Corrections and Confusion

Corrections:

1.       Obviously he sings his own backup vocals on quite a lot of his studio songs. I have found quite a few examples of this, too many to remember and list right here.

2.       He does sing through other letters than just Ms and Ns.  He sings through his Ls and his Gs and practically any vowel, especially considering he sings the word you quite a lot.

Confusion:

Why do I love him so much? Why do I think he’s sooo cute/handsome? He is not a traditionally good looking man. And yet I find him so beautiful and pleasant to look at in so many of his iterations! I love “Baby Barry” from the late seventies. And I also adore his Parker Stevenson look from 1984. But then by the time 1998 rolls around, and he’s twenty years more mature than Baby Barry, I swoon over that 1998 version of him as well. And even at the age of 59, when he taped the “Ultimate Manilow” TV special, he still looked damn cute! And definintely did not look almost 60 and yet also had not been ruined by plastic surgery at all. And the next thing I am confused about,  why do so many other women feel exactly the same way I do?  I watch his audiences, especially on talk show appearances, and they go absolutely BANANAS for him! Why?

Anyway, it’s been 8 months now of listening to almost nothing but Barry at home, at work and in the car. The few times I put the radio on instead of a Manilow CD, I find myself scanning through all the radio stations looking for (but never finding) something from him. It turns out, the one time of year it’s possible to hear a Manilow tune on the radio, is now. Christmastime. So far I’ve heard him do Santa Claus is Coming to Town and Home for the Holidays. The Santa one, I’m not even sure why I stopped the radio from scanning when I heard a snippet. There were no vocals on the part I caught. But something must have captured my attention because I started listening to it. And when the vocals did eventually kick in, it still took me a few lines of the song to realize who was singing. But onceI finally did realize it, I was in indescribable joy.

I heard Home for the Holidays on the radio the day after listening to it for the first time on YouTube, so I recognized it and knew to stop on it, but I still got very VERY excited to be able to actually hear him on the radio!

Last Night's Dreams

Last night's dreams did not contain any Barry but they were fairly interesting and I want to jot down what I can still remember, while I can still remember it.

The first thing I remember was having a telephone conversation with our internal Help Desk support person, Natalia. I cannot remember what the phone conversation was about but it was fairly long. I became concerned that others might notice how long we were talking on the phone for, and then realized that as long as they could only hear her end of the conversation it was fine. And I remember reminding myself that I had seen her on the phone providing support to others plenty of times and that it was fine. I suspect this may have been sparked by the fact that Natalia has a blog that I sometimes read here at work. Or because of the fact that she helped me get my phone to work recently.

The next thing I remember is being in the shower with a little kid resembling the younger Jake on Two and a Half Men. It is unclear whether this boy was my child or if I was just babysitting but for whatever reason he needed a bath and it made the most sense for him to come in there with me. In the beginning he had some underwear on but eventually he was naked. I remember arguing with him that he needed to bathe and wash his hair and him being most upset over this. I want to say this was sparked by a scene I recently caught from the movie Kramer vs. Kramer when Dustin Hoffman is telling his son he needs to bathe every day and wash his hair twice a week. Eventually I got sick of arguing with him and I said "fine, you've been rinsed, get out".

Surprisingly it was the bathroom in my current house, not the house I grew up in. Oftentimes I dream about the house I grew up in, even though I have been gone from there since 1989.

The last part of the dream took place at Cam's. I had my friend Elijah over and he was spending an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom. When I went down the hall to check on him, Nick White, who we used to play cards with, was sneaking down the hall and into the back bedroom. I chased Nick down the hall and found that he was chopping up lines of cocaine for the two of them to snort! By this time, Cam's had morphed into the house I grew up in. I told Nick, well obviously I need to snort one of those and he told me that was totally understandable.

This is a little odd because it's been more than 13 years since I've touched or been interested in cocaine in any form.

