Offensively Easy Singing

Feel Freedom. Love your confidence. Be a joy bomb.

Category: Being Kinder to You — It’s Important (Page 1 of 4)

Reco-Bombing — advice for everything except how to magically change your emotions

February 27, 2024 /

The chair emerita of voice at BoCo (the woman who hired me — thanks, Patty) is in LA teaching a semester at USC.

She posted recently that she can’t find her favorite salad equivalent on the West Coast. (The haloumi salad at Tatte– delish). We’re spoiled for choice in Boston, it’s true.

I sent her a few recommendations from my LA culinary memory file. I was pleased to see the Mendocino Farms has ex-PAND-ed. I used to get their sammies on Grand Street back when I did shows downtown. So good.

But then I asked my brother Ben who lived in Angeleno Heights for several years.

He was always finding the best top-secret Mexican mole joint that put special fairy cacao in their sauce or introducing you to underground Ethiopian cuisine served in a secret alley somewhere between Mid-Wilshire and the Byzantine Latino Quarter.

So, I reached out to him for ideas, and pretty soon, I was hitting Patty’s text inbox with more culinary establishments than she’d be able to fight traffic to get to by the end of April.

You ask me a question about singing or food, you made a mistake.

I will make sure you know everything I know and follow up to see if you tried that Mark Bittman biscuit recipe yet.

I love telling people about great finds. I love sharing great restaurants, books, podcasts, and hard-knock lessons from audition rooms I stank up.

Watch out for this, and you gotta try that.

It makes ma feel like I helped you. And my ego likes knowing things, too.

But then something will happen.

I’ll be around someone I think is fancy, and my brain short circuits.

I’ll say “you too” in response to “Have a nice flight” or “Enjoy your meal.”

I’ll get dysregulated by an unexpected smell that triggers a painful memory, and I’m dealing with anxiety that I subsequently scold myself for having. (There’s a reason I tell you to be kind to yourself every week. I need to hear it the most.)

Just last night and this morning, a thing came up between Melissa and me, and rather than sharing the anxiety with her, I kept it to myself saying, “No one would understand this. I don’t even understand it myself.”

The outcome — by not communicating, I ended up hurting her feelings and making my brain go even more haywire in the trigger/confusion spiral.

I love to give advice, and in the throes of nervous system overload, not only do I have no advice for myself, I’d be impervious to it if I had it to offer.

If I get knocked emotionally sideways, it’s hard for me even to check my email. All practical functioning slows way down.

Then, of course, I tell myself about all the folks I know who continue to plow ahead just fine in the face of emotional adversity. Why can’t I just get on with my day?

Truth is, the way my brain and nerves work, I actually do have to stop for a moment. I have to understand that I’m going to be a little loopy and cognitively challenged until I gain equilibrium again.

I hate it.

I want the fast fix. But that’s as available to me as a slam dunk competition victory. (Still getting over scoring for the other team in peewee league.)

When I get blindsided, I have to understand that my list of recommendations isn’t going to do it for me. I’m going to need to embrace my current membership in the linear time experiencer club, take several deep breaths, notice my physical sensations with as much compassionate curiosity as I can muster, maybe take a walk, and phone a friend.

If you’re going through something tough today, I hope you’ll give yourself the gift of time and acknowledge that it takes some moments to travel from one place to another.

This is true in your songs as well. It could take 4 or 5 phrases to get your brain and breath balanced. We’ve bought the lie of the immediate fix. (And what’s wrong with me that I can’t get this magic wand to work?)

You and me — we’re beautiful, frail, resilient, complex, simple, multifaceted humans.

I can tell you how to get your mix more flexible, where to find a solid cheeseburger in Boston, and the best chocolate cake recipe you’re ever going to make, AND, I could be waste-deep in hot mess town at the same time.

Wish I could skip it. When I figure out how, I’ll let you know.

In the meantime, I hope you’ll give yourself the gift of time, breathing, moving, and the space to let yourself have a process. I’m still resistant to the whole idea.

I do know this, though. For sure. There’s only one you, and folks need to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much (that includes you),

Dan

Personal Grooming Failure 👃 — mean people on YouTube and moisturizer (?)

February 20, 2024 /

Melissa asks me regularly, “Did you moisturize?” And in Massachusetts February, you don’t need to respond for the answer to be apparent.

I’ve been to dermatologist appointments only to discover my knees looked like ostrich skin downwind of a dying campfire; you have to put lotion on that?

I’m the same with face grooming/stray hair management. 

I posted a recent YouTube video, and a very kind commenter remarked they couldn’t keep watching because of the sunlight illuminating a prominent nose hair. (I take my first light troll as a sign that I’ve been more consistent on my YouTube game. ✊)

I do fall off the nose hair trim train on a regular basis, and Melissa’s keen eye and brow kit are the only things preventing my super-occular blonde caterpillars from merging into unified crazy professor forehead larvae.

Other personal grooming infractions: mirror-free shower shaving (always neck patches left), stray side fliers from self-administered haircuts, and perpetually crusty knuckles through the New England winter.

I’m proud to report I’m a member of the Habitual Flosser Society, though. (The hygiene practice AND the dance.) My gums are popping.

Melissa and I were talking at bedtime about how funny it is that we have bodies.

While I deeply enjoy the physical world and much of what it entails — singing, hugs, and cheeseburgers come to mind — the things I heard my parents and grandparents say about aging are showing up in my experience.

You notice changes in your hands, lines on your face that stay after you smile, or your photo app shows you a video from 10 years ago, and you’re like, “Hmmmm, I had a pretty abundant amount of energy then.”

You watch physical changes happen while the you you’ve always known stays inside there.

My great grandma Allie said she still felt like she was her 16-year-old self trying to see out of eyes that had begun to fail her.

When we’re younger, we’re prone to fuse our inner awareness with our outer presentation, or at least depend on/blame it. As the body changes and telomeres shorten, we may start to get a clue that one of these things is not like the other.

