Don't Stop Believin'

I am a shower singer. I love those relaxed bathtub acoustics, the confined quarters, and the three smooth, wet walls that create a steamy recording studio where I croon any song on my mind without reservation or concern for the actual lyrics or who may be listening. I switch between genre and style and artist with eggshell-smooth transitions that are completely nonsensical to my audience, who is never larger than one: my patient, kind-hearted, and ultimately crazy-awesome wife, Alecia. She laughs when my rendition of James Taylor’s Fire and Rain flawlessly shifts to 2Pac’s California Love and then to Lady Gaga and then Frank Sinatra and then a number from Westside Story or some such progression that touches upon any tune that happens to be drifting through my subconscious. There’s no method or thought behind it, I simply sing the songs lodged in my head at the time and somehow it makes sense to belt them out loud enough to occasionally inspire head-tilting and inquisitive glances from the neighbor’s backyard dog. As far as I’m concerned, behind the curtain, anything goes.

I’ve been known to sing in just about any forum. As a member of the University of Arizona Symphonic Choir, at karaoke bars, and in front of the captive audience that is my fifth grade class. I’ll slip into song just about anywhere without even realizing it. Once at an Arizona Wildcat softball game I was shushed by a fellow spectator when I started singing an elementary school tune about frogs jumping into a pond in the middle of an intense fourth inning rally. In all honesty, I hadn’t even noticed I was doing it. I’m not a particularly gifted vocalist, it’s just that I perpetually have songs embedded in my brain and releasing them seems to be a stress-relief of sorts.

Since I’ve broken into song in front of unsuspecting audiences for as long as I can remember, singing tunes in public is not something that frightens me. I was made for the karaoke microphone and used to go with relative frequency, but as it turns out, many people do not share my shameless approach to the art of song. In fact, I’ve found for many the idea of standing in front of a group of strangers singing off-key pop songs in the dingy limelight of a dive bar is about as appealing as leaping naked into a patch of thorny Himalayan blackberries. In short, unless the group has already partaken in considerable amounts of confidence-inducing libations, rounding up a group for such an outing takes convincing far beyond my persuasion ability level and I’d probably have better luck pushing for the aforementioned blackberry dive in the buff.

It was just a few weeks ago that Alecia and I were looking for a movie to go see. Nothing looked all that appealing, but in the search I happened to see a review for a karaoke bar in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle called the Rock Box. The Rock Box, unlike most typical karaoke bars, has various rooms to let to parties from two to fifteen people. For an hourly fee, you and your party could sit in a room and sing as many songs as possible without the risks of embarrassment or the shady characters that haunt normal karaoke bars. I just had to go check it out.

We got there at 7:00, were given an iPad and two microphones and then were led through a labyrinth of dimly-lit corridors by a dainty woman in geisha-like dress despite being decidedly not of Japanese origin. Finally, she opened a large soundproof door and we entered a tiny room painted in red and black smaller than most closets. For a second I felt like an eighth grader who’d just accepted a dare and was about to begin my seven minutes in heaven. With eyes quickly adjusting to the shadowy darkness I noticed one side of the room had a small bench, the other a fairly large flat-screen. The only other piece of furniture in the room was an upturned wooden crate upon which two binders of song lists sat. Our graceful kimono-clad escort told us she would be our server and that we could take full advantage of happy hour prices for the next hour. She recommended the sake sangria, of which we ordered two before she retreated with a clasped-handed bow.

We then quickly set about creating our playlist, starting with songs we knew well and could sing together. Fire and Rain was our first choice, followed by another James Taylor classic, Country Road. It was halfway through the second song that our server showed up with our drinks. Now as I’ve stated before, I have almost no shame when it comes to singing in public, but there was something about that first intrusion, something about being caught by a stranger while closed in a closet with my wife singing at full-lung capacity that brought an immediate end to rocking that song. She apologetically handed us our drinks and we ordered Japanese macaroni and cheese, which turned out to be pretty much ordinary macaroni and cheese with toasted Panko crumbs (delicious) and curry fries which were even more delicious…kind of like spicy poutine, which is an artery-clogging delicacy simply everyone must try.

We put more songs on our playlist and were getting much more confident. Every song we could think of we were singing, loudly. It was also fun to listen to guests in other rooms. Periodically a chorus of feminine shrieks of joy would be followed by famous guitar intros by Journey or Bon Jovi or Pat Benatar followed by exuberant laughter and a reprise of out-of-tune vocalists. It was great!

As the evening wore on, we grew braver too. James and Paul Simon and Don McLean were replaced by the likes of Sublime and Usher and LMFAO. I didn’t even care when our server showed up with my Sapporo in the midst of me rocking Sexy and I Know It, “Girl, look at that body. Girl, look at that body. I work out. Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle…oh, um, hey there, thanks!” She clearly didn’t care either and it quickly dawned on me that she was probably familiar with the gamut of vocal talents and ours didn’t register at either extreme of the bell curve. This was shower singing to the extreme due to the mic and the ability to know the lyrics to essentially any song.

When the door to our little closet opened one final time and we were informed we had just long enough remaining on our reservation for one more song, I wondered how the last two hours had slipped away and it was with just a slight hint of sadness that we tuned up our best testicle-pinching Steve Perry pipes and cranked Don’t Stop Believin’ like we thought we honestly never would and never will. We left our little room and weaved through an excited and merry, if not mildly inebriated, crowd that had assembled in the lobby waiting for their room, turned in our microphones, and headed into the cold, rainy Seattle evening with ear-to-ear smiles.

There’s an old quote, to whom I’m not sure credit belongs, that reads something similar to, “Dance like no one’s watching, sing like no one’s listening, love like you’ve never been hurt, and live like it’s heaven on Earth,” and I think there’s some truth in the adage. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy to put aside judgment or the thought of being judged and truly live by it. I can get there with a bathtub shower stall, but on days where just a little more is needed, I know a great place with a closet and a microphone that provides the confidence and atmosphere to dismiss all vocal inhibitions and let loose like no one is listening or cares and you can wail like you’ll never stop believing.