I love showtunes. I like listening to them, playing them on the piano, singing along. I can't get enough of the drama, the wit, the orchestra swelling over a lilting vibrato. I may have skipped the line when God was handing out the gay style gene. I may not have even known that there was a line for the Asian math gene, but I certainly made time to peruse the offerings available at the showtunes counter.
Often, listening to a showtune can take me back to the very first time I heard it, and so many of those times were at Max's Opera Cafe. I want to say that this love I have stems from all those happy memories, but that wouldn't be true. It was the reason I began working at Max's Opera Cafe in the first place. Truth is, I couldn't explain why, hard as I try.
But I do, and it is no secret. I have no qualms about blasting it at home and singing along with the window open. My landlord once stood outside of my door and listened to me belt out "Defying Gravity" along with Idina Menzel before knocking. I don't know much about Bruno Mars, can't stand anything by Kesha (I refuse to give her the dollar sign), and barely recognize the majority of the artists on Top 40 radio these days. But ask me about Jekyll and Hyde, Rent, or even obscure musicals like I Love You Because. Let me sing you a few bars of "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables," tell you why the ending of Wicked's first act is my favorite moment of all of musical theater.
When I was in New York with my parents a few summers ago, I took some time alone one night and went off to Splash Bar near Union Square for 'Musical Mondays.' All night, on all video screens, clips of showtunes played to a crowd who made me feel like a complete noob to musical theater. This was the mothership. It even took me much longer than expected to notice that the insanely hot bartenders were wearing nothing more than tighty-whities.
I walked back to the hotel that night humming an endless parade of showtunes. I came home telling anyone who would listen that there is this wonderful place in New York where I actually felt swept away. I wished that I could live in New York, be among others like me, learn more about musicals than I ever thought possible.
Short of making the move to Manhattan, I discovered the second best thing: satellite radio's 'On Broadway' channel in Sam's car. It has opened my ears to musicals I would never have otherwise known, and when I get tired of channel surfing, when nothing is on, I would rather hear my least favorite showtune than anything on any other channel.
So I love showtunes. Unabashedly. However, Sam and I were at a stoplight this afternoon, listening to West Side Story on the radio, a lukewarm breeze wafting through the open window. A motorcyle pulled up beside us, one of those ape-hanger ones (I had to Google it) with a flaming skull on the side of the body. The driver had a stereo blasting some sort of thrash/death metal, Slipknot or whatever. Sam looked at me, mischief in his eyes, and turned up the volume on Maria singing, "Tonight, tonight, it all begins tonight. . ."
I have actually never felt less cool.
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