On the other side of this existential pancake, I’m getting more clued in to how teeny and limited I am.

The essential me senses endless possibility and eternal opportunity. Then I notice I’m in a body that can only be in one location doing one thing at a time. (Still haven’t perfected my Hermione Granger Quantum Time Turner — I’d be dangerous with that.) I’m limited. 

So, there must be value and precious learning in this small, boundaried life. 

We know that terrific creativity flourishes inside a clear frame — a 14-line sonnet, a 3-act structure, a 1-2-3 punchline setup.

And if this is true, no wonder we all get a smidge cuckoo the more information, opinion, and comparison flies our way.

To acknowledge your beautiful teeny-ness, you have to let the fact itself in, and then you have to de-select all the sideshow noise jangling around you — usually from that little rectangle most of us are carrying around these days.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my dad lately. He died two years ago this month, and as I drove to school last Saturday for program auditions, I got a deep sense that he was cheering me on and maybe pulling some heavenly strings.

Melissa had a dream where he showed up recently. She said it was like he rode in on the frequency of whatever dream she was having and invited her to another channel. He brought her into a white waiting room, and my mom and I were there, too; we all sat together. He held my face in his hands and said, “I’m so proud of you.” His beard was white and trimmed, and he’d been making a lot of jokes with my papa Basil (Mama’s dad).

I’ve been blessed with dream-visits from folks who’ve moved on before me. (Papa’s shown up a few times. One time he said, “I’m so glad you came across the pond to see me.” Another time, he poked his head through while I was jogging and told me not to name Noah after him. “Don’t call him Basil,” he said :))

I believe our people are near and experiencing the limitless possibility I feel bouncing inside my rib bones.

So, here my soul sits inviting your soul to come visit with me and take a moment to remember who we are. (This is also what happens with good song sharing.)

My earth uniform needs moisturizing and stray hair trimming according to 2024 western grooming standards, but my soul is sparkly splendiferous. Yours, too.

And I believe if you let yourself listen and know in the way you know you listen and know, you’ll hear what your unlimited self wants to do inside this very limited and beautiful blink of an eye we call a life span.

For me, I know one thing I came here to do is to sing, and I mean to focus a good amount of attention on it. If I can make one person’s life better with a song or an email, I believe it ripples out forever.

You, too. You have no idea how significant a smile in the trail mix aisle at Trader Joe’s can be.

I do know this: There’s only one you, the you that transcends your fingers, eyes, and hair, the you who knows and re-members, only one. And you’ll leave folks better when they hear the song only you can sing.

Love much,

Dan

PS Here’s that video with the nose hair. 

Drop and Give Me 5? Ridiculously small things that get you there

February 13, 2024 /

I’ve been getting the nudge recently to exercise my muscles.

“OK, OK,” I tell my health angel self. I’ll do some push-ups. Right after I eat this bowl of cereal at 9:30 PM and watch a Father Brown mystery on BritBox.

(We’ve hopped aboard the Father Brown train. It’s got the remarkably high murder rate for a small Cotswolds village, a sufficiently hubristic conclusion-jumping chief inspector, and just enough scenery and scones to make you feel cozy when you’re at day’s end exhaustion.)

But yeah, Lady Felicia screaming (she always seems to discover the bodies) isn’t a big inspiration to align my body in a perfect plank and execute push-ups.

My brain says, “Just do 25 push-ups a day” and I reply, “OK, but first, a cookie.”

I was talking to a student at the Conservatory about practicing. We were working on an exercise to get chest voice and head voice to play nice.

I said “eight minutes a day with one day off still gets you to 48 minutes of practice in a week. That’s 48 minutes you wouldn’t have banked if you told yourself, ‘Well, I don’t have an hour, and the practice rooms are full.’”

The terrific thing about being a singer is that you can practice anywhere.

You can work breath coordination walking down the sidewalk.

You can go full Carnegie Hall in your shower.

You can mark through lyrics and imagine stuff in the car or on a train.

You can even get curious about the crusty woman in line at the Boston Whole Foods and wonder, “Maybe my character in that William Finn song had a similar morning.”

Chances for layering and integration are everywhere.

I then confessed to my student that I do the same thing with exercise.

“Oh, no full free weight set-up here with inspirational music and a water cooler? I clearly can’t move my body today. I mean, I already take the stairs!”

And I said to the student, “You know, 5 pushups is better than no pushups.”

So, I got down and did 5 pushups. Not so hard! The next day, I did 6. The next….

This is a tool I picked up from James Clear’s book Atomic Habits. By atomic, he means teeny — and impactful.

If a plane in Los Angeles adjusts its nose a mere 2 degrees, that’s the difference between landing in New York City and Washington DC.

What’s a thing you’ve been getting a nudge about?

Something you know would be satisfying but you say, “I rarely have time, and seriously, what difference is five pushups going to make?”

What’s the smallest representation you can make today to show yourself you value this?

Will you put your butt in a chair and write and/or look out the window for 15 minutes?

Will you find the sheet music for a song you’ve been wanting to learn?

Will you give yourself a moment to remind yourself what your values are?

I’ve found I have to go back and revisit the values I wrote down in January because I forget.

There’s a reason the Old Testament writer said, “Scribble these down everywhere and tie them on your head.” We blank. Humans slide right into entropy if we don’t attend to and nurture the things we value.

Do an experiment this week, please. 🙏

Pick one thing, and do something so small that your ego committee scoffs, “What difference will that make?”

Do it, and tomorrow, do a little more.

And when the day comes that you don’t do the thing or you forget or you eat Doritos instead, gently re-board the train the next day.

What would happen if you rode that train for a year? Future You knows the approximate depot where you’ll disembark. 

Future You also knows there’s only one you, and you’ll love it if you do what it takes to sing the song only you can sing. I say this every week because I need to hear it the most.

Now go sing!

Love much,

Dan

Compassion Grease™️ — Three questions in the morning will change your life.

January 23, 2024 /

I told you how I started using Dr. Rangan Chatterjee’s three question journal prompts in the morning and evening, and some quiet and significant changes have happened.

