Clench Your Hoo Hoo

Calvin is a large man with a big voice. When we arrive he is still moving himself from his wheelchair to the piano seat and we stand outside looking at the suburban streets of Van Nuys whilst he gets himself settled.

'Come in y'all,' he calls through the window.

He has a shock of white hair and a slightly curly beard. His eyes are bright blue and mischievous.

'And what brings you here today?'

'Stephen thought I'd enjoy a lesson with you.'

'Have you had any other training?'

'Does karaoke count?'

'Ha, no. But how lovely.'

He tells me his story from humble beginnings at William And Mary to his good friend Glenn Close convincing him to head to NYC and be in a play. He's worked with a lot of people. He drops a lot of names. He sings for me and he is magnificent.

'Okay let's do some scales and see what your range is.'

We start low and stop when I am screaming like an angry cat.

'Wow you have a really low voice, you're in Elaine Stritch territory there.'

'So what am I?'

'An Alto. You can sing in the soprano range but it's not your happy place.'

He wants to push me up a little higher and I just panic and squawk.

'You can't worry about sounding terrible, you have to open your head and throw the sound forward. When you're approaching the highest note clench your Hoo Hoo.'

'Clench my what now?'

'Your Hoo Hoo.'

'Oh my God.'

He has a deep rumbling laugh.

He's talking about technique and cites Alison Jiear as an example. But he pronounces her name 'Jeeer'.

'It's Jy -Ahhhh,' I say.

'Oh you've heard of her?'

'Heard of her? I've been goosed by her. Richard always uses her to try out new material.'

'Richard?'

'Richard Thomas the composer.'

There's a seconds silence before he explodes.

'OH MY GOODNESS I LOVE HIM! I LOVVVVEEEE JERRY SPRINGER THE OPERA!!!!'

I've just name dropped one of my best friends. I feel no remorse what so ever.

After a ten minute interlude in which he tells me how many times he's tried to get the rights to put on Jerry in LA we get back to the lesson.

'I think Bette Midler will suit you real well and I have a particularly beautiful song you're going to learn right now. It's called “Hello in there”, do you know it?'

'I don't.'

By the time Stephen comes to fetch me we are bellowing the song out together and I can't help but grab hold of his head and kiss him.

'That was SO much fun. Thank you!'

'Oh my pleasure. You have a nice voice, darlin'. If you're ever back in LA do come by again.'

He gives me his card.

Stephen has brought me a bottle of water - 'I drank half of it though' and a brownie.

I clamber in to the car.

'I can't help but notice you didn't open the car door for me. You're dropping the ball.' I sniff.

'It's the least you can do. You are destroying me.'

'Fine.'

Lips has to entertain clients in the evening so Stephen and I make plans to see a movie at The Grove, grab a burger and go and support Gasparin at the showing of the second episode of Ellen's Design Challenge.

We are getting over the hedonistic weekend, actively not drinking and trying to hold our shit together.

'Stephen can I just suggest that whatever film we see tonight, it should be light and fluffy. Nothing too dark.'

'No shit Sherlock. That's the most profound thing you've said all week.'

A couple of hours later I'm sat by the pool pretending to be a writer when Stephen pops his head out with the cinema listings.

'Paddington is on.'

'Absolutely not.'

'Or there's some Jennifer Lopez thing that fits with our time frame.'

'That'll do.'

We drive to the The Grove and park right by the door.

'That never happens,' Stephen beams. 'Good job!'

Armed with popcorn we head in to the cinema screen. It's practically empty. We find our seats which are right next to a man sat on his own. As there are only six other people in there it would be creepy to sit right next to a stranger, for all concerned.

'Those are our seats,' Stephen says. 'But we'll just use the row behind.'

The big tightly wound looking man pulls out his ticket.

'No this is my seat.'

'No, it's fine,' Stephen says. 'We'll just sit behind you cos...'

The lights are dimming and the man has misunderstood us but it's empty, who cares.

We sit. The man gets up walks to the end of the line, checks the row letter and comes back.

'What's your seat number?'

'It doesn't matter,' I say. 'It's just we would have been sat right - '

'Cos this is my seat. I'm in the right seat.'

'Yeah, it's fine. The place is empty,' I say.

'I'm in the right seat. Maybe YOU got it wrong.'

He sits and continues to mutter.

My rational mind tells me to ignore him. The still slightly fragile from the weekend part of me thinks there's a good chance we're going to get stabbed. I glance at Stephen who is blissfully ignorant of the imminent danger, munching on his popcorn.

'So what's this film about?' I whisper.

'No idea,' Stephen mumbles happily through a mouthful.

'What's it called?'

'The boy next door.'

'Oh, sounds sweet.' Maybe it's a rom com.

A woman sat on her own in the row in front of scary dude is talking quietly on her phone.

He stands walks over and tells her to get off the phone of get out of the god damn cinema.

Stephen is engrossed in a trailer and misses it.

Well, as long as I can outrun him I'll be okay. There is no way I can outrun Stephen but I have the advantage of knowing there's a chance I will have to so I'm in with a fighting chance.

The film is not a rom com.

It's a violent graphic thriller about a 19 year old boy who stalks Lopez and kills everyone she loves.
spoiler alert

She kills him in the end by stabbing him in the eye with an epi pen then gouging his eye out, dropping a ton of concrete on him and leaving him in a burning barn.

These stalkers never go down easy.

Poor Glenn, all she wanted was to be loved. Poor rabbit, all he wanted was not to be boiled alive.

No one wins in these situations.

The credits roll and I remove my bag from my head and turn to Stephen.

'What part of “light and fluffy” did you not fucking understand?'

Stephen giggles.

'That was crap. Let's get our burger on.'

As we leave we see the scary dude standing aggressively in front of one of the staff shouting:

'It is NOT OKAY to use a phone in the cinema!'

The woman on the receiving end of his wrath is also there.

'You're a fucking psycho!' She says and stomps off. Bold move.

We go for burgers at the Short Order and mine is messy and falls apart and I'm covered in sauce.

'Good job this isn't a first date,' I say.

'Yeah, it would have been a last date too. You missed a bit.' He indicates my entire face.

Vegas

We're pissing around in a tourist shop when a text from Lips comes through:

“Tom Ford is sat in the next booth. He looks immaculate.”
I'm trying on a variety of comedy roadkill hats. Stephen takes a picture of me with a skunk on my head and texts back:

“You're with Tom Ford. I'm with this.”

We stand and stare at a water fountain for a leeetle bit too long.

'Wow, it's just like Vegas,' Stephen says with absolutely no inflection.

He tells me a fabulous story about his “crazy” cousin.

'The whole family were heading to his wedding. We're all dressed up, hats an' ev-ery-thang and as we're walking up the path to the church we see him on the roof, absolutely hammered in his morning suit with a bottle in one hand. He hollers down to us: Good news an' bad news! Bad news, the wedding is OFF! Good news, the Partaaaaaay is ONNNNNN!'

We go and meet Gasparin and his friends and watch the second instalment. Gasparin made a lovely side table and we all clap.

'Your game face is slipping,' Stephen points out.

It's time to head home.

I climb in to bed with a copy of Valley Of The Dolls. The cover is a close up photo of a bubblegum pink glittery mouth, the teeth biting down gently on a pill.

This is going to be good, I think. And promptly pass out.