Monday, January 18, 2010. Acme. This is the first Monday in over a month that I've been able to stay home to do the radio show. I wish the reason I originally started doing that--to make it to choir rehearsal--were still valid. I need to start singing in an ensemble again, or else I'm going to lose what little skill I built up.
It's a beautiful, sunny day with mild temperatures. We deserve it. Mary Leigh is off school for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, so the three of us went to lunch at the Acme to celebrate. It was our happy meal: grilled oysters, wedge salad, a cup of gumbo, red beans and rice with hot sausage.
Tomorrow, I will premiere a new bartender in the mythical railroad car in which I allegedly do the last hour of the radio show every day. Everybody said they hated the Nigel the Bartender shtick, until I stopped doing it. Then everybody wanted him to back. I introduced a new bartender in December, name of Jolyon Soames. He spoke and sang with the voice of Bob Nolan, who was famous for his iconic cowboy songs with the Sons of the Pioneers. His voice was utterly unique, and I can mimic it well. But the listeners hated Jolyon, so he quit. The new bartender tomorrow will be called Fenster Werfen--a name with a long story, but not one interesting enough to be worth the keystrokes. I had a voice all worked out for him, but when I tried it out on the Marys they said it sounded far too much like a friend of ours who has not had a very successful life. That wasn't what I was trying to do, but I can see what they mean. And I'm not mean.
The best voice I have in my repertoire is of a friend whose speech patterns are so distinctive that they'd be recognized immediately by anyone who knows him. His delivery has an Irish Channel quality. It would be perfect for the bartender. But I can't bring myself to do it. I'm still working on voices, walking around the house trying different timbres and accents. The girls ignore this craziness as normal, coming from me.
Today I learned, quite by accident, the identity of an anonymous web author who has written thousands of words devoted entirely to making fun of me. I was surprised. I know the guy, and never got that kind of invidiousness from him. This was not the sort of thing I wanted on my mind today, as the darkness continues to hang at home.
