I Should Have Gone to the Fame School

It seems like every teenager wants to be an entertainer these days.  Some are happy just chasing fame, but others want to do it the right way by actually learning how to sing, dance, act or play an instrument.  When I was a teen, my passion was singing and songwriting. There was no "New Directions Glee Club" at my high school, and even though I grew up in New York City, it never occurred to me to audition for the "High School for Performing Arts," made famous by the "Fame" movie and TV show, both popular at that time.  Though it would have been nice to have had a bunch of friends I could feel connected to who also wanted to be performers, I thought the only option for me was to go it alone.

First, I enrolled in group singing lessons in a building that also housed our local DMV.  There, we practiced the most bizarre vocal exercises I'd ever encountered in my life (both before and since).  There were "Ya-EEs" and "EE-Yeh-EE's."  One girl's voice was so high and screechy that as she went higher and higher up the vocal register, it was hard not to plug our ears.  I can't even write the syllables "Ya-EE" without thinking of her!  The next year, I quit the "Ya-EE" group and joined a singing workshop for adults.  I was the youngest member since I was only 16, and the man who ran the group promptly distributed his original 45-record to us.  It was enclosed inside of a sleeve that had a picture of him where he looked just like Tom Jones -- curly-headed, shirt open, gold chain, holding the microphone in full Tom Jones stance!

Needless to say, I was getting frustrated. At the rate I was going, not only was I not learning how to sing,  I also had no hope of getting the handful of pop songs I had just written recorded on my own 45-record or at least onto a taped demo! My dad's best friend, Hans, who was working as a playwright/filmmaker at the time, told me that if I was really serious about singing, I should answer an ad in "Back Stage" magazine which was THE magazine for out-of-work actors and musicians in New York City in the '80's.  I found an ad where you could work with both a vocal teacher AND with a record producer, kind of like a "two for the price of one" deal. I quickly called the phone number on the ad, and a man with an Italian accent answered.  He said his name was Victor, and I told him I was interested in taking singing lessons with the teacher and also in working with the producer on my original songs.  He said that we could start with singing lessons and later make some rough sheet music arrangements to give to the producer so that I could record my demo.  He gave me directions to his studio in Manhattan.  "Right next to The Gustino," he said.

Being a cautious 16 year-old girl, there was NO WAY I was taking the subway and going to some strange man's studio in 1980's New York City, so I dragged my forever indefatigable best friend, Ania, to come along.  When we got off the subway at Columbus Circle/59th Street, we looked for a building labeled "The Gustino," but we couldn't find one.  "Maybe," Ania began, "he meant the grocery store, D'Agostino.  There's one right over there."  "Yes, that's it."  We found the address and took the the elevator up, but when we got off of our floor, it looked like a regular apartment hallway where people lived.  There was no large door that opened up to a studio!  We found the door to his "studio," and I almost ditched the whole idea.  "Should we knock or just go?"  I asked Ania.  "No," she said.  "Let's try it out." Indefatigable or insane? You decide.  A gray-haired man who looked like he was in his sixties opened the door and introduced himself.  "You can call me Victor," he said.

I studied singing with Victor every Saturday for several weeks.  He accompanied me on vocal exercises that were not nearly as crazy as the ones from my group lessons with the screechy singer.  He let me bring in whatever songs I wanted to learn, mostly by singers like Sheena Easton or by groups like the Bangles and whoever else was popular at the time.  Victor LOVED to talk, and as I became more familiar to him, he'd often stop playing, mid-song, and turn to me and tell me all the things that were on his mind, i.e., "This song was obviously copied from the Beatles.  But you know, the Beatles didn't write their own music anyway. No, not at all.  Their producer, George Martin, wrote all their songs for them.  Bet you didn't know that, huh?"  Another time I brought in "Live To Tell" by Madonna, and Victor again took his hands off the piano keys, turned to me while I was in mid "singing" sentence, and said,  "You know, Madonna, she's really popular now.  But she's not going to be around in another few years.  Yeah, that's right.  A few years from now, no one is even going to remember Madonna!"

