The Singer

     So it’s a hot and humid cook-out at the Shady Glen rec center and we’re playing tic-tac-toe in the sand box when my wife comes over and says there’s a singer in the theater tonight. Why don’t you two go inside and get out of the heat for a while?

     We agree.

     The theater’s filled with kids fresh from the pool wrapped in towels, their parents outside sipping wine, so I find an aisle seat so as not to block their view and lift him over my lap and into the next seat, his feet barely making it to the edge, causing the seat to fold back up a little, prompting us to play a game of “oh no, the seat’s eating you!” until the lights dim and the spotlight hits this old guy taking the stage.

     Thank you all for coming tonight, you’re in for a special treat, my daughter Kelly just signed a recording contract, she’s only fifteen – Shady Glen: a great place to raise that second family – and next week she’s opening for – here he mentioned a name I can’t recall, a one word girl name if that helps – and we thought wouldn’t it be great if Kelly debuted her new set here in Shady Glen in a private show for her friends and so without further ado, let me introduce to you the Southland’s newest singing sensation, my daughter Kelly!

     Polite applause, these kids are being raised right, I think, at least when it comes to applause, as Kelly bounds out onto the stage from behind the curtain, a striking girl in a tight white tank top and a denim mini, and daddy hands her the mike and gives her the old thumbs up and I see him racing up the other side of the theater as she spots her friends and waves and the applause settles down and now she’s just standing there, staring straight ahead. And staring. And staring. This is getting interesting, but uncomfortable, as all the little kid heads in front of me start bobbing up and down and turning this way and that, wondering what’s up with the statue on the stage.

     But having just tracked dad, I know where exactly where she’s looking as I follow her gaze up to the control room's window where dad is furiously pounding buttons on the soundboard. Then music erupts into the room, a wall of sound, and Kelly comes to life, a huge smile consumes her face and she raises the mike and opens her mouth wide and oh my god this massive sound just blasts out of her, sustained for what seems like forever, as she hits her opening note and wails and warbles it to great effect as this backing track of super smooth saccharine sweet studio-produced synthesized sound washes over and threatens to drown us. And then her vocal effects dissolve into words, a love story, the man who left has now returned to her life, and she’s underscoring each word with what appear to be well-rehearsed facial expressions and emotive arm movements designed to signify that yes, I have experienced these matters of which I sing, though I be only fifteen.

     Then it ends, more polite applause, Kelly nods, staring again. Silence. Then more music, more of the same, maybe the drum machine’s a little louder this time, and Kelly’s now moving about the stage, describing what appears to be an isosceles triangle, back-left-right-back-left-right and so on, dramatically lifting her legs behind her in turn, a move that is no doubt described as “coquettish” in stage singing manuals, especially when the singer is trailed by a bevy of male dancers feigning rejection in the singer’s wake, but, alas, in Kelly’s case, she’s alone.

     Now she presents her back to us, and she’s waggling her butt in time with the music, then she jumps and spins one hundred eighty degrees to face us as the mike rises and I assume a defensive posture as she opens her mouth and lets loose a bunch of tightly-packed sound waves, wailing and warbling at high volume as they bounce off the auditorium's acoustic walls and into our sorely-taxed eardrums. With one hand she caresses herself, running it up and down and all over her body, while her waist squirms in a surprisingly realistic simulation of sex as her voice lowers into a husky moan and I can make out enough words to confirm that, yes, she’s singing of a sexual encounter, a repeat of which has apparently been denied to her, what with the object of her desire having found someone else, leaving only the memory of that one wonderful night to sustain her. And there goes the squirming waist and the caressing hand and the moaning voice again as it rises and rises into an orgasmically climactic high-pitched groan and I feel my critical detachment dissolve as I'm thinking this is what she sounds like in bed and I'm more and more drawn to this writhing gyrating piece of barely post-pubescent flesh on the stage and – STOP! – what the hell is going on here!?  I avert my eyes and look back and see dad nodding his head in time to the beat, an indulgent smile, then I look down and see my four year old son sitting there, staring at her, no doubt as unable to process what he's seeing on that stage as I am, although for different reasons.

     Now would be a good time for another game of “oh no, the seat’s eating you!” I just wish it would eat me too.

     And not for the first time it occurs to me, as I scoop him up and run for the exit in this darkened theater in the middle of this cloistered community surrounded by little kids in swim suits eating popsicles while watching a fifteen year old with amazing pipes and a recording contract strut her sexual stuff on stage as her father beams with pride and the other parents sit outside sipping wine on a hot and humid summer night, that truth may or may not be stranger than fiction, but it sure does write itself.

Comments

[Michelle]

This is one of my pet peeves...we wonder why teenage pregnancy is so high, rail against abortion, and do all kinds of other things that don't make a darn bit of sense. It is difficult to raise kiddos today. Other parents don't make it any easier...

[Linus]

I've been in the music business - actually, at the fringes of it - for the last 9 years or so, and I can honestly say that one of the things that disturbs me most is seeing parents pimping their children at music conferences. It's pretty ubiquitous, and I saw it most notably at the now-defunct Emerging Artists and Talent in Music conference - EAT'M - in Vegas, where it all seems so natural.

So you'll meet some blowsy-headed big busty pelvis of a girl in a push-up bra and read-my-lips tight jeans, with tanned expanses most of us only dream about (and we do, of course, yes we do). And the first words out of her mouth will be, "I write my own songs, but my manager helps me." And the first words out of her mother's mouth will be, "She's fifteen. But she's very mature for her age, and we've raised her with Christian values."

Most of them come out of Texas, in my experience. Coincidence, I'm sure. More of them every year. It makes a guy wilt.