Voice Lesson at Hooters

My voice teacher is crazy.  I mean that in the most affection way possible, obviously, but there it is.  And I have proof of this fact.  How else could I schedule a voice lesson that ultimately led me to be hiding in the back corner of a Hooters while trying to say goodnight to my daughter on the phone?  But I should start at the beginning.

Nark, my voice teacher of almost 3 years now, was very excited that was going to be in New York for 5 weeks, because it means that I can have a lot of lessons to make up for those months when I was in Vermont and had none.  I called him to set up a time to come over and work on my audition rep with him, and he suggested that afterwards I stay and he would make dinner.  Since no singer on the planet can resist the siren call of free food, I readily agreed.

After my lesson, Nark told me that we were going on a walk first.  And when Nark goes on a walk, he goes on a walk.  You measure these walks in the hours, not the minutes, but since we are both trying to be healthy and fit, I agreed to it.  We walked all over central park for about an hour and a half, and suddenly realized that we were starving.  And so Nark led me to one of his favorite diners, and promised to make dinner for me another night.  Does a bacon cheeseburger and a chocolate milkshake cancel out 90 minutes of walking?  I hope not…

So then Nark asks me to come sing for a group voice class that he runs at his apartment on Saturday afternoons.  I said that I would do it, and he said that we could do another walk and then he would make me that dinner that he owed me.  Well, I told him that no way in heck was I going on another crazy walk, especially as I had already gone on my own crazy walk earlier in the day.  Finally I agreed that we would walk down to Lincoln Center and back (about a 50 minute round trip walk) in order to buy advance tickets to see The Avengers in a few weeks.  They are already selling out; get your tickets now folks!

Anyway, we get to the theater, buy our tickets, and, wouldn’t you know it, we are hungry again.  “I know!” says Nark.  “Hooters!”  Now, I don’t have time to explain to you in this paragraph just how non-into women my voice teacher is, but suffice it to say that he was excited about the wings, not the boobs.  I told him that he was going to have to explain to my wife why I was going to Hooters with my gay voice teacher, but he was not to be deterred.  He is on a low-carb, high protein diet, and the wings were summoning him.

Well, we found the Hooters (he knew exactly where it was…) and went in, ready for kitsch and camp.  And wings.  And boobs.  And we found it all.  I was doing okay, until my five-year-old daughter called to say goodnight to me.  Not that she knew where I was, or what a Hooter was anyway, but suddenly I felt a little uncomfortable.  So much so, in fact, that I jumped up out of my seat and ran out the door into the street.  I mean, come on, it was pretty loud in there; I had to find a quieter place to talk!

So I said goodnight to Ruby while Nark took pictures of the Hooters menu, put them on Facebook, and tagged me in a long series of Hooters-related posts, just so everyone I know would know what was going on.   Maybe I shouldn’t have felt weird about being there; the family at the table next to us brought their 7-year-old.  I guess it’s a family restaurant.

Actually, the wings were pretty good, and my feet were happy to have the break before we walked back to Nark’s apartment.  But he still owes me a dinner.  Maybe we’ll try again tonight.  I hope it actually happens though, because him making me dinner all the time is getting expensive.