Dreamed About Him Again Last Night

As usual, I can only remember scattered portions of my dream. Someone was driving me to New York City. We drove past these famous windmill/ferris wheel type things. I think this was sparked by Darren Aucoin talking last night about the two new ferris wheels they are building in Vegas, bigger even than the one in London. Someone joined us in the car, and I remarked that she did not get to go past those structures with us when we went by them. Suddenly it was my sister Laurie driving the car, and she could see the way was clear to back up all the way back to the windmill ferris wheel thingies, and so she did, so the newcomer could see them. I remarked that I wished  my camera had not broken, and that the first chance I got, I was going to buy a new one. I could see New York City out the car window and I was wondering why it was so far away, and then I realized my driver, who was no longer my sister, wanted to take me to the city via Brooklyn, so I could see the place where Barry grew up.
The next thing I remember, I was at a party, function or event of some type, not a concert (I don't think) and he was there! He was roaming around alone, talking to no one. So I grabbed the opportunity to go up to him. His back was to me and I tapped him on the shoulder. When he turned around and looked at me, I was taken aback by the bright blueness of his eyes. I couldn't believe how pretty they were in person! I told him my sad story, how my camera and my dog died on the same day last week. I told him how Chief was sitting in the driver's seat of my car and how I wanted to take a photo of him sitting there, and when I turned my camera on, it was broken. I told him that I planned to buy a new camera soon, and I hoped when I did, if I saw him again, he would pose for a picture with me. I believe he was very nice to me. That's all I can remember.

Chief Traub Citino Sterling ("Chiefy")

This is my dog, Chief.

Today is a very sad day. It may not be the worst day in my life, but it's right up there with the day my mother died, the day my father died, and the day my beloved cat Lino was put to sleep after 17 years.

Chief had a vet appointment last month and it was discovered that he had lost 10 pounds since his last visit the year before. I told the vet he had been acting hungrier than usual and drinking a bit more water than before. She asked if he had been pacing a lot, unable to get comfortable. She thought he might have cancer.

Now, when Chief shakes his head, he falls down. The first time he fell, waiting for his dinner to be served, it was funny to me because he literally fell on his face. The falling is not so funny any more.

Today I am working half a day (from ten until two) and then at 2:30, I am taking Chief to the vet to be destroyed. My heart is breaking.

We got Chief 11 years ago from my sister. They wanted a dog for their kids, but he had turned out to be a handful, chewing through her safety belts when they left him alone in the car, chewing through a second story window screen and jumping out when they left him alone in the house, and eating her vacuum hose. My sister's dog trainer told her he needed a place where someone would be home all the time, preferably with another dog and a fenced-in yard. We had all of the above at the time, so we took him for a weekend to see how he would get along with Sabrina. He stayed with us ever since.

I just don't have the words to articulate how upset I am at having to do this to my beloved pet.

Enunciation

Ok, so I've already mentioned how I love the way he sings through his notes and adds a little extra oomph at the end of some of them. I notice it's on the "N" sounds mostly that he does this. N's and M's I guess. I really love how well he enunciates his lyrics. I never have trouble understanding the words to any of the songs he sings. There's one line from one song that I had some trouble with, and that was Bandstand Boogie. I didn't know what the line was after "The Singer's Croonin" but thanks to some helpful internet poster, I have just learned the line is "He ain't the greatest but gee".

Also previously I had stated that I wished he would harmonize with himself more and I was only able to find three examples of this. Well, the more I listen, the more I realize he actually does harmonize with himself more than I thought. I was listening to a studio recording yesterday and there he was, singing with himself but of course now I cannot remember the name of the song.


It's silly, really. I listen to him all morning through my computer until it's time to get ready for work. Then I listen to him in my car for the whole commute in to work. Then I get to work and start listening to him through my computer between calls. And then when I get home from work or poker, I listen to him all night while playing Bejeweled or some other silly Facebook game, until it's time to go to bed. I often wake up with one of his songs playing in my head, not necessarily the last one I listened to before going to sleep.

