“I sometimes dance around in my underwear… doesn’t make me Madonna. Never will!”

So the lights are blinding you. You’re trying to remember the words or at least see them on the screen. Then you turn around and there’s a 6’6” drag queen in full gear, including a 12” pink beehive wig, being your backup singer. Huh? What funky Bali-Hai did I end up in? Nope, no one slipped magic mushrooms into your drink while you went to the ladies room… welcome to karaoke night in Provincetown.

I’ve always loved singing, as everyone who has ever driven in a car with me can attest to… good or bad as that experience may have been for them. It’s what I do when I’m in a car, or in the shower, cleaning the cat’s box or EEK!.. near a karaoke bar. No I don’t bring my own music or take it too seriously but it does create some fun stories along the way.

Now, at little background. I have the weird ability to recall the lyrics to almost any song that comes onto the radio… maybe a little less so with new-new songs but certainly up to about 5 years ago. Music from the 50-90s occupy a good deal of my long term memory. I’ve always said if I could wipe out song lyrics, movie lines, Brady Bunch and Bugs Bunny episodes from my mind that I could cure cancer. But it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen any time soon. The Nobel Prize for Medicine will have to wait.

I did try to put that knowledge to good use by trying out for the FOX television show “Don’t Forget the Lyrics” and got to the semi-finals, but unfortunately life circumstances caused a flat performance and I didn’t get on… the first time. Believe me, I’m going back the next time they do an open call and I will get on that show… if nothing else but for the blog that’ll come from it. The money wouldn’t hurt either.

Anyway, back to karaoke. Once I worked through my stage fright issues with my opera vocal coach, there really was no stopping me from going on anymore. With all the dumb faces and noises you make when you sing opera, you move way past feeling foolish in front of anyone… whether at karaoke or in a jazz club in Paris.

Ah Paris, that one was probably the scariest. I was there with my friend Kelly in 2000, or so, it gets vague after a while, and we ventured into one of the many small jazz clubs by the Latin Quarter. Yes, we’d had a couple of cocktails, and I semi-jokingly mentioned to Kel that I had always wanted to sing in a jazz club just like this… to roll around on a piano top just like Michelle Pfeiffer did in The Fabulous Baker Boys. I had memorized “Making Whoopee” because of that performance. Well, we continued to talk and she said, “Why don’t you go up there and ask them to sing?”

“No way, this is Paris. This is real jazz. What if I freeze when I get up there...” Blah Blah Blah – she wasn’t listening.

She said, “This is the perfect opportunity. No one knows you anyway. I’ll go talk to them and set it up for you.”

And with that she left me, giving me no choice but to give it a shot. The only good thing I could figure out is that most of the audience spoke French so if I screwed up the lyrics, oh well. Singing on key on the other hand… well.

I remember being in the bathroom (le toilet) upstairs shaking. I had a black turtleneck on with leopard pants and motorcycle boots given to me by my maid of honor at my wedding (another blog one day). Not exactly the long, beautiful red velvet dress that I had envisioned… but I looked REALLY American. The American rocker look is a GOOD thing in Paris.

So I left the bathroom and had a broken French conversation with the pianist of the quartet. He gave me my Madonna moment, “Madames and Messeurs… `Jennifer’ from America!” Gulp! I was up on stage in a Paris café singing Making Whoopee in front of a crowd during Fashion Week on a cold January night. It was insane and I still thank Kel for getting me up there. I wasn’t Edith Piaf, but it didn’t matter. I had done it (and have the pictures to prove it - now if I can ever figure out my scanner I'll add them to the blog).

I’ve brought the vocal chords out in many places since Paris… New York, New Jersey, Florida Capri and Amalfi, Italy, Germany – all the hot spots… hmmm just realized I haven’t done it in SD yet.

Anyway, one of the best was New Orleans this past December while I was on a business trip. I went out with corporate partners of my company and we ended up at the Cats Meow on Bourbon Street. I knew better than to try and get onstage with the fine jazzmen and women in NOLA, but I could handle being on the karaoke stage in front of people who’ve had too many hurricane cocktails.

