Sunday, January 22, 2012

Where DId That Come From?







I know you were all shocked by yesterday's revelation. In the light of morning, it has begun to make a little more sense to me. We were at dinner at Chai's Bistro in Honolulu at the Aloha Tower. (Wonderful food.) There was entertainment - Danny Couch, who may have been a drummer for the famous Don Ho, but was certainly following in his singing footsteps. He had perfect black hair and a was wearing a black dinner jacket. And he was bubbly. (Like Tiny Bubbles?) (But not in the slightest bit sleazy. We were with Michele Takemoto, (beautiful, interesting, funny), Walter and Deborah Ann, (they practically glow with love and happiness), and Deborah Ann's mother, Katherine. A great group, but most of the talk was business, so I had Katherine all to myself at our non business end of the table. The only way to describe her is that she is a Magical Person. She's the big sister you tried to be, making everyone feel so special and powerful. She called John "her own personal tour guide" for driving on a little siteseeing tour of the Island. It made him happy each time she said it. I think her influence got him dreaming and reinventing himself. As a singer in a little lounge, with Zach on the drums and Amanda on the guitar, or harp - it is a dream, after all. And the "sleazy" thing was not so much in the spirit of the word, but more to distinguish the dream from a Barry Manilow style to the quiet thing he had in mind. What a nice man I married!

5 comments:

  1. I could imagine being married to a lounge singer! My father imagined himself a jazz trumpeter like Louis Armstrong. I grew up listening to that.

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  2. Your husband looks a little like a musician. It does sound like a fun life, now that you have made me think about it.

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  3. Oh, I think the word 'sleazy' has some un-snippable ties to the whole lounge scene. Terry's comment made me think of the glimpses of the lifestyle I had into the world of dance. We went to conferences (Lake Eufuala lodge?) of the Oklahoma Dance Master Association. The teachers who sold records and routines taught classes all weekend. It was all very exciting. We weren't allowed to stay up and watch the parties at night, but we all knew which teachers were 'together' (straight and not straight), which ones 'drank' and we watched how they interacted with pretty older girls. The night hours, the physical strain, the irregular incomes, the fear of aging, the vanity, the cigarettes... it's all a rather sleazy and louche lifestyle compared with upright (Baptist) office workers, you know what I mean? The performing side is really attractive and looks fun - and probably is; the underside is gritty and hard graft (a Geordie term for work). Terri's husband does look rather like a musician, doesn't he?! Saxophone maybe?

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  4. Great story! What type of dance did you do? The ladies in the pool at the Y tell stories about being Baptist in the old days. It almost makes being Muslin seem easy.
    And I can totally see Terri's husband on a Baritone Sax with her in a cocktail dress selling the CD's. Sweet couple!

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  5. I took dance lessons from the age of 3 to 16 - tap, ballet & modern jazz. I really enjoyed it, but I never was any good. My dance teacher was a chorus girl in her younger days; my uncle Bernard was a dance teacher and a choreographer (and gay). He and Mom did exhibition ballroom dancing back in the 1940s. There was a place in downtown OKC call Kotche's (sp?) dance rooms or something, where all the gang would hang out back in the 'old days' - the place was absolutely vast. Being Baptist isn't hard in my experience / observation. One just has to look sober and severe on Wednesday nights and Sundays - the rest of the time you can do what you like as long as you don't get caught! Can you spell hypocrisy? - I had to go look it up just now (ha!) but I learned the definition when I was at church one day, about aged 8. I'm sure not all Baptists are like this, but those are the ones I saw at that time. I'm happy to let them do their thing, but it's nothing to do with me.

    Terry in a cocktail dress sounds perfect! Shall we tell her??!

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