I keep wondering if and when this will end but so far it's barely shown signs of slowing down. In fact, as I said in one of my earlier posts, I am still searching YouTube for videos of recent performances and the folks who went to see him at the Greek Theater earlier this week (right before his birthday) have not let me down!

Regrets

Today, in honor of The Man's 70th birthday, I will list out my regrets.
I regret abandoning him when I did, and waiting so long to come back.

I regret not seeing him Live when he was bringing people up to sing Can't Smile Without You.

I regret not making a sign to get picked.
I regret not being able to sing with him, and hug and kiss him like so many lucky fans got to do.

I regret not following his career more closely through the years.

I regret not going to see him Live sooner, like last year when he was doing "If I Should Love Again" (Thank God his fans captured a few of these performances on video for me to enjoy!)

I know there are more but I guess that's it for now.

Why doesn't he ever sing Daybreak??!?

Finally Dreamed About Him

With all of the audio and visual input this past month or so, I was surprised I wasn't dreaming about Barry every night. But last night I did. I dreamed he was my boyfriend, and we were making out before one of his shows. Then we were at a party, and he was performing. I went looking for him during his break, expecting him to be outside smoking, and then I realized the performer would probably be given a different place to smoke, so as not to have to smoke with us little people. In an earlier part of the dream, I had called my friend Lynn to see if she wanted to come see him perform with me. She wouldn't say his name on the phone. She said, "Oh yes, I would like to go see 'that person' with you" or something along those lines and when I saw her in person I asked her why she said it like that, she said she had a friend over who could hear her side of the conversation and she was concerned about what this friend would think if she admitted she liked Barry Manilow.
I really can't remember much of it but I am glad I dreamed about him! It was fun being his girlfriend and kissing him.

Remorse

Ok, so I feel pretty bad about a couple of things I said in my last post. First, the Daffy-Duckishness of Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word. It's true, it makes me love him more. His lisp and his scar, for some reason, are two of my favorite things about him! I've always had a soft spot in my heart for people who have a lisp or a stutter. I don't know why!

And the thing about Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head. I felt bad that I said I couldn't listen to it all the way through. It is his laughing that bothered me, it sounded so fake. I went back and forced myself to listen to it all the way through, and it's really not that bad, except for the laughing.

I love him so much and I hate to be critical! The good definitely outweighs the bad. But I wouldn't be being authentic if I didn't mention the negative along with all of the glowing and wonderful things I have to say about the man and his enormous talent.

What else? More about The Man

Well, at times I feel like this Fanilow phase may be dwindling and other times, I feel like it could go on forever. Right now I feel like talking about a few of his cover songs.

First, to get it out of the way, I will say the negative stuff. I don't like his cover version of Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head. In fact, I couldn't even listen to it all the way through. I like his version of Love Me Tender, but I like Elvis Presley's much more. And I enjoy his versions of Close to You and We've Only Just Begun but I have to say I prefer Karen Carpenter's versions, the former because I like her voice better, and the latter because his version lacks backing vocals;. He definitely could harmonize with himself more on these studio albums.

But the ones I love, and can't stop listening to, are "And I Love Her" by the Beatles and "Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word" by Elton John. I've always loved the original (or what I assume to be the original) versions of these two, but I absolutely adore listening to the way Barry sings them. He puts so much feeling into them! And they both include the word "do" which for some reason I just love listening to him sing. Certain words I just love hearing him sing, or say. I love the way he says "because". I love the way he sings through his notes, and gives an extra little oomph at the end of some of them. He really seems to be present and giving his all 100% of the time.

