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Welcome to my utmost random thoughts on random shit that really doesn't matter much.
This is where my mind takes a dump.
~ Sticks, Stones and Funnybones ~
Part 8 - The Alzheimer Choir Chorus, Gives Tonight...
This week I am not going to give you a slice of the news, because, quite frankly, nothing worth mentioning happened. Here is a summary of everything that happened in the world over the past seven days all wrapped up into one paragraph:
The Brief
Jacko is officially homeless, third anniversary of Iraq War celebrated with pig roast and belly shots of George W, Google gets sued over unfair search-ranks, Larry the Cyclone is cruising for Australia and he ain’t playing, according to US sources the tiny little motorboat that was disintegrated off the coast of Somalia opened fire first on the US Navy Battleships USS Cape St. George and USS Gonzales – uh-huh – world police brutality, and a public smoking ban is now enforced in some places in California with a fine of $500 attached to it – land of the free, my ass.
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So instead of commenting on news that needs no comments, I will give you a slice of life instead - a recap of my St. Patrick’s Day celebration for everybody 85+.
It was a blast from the past…
The Alzheimer Choir gives tonight: "Shamus and the Living Dead"
March, 17th, 2006… St. Patrick’s Day. The festive celebration of Ireland’s Italian patron saint that reverberates throughout the world every year – or at least wherever the Irish have dug down their feisty roots. In Brandy’s (my dear wife) grandmother’s retirement community it’s a huge thing because half those people are either Irish or once knew somebody who was. That’s enough in these circles to double up on the methadone and leave the walker at home for a night.
Grandma B is in the chorus. That is officially the reason why she wants us to come to her clubhouse, so we can see her perform. Unofficially, of course, she just wants her family there so she can rub in everybody’s face that her family didn’t leave her all alone to die in a corner – like most of these others.
The thing is supposed to start at 7:00, so naturally we have to be at the clubhouse at 5:30 – to get good seats. We arrive to a hall where they haven’t even started setting up the chairs yet. This is when we are first brought face to face with Grandma B’s sinister plan. We are the official welcome wagon, greeting all these living dead as they shuffle in the front door, dragging an IV drop of formaldehyde after them. We are to stand there so she can say, “Agnes, I want you to meet my family. They moved all the way from New York to be with me”, and then she shivers with pleasure as the other woman’s face grows impossibly sadder. Grandma B is an emotional sadist in these circles, bat shit crazy, but she is also one of the oldest bats in the belfry so she gets away with it. She’s like royalty there.
Since we are there first we have to sit in the front row, directly opposite the spot in the chorus occupied by Grandma B. Not only is that highly inconvenient since we can’t nod off or bring a book, it is also quite embarrassing since I thus am in the way of all these old little ladies behind me. I make a point to move all the way out to the right, but still… If I had moved away from the front row altogether, Grandma B would have killed us out of the will. You see, the front row is a bone of contention with these people. They are still talking about who was in the front row last year and the year before that… and that is only because they wrote it down on a big sign in the office. Battling for front row positions can get pretty ugly, and at times it does tonight as well. Imagine backyard wrestling, but in slow motion on “mute” and using canes – all still smiling and nodding to people around them while gently trying to sweep the legs out from under each other to get to the desired seats.
The stage is empty at this point, except for Grandma B. See, the chorus is supposed to walk in from the far side of the room, singing an Irish folk song, but since Grandma B is having problems walking she gets to lounge on a throne set to the side instead until everybody has taken their positions. Once the chorus is all settled in I get to go up and graciously lead Queen Grandma B to her seat in the chorus, while she smiles and nods to everybody in the audience. People whisper behind their programs and glare at us. If looks could kill we would be dead as fuck. On the way back to my seat I have to dodge “accidental” cough sprays and carefully slalom myself between outstretched canes and pushed out walkers that would otherwise likewise “accidentally” have tripped me and made me fall on my ass.
And so the show starts…
The premise of the evening is, of course, Irish music. Classics like “Danny Boy”, “Sidewalks of New York” and “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” are brutally butchered and hung to dry. The chorus has been practicing since January to nail all these songs, but since all these people are senile as fuck, they might as well have met for the first time tonight.
