The Trans Siberian Orchestra is a favorite of mine because of their blend of traditional and modern music. One of my favorite Christmas songs was featured on "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," and I will belt this sucker out for six weeks straight - much to the annoyance of anyone in earshot. I'm no singer by far, but this song makes me wish I was. Think it's too late to write Santa a letter? A wish for pipes that work...
A favorite holiday movie/show:
Today's holiday classic is brought to you by the incomparable John Hughes, who penned this 1990 hit in a matter of days. It went on to be the biggest grossing comedy of that year. It proves once again that using time as a measurement of quality in writing makes about as much sense as what pen/software program/outlining process the writer used to write.
A holiday recipe:
This recipe has always been a big hit outside my onion-hating family members, and you can make enough to stuff a turkey AND have enough left over to share with a small army. My mother and my sister used boiled eggs, but I dropped those and added cranberries for a healthier, more festive pop. It's a standard recipe, allowing you to make any variations you like.
Ginger's Holiday Stuffing
3 boxes Jiffy cornbread, prepared
1 bunch of celery, chopped
1 onion, diced
Poultry seasoning to taste
1 can chicken or vegetable broth
1 cup whole, fresh cranberries, boiled for ten minutes in sugar water
Prepare the cornbread according to the box, allow to cool and then crumble into large bowl. Add celery and onion, mix well. Add poultry seasoning liberally until it smells as spicy as you'd like it. Boil cranberries for ten minutes in two cups of water with a tablespoon of sugar. This will reduce the tartness. Drain and add to stuffing. Add this to turkey dry, or add broth to mixture to cook by itself in a casserole dish. Bake at 350 degrees for twenty minutes or until a nice brown crust forms.
Book of the day:
For the record, the hardest series for me to write thus far has been the Fierce trilogy. It was intensely personal, where I lived through several disastrous life choices I made as a young adult all over again. I also faced my emotional eating disorder as honestly as I ever had, and that was no picnic, no pun intended. Many people wanted to slap poor Jordi repeatedly through the process as she couldn't get her self-esteem shit together. The sad truth is, Jordi is still inside of me in many, many ways. That series was therapeutic... cathartic...painful and honest. It's ugly, but I'm glad I wrote it. If just one girl can stop her own chatterbox and conquer the mountains both Jordi and I had to climb, it was worth the pain.
We were all herded into an auditorium and filed into the darkened rows just beyond the front where all the executives sat. I was relieved to see Dixie, the talk show host who had made a name for herself despite being derided in the media for her weight. She wasn’t as big as I was by any stretch, but I felt an instant camaraderie with her from the instant our eyes met when I entered the room. She gave me a big smile and a slight nod as I walked by.
Once we were seated, another larger woman with short and stylish brown hair took the stage. I recognized her immediately from one of my favorite dating shows a few years back, “Love Plus One.” She had gone onto the show with her best friend to find him a wife, but instead they found each other. Since she was the girl who “didn’t fit in” with all the babes that had been cast, I was rooting for her in particular. She lived the dream so many of us big girls had – to win the hot guy who could have had any girl he wanted… but he chose the one who dared to be different.
This boded well for my audition.
“Hello, everyone,” she greeted with a smile. “My name is Shannon McKenna. I want to thank you so much for coming. I know for many of you this was a leap of faith because you’ve been rejected by the entertainment industry. You’ve faced a lot of gatekeepers in your journey, who tell you that you don’t quite fit in. I know how that feels. Dixie,” she indicated to the media mogul in the front row, “knows how that feels. But we also know something else, something those gatekeepers don’t. It’s a lesson we learned with the success we had with ‘Love Plus One.’ The audience is ready for something different. They’ve had a decade or better seeing all the pretty, pre-packaged, homogenized celebrities take their turn through the revolving door of reality TV. They want to champion those who don’t quite fit in because inside every single one of us is a misfit who doesn’t feel good enough to sit at the cool kids’ table. That’s why it’s time for a cooler kids’ table.”
The butch biker whooped her approval, which made Shannon laugh before she went on. “Thanks to your responses to our ad, we got to review thousands of tapes of people just like you, people stopped short of their dreams because they were told they didn’t have the ‘whole package.’ And as we reviewed these auditions, one thing stood out to us over and over again. You couldn’t care less about becoming a star on our terms. You’re already stars on your own terms. You aren’t interested into being stuffed into the media machine and spit out the other side, primped and trained and styled into something mainstream and ultimately forgettable. Each one of you is here because there is something about you that we could not forget. You had that something extra, that little spark, that attitude that made you more than just some person who could sing. We invited you here today to be a part of a new show that celebrates that attitude.”
I glanced over at Milo who was sitting to my left, then Jace who was sitting to my right. We all believed that we were auditioning for a spot on Dixie’s show, a five minute spot that got our faces out on national TV and hopefully the exposure that followed.
What Shannon was proposing was almost too good to be true.