I've listened to him sing Bridge Over Troubled Water, Arthur's Theme and Sailing and these are alright versions of these songs. I can't say I'm nutso for them the way I am for the two listed above. But so far I really haven't gotten sick of watching him and listening to him sing, and I haven't run out of new tracks to listen to, which makes me really happy. Certain videos I feel like I could just keep on watching repeatedly, like Even Now at the NEC in 1984 with his hair making him look like Parker Stevenson, and Weekend in New England at the Greek when two fans yell "One More Time" after he's poured his heart and soul into it and ends up dripping with sweat needing to take a short breather. The look on his face when he realizes what they said, and his response, is priceless.

One thing I cannot stand is when he lipsyncs. It's noticeable in at least one of his early TV appearances but it's absolutely blatant on the (fairly recent, from the looks of him) QVC appearance and I was just disgusted. It's just such a turn off and I don't understand why he even bothers lip syncing, just put on the record and sit there and we'll all listen to it!

But I guess that's all I have to say about it for now. I need to go to sleep soon but I want to listen to Sorry at least one more time. He sounds a little like Daffy Duck with all the S words in this song, but that just makes me love him more.

Barry Singing with Himself

So far, my favorite thing to listen to has been when Barry Manilow sings with his own self. So far I have come across three examples of this: The current way he is playing Mandy/Could it be Magic with his youthful self as he appeared on the Dick Clark show many years ago, and on two of his songs: One Voice and Nevertheless. I've listened to one particular section of his rendition of Nevertheless countless times, trying to confirm that's actually his voice singing the low part. I just find it hard to believe that his voice can actually go this low, unless maybe it's being aided by some sort of machine. It says in the liner notes, All Vocals: Barry Manilow but he has been known to pretend to tap dance and to pretend to play clarinet and saxophone, so maybe he is just pretending to sing that low part. It's just so low! Is that really him singing?

More About Barry

Ok so my first and second Barry Mani-shows are behind me and I can't wait to see him again! I've been devouring everything I can get my hands on for these last (what?) 4 weeks or so (?) as follows:

First I went to the library to see if they had any DVDs of him. I knew there was this Ultimate Manilow DVD on Amazon for just under thirty bucks but wasn't sure if I was ready to commit to that or not. I couldn't find any DVDs but did take out a CD of him singing a bunch of Sinatra songs, since that was all I could find. I've never been a fan of Frank Sinatra but I was willing to hear Barry's take on his music. I may end up writing a review of that one for Amazon; it's awesome, as is he.

I gave up on the library and started looking in stores for stuff. I ended up at Best Buy after Target and Walmart both turned up empty. Best Buy had the CD version of this Ultimate Manilow I referenced above for $9.99. I had watched enough of this on YouTube to know I would enjoy listening to it, but what I really wanted was the DVD. I searched all of their concert DVDs and even checked their computer and they just didn't seem to have it. The other CD offering, "The Essential Manilow" had 2 discs with 17 songs on each, and cost $13.99. I realized in the early stages of this re-discovery phase that I would rather hear the original songs than the version he sang for that TV special, so I bought the more expensive CD and haven't regretted it since. It's a wonderful double disc set.

So I haven't listened to the radio in my car for the last 4 weeks because all I want to listen to is Barry, and they just don't play him on the radio. I'm not sick of any of the CDs yet and actually considered renewing the Sinatra one when it was coming due, but in the end I just returned it and scoured the shelves for another one, and ended up with the Greatest Love Songs of All Time, which is good because I've been looking for his version of Love Me Tender on YouTube and so far have been unable to find it.

In the meantime I've also read his book, "Sweet Life (Adventures on the Way to Paradise)", that was published in 1987. I've been watching interviews, reading articles and interviews and listening to his songs on YouTube in every minute of my spare time. I love the old ones, the recent ones, and all the ones in between.

I've been checking his tour schedule so I know what to enter for search terms when seeking the latest concert videos. I love watching other people's concert footage as much as I love watching my own. It doesn't bother me hearing him tell the same jokes and stories, and singing the same songs in the same order, over and over again. I keep watching him sing to Jenny McCarthy on Donny and Marie and singing Strangers in the Night with bronchitis and Rosie O'Donnell. Every now and again I get a hankering to watch him sing "Can't Smile Without You" with some lucky audience member, and there are plenty of these posted on YouTube so I can see a different one any time I feel like it.

