Madonna, Eartha and Me

Our bass, Memo, finally made it to last night's choir rehearsal and I was impressed with his nice rich deep voice. Of course, our two tenors were absent. We have yet to see the entire chorus turn up for practice. "Will they all appear when we're performing, or not?" Lolita frets.

Two other bits of good news: Memo's daughter is getting married in the church Dec. 20 and we're the music. I get to take part in a Mexican wedding! I'll be sure to take lots of pix.

And I have a solo. Lolita has decided that after we sing "Adeste Fideles" in Latin, I will do it in English and she'll sing it in German. We'll knock their socks off!

One thing has me a little worried: because my fellow alto knows the songs so well, I lean toward her, following her lead which works fine when we're sitting side-by-side in Lolita's living room. But we stand to perform, and I picture myself listing at a 45-degree angle as I try to hear her notes. I'm 5'7" and she's only about 4'5". In fact, everyone calls her "Chorty."

The secular Christmas song I'm learning just for fun is "Santa Baby." Eartha Kitt, Madonna and Kylie Minogue have done it, now it's my turn. A perfect parody of the concept of "gimme" that is the American Christmas. They'll love it at the Captain's Club.

Here's the Les Paul Trio with their rewritten "Santa Baby," musicians' version..."Slip a Gibson under the tree for me..."