I sang my standard, “Heartbreaker” by Pat Benatar and it was a blast, but the best part was the next day. I was at Café du Monde for beignets and coffee with work colleagues who hadn’t seen my performance the night before… nor did I mention it. However, fate is funny and brings up things when you least expect them. I’m enjoying my breakfast and all of a sudden a guy comes up to me and says, “You sang Pat Benatar last night.” Oh My GOD! “Yes, that was me.” And of course I had to tell the table what all had happened. It was the only time I’ve ever been called out on the street after the performance so I felt like Britney Spears for a good 5 seconds. Then it was over and we had to head to the convention center to sell vending equipment and pay my bills. Fame is fleeting.

Karaoke in Provincetown is a whole different scene. The crowd is very enthusiastic and more prone to jumping up on stage with you to dance as background singers. Everyone gets applause and it really is a kind environment to sing in, but it’s a big crowd if you go to the Crown & Anchor on Hump Day Karaoke Night. About 1,000 people can fit in this venue especially in season. Its intimidating, especially because you realize you’re one of the few who haven’t “costumed” for the occasion. Oh wait, I left my sequined bellbottoms and sparkler t-shirts at home – what’s a girl to do? Really, to get everyone on your side, all you need to do is belt out a Melissa Etheridge song and you’re golden… at least with all the lesbians in the crowd. It’s probably the best party atmosphere for a night of karaoke, and there are many talented souls who jump up to give it a try.

I’ve always loved a song by Harry Chapin called “Mr. Tanner” about a guy who is a dry cleaner by day and dreams of being an opera singer. Everyone in town encouraged him to go to Carnegie Hall and give it a shot. And “shot” was the apropos word, the critics killed him in their reviews. He goes home and never sings in public again, but he would sing at night when he was alone.

The chorus goes,
“Music was his life, it was not his livelihood.
And it made him feel so happy and it made him feel so good.
And he sang from his heart. And he sang from him soul.
He did not know how well he sang.
It just made him whole.”

Well, I can’t sum it up any better than that. I may not do anything more than sing in a darkened karaoke bar… but it does make me whole. And there’s always, “Don’t Forget the Lyrics” auditions around the corner. ;-).

What lies at the end of Cockle Cove Road?

I believe the first time that I was in Cape Cod was at the ripe old age of 1 (or just about since we always spent my birthday there every year). In fact from that time I was never in school for the last week of school until I graduated high school.

When I was kid, our week at the Lantern Lane cottages on Cockle Cove Road in Chatham were as close to perfect as you could get. The days were sunny and warm. We always started our summer tans during that week, and the nights were cold enough for a fire in the cabin’s stone fireplace… good sleeping weather as my father still says. On the one-day per vacation when it would rain we’d go to the movies. It was tradition. We say that my dad has the ability to conjure up white magic – good weather – whenever he wants it and I wonder now if he didn’t conjure up that one day per trip where it rained and we stayed inside at the movie theater in Wellfleet. Maybe subliminally he wanted the excuse for one day of not fishing.

On the days we didn’t go fishing with my dad, my mom and brother (for the first 10 years or so) would walk the mile down to the little beach at the end of Cockle Cove Road. I remember that walk always felt like 10 miles – maybe because we were loaded down with beach equipment, sandwiches, etc. The walk down wasn’t too bad – somewhat downhill, but the one back always felt doubly long. It was a pretty walk alongside the salt marshes and past the one tacky souvenir shop that never had any people in it (and still doesn’t. I’m amazed every year that its still there – must be a tax write-off). It is the location of one of the best pictures that I have ever taken of my mom. The light is incredible.

All the walking was worth it when we would get down there and stake out our space on the spit of sand equally divided between the Sound on the one side and the tidal ponds on the other. I lived in those tidal ponds – high or low tide. My mom never had to wonder where I was, I was there. I was all too happy to catch minnows, snails and hermit crabs all day long for the entire week with the rest of the kids whose parents left them to their devices in this creek. It was always the same and never the same – the critters were different but the feeling of the place never changed even when I was there this week – two weeks before my 38th birthday (egad can that be true?).