Maybe a practice like this would help you, too.

I the morning, I write the answers to these questions:

What’s the most important thing for me to do today?

What’s one thing I’m profoundly grateful for?

And what quality do I want to show the world today?

To begin with, that third question had a big impact on me: What quality do I want to show the world?

One day, it was love and peace. Just the act of writing that down in the morning shaped my day.

I got testy with the boys, I remembered love and peace.

If things were getting harried getting out the door with all gloves, hats, and snow pants accounted for or my plans to get so much work done got waylaid by a slime cleanup on Aisle Kitchen Floor, love and peace reminded me they wanted a reflection into the world via me that day.

I kept hearing Carole King’s voice singing, “You’ve got to get up every mo-o-ornin….”

I was surprised writing a couple of words down in the morning made that kind of difference.

One day, when I knew my crankelstein temptaion would be high, I wrote “joy,” and colored a little fireball around it.

That helped me, too.

I walked through a day that normally would have slung me down into Moody Sludge Puddle Town, and I came through it with merely muddy Wellies. Made a huge difference in the environment of our home, too.

Another day it was “skill and confidence,” and I found myself contributing in helpful ways at a faculty council meeting surrounded by senior colleagues whose intellects and wisdom I admire. Well, look at that.

But, it was one morning answering the first question that proved most significant.

I had an interrupted night of sleep, Nugget Number Two was awake at 5:15, and my eye lid was doing the twitchy thing when I’m under-slept and overloaded.

What’s the most important thing for me to do today?

I heard clearly: “Go slow and show myself compassion.”

And for the “what quality?” question, I repeated the theme: compassion.

It transformed everything I did that day.

And I accomplished more going slow that day than I normally do with my usual frenetic go-to of cram this in between unloading the dishwasher and finding a podcast to listen to while I take the recycling to the corner before the trucks get there because I forgot to last night.

There were unchecked tasks at the end of the day, like every day, but the important ones got done, and in a joyful way.

When the boys kicked off or decided a Lincoln Log might make a decent weapon, I noticed my annoyance and frustration surge, and I realized going down this track lacked compassion towards me.

What would be a way that feels better? I went slower and intervened with a calmer voice. Chill Daddy can negotiate a magna-tile hostage situation much more effectively than Crusty Pop.

(Feel free to steal Chill Daddy and Crusty Pop for your next children’s book idea or jazz-blues fusion band.)

I noticed throughout the day all these emotional Charlie-in-the-box moments (we’re musical theater people, so you have to use The Island of Misfit Toys names) — I noticed when they popped up and startled me, I remembered to slow down (a step of trust), and to flow some understanding my way.

And I saw that the way I was doing things was more important than checking action item boxes on my list.

In fact, when I went slow and allowed the compassion to flow like chocolate fondue, I started to see what the most important tasks for the day actually were, the ones my 87-year-old self would endorse.

I still wrote a list that was too long — shortening my daily expectations is something I’m looking at — but, I saw my way of being was much more important than my record of doing.

Today, invite you to join me in the Slow Down and Show Yourself Compassion Club. (I’m Sergeant at Arms.)

I predict you’ll notice some things you’re grateful for, feel an unfamiliar yet welcome sense of love and well-being toward yourself, and maybe even notice that you’re working through your daily goals with more presence and compassion grease.™️

I noticed when I gave some to me (compassion grease™️), I was ready and eager to give it to the folks around me.

I wish and hope that you’ll let yourself slow down a tick and flow some tenderness in your sweet direction today.

It’s a wonderful way of being, and the atmosphere will change inside and around you.

And always remember – there’s only one you, and folks need to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much (this means yourself, too 💙),

Dan

PSHere’s that youtube video again where Dr. Chatterjee talks about those journal prompts.

PPS I’m on track with my book. Can I share the working title with you? Here it is:

Show Tune Recovery:
How Singing and Playing Pretend Helped to Heal My Trauma

Sound like a title you’d wanna read?

I’m picturing the jacket looking like an old school sheet music cover. I’ll let you know any more ideas I have, and please share any that come to you!

Head Bruises: How cold day backyard football is like singing show tunes for a living

January 16, 2024 /

We went to visit Uncle Rob in Albany this weekend, and one feature of Uncle Rob’s house is a large enclosed backyard — something I dream about when Noah and Jude mutually decide that the one small plastic Bluey figure is the ONE made-in-China ring to rule them all.

But, we don’t live in a don’t-come-home-until-the-street-lights-come-on kind of world anymore. (Or in my case growing up — “Don’t go farther than you can hear your daddy whistle.”)

It was a climatically confusing day in Albany featuring intense afternoon snow squalls, but the morning had some gorgeous blue skies with winter cumulus clouds, so we bundled up and headed out with two partially deflated footballs. (The American kind — I was explaining to Jude last night at bedtime that the US is the only country that calls football soccer.)

Both boys were proposing various iterations of backyard football-for-three rules and when I suggested maybe we just pass the oblong inflatable in a triangular fashion. I was met with immediate protest.

Free play it was, then.

3 minutes later, I looked from beside the fire pit toward one of the 4×4 hammock posts and saw Jude running full Heisman in its direction. His forehead made direct contact with its unforgiving right angle, and his little four-year-old butt spun onto the frozen flower bed.

Abject wailing ensued followed by a harsh pink vertical line over Jude’s left eye surrounded by an inflating purple bruise the shape of an American football.

If the eye of Sauron was a hematoma, it would’ve looked like this.

Melissa finally coaxed a cold compress on Jude’s head with the help of an Octonauts episode, and Noah and I headed back out.

For some reason, throwing a football back and forth became a good idea now. (I get it. Having a brother is tricky.) And Noah was doing a really good job catching the ball like he was saving a baby and letting it go right past his ear. That was the best little league instruction I had on hand.

I changed my throws to overhand, in the corner of the football went thonk right on Noah’s forehead.

