Some days you just don't get any R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Patty here…

Ah, Aretha, I can so identify.

Lately it seems we NakedAuthors have been on a music kick. In keeping with that theme, I have a confession to make. I am singing-impaired. In fact, I may have an undiagnosed singing phobia.

Do I want to be able to sing? Yep. I envision myself draped over a Steinway grand ala Michelle Pfeiffer in the "Fabulous Baker Boys." My silky hair is translucent in the dim light as I croon a bluesy torch song. The audience is enraptured.

It’s a scenario I’ve trained for all my life. See, I’m one of those people who spent hours singing into my curling iron and practicing my moves. I never expected to be Beverly Sills



but at least I thought I could be Pia Zadora.



I did some acting in my misspent youth. I knew singing was an important part of my resume, but I thought warbling was for Broadway musicals. I didn’t live in New York. I lived in Seattle. I never thought my lack of skills would ever be tested. And then one fateful day I got a call from the head of a local recording studio. He told me he had booked me for a Pietro’s Pizza radio commercial.

“Great!” I said.

“You can sing. Right?”

“Um…not so you’d notice.”

“Fake it. Be there at noon.”

The spot was going to be recorded for all of greater Seattle and posterity to hear. You might think I came to my senses and backed out. OOOHHH, NOOO, not me, especially after I learned I’d be part of a trio. If the sponsor wanted Alvin and the Chipmunks, I was going to chirp my little heart out. If he wanted The Three Tenors I planned to fake a heart attack.



I was nervous until I got a copy of the lyrics.

If you want a pizza, a really good pizza
Go down to Pietro’s, I said to Pietro’s
You’ll get the best pizza you ever had…

Not exactly Grammy material. I lip-synced the high notes and escaped with my dignity intact. After that I decided to take singing lessons. I found an eccentric teacher who taught classes at his home. At our first meeting I felt compelled to tell him the truth. He’d find out soon enough anyway.

“You know,” I said. “I can’t sing.”

He scoffed and waved his arms dramatically. “Nonsense! Everyone can sing. When you look out in the field and see a herd of cows, you do not say that one moos more mellifluously than another. Do you?”

Obviously the guy was off his meds. “Uh, no,” I said.

“Then you cannot say that one person is capable of singing better than another.”

“You mean if I take lessons, someday I’ll sound like Aretha Franklin?”

“In due time, my dear.”

It wasn’t until two grand later that we both knew he’d found the odd cow out. By that time he was stone deaf and on clinical doses of Xanax.



After I moved to LA, I took another singing class at a studio where I was studying acting. One day a fellow actor in the class told me she had been cast in a musical at a local theater. She said they were auditioning for additional parts. I should go.

“I can’t sing,” I said, a fact she must have already known.

“You don’t have to sing. They have speaking roles, too.”

In normal conversation her voice sounded like fingernails on a blackboard, so I knew the bar couldn’t have been set very high with this production. So off I went. I was waiting in the wings when I heard what sounded like Barbra Streisand singing "People." That should have been my cue to exit stage left. Did I? No, not moi.

Somebody called my name. I walked on stage into the radiance of a baby spot. All I could see was a guy at a piano. A disembodied voice from somewhere in the darkened theater said, “What are you going to sing?”

“I can’t sing. I’m here to audition for a speaking part.”

He apparently mistook honesty for stage fright. “Sure you can. Just give it a try.”

I could have excused myself and saved my reputation as a sensible human being. Instead, I belted out a rousing rendition of "Jingle Bell Rock." You could hear windows rattling in the next county.

There was silent in the theater. Luckily, Simon Cowell wasn't there.

“Thank you,” the voice said. “We’ll be in touch.”

I’m done with humiliating myself in song. From now on I’m going to stick with humiliating myself in print. So you can invite me to your birthday party and expect me to pat you on the back and wish you well. I may even bring you a present, but don’t expect me to sing the birthday song. You’ll thank me later.

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