But still, I always tried to be polite.  One time, Victor wore two pairs of eyeglasses stuck on top of each other, both hanging down the bridge of his nose, scotch taped heavily.  He began the lesson and played the piano as I practiced my vocal exercises, only to suddenly stop playing and start laughing uproariously.  "You didn't notice!" he exclaimed.  "I broke my bifocals!  I had to do SOMETHING so I could see during your lesson!" 

It was around this time that I thought I should mention the record producer.  "Oh, yes, the producer," Victor said.  "Let's get your best three songs written out on sheet music, and then you can set up a meeting with Mike to see if he'll record those songs for you in his studio."  Finally, I thought.  The three songs we chose were "Lemon Meringue," "Rainbow Ice," and "Cinnamon Wishes," -- remember, this was the 80's!  Once Victor got the three songs arranged on paper, he played them for me and I sang along.  I sounded like Cyndi Lauper being accompanied by Liberace, but still, I felt I was ready to meet the producer.

Judging by my experience with Victor, I should have known that Mike the Producer would probably turn out to be somewhat similar to Victor since they both advertised in "Back Stage" as a pair.  Sure enough, when my mom and I sat down in the studio to have our meeting with Mike, he was also gray-haired, in his 60's, and was more interested in telling us all about this new girl he was recording than discussing the arrangements of the songs I'd brought him.  He told us that she was a teenager around my age who sang country-western music. He played us the demo he had just recorded for her that he was trying to shop around to record companies.   "I don't know what to do," he said.  "She's a really talented singer, and I know her music could sell. It's just a matter of getting her to the RIGHT record company."  I know the feeling, I thought to myself.  It's also just a matter of getting me to the RIGHT vocal teacher!  I should have gone to the Fame School!

Do People Still Read Books?

People now spend so much time on Twitter and Facebook reading short blurbs (or else they are on their cell phones texting friends) that I sometimes wonder whether we still have the patience and attention span to read something actually book-length.  I was so excited a couple of years ago when the first "Twilight" movie came out because my friends told me that the movie was based on several Young Adult novels written by Stefanie Meyer and that everyone was reading them -- teenage girls, adult women, even men -- everyone was getting hooked on these books!  In fact, when I saw the first commercial advertising the "Twilight" movie, announcing that the movie was based on the "popular series," I assumed they were talking about a teen television series I hadn't heard about, not a BOOK!

Even the story behind Stefanie Meyer's creation of the "Twilight" series is an exciting one.  She wasn't a magazine editor or journalist who had concocted a book idea that she thought was going to make her a lot of money.  She was a mom of three who woke up one morning from a dream she had of two teenagers, one a girl and one a boy, who were hanging out in a field, and the boy's skin was glittering in the sun because he was a vampire! Meyer became fascinated by this "dream couple" that she just HAD to write about them.  When she finished the first novel in the series, she sent out about ten query letters to agents and got rejection letters back from all of them except for one, and that particular agent got her the publishing deal to release her "Twilight" Series.  The huge market success of both the books and the movies showed me that indeed people of all ages could become excited about reading again, and that they were indeed still reading books. 

But Meyer's books are about vampires, and vampires are hugely popular in our culture.  The recent success of the HBO Series "True Blood" can attest to that fact.  What about literary novels?  Books that are about regular people having regular problems but in made-up scenarios, with fake backgrounds and made-up friends?  With the average television viewer being more obsessed with Reality TV than with dramas and comedies that require writers to give life to made-up characters, is anyone interested in reading books that can't be placed into a particular genre? 