“That’s okay, pick it up and let’s throw it some more!” I cheered.

But Noah had already passed through denial and anger and was actively processing the projectile betrayal he just experienced. A deep moan emerged from his 5-year-old belly, and he held his head and sobbed.

Oh no – football is already ruined for this child. Not that I’m going to encourage him specifically in that direction, but I don’t want him having to manage palpitations when they break out the flag football pinnies in PE.

But I remembered something I learned from Eli Harwood, the Attachment Nerd, on Instagram. I think it was Eli. She’s terrific.

She said trauma we hold in our bodies is not the result of going through adverse events. It’s having to endure and process these events alone.

If there’s someone to say, “I’m here” and to be there while you wail, it’s a very different outcome.

As Noah cried, I heard the voices of various grown men from 1986 in my brain: “You ain’t got time to hurt.” “It ain’t that bad.” “Rub some dirt on it.”

I had the presence of mind not to parrot any of those phrases. I walked over to Noah and put my hand on his shoulder. In about 37 seconds, his crying slowed down, and he was done.

Then I said, “Let’s try it again,” and he said, “Okay.”

A half hour later, we were still throwing the ball and playing the various tag iterations now popular on the Warren Elementary School playground. I opted out of zombie tag.

What I noticed, though, was that just like any injury, we need time for healing. Not time itself, but time and loving witness.

And the terrific thing is that you can serve as a loving witness to yourself when bumps, bruises, and abrasions inevitably occur.

Don’t get me wrong. If somebody is there to put their hand on your shoulder, that’s the stuff. And if you can phone a friend, I’m a staunch advocate.

But sometimes you’re sitting very alone, and you, the you who survived 100% of your shittiest days, you are there with you. And you can say, “I’m here.”

You know I’m a pray-er. I’ve noticed that many times when I’ve asked Jesus to come in and help me, I’ll get a nudge to breathe out and soften my own gaze toward me.

For so many years, the face of God in my imagination had an expression that said, “You could be doing better.”

So, to absorb a delightful smile from the Divine felt unfamiliar at one point and later healing and joyful. It’s also given me the skills to try a little tenderness with myself. It feels better, and I get more done.

So, when a 75% inflated mini American football hits you in the head or you forget to look up when you’re driving through an imaginary defensive line and you meet an unyielding nose guard in the form of a 4×4 hammock holder, remember it’s normal for that to hurt.

You might even be mad at the wood or your dad for a while.

But, remember, you only need to cry for a while. If someone is nearby to get the ice and the TV remote all the better. But, if you find yourself alone and hurting, try saying, “I’m here sweetie pie, I’m here.”

Make sure you’re letting air in and out, and maybe go take a bath. Let some of those heavier thoughts slide down the drain at the end.

And who knows? That pain might be a really tasty ingredient in a song one day.

Telling the story while opening your heart and saying, “I know what this is like, and you probably do, too,” is one of the greatest and most powerful ways to heal you and anyone who’s listening.

After all, there is only one you, and folks need to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much, Dan

PS I’ve been into the work of Dr Rangan Chatterjee lately. Here’s a terrific podcast about his simple journaling technique and the three questions he asks himself each morning and evening. I’ve been using these and noticing some wonderful clarity and differences. I also like this overview video he made for some tools for 2024.

PPS I’ve been thinking of writing in the trenches, how soldiers in the First World War wrote letters from anywhere they could and whenever they could. This article from the Imperial War Museum documenting letters to soldiers was fascinating. And this story about a father who drew pictures and wrote stories for his daughter moved me. When I feel resistance to writing I imagine a trench and remember storytelling can happen anywhere. This one, too with images of the Western Front. 

PPPS I recorded this little snippet of “Shed a Little Light” by James Taylor several years ago, and I just love this song. “Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King.” 

Lily Pad 🐸: Distraction’s not just a river in Egypt. Oh, wait.

January 9, 2024 /

I told you last week that I got a lot out of reading Nir Eyal’s book Indistractable. 

I’m still officially distractible, but something I’ve noticed are my internal shiny “squirrel!” triggers.

This is me sitting down to write and thinking, “I’ll check email, Instagram, Facebook, play today’s Wordle, or do some helpful Google research.”

It’s getting out music to practice and thinking, “I need to text that person back. And this closet could really use a quick declutter.”

You get it.

The helpful thing for me has been to backtrack and notice the thought and feeling that precedes the distracto-grab.

When I sit down to write, lots of ideas start to roil.

One I’ve noticed lately is a criticism of my voice and style.

A whole pile of expression blocking bricks stack and mortar themselves into a protective wall, and I sit there believing this voice that says something like, “What if someone reads that one day? Did you know your handwriting looks like a third grade teacher’s from 1978? Are you a 46-year old man or Marian the librarian?”

A lot of the mean stuff is old remarks from my childhood that I absorbed.

When I was a boy, I loved beautiful things.

I loved music and flowers, and when the little league football cheerleaders shook their shiny pom poms, I felt bubbles in my stomach under my jersey and shoulder pads. I thought hot pink was an especially inspiring color, and I loved the rainbow tennis racket strings that came into style in the late 80s.

These affinities didn’t cohere well with camo, hunting, fishing, football, or engine repair.

A lot of sideways looks and comments like “that boy ain’t quite right.”

Or the time in a summer recreation program when the head counselor asked me in front of all the other campers, “Are you a queer?” I was 10, and I didn’t know what that meant.

I felt like I was outside the givens of being a man. Layer onto that a deep judgment of my own dad for a list of reasons in my little boy’s head, and you get a really tricky relationship with masculinity.

This sampling of messages and barbs emerges from the subconscious soup like alligator eyes, and before I finish a paragraph of neat cursive, its jaws chomp down on the idea that I wanted to tease out with my roller ball in my Leuchturm 1917 journal. (Fountain pens are too high maintenance, I tried them, of course.)

There were relationship moments when I heard from a woman, “Don’t cry like a bitch” or “Yeah, I don’t like it when men cry.”