“You guys have seen reality talent shows before. You know how it works. Thousands of hopefuls get weeded down by industry executives to the types of people they think they can market and sell, then the audience gets to pick their favorite of the lot. Kind of like dating reality TV, these pre-packaged ‘stars’ often fade into the woodwork after the finale. These relationships fall apart because they were simulated and cherry-picked in the first place. People like you wouldn’t make it to the voting round because you never fit into the mold they were trying to refill time and again. Anything alternative was too much of a risk for the gatekeepers to take with their audience. But I trust my audience a little more than that. I want you on a national stage. In order to do that, I have to sell my product to my own media gatekeepers. Every single one of you is here because you offer something unique that I want to incorporate into my brand. I’m going to use your audition tapes to get support for our show, both with network support and label support to give you a career beyond the final curtain of the finale. All I’m asking from you is to show us today what you showed us on your original tapes. I want to see that same attitude that made you more than a singer. It made you a star.”
The twittering amongst the twenty or so people who sat in the auditorium flittered in my ears like the buzzing of mosquitos. She had made it sound so easy. Sing, make it to the show, become a star. But it wasn’t that easy, right? Wasn’t the viewing audience just another, even harsher gatekeeper? Who out there in conservative America would vote for any one of us?
The drag queen with the purple hair was the first to audition, which didn’t make me feel any better. “My name is Lavender Snow,” she purred into the microphone. “And baby, I’m a star.” She launched into a super sexual R&B hit song as she danced across the stage. She didn’t need lights to follow her or a band to back her up. She was a one-woman show all on her own.
I would have voted for her.
Next up was Pepper, the butch biker in her 60s, who knocked out a flawless Janis Joplin tune with all the growl and angst that only true suffering could have inspired.
These weren’t just singers. They had presence. I was starting to see what Shannon had been talking about.
And I was suddenly very self-conscious that I could even be in their midst.
While Milo went to perform his Broadway showstopper, Jace leaned toward me. “Don’t be nervous. You’ll do fine.”
“Nervous? Who’s nervous?” I managed as I bit every last fingernail to the nub.
He chuckled. “First major audition?” he asked.
I nodded, but then shook my head. “I’ve been to auditions before. It’s just this is my first real call-back.”
He nodded back. “Mine too. But look at it this way. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have something they liked. Just channel whatever it was that you did in your audition tape. That’s what made them say yes in the first place.”
The very thought made me queasy. What had I done? Was it any different than anything else I’d done? All I did was open my mouth and sing. I didn’t dance like Lavender, I couldn’t growl and deliver like Pepper.
And, as it turned out, I didn’t have an emotional backstory of triumph over tragedy like Jace. When he took the stage and introduced himself, he was asked about his leg. He gave the harrowing description of what he had gone through in Iraq as a soldier, where he nearly lost his life thanks to a roadside bomb.
He pulled a gold chain up from under his shirt. “This is my dad’s wedding ring. My mother gave it to me after he died in battle, serving in the Gulf War. I was only three at the time so I don’t even remember my dad. But I knew he was a man of honor, one who was willing to sacrifice it all for the sake of those he loved, and the principles he held dear. He was a huge reason I decided to go into the Army, and an even bigger reason that I knew I had to be ready to go to war if ever my country needed me. I kept this around my neck every single day I was in Iraq. He was my guardian angel every day of my service. I know it was because of him that I lost my leg and not my life that day.”
I saw Shannon wipe a tear away as she listened.
“After something traumatic like that happens, the initial response is to wonder ‘why me?’ You’re forced to run down a list of everything you can’t do anymore. Instead, I discovered things about myself I never would have known had I not lost the leg. It was while I was in therapy that I started to sing,” he said. “It helped take my mind off the pain. It gave me strength. If I was having a challenging day, I’d pick something powerful to sing and let it just bubble up from some hidden place inside of me. It really healed me from the inside out. That’s the power of music. In the end, I’m glad I was given this gift,” he said, before he launched into a beautiful song about how a broken road can lead you to where you are supposed to go.
There were tears in my eyes as he finished, and I was on my feet just like the execs in the front row.
Finally it was my turn. My own legs shook as I walked up to the stage. Even in this hodge-podge group, I still felt like I stood out. What could I offer? What chance did I have?
Then I thought about what Jace had said about the music, how it gives one strength and power from some hidden reservoir deep within. It had always been my saving grace, even in Iowa. When I was sad, or scared, or feeling down, music was my best and truest friend.
I had no idea what I was going to sing right up to the time I opened my mouth. I was so inspired by Jace’s story that I found myself singing the first notes of the National Anthem. It was a vocally challenging song to sing, but I just let it rip and went for it. I was either going to nail it or fail spectacularly. Either way I knew this was my chance to go big or go home. There was no one else on stage I had to worry about overshadowing with my big, booming voice; this was truly my first time to really shine. I blasted down the rafters in ways that would have made my mother scowl with disdain all the way from Iowa.
I got teary as I finished, and didn’t even realize the people in the auditorium had sprung to their feet. I had given only myself, and was encouraged and rewarded with the applause of my equally talented peers. Even in this group of budding superstars, there was room for me.
It was the first time that I felt there had been room for me anywhere. Finally I had been Jordi… and it had been enough.
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