When I hear about the restrictions that parents put on their kids now – not even allowing them to play in the backyard unless they are outside with them – I cringe. Yes, maybe it was a little “Lord of the Flies” down by the tidal ponds but you learned to deal with new kids, you learned so much about nature and it inspired your curiosity. Is it any wonder that a kid’s curiosity seems to be mostly computer-based now? They are not allowed to wander the way we did, so they wander the Net instead – a possibly more dangerous pool than the tidals ever were.

I have a million memories from the Cape but I remember my 16th birthday out there the most. I didn’t need a big party like so many of my friends were having. I was happy at the cabin with my parents playing 2000 rummy or penny blackjack and poker. There was no TV and the radio that I faithfully brought every year only seemed to get in one station that played all 70s easy listening. To this day when I hear these songs I am transported right back there. I even have a group of songs on one of my iPods just for this mini-escape. The Eagles, Al Stewart, Gerry Rafferty, Seals & Crofts, James Taylor, Carly Simon and Jefferson Starship every day all the time - every mellow song you ever knew was always on the Cape radio. I often wonder if kids have to listen to their parents’ music anymore given the iPods and other distractions there are. If they don’t it’s really a shame. It was a bonding point that shouldn’t be lost.

I have successfully made it to the Cape for 36 out of 38 years and over those 3+ decades its come to represent a lot of things but I think the one thing that it has always been for me is an escape. When I was a kid it gave me the chance to escape from the town I grew up in the rest of the year, when I was in college it gave me the chance to escape from college pressures about growing up and getting out, after college it was an escape from work, in my 30s after my divorce it was an escape to heal. To this day it remains that way. I get out there and any pressure I feel on the mainland slips away. I feel happy in a way that really is hard to describe. It’s coming home, It’s a womb. It’s craziness in Provincetown and laziness in front of the fire in the B&B recovering from anything that the year before had brought. Cape Cod heals me like nothing else I can find.

Sadly this year is probably one of the times when I needed it the most and had the shortest amount of time there. I felt the release when I crossed the Sagamore Bridge – opening the car windows to touch the Cape as I crossed the canal, but somewhere my mind knew it was for too short of time. I felt that dread of the ticking close almost the entire time. Usually that doesn’t kick in until the Thursday of my weeklong vacation. I needed the arms of the Cape to wrap around me and heal me again… and then the time was up and I was driving on the 6 back toward Boston with tears streaming down my face. I was truly the snail that had been ripped off the rock. I didn’t want to go yet. I wasn’t done – after all, this year had left me very tired… weary might be a better description.

But I did as much as I could, walking the wharf and the beach in P-town, Cabot’s taffy, singing at the Governor Bradford, dancing at Vixens, oysters at the Beachcomber and of course my annual pilgrimage (no pun intended) to our beach at the end of Cockle Cove Road. I touched the Cape and she touched me but it wasn’t the long hug that I needed.

So now I’m heading back to the other place I used to cry when I had to leave, California… my new home. I’ll try to bring part of the Cape with me. I have to continue what the Cape started. Maybe this year she was just a kickoff point to finding something like this on my own newly adopted coast. I wonder if there’s a Cape-like place on the northwest coast of the U.S. just like there’s one on the Northeast. Maybe I’ll look at the latitude lines for the Cape and see where it lands on this coast. There is much to discover. With my family I discovered the Cape long ago and grew to know her so well that I didn’t have to discover her anymore. Maybe I need a new horizon to discover that’ll be for the next 30 years.

One thing I will say is that the Cape did manage to do one thing… I’m writing again – as this piece can attest to. Maybe this wasn’t my happiest article – maybe too nostalgic – but I put fingers to keys and came up with a story about a place I love. 5 months ago I wondered if that could ever happen again. Forget that – a week ago I wondered if the writing spirit was gone. She’s not. She’s been hurt but not silenced… now to make her sing and laugh again.

There’s a lot I don’t know about what lies ahead, but one thing I do know is the answer to the question that I started with at the beginning of this story -- what lies at the end of Cockle Cove Road? Me. A baby, a teenager, a student, a wife, a divorcee, a woman… it’s all there in the tidal ponds anytime I need to find me.