You know in your brain not to let these things in, but as I found out as a kid, I’m a tender hearted sort, and my emotional body is absorbent.

All this to share with you one source of intense emotional sensation that sets off alarm bells in my psyche to reach for a thoughtful article from The Atlantic or a McVitie’s chocolate digestive. (My soul wears a cardigan and drinks PG Tips, clearly.) Something to distract my brain or to carbo-riffically muffle any intense feelings that may be trying to process out of my belly region.

Who knew your Instagram scroll was shielding you from such an underbelly?

But this gentle intention to notice the emotional impulse that precedes the distraction grab has been a godsend. I’ve been getting better at noticing things with curiosity and gentleness, and I’ve found it helps me move through with confidence and love. I can feel a sensation and survive.

All this to share with you — whatever you want to work on, you can start it wherever you can open a door. Wherever you can set your foot, put it there.

Some authors call this lily padding. Wherever your sweet froggy brain finds itself in the pond, you can start there and then leap to the next nearest amphibian tuffet.

It looks like this:

You have to prepare “I Dreamed a Dream” for your Fantine call back.

“I’m so excited. I love this song. I love this show.”

“Crap, this is Les Mis. This is Fantine. This is a big role. Do I go more Patti Lupone or Lea Salonga or Ruthie Henshall or figure out how to make it TRULY my own???”

“Okay, here I go. Ahemhemhemheeemmmmm…. ‘I dreamed a dream in time gone b….’ Wait. Let me see if I can find a good backing track. Should I get a piano track or an orchestral one? The audition will be piano, so. No, never mind. Slow down. I need to really think about the song. Go through my lyrics. Oh, God, don’t make me monologue this. Wait! I know! I need to read the novel. How am I going to become Fantine if I don’t understand how Victor Hugo originally conceived of her? I can get that online. But I’ll be distracted if I read on my computer. Let me get on my library app and reserve that. What? It’s available today? I’ll go pick it up. I’ll find a coffee shop where I can nestle in and, wait! How am I going to sing the Shaa-a-a-a-a-aaaaame! part? I need to call my voice teacher. No, I’ll just search those who-sang-it-best comparison videos on YouTube and steal the ones I like the best.”

So here’s the thing.

All of this brain brew is a way to delay work because that’s where we’re going to encounter frustration, questions, and falling short of how good we want it to be. We need to spend enough time with it for things to integrate.

But in order to delay the discomfort of, “Crap, is this going to be any good by the time I do it in front of people?” we reach for seemingly productive activities that hold the work at a distance.

But the other thing is this. All of the above ideas are lily pads.

Jumping in to sing can show me I don’t have enough specifics in the lyric, so I need to do some imagination work.

Singing with a track can show me my breathing’s wonky somewhere, so I need to slow down and take it apart.

Reading the novel can show me that I don’t actually have time to savor Hugo’s piercing of the human soul through language, so I’ll have to table the tome for the time being.

But all these activities can get me going in a direction.

And if I need to make a several-point turn to get going another way, I can do that.

Sometimes I autopilot onto the Mass Pike toward Boston when I’m supposed to be driving to Albany, and I have to drive several miles to exit and turn around. It’s frustrating, but at least I know the direction I’m trying to go, so even going the wrong way is taking me where I need to go eventually.

So, I invite you to watch your intense emotional sensations with curiosity and gentleness.

Let yourself hop onto the first lily pad you see.

And remember that even your attempts to avoid your pain can be one of the floating dots you can connect to create satisfying work.

After all, there’s only one soul who can distract, protect and obfuscate in just the way you do, and all us other pain avoiders need to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much,

Dan

PS I got to do a terrific production of Bright Star here in Mass at the Franklin Performing Arts Company. A terrific place to work with a top notch team and a thriving performing arts school.

I hadn’t done a contract since 2019, so it was great to tell a story for folks again. Here are a few pics of me as Daddy Cane using my native NC dialect. If you add a key ring on my belt, I look just like my dad.

Shenanigans — Civil engineering challenges in Boston’s Metro West and how rainy nighttime driving applies to your creative life

December 12, 2023 /

I’m imagining the civil engineering society of the Greater Boston area got together at some point and said —

“All right, all right, listen up — we’re dealing with old horse paths here. The roads are narrow. They wind in all directions. And there aren’t any alternative routes.

“So, here’s what we’re gonna do — we’ll just hew to the historical legacy of these questionable thoroughfares and make sure the lighting at night is true to the road’s 1805 founding. There won’t be any.

“And reflectors? Paul Revere didn’t need them, did he?

“And we’re not so profligate as to squander tax funds on things like reflective paint for white and yellow lines. No. When it rains and it’s dark out, folks can maneuver themselves through the small ponds on Route 9 using bat sonar.”

Maybe it’s because my eyes are gonna be 46 this month, but I’m not about the night time rainy roads around here.

The other night I drove home in the rain and literally missed my exit off the Mass Pike.

Signaled, followed the signs. I saw the arrows, but the road? Nope. Had to rumble my way back on to the highway and try my best to intuit the next offramp via ESP.

This morning Melissa and I thanked our guardian angels, lucky stars, and trusty green 2009 Scion XD —

(her name’s Willow — purchased in Hollywood. We joke that she’s been super traumatized by all the East Coast weather she’s been subjected to in the last 9 years.)

— we thanked them (angels, stars, and car) for getting us to Newton-Wellesley hospital this morning where Melissa’s having a long-anticipated surgery so she won’t feel like her abdomen is in perpetual revolt anymore. I’m excited for a new chapter for her. 🙏

But all the recent nighttime wet-road driving around the Boston area’s got me thinking — isn’t that just like your creative life?

You’re driving along wondering if your headlights are working or not, trying to make out if that’s asphalt or a hydroplane disaster pond in front of you.

An oversized Infiniti SUV barrels past you smacking your windshield with a puddle wave, and the Yukon behind you decides high beams are the appropriate selection when tailing a wee hatchback.