It is horrendous…
It is indescribable…
It is a group of broken voiced shaky mummies singing random songs in enough rusty keys to make a Gulag prison warden jealous. The funniest thing is that not one of them turns the pages of their songbook at the same time as anybody else. They are all trying to lip sync to the person next to them, who is doing the same. It’s a very disturbing experience. It’s more like a humming and moaning Zombie Choir than actual singing. Except for the soloists, of course… The soloists are the tramps in the community. Not a damn one of them can sing, but at least they can get dressed up in silky outfits, fishnet stockings and put on that red lipstick they outlawed in the brothels of Poland last year because it was just too fucking intense. They are all widows, of course. As these soloists sing atrocious versions of “Be Thy My Vision” and “How are Things in Glocca Morra?”, they suggestively squirm and ooze around on stage, blinking to the men and blowing kisses to the pianist while sticking out their asses so their diapers stretch against the fabric of the short skirts. Old women throughout the assembled crowd are all elbowing their gaping husbands in the side, probably pushing them at least a year or two closer to death’s door. In the middle of a particularly rowdy version of “Molly Malone” one of the wives in the audience stands up and shakes her fist to the singing lady on stage, “Go back to your home on Whore Island, Ruth!” and everybody nods and exchanges knowing glances. I am looking around for the mercy of a melon baller to scoop out my eyes.
In between the songs the announcer and his sidekick exchange funnies. Imagine an X-rated version of the Highlights Magazine. The jokes are read in fake Irish stuttering voices off neatly scripted notes crumpled in shaky hands:
“Hey, Shamus. Did you hear the IRA stole a whole truckload of Viagra last week?”
“Ye don’t say, do ye, Angus?”
“Aye, and now the coppers are looking for a bunch o’ hardened criminals!”
This is, of course, followed by immense laughter from the front row and by utter indifference from the Siberia of the back rows where it doesn’t help to tweak your hearing aid to 10 – they can’t hear shit anyway. Suddenly the whole front row battle makes sense to me.
The last joke of the evening is a killer:
A man walks onto the stage in black face. Don’t know what that is? It’s like a negative of Norwegian Black Metal corpse paint, made out to look like a “black person” – an African American if you will. It was very popular when these old kooks were young.
Anyway… The guy comes out on stage in black face and just stands there, grinning like an African village idiot. Another man, dressed up as a leprechaun (don’t ask) walks up to him, takes a drag out of his obligatory pipe and says:
“Ey… Who are you then, laddie?”
The man in black face looks at him and says, in the worst fake plantation slave accent ever:
“I be NegrO’Malley, I be.”
The leprechaun looks out at the audience in feigned amusement. “NEGRO’MALLEY, you say, laddie? Then, pray tell, what is yer supposed to be?”
The man in blackface grins even wider and points at himself, and says in the same horrible accent ever:
“Me? I’m Black Irish, massa!”
The audience that can hear laughs so hard that a general need of diaper change becomes painfully apparent. Thankfully it is the last thing that happens and the chorus sings “Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ra” as they march out to the people’s standing ovation.
Do we get to go home? No. I lead Grandma B, who is only in the chorus for the fame it brings her – she can’t carry a tune across the kitchen - back to her “throne” where the audiences commence. People come up to kiss her ring and tell her how magnificent she is, and she graciously nods and introduces her family all over again.
An old lady, Norma, comes up to me and grabs my arm as she tells me how handsome I am, gently caressing my chin until another old woman literally pulls her so hard off my case that I hear a joint pop. The new woman oozes close to me - she was one of the soloists - and starts complimenting me on my tall posture and are those tattoos? How quaint.
The nightmare continues until the last of both chorus singers and audience members have paid their respects and departed. We are exhausted. I have had my crotch fondled more intensely than any stripper ever could, the kid’s cheeks have been pinched to minced meat and B, my wife, has explained a thousand times over and over, that, yes indeed, she is that little girl that used to ride her bike to the pool every Sunday a million years ago. They all confuse her with somebody else’s niece. She smiles and nods (and elbows me in the side hard enough to split my ribs – it’s the theme of the evening, folks).
Finally we get to drive Grandma B home. No. Not quite yet. First we have to go to Denny’s and indulge in the glory of breakfast at 10 PM. Nothing says celebration like scrambled egg beaters with low fat cheese. I poke at my fish and wonder how many terminal diseases I have contracted from all the poking and coughing around me throughout the night.
In the end we take Grandma B home and she thanks us all with tears streaming down her cheeks. We kiss her goodnight and sit in silence all the way home.
These old fucks have an amazing ability to suck the life right out of you. It’s like they planned it all along. Old bats sucking the blood of the young.
Next year I am sitting in the back and bringing my fucking Game Boy.
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