It reminds me of the lead character, Miles, in that huge sleeper hit movie "Sideways" that came out a few years ago.  Miles is a fiction writer of a literary novel that his agent gets really close to selling to a major publisher.  He is so excited about FINALLY getting published after toiling over this manuscript for years, only to have his agent call him up and tell him that she has to give up on the sale of his book.  She tells him that it doesn't matter how well-written a book is anymore, the only thing that matters to the publisher is how they can market the book in their advertising campaign.  She tells Miles that they need to know how to label his book, and they just don't know what category to put his book in.  It is a book about a made-up character who goes through all sorts of scenarios, but it is something that any of us could have gone through.  So his agent rejects him.  Miles is devastated.  Someone in the movie asks him what he is going to do now, and Miles responds, "It's back to the old drawing board. I guess."

"Sideways" ends without us knowing what Miles will do with his manuscript next.  Maybe he decides to self-publish it.  He'll be in good company if he does: James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Anais Nin, and even John Grisham all self-published their own novels early in their careers.  So even though the publishing industry has obviously been hit as hard by the downturn in our economy as every other industry has, good books will always still be published either by traditional publishing companies or by the authors themselves.  But the question still remains:  Will people read them?  My question was recently answered on my way home from work the other day.  I happened to open my eyes from my usual nap, and it seemed that almost every person around me was reading.  They weren't reading the daily newspaper or a glossy magazine, they were reading their KINDLES!  The new electronic device that stores thousands upon thousands of book-length novels digitally.  You can pick a new book to read or an old book, but there are tons of books that you can access with your Kindle, and people are reading them.  So it is true, people are still reading books, and not all of these books are about sparkly vampires!

Dad and American Idol

My Dad died in 1984.  I often wonder what it would be like if he could suddenly be transported into our time, even if just for one day, to see what it is like to live in our present time.  What would someone whose last earthly memories were of the year 1984 think of our time today?  He would have to get used to personal computers, cell phones, CDs, the Internet, Reality TV.  One show I know he'd love for sure is "American Idol."  I personally refuse to watch the show.  Based on the clips I've seen, I can totally picture the producers auditioning these really bad singers and buttering them up, telling them what great voices they have, only to have them sing for Simon and immediately have their dreams crushed in front of millions of people.  All of us, growing up, have sang alone in our bedrooms to records we've loved and thought that our voices sounded amazing, and the producers prey on this fact of human nature. I don't have any proof of this, but the stunned expressions on the contestants' faces after he tells them how much they suck is all I need to know that they didn't get a spot on the show knowing that the producers warned them ahead of time that they were taking a risk by singing on TV and embarrassing themselves on live television.

But my Dad would have been willing to overlook this.  He was a singer himself.  He was the type of singer that only had to study for a year or so then just opened his mouth and out came melodies sung as beautiful and effortlessly as a bird.  He was very critical of other singers, so he would have loved a show like "American Idol."  I can't imagine him watching any other Reality TV.  He always enjoyed scripted shows like "All in the Family" and "Soap." If he really did come back to life in our present time, I believe he would still be watching those shows in syndication.  He was a creature of habit and not particularly technologically-minded.  I remember when VCRs came out, I BEGGED my parents to get one so I could tape my favorite shows and watch them over and over again.  My Dad thought VCRs were silly and was completely against the idea of us getting one. My Mom finally talked him into renting one.  Believe it or not, back in the 80's, if you didn't want to make a "commitment" to getting a VCR, you could just rent one for a while, then give it back. 

After we had our rented VCR for several months, my Dad warmed up to the idea.  He even wanted me to teach him how to program his shows so he wouldn't miss them while he was out.  Programming VCRs in the 80's practically required a special course, and I was the only one in the family who bothered to learn how to do it. You couldn't just enter "7:59 to 9:01," because measurements of time were not labeled in numbers but rather in sections of a pie chart, i.e., half-moon for 30 minutes, three quarters of the pie chart for 45, etc.  But he wanted me to teach him so I did.  I don't remember him ever actually programming anything though.  Like I said, he wasn't really excited about advances in technology, he could either take it or leave it. If he did come back today, he would find absolutely no need for cell phones, computers or the Internet.  And don't even get me started on Auto-Tune!