When you’re a singing storyteller and have a desire like

🪄 play a role in a beautiful show with a company of excellent people and get paid a workable wage for it 🌟

the road to the stage door can feel like dark New England rain driving.

It’s not like you can bump your CV on LinkedIn or apply at your local musical theatre branch.

There’s auditions.
And there’s finding out about the auditions.
And there’s getting to the auditions and getting in the door.
And there’s having materials that’ll serve you and the needs of the production(s).
And there’s reaching out to casting folks over and over with no response.
And there’s spending hours creating self-tapes that you hope get watched.
And there’s getting used to being back in an actual room with real people after you’ve been putting everything on video.
And there’s the very recent reality that one microbe can shut down an entire art form that you’ve dreamed about being a part of since you heard the high school chorus sing that arrangement of “I Dreamed a Dream.”

Oh, and you need to be really good at compelling, honest, wholehearted storytelling while singing in an adrenalized state.

Blind driving on Route 9 is easier.

BUT AND — rainy pitch-black puddle skid motoring has some lessons to teach us.

🌧️ You can only see the road you can see in front of you. Aim in the safest direction you can, pay attention, and refrain from using cruise control.

☔️ Some assholes get assholey-er in rough conditions. Let your wipers do their work, and focus on your lane.

🌂 If a car is going effectively in the direction you want to go, use their tire tracks and tail lights as a guide for a while.

⛈️ Take a deep breath and slow down a little. No need to put on your hazards. You’re moving. You’re taking care of the road in front of you one headlight zone at a time. You keep driving, you’ll get where you need to go.

⚠️ Sometimes you miss Exit 117 to Framingham because you can’t see the road. Keep driving. You can get off at 111, and there’ll probably be less shenanigans on the quieter lanes.

You’ll get where you need to go.

Your heart rate will spike. You’ll swear. But you’ll get there.

Take care of the road you can see in front of you.

And remember there’s only one you, and folks need to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much,

Dan

PS Melissa and I had a terrific day date a couple weekends ago — got to see several of my BoCo kidz do great work in City of Angels. 👏

We had lunch at Petit Robert Bistro in the South End (or as I like to call it, Lil Bobby’s.) Highly recommend if you’re in Boston. The mussels were the best either of us ever had. All broth was duly sopped with freshly baked baguette. And our macarons to go — my mouth’s watering just remembering them. 

PPS Surgery went great 🙏

My Mistake — This keeps happening. I’m working on it

November 28, 2023 /

Noah’s been wanting to decorate for Christmas since Halloween. He could NOT understand why anybody would wait until after Thanksgiving to haul out the holly.

Seriously, he woke up Thursday morning and said, “We get to decorate for Christmaaaaas!”

I can remember losing my mind about draping lights all over everything when I was a kid. It’s terrific to get to live it through Noah and Jude’s eyes.

We finally got the tree up and ornamented yesterday evening.

After being waylaid by a Saturday urgent care trip to see about an ear infection, a rogue LED on our pre-lit tree that never got resolved (even after Melissa and I undertook the Sisyphean task of replacing every unlit bulb in the strand), and general exhaustion, extracting the Christmas bins from behind the I’ll-get-to-that-someday boxes was going to be a mythic test.

That’s what I thought, anyway.

The true trial began when I tried “decorating” with the boys while Melissa braved the elements (mostly human) to source a new air mattress from Big Lots. My brother Ben’s visiting from Spain, and our current one’s motor gave up the ghost.

But yeah, placing fragile, tinselly things around the house in tasteful locations with 4- and 5-year old humans full of testosterone and opinions — I went ahead and pulled down the bourbon and the “Dad — Aged to Perfection” tumbler Melissa got me on my last birthday.

While I coaxed Noah into the half-bath to help me put the Santa toilet seat cover and rug into their coveted positions, I heard a loud crash on the kitchen tiles and Jude’s voice say, “Sorrrryyyy!”

I emerged from from the toilet room with wide T-rex eyes and saw that one of our Christmas cocoa mugs lay shattered on the floor.

I calmly said in my whispery Daniel Tiger’s Neighbohood Dad voice, “That’s all right, son. It was an accident. We’ll get this cleaned up together.” Then we sang a situationally themed song about the learning moment.

Nope. That’s not what happened.

I don’t remember my exact vocabulary, but the subtext was, “Why can’t you listen to me? I TOLD you to come into the bathroom with the Christmas towels! SEE? This is what happens when you don’t do what I say. This is the opposite of fun, and I’m pissed about it because Bing Crosby’s whistling “White Christmas” on the Alexa cube, and we should be happy, dammit! And LISTEN TO ME!”

The thing I’m grateful for is little Judelet’s ability to say a hearty sorry and move on.

He knew it was an accident, and he wasn’t beating himself up about it.

But in these moments of exasperation, it’s like someone pushes my reactivity-bot button, and up from the bile center come phrases like, “Why would you DO that?”.

I can feel how ugly and damaging it is when it comes out — like I’ve slimed the boys and myself at the same time. It’s not who I want to be, and it’s not how I want to affect them.

“I’m SORRY, Daddy!” Jude repeated.

I’m grateful for his sense of self. HE knew he was just trying to put the mug on the counter near where the coffee cups go. HE knew it was an accident.

It was just the moment I needed to regroup.

“I totally forgive you, Jude, and I wish you’d waited for me like I asked.”

We swept up the ceramic and finished turning our toilet into Santa Claus.

And I took a generous sip from my tumbler.

That moment wasn’t about Jude not listening to me. It was about me not feeling listened to.

It was also me telling myself a story of inadequacy. “If I were really an effective dad, my boys would listen to me and do what I say.”

And I made up a terrifying future scenario when I would yell at Jude to stop running in a parking lot only for him to ignore me and careen into danger. (Although the exact opposite thing happened that very morning after church.) Disaster outcome planning is rarely open to countervailing evidence.

But think about those three needs:

You need to be listened to.

You need to feel effective and adequate at your tasks.

