A DAD'S LIFE:Life turns into a real life musical drama
WE’RE ALL about the performance these days. I have the grown girl in the house starring as one point of the love triangle in Chess while the elder child finger-clicked her way recently through a Gaelscoil production of Anseo i lár an Ghleanna. High standards indeed. The younger, not yet immersed in showbiz, follows the two prima donnas around, occasionally humming snippets she’s picked up along the way.
Remember years ago when there were nothing but Danny Kaye musicals on on Saturday afternoons? On a rainy day, I’d lie on the carpet in the living room taking in these Technicolor traumas from the 1940s and 1950s.
No matter what happened, Danny would break into song. Then either he or Fred Astaire or Bing Crosby or Ginger would wriggle and shake and tapdance over tables and up walls. Your dog just died – that calls for a tune. The mill is closing – woop, let’s wriggle. I love you – no jiggy ’til I see you dance, baby.
When you’re a kid, life is literal. Why were they breaking into song? Wouldn’t it have been easier to sit down and talk things through? Seven Brides for Seven Brothers? Even to my eight-year-old eyes those mincing brothers looked like they had little need for wives. It was very confusing for a small boy, all that prancing and preening. I hated rainy days. Calamity Jane? She was cool in suede, fighting the lads and drinking the bar dry.
Then, one showtune too many and she’s ginghamed up to her eyeballs and batting her eyelashes at a man in uniform. Singing upset me.
Fortunately, at the time nobody in our house could sing. The da crooned a bit of Neil Diamond and attempted to inflict Mario Lanza on us, but succeeded only in causing us consternation. The mother had an in-built embarrassment at anybody breaking into tune, a cringe factor she passed on to all her kids by telling us regularly we couldn’t hold a note and should concentrate on alternative pastimes.
So certain was she we were tuneless she would convulse with mortified laughter at the thought of us performing in a nativity play.
In fairness, I’ve heard my mother’s occasional attempt to hold a note, most memorably when I caught her giving Reel 2 Real’s 1994 classic I Like To Move It Move It a bash one Saturday morning when she thought she was alone. It wasn’t pretty. Her fear of musicality was passed on, and all our lives, my sisters and I have suffered a sense of horror at anybody who thinks it’s okay to sing in public. Have you no shame people? we scream inwardly before skulking off to join the other vocal repressives smoking outside.
Now, my house is a prolonged episode of Fame. I have my wife in the kitchen wailing I Know Him So Well as the elder wanders from room to room picking out the chorus on a tin whistle while the younger hammers drums to drown them both out. There is no place to hide.
This belief that being musical is normal is causing me emotional outbursts. The lot of us sat down last Sunday evening to watch Freaky Friday together. In it Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan (pre-meltdown) are a mother and teen daughter who can’t stop arguing and wake up one morning to find they have swapped bodies. This leads JLC and LiLo through a series of comic situations that has the kids giggling and everyone’s happy.
Until we get to the scene where momma (in daughter’s body) has to perform lead guitar in the daughter’s band at the local talent competition. In perfect Hollywood style, mother and child reach a greater understanding of each other through JLC rocking the axe backstage as LiLo mimes along out front. You still with me? If you haven’t seen it, it’s not like you’ve missed The Godfather. This is cheery family fare, not celluloid gold. It should not affect you like it did me.
Because before I know it my daughters and wife are pointing at me and screaming brays of laughter. For some unfathomable reason tears are streaming down my face. I’m an emotional wreck. I have to take the flack and shrug the shoulders. Damn you Tinseltown with your family friendly fare. Damn you Danny Kaye with your matinee jiggerypokery. Damn you Mrs Brophy and your musical horror. Damn you the rest of my family with your musical talent.
And damn you most of all Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan for being so damn cute.