Anyway, what I really came here to write about tonight were my observations over this time watching all of these videos. First of all, he is (or has been) a smoker. I read in an article that he had smoked for 30 years, given it up, started back up again when he was in Vegas, and ended up smoking electronic cigarettes and wanting to quit. It's also mentioned in his book, and there is at least one video on YouTube where he reaches into his breast pocket during a break as though he's getting ready to light one up. Of course this made me love him more! No wonder he battles bronchitis. He shouldn't be a smoker and a singer! But then I wonder if that's where he gets the raspiness I love so much?

The other thing I've noticed is Barry is a bit of a potty mouth! Obviously it's completely in control, but he's let enough slip that it makes me believe that when he's not on stage or in public, he probably lets the swear words fly! This is what makes me say that: There's one clip where he's asking people in the front row how many shows they've been to. Someone gives a number like 145 or thereabouts and he gasps and says Holy Shit! It's not the first time I've heard him say shit, but I can't give another specific example. There's an outtake from American Idol where the young contestant walks up to the piano player thinking he's Barry and Barry mutters after she leaves the room, "it's just so fucking depressing" which they not only bleeped out but even covered his mouth with an American Idol logo but you can still tell that's definitely what he said (and it was hilarious!). Just yesterday I found one from 1998 where he's telling his Manchester audience how he was able to say tits on the Parkinson show and he goes off on a bit of a rampage spewing "tits" and "penis" repeatedly in various sentences. He also mentions his ass at least once. It's adorable. Just the look on his face and the way he covers his mouth, his hand gestures and facial expressions, I could watch him over and over in this four minute clip.

I love that I live in a world where I can seek this stuff out and keep finding it. He's a very guarded individual and has blatantly stated that people don't know him, can't know him from his singing and his concerts and he's right, we can't. We don't know him. But I feel like I am learning more about him, and so far everything new I've learned, I've liked.

Only one negative comment has been made to me, although I know there are all kinds of horrible rumors swirling around the internet, but the one thing I've heard in person was that he would cancel his shows in Vegas if the venue had sold less than two thirds.of the tickets. Who knows if it's true. Maybe he had bronchitis, which was the reason his last three shows in Texas had to be postponed. I'm really happy I saw him when I did, who knows how much longer he'll go on, but I am also happy I didn't take time off from work and spend money flying to Texas to chase him around. Not that I ever seriously considered it but imagine if I had, and he postponed? I'd be bullshit!

Gerry and Barry

I haven't written in a long time. I got the urge to write tonight about my feelings for Barry Manilow. I'm surprised I didn't feel compelled to come here and make a post this time last year when I was freaking out about Gerry Polci. The way I'm acting now with Barry Manilow music and videos is a lot like how I was last year with Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. For a while there, I just couldn't get enough! Last year I went to see the Hit Men in concert every chance I got, because I wanted to watch Gerry play drums and hear him sing.
One week from tonight, I am going to see Barry Manilow perform at Mohegan Sun. I was an enormous Fanilow back when I was about 10, before the term even existed. I listened to his records constantly and watched him on TV every chance I got. Well, that little ten year old had no internet, and no concept of how a grown up human being might possibly be lucky enough to swing tickets to see a performer like him live, in person. Now, 36 years later, I am indulging that little ten year old still inside me with all of the clips on YouTube I can find. And in a week, her dream of seeing him perform will be realized.
Granted, he's close to 70 years old. Not quite as cute as he used to be. But enough fans have posted enough clips of him on tour the last week or ten days, and he still can belt out the songs, and still seems to be as motivated as ever to give his fans their money's worth. I'm really looking forward to the show.