You need to have some reasons to believe things will be okay.

Now think about how these needs get challenged every time you walk into an audition room or put your finger on the red circle on your phone screen and pretend you’re singing to somebody.

We ask ourselves, “Are the table people listening to me? I don’t know if they are. How can I get them to listen to me? I know, try harder.”

If we feel unheard and unseen, we can do the time-tested kid logic of, “If I’m not being heard or seen, then it must be my fault. I must be bad at this. There are other people who are so much better, clearly. I’m sure they get listened to.”

Or we hurl the blame outward. Also ineffective.

And that quickly leap frogs to, “This will always be this way. This is what auditioning is like. This is what being a singing storyteller is like.”

So we do one of two things.

We armor up. We don’t let ourselves want the thing, and we offer up half-alive songs what might sound just fine, but there’s no open door into the heart. The unheard, unseen, inadequate, always-like-this story goes on.

Or we quit.

But there is another way that brings satisfaction and joy to your work.

Here you go —

Listen to YOU. Are you even listening to the words you’re singing? I bet if you do, that story might come alive, and you might start to have a little fun.

Along with that, let everybody off the hook. Nobody has to listen to you. But I guarantee if you’re having you’re own auditory party over there, I’m gonna be all “I’ll have what she’s having.”

Assess your skills well. Do you need to bolster your tools? Are there things you need to integrate and gain confidence with? When you watch yourself back on video, are you meeting your own aesthetic standards?

This is a helpful question, and it gives you something to DO. You can get to work, and you can get better by spending 7 minutes a day on that technical skill.

Then you have evidence to show yourself — I am effective. I do have these skills. And when I don’t, I have the GRIT to acquire them.

And then open your heart. Prepare the hell out of your work. Then “connect, George, connect.”

Don’t perform. Prepare and connect.

Imagine there are French doors, latched at your sternum. Open them up, step out on your balcony, and say, “You’re invited in here!”

There’s nothing more beautiful than your soul, so trust the inward welcome.

Listen to you. Bolster your skill for your own satisfaction. Prepare and connect.

Because there is only one you, and folks need to hear the beautifully crafted story only you can sing.

Love much,

Dan

PS I’m writing a book!

The focus is on telling you all the things I say in lessons that make people say “I wish I’d known that before!” in a systematic fashion while sharing my experience of singing as a way to heal.

Sound good to you? Let me know. Send me a quick email back and tell me if that’s something you could use.

Also, if you’ve got a singing while pretending issue you wish you could solve with a book, let me know! Any idea you have — I’d love to say thank to you in the acknowledgements 🙏📚.

Send me an email and tell me your ideas and what you need. What have you been looking for that you can’t find? Email me back by clicking here.

Crust Sponge 🧽 — Scrub Daddy envy and your pharynx’s secret powerz

November 21, 2023 /

I’ve gotten better at letting love in.

I used to be less-than-absorbent.

Like that desiccated sponge at the corner of your kitchen sink, love water could run right over me and down the drain. 

By the time I started to soften and soak, I thought, “Well, this is very unfamiliar, nay, uncomfortable. I’m gonna scoot my damp self back over to the corner and seethe with envy at the Scrub Daddy. He sees all the action. AND with a perpetual smile on his face.”

The reasons for this are many; I’m not alone in my family line in the struggle to receive nice things.

In my case, I was lucky enough to go through a couple of proper pulverizations. 

More than that, though, the thing that softened my sponge was needing forgiveness. I smashed some folks on my way to plopping my soul in base of the grinder.

It was like yesterday when one of the Calla-nuggets destroyed the other Calla-nugget’s Thanksgiving craft. No amount of Elmer’s glue was going to Humpty Dumpty that together again.

I reflected, “You destroyed your brother’s project. What’s the reason you did that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Now he’s crying a lot. What do you think you can do to help?” I asked.

Fact is, there was no bringing the pinecone turkey back from its demise.

“Say sorry?”

I said, “Give it a try.”

“Sorry brother,” said the responsible party.

After a few sniffles, the injured party replied, “I’m working on it.”

(We’ve evolved from “BAD SORRY!”)

But that was such a clear picture of what forgiveness has meant to me.

I crushed some pinecone turkeys, and there was no amount un-crushing I could do.

All I had was, “I’m so sorry.”

And I was given the gifts of, “I love you. I understand. And I forgive you.”

And that’s how this sponge got his squeeze.

Letting love in means you have to open the door to your heart, and when your heart’s been broken, that’s scary.

(I’m convinced that’s why a lot of folks walk around with their head jutting forward (besides the phones) — the brain is trying to assess all situations before the heart enters the room.)

But there’s no other way.

When it comes to singing, this skill is one of the most helpful tools of all.

When you sing, you’re sending vibrating communication out with your exhale. But if there’s not a simultaneous welcome back to your heart, you’re missing the whole point.

It’s the completion of a love circuit, the balance of a natural cycle, like breathing in and out.

Telling a story is a welcome to your narrative party.

So here are 2 tools you can use to try this out.

🔧 Number one — sing the phrases of your song, and for each phrase, bring your hand slowly to your heart. You’re saying, “You’re invited to my unrepeatable experience of this story.”

The great thing about this is nobody can see what’s in there, they just know whether or not they’re invited.

🧰 Number 2 — think about your pharynx.

I joke with my students that the answer to almost any question I ask in lessons is “the pharynx!” Kind of like kids in Sunday school; the answer’s always “Jesus!”

Here’s your pharynx:

It’s where 90% of your resonance happens. (Nope, it’s not your mask. Don’t get me going on the get-it-forward thing.)

So, here’s what I want you to do.

Snort.

Feel where your uvula flops back against the back there.

That’s your pharynx.

Now hum your fave tune.

Meditate on that space. Notice the vibrating stream moving through it. That’s your most direct resonance location.

Now I want you to imagine your pharynx is receiving a fancy vibration massage.

Like the part of your back that needs the most TLC right now getting the best lavendar lotioned love. That kind of feeling.

