The role of a street urchin was a lot of fun, but I was jealous when I found out that the other kids had stolen real food off the pretend food carts (or was it backstage?)   Why didn’t I get any?

Though I was now a skilled, experienced opera performer, my next gig didn’t come for another 60 years. After I took voice lessons, I talked a singer I knew into getting me into a little opera company’s shows in Washington. It put on performances at embassies, inviting 100 or so wealthy guests to feast on dinner and see their costly shows. I found it challenging to learn the music for La Forza del Destino and Tosca, and I sort of tagged along with the professionals around me in the chorus. Best of all, they gave us free food at the end of the show.

For five years, I did publicity for Opera Nova, a small Arlington group that put on one-hour condensed operas for school children. Why would they like opera? Because the plots are ridiculous, there is sword-fighting and screaming. I loved interviewing the children afterward to get their reactions.

Do I follow opera now? Well, not really. I did go to some Metropolitan Opera performances in the movies but I always nodded off by the second act. And I fell asleep during my one visit to the real Metropolitan Opera 10 years ago during Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

But I do still sing, mostly choral music and old standards with my piano.  Now I am the one shrieking high notes at home, irritating those around me.

A Chip off the old British block

 

Sometimes I think I belong in England. “Cheerio, old chap.” “Stiff upper lip, mate”. No hugging. No smiles.

 

Since I was a child, I have felt at a disadvantage in the free-wheeling, back-slapping U.S., where I was born.

 

British understatement works wonderfully in an old man’s column, but not on the school yard, where kids know no limits. Or in the work-a-day American business world, where it’s dog eat dog, no holds barred.

 

 

I’ll blame (or credit) my grandfather, Fred W. Gee, who was born in the West Yorkshire section of England in 1875. Fred arrived here at age 17 without telling his mother he was leaving. No tearful farewells for him.

 

He settled in the Sierra foothills of California, opening a tailor shop, for which he had been well trained. In later years, suffering from dizzy spells after his wife died, he lived with my parents and our family in San Francisco’s East Bay.

 

I was definitely the best dressed kid in school, with custom tailored British tweed coats he made for me.

 

My mother, his daughter, was as Tory as they come in this country. “We never should have broken off from England,” she said repeatedly, almost 200 years too late. She idolized the British monarchy and followed the Queen’s every move. She was saddened by Prince Charles’ dalliances away from Lady Diana.

 

As a reporter, I wondered how I would have done in Fleet Street’s news madness, so contrary to the genteel way of life I had envisioned as British. It came as a shock to me when English journalists were so rowdy as they questioned our Treasury secretary and their Chancellor of the Exchequer at a news conference I attended with them in Washington. And did British journalists really bug Prince William’s phone? My mother would not be amused!

 

I have enjoyed a number of BBC television shows but need subtitles. I worry about being the grumpy Doc Martin myself.

 

I visited cousins in England several times. My uncle took me to a British soccer game in Newcastle, where the final score was 0-0. Sorry, I didn’t become a convert. And our baseball is speedy compared to their cricket. On a street in Edinburgh, I had a sudden flashback that I had been there in a previous incarnation. Ridiculous, or was it?

 

Would I have been a Scottish street urchin or a wealthy gentleman at the club, holding a gin & tonic and toasting Queen Victoria. I do think I might have fit better in the 19th century, even if they didn’t have the internet.

 

 

 As my grandfather grew older and frailer, we took him out of his nursing home at age 93 to visit us at Christmas in 1968. One of the gifts for me under the tree was a Beatles’ album. “They were from Liverpool,” my mother said. He was utterly fascinated.

That was the last I ever saw of my grandfather other than at his funeral. A true Brit. And so am I, I guess.

 

 

 

People who let you down…and some who don;t

 How many times have you been greatly disappointed by someone you respected and admired?

Public figures come to mind: Lance Armstrong, who admitted doping after winning the Tour de France seven times. Woody Allen, a great film maker who married his former partner’s adopted child. Bill Cosby, the family man on TV who molested women.

Then there are the people in your own life:

—The revered editor who blamed me after inserting errors into my articles.

—The Sunday school teacher who muttered  during a Billy Graham crusade that greedy investors funded his activities.

 —The finance reporter, a good friend, convicted of insider trading.

For me, the worst was a highly respected editor in one of the big-city bureaus I worked in. His son was even an NFL quarterback.

This man had been so nice when I applied for a job, and he kept tabs on me for years, finally hiring me after I was seasoned and ready.

Several weeks into the job, there was a shakeup in the office. Suddenly, I was his boss, at least for part of the day.

I gave him work to do. He was so fast, he finished it in little time. So I gave him more.

Twice, he stood up in an office full of about a dozen colleagues. He screamed and hollered at me, using profanity, telling me that I was running a sweat shop. Who, mild-mannered me? I said nothing in return. What could I say to a legend?

Finally, a colleague went to the top boss and the boss got him to stop.