Let your pharynx actually feel good getting those vibes from your vocal folds.

Like you’re slowing down to smell some unexpected fall roses, really tasting that bite of chocolate cake, or feeling sweet unconditional love from your doggy’s excited “your back!” panting.

(here were some in Boston last week — so pretty.)

If you’re enjoying your singing, guess who’s gonna be invited to enjoy it too? The folks you’re singing for.

Inviting someone into your heart and enjoying beauty — I imagine the world would be a much different place if more folks were doing that.

While you and I can’t wave a global scale love wand, we can do it in our own small sphere. And I’m convinced that makes a difference.

You know how I know?

Because it’s the folks who invited me into their hearts over a drink or on a stage, and showed me the beauty of enjoying a flower, a melody, and a smile — it’s those things that helped me let love in.

So, walk around today with your heart and head lined up, open your sternum door, and hum some tunes and enjoy those vibes.

Your song’ll give off love and bring it right back to you multiplied. And again.

These days it’s so important to remember — there’s only one you, and folks need to hear the story flowing love that only you can sing.

Love much,

Dan

PS Here’s me talking about how forgiveness changed things and singing “Shine” from The Spitfire Grill. (You can skip ahead to a little over 1 minute in.)

PPS You mighta missed last week’s email because I got a little behind on sending it out. There’s a terrific interview with Merri Sugarman from Tara Rubin Casting included that you’ll want to listen in on. Love and appreciate her point of view and her genuine care for actors. Click here to get it.

My Inner Critic’s Dialects (on ridiculous dreams)

October 31, 2023 /

I’ve got a thing for the Brits. ?? Melissa can tell you all about it.

“You wanna watch anything tonight? Comedy? Action?”

Dan searches the BritBox subscription channel for moody, atmospheric drama set near the Lake District.

Must be DNA. 23 and Me tells me 81% of my ancestry vibrates from the Isles.

Lately, I’ve been dreaming of doing theatre-y things in the UK — teaching West End performers, working with dancers who want to sing more, performing at The National Theatre.

When I was in London in 2000, I’d walk over Waterloo Bridge, look across at the South Bank, and dream about getting to perform in one of the 3 iconic spaces there. No idea how to work out the whole visa situation, but I’ve never been too concerned with details.

My London leanings resurfaced in my psyche again this week, and I laughed when I scrolled to today’s email subject suggestion on my Google sheet (I keep a list of things I want to email you about.)

It said —

Can you tell from the talk-to-text that I was all like, really? You sure? 

22-year old Dan wanted to perform at The National, and so does 45-year-old Dan.

May never happen. Given my citizenship status, the probability lowers even more.

But still, I want that to happen.

I imagine an extended season near London where Melissa manages a cutting-edge research lab with unusually extraverted science colleagues, the boys wear uniforms to school, and I get to teach and perform in and around the West End. And we all ride our bikes to the National Gallery.

I even drew a pic and wrote a poem about it one time

“Boys and their fancies!” Mrs. Lovett says. “What will we think of next?”

(My inner critic talks like a machiavellian East Ender when it’s not a mean redneck.)

Thing is, though, your hypotheticals have important info.

The specifics of them may never happen, but letting yourself dream the dream does a couple of things.

If you can hold your fantasies with love and gentleness, it makes you expectant.

A few weeks back at church, there was a talk about the difference between expectation and expectancy.

It was a nuanced and important difference.

Expectations project a specific outcome. And often, as they say in the 12 Steps, they can be resentments waiting to happen.

Expectancy has an open heart that knows it can wish for a thing, AND something even more nourishing, satisfying, and purposeful may appear that it never could have imagined.

When my life was in a major disintegration stage, a phrase started bubbling up from my heart: I’d rather have God’s surprises than my plans.

And it’s a both-and project.

Just like I ask Noah, “What would you like to have for breakfast?” I think God wants us to share what it is we want.

As a dad, when Noah requests “Waffooooollllls” with the knowledge that I want to help him out, it makes my heart happy. I want him to know that I want to help him.

Goes back to Einstein’s “I think the most important question facing humanity is, ‘Is the universe a friendly place?’”

And if Enistein can ask that question in his historical context, then we can, too.

All that was about expectancy.

The second thing all this dreaming does is that it gets your wheels turning so that you discover possibilities you would have missed.

Maybe the first idea isn’t something you can control or take action on, but it points you in a direction.

Maybe you can’t call up the casting director at the National Theatre and say, “Heeeey! I can’t work legally in the UK (YET!), but you clearly need to get me on your radar. Um, you’re welcome.”

But, you could start researching avenues to get your body to the UK and collaborating with theatre artists there.

I often tell students, “Put your body in the place, and do the thing.” Folks will start to notice.

When I was 22, I had no idea that I wouldn’t be able to find some other way to stay in the UK after my 6-month work permit expired.

And I’m glad I didn’t know. I’m so grateful for the time I had there and the friends I’m blessed with as a result.

So, let your dreamer dream; let expectancy bloom, and write down all the things that feel immediately delightful.

Your noggin may say, “How ridiculous.” Then you can say, “Yes, you’re right,” and then write down the next thing that would be so terrific if it ever happened.

Because for real — there is only one you (with your particular dreams), and folks need to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much,

Dan

PS Here’s the SONNET I wrote about the Anglo-dreams I have for our family’s UK stint 🙂 

Some days I dream about how we could
Move to London, find a flat or part
Of a house on a close close to an ancient wood
Or anywhere near a park. We’d explore art
Galleries and eat cake in the crypt
At St. Martin and tool around the town on bikes,
Cross the river and see a play with a script
That I wrote. We’d travel north and take long hikes
Along sea cliffs.Then we’d build a fire
And drink hot chocolate and whisky. Back in town
We’d go to work and school, sing in a choir,
And drink pints in the pub, the Something and Crown.
We’ll go to the market for bread and leeks and flowers
And have soup for supper and talk and laugh for hours.

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