Wait. This column is getting too depressing. I only write uplifting and happy stuff.

So let’s look at others who did the reverse in life, people you could look up to after they beat long odds,

— Michael Milken, the disgraced junk bond king who turned his life around, funding cancer research after getting out of jail.  

-Charles Colson, a key figure in the Watergate scandal, who became a Christian minister and founded Prison Fellowship, to help reform the prison system.

—An alcoholic friend who overcame his addiction to be a beacon of light with Alcoholics Anonymous.

—Our difficult foster child who earned a psychology degree and raised a happy family.

—And best of all, my own daughter, who I never suspected of having business acumen, eventually running a successful business as a dog groomer!

How Repeated Routines Keep You Sane (Or Not.)

Rituals aren’t just reserved for religion.

I think sports have even more of these repeated ceremonies: The national anthem, the tossing of the coin, the fight songs, the seventh inning stretch, even the commercials.

Committee meetings have the reading of the minutes, the treasurer’s report and the adjournment.

Let’s look at our own lives to see what rituals we have. Here are some:

The awakening. “It’s too early. Why did I wake up now? I didn’t get enough sleep!”

The making of the coffee. “Is it two scoops or one? I should have prepared it last night.”

The reading of the paper (online in my case.) “They did that? Outrageous! &%$$#$##!! I think I had too much coffee.”

The feeding of the dogs. They follow you around all morning and start barking if you are too late. One of them devours everything but the other sniffs her food, refuses it and looks up at you as if to say: “Why are you feeding me this crap again?”

The buying of the groceries. “If you forget to give me stamps after I paid for them again, I will scream!”

The honking of the horns. OK, I am slow driving out of Food Lion’s parking lot.

The opening of the mail. I hate this. If it’s important, it is sure to be bad news.

Answering the unexpected phone call. “I never should have answered that phone solicitor!” You can say “I am sorry I am not interested.” Or “Have you thought about a different line of work?” But I usually just hang up to save us both time.

The dinner preparation. “It’s your turn to cook!” “No, it’s your turn. I just cooked last month.”

The prayer.

The eating of the leftovers. If dinner is not leftovers, it’s “Excellent dinner. Thank you.” Or: “You didn’t say anything about the dinner. You hate it!”

The turninng on of the television. “I know I have a billion channels and streaming services galore. But there is nothing on!” You resort to a video game or read a book.

The “Oh, I forgot moment” at bedtime. As in:

“Its my sister’s birthday. I never called her.”

“I left the stove on. Is that smoke I am smelling?”

“Oh, we had $100 tickets to the show at DPAC tonight.”

“I was going to pay the electric bill today. The power goes off at

 midnight.”

Except for the stove, these things will have to wait until tomorrow.

 Good night, everyone!

Driving Me Crazy

 You really have a driver’s license?” My driver training teacher asked me in 1958. “If you hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

OK, I get nervous when someone is evaluating my every move behind the wheel.

I’ll bet he got nervous too: He had a lever by his side that slammed on the brakes whenever a student terrified him by veering off the road. I’ll bet he had a stiff drink at the end of the school day.

Decades later, I got nervous too when I helped a visiting 20-year-old learn to drive this past summer. I wonder if I now have P.T.S.D.

I take a lot of driving for granted. I think: Of course you can easily keep the car on course between the white line and the edge of the highway. Of course you start accelerating before you begin climbing a hill. Of course you start your turn before you are in the middle of the intersection. I guess not. Don’t kids learn all that when driving bumper cars?

We started on the almost empty parking lot at the World of Sports in South Boston. It was even more empty once we got rolling. I wonder if they sensed danger and moved their cars.

Well, I was getting bored going back and forth in a parking lot but not my student. He seemed reluctant to get on U.s. 58.

I should have known better. I wanted him to go slow on the four-lane highway, but I started to wail when he went full blast.

“It says 55 mph,” he said. “You don’t have to do that,” I exclaimed, probably too loudly. “Let them pass you.”

I tried to remember everything to tell him. When I taught him to ride a bike, I forgot to tell him about the brakes, and he crashed into a tree.

I should have known better than to try to teach someone to drive all in one day. The next day we stuck to the path from the road to our house,

But I forgot that turning around is no easy task. It took about five or six turns before getting back on the driveway. Without even hitting a tree! I recommended that he take a driver training class when he gets home.

Why was I so worried about him? My own driver’s license expires soon, and I was terrified I would fail the vision test. My vision isn’t what it was at 20.

I kept putting it off until my eyes felt right. Finally, I went to the DMV and was greeted by a friendly clerk, with no wait.

WhenI looked into the machine, she said, “Can you read the first line?” I wanted to say “What line?” But slowly the letters came into view. “A, K, G, R….” I passed! Yay!

So I won’t need the 20-year-old to drive me around.

Now, if I ever stop driving, it will be my decision, not the government’s.