Full-Assed Friday: Ray St. Ray, The Singing Cab Driver

You may or may not have noticed that the tag line for this blog is adventures in half-assed step parenting.

Chase McFadden called me full-assed about something a while back, and I took it for the compliment that it was. Hence my new regular feature, Full-Assed Friday.

Every Friday I’m going to share something that I consider Full-Assed. It may be funny, awesome, meaningful, or just different. I’m taking suggestions, so if you have an idea or want to be a part of it, email me at accidentalstepmom at gmail dot com.

For the first Full-Assed Friday, I’m introducing you to Ray St. Ray, the Singing Cab Driver.

When I played Chicago with the Hairspray tour, it was an extended stop, eight weeks, and I ended up having foot surgery because it was the only time in my career I could fit it in. Afterwards I was in a boot. This made the loadout interesting because in typical fashion, a blizzard began while we were loading trucks and the Teamsters made fun of me since they could see my toes poking out of the boot. They wanted to know if my toes were cold.

They were.

Weeks before the load out though, there was the Superbowl. I was at a midway point in my recovery and wasn’t supposed to walk more than a block. I needed food and this is how I found myself hailing a cab back from the Whole Foods and being greeted by Ray St. Ray.

Ray totally made my night. He was completely unexpected, entirely entertaining, sang me a song called Sugar Slut and kept me from limping back to my apartment in the boot and the snow.

I googled him a while back and found that he’s still in Chicago, is still the Singing Cab Driver, and still going strong. I contacted him via his website, and even though he doesn’t remember me (I’m pretty sure he does, he’s just not letting on) he was gracious enough to grant me this interview over email.

When you get in Ray’s cab he gets your location then introduces himself, tells what he’s about and gives you a menu of songs to choose from. He’ll sing you one (don’t be greedy).

Me: What song do your passengers choose most often?

Ray: I offer a menu of a little over 20 songs I’ve written and selected for passsengers. They fall into what I call “the four main topics of life: Love, Sex, Social significance and Other.” On any given night a surprising number of people will usually choose the same song. But it’s different each night. Sometimes a song doesn’t get picked for a month, then suddenly it’s a popular subject.

In general, however, whatever song is the last on the last list tends to be chosen more than others, probably because it’s the default for those who can’t decide. It was the last thing they remember.

Me: I read on your website, and remember from my ride, that you became The Singing Cab Driver largely to promote your band Chameleon World. Tell me about your band.

Ray: Chameleon World is “more than a band…It’s a world!”

Originally it was friends backing me up for a New Years Eve party twenty years ago. Back then it was all covers, mostly Talking Heads, and we tried to sound exactly like whoever we covered. When I started driving a cab, I started writing original songs and we started slipping them into shows.

Over the years, there were a few “incarnations of personnel”. This group I have now is the most fun and the core of us have been together for over four years. We play all original songs that I write while I drive.

Me: Do you use a voice recorder? Or do you have like a guitar with you in the cab?

I always have paper and pen in my pocket to jot down notes.

A guitar would be useless to me, since I don’t play any instruments. It’s probably just as well because I can hear a whole orchestra in my head.

I do, however keep an mp3 recorder handy to scat or whistle song ideas. I probably have ten hours of these from over the years. It’s important that I make notes like this. The songs I finish I rarely have to go back to listen to, but for every song that’s completed, I probably lost five as soon as someone opened the cab door and said “Hello.”

Me: What’s your most memorable fare?

Ray: I sang for a group of people I picked up at the Opera House. One was Renee Fleming, the opera diva. Another was John Kander, who with Fred Ebb, wrote the songs for CHICAGO and CABARET.

One of the songs from CHICAGO, All I Care About Is Love, I could pinpoint as being the genesis of my music career. Accidentally seeing it performed on TV started a chain of consequences over decades which led to my being The Singing Cab Driver.

How many artists can say they actually met and personally performed for a genuine influence?

Me: That’s fantastic. What song did Kander pick?

He didn’t. We deferred to the ladies and Renee Fleming chose a sexy number called Little Trouble. Not the best example of my writing, but it’s fast, hooky, and it was a short ride.

Me: Who tips the best and who tips the worst?

Ray: IN GENERAL: Best tippers: cool, hip people. Worst tippers: people who aren’t. Also, doctors and their wives.

Me: Do you remember me? I’m cute and blond and had a walking cast and you picked me up at Whole Foods during the 2004 “wardrobe malfunction” Superbowl. This was before I had five step kids and still had disposable income. You sang me Sugar Slut. It was appropriate.

Ray: I remember your shoes didn’t match.

Me: Ouch. Did I tip you okay?

Ray: I can’t even remember if you paid me, Judy.

Me: It’s funny, you using the wrong name like that, like you really don’t remember me. I’m memorable. Can we see the chorus to Sugar Slut, because it’s awesome.

Ray: “She’s a sugar slut! She’ll do almost anything for chocolate! She’s a sugar slut!

Chocolate gets her hot!”

Me: I will believe until the day I die that you totally wrote that for me. Do you like the X-Files?

Ray: I do, but I prefer a rival show that was on for one season called DARK SKIES.

Me: How about bacon?

Ray: I’m eating some now.

Me: Do you have any songs about bacon?

Ray: Not in the foreseeable future, present or past.

Me: Name your two favorite musical artists.

Ray: The Turtles. David Byrne.

Me: On your website people comment frequently that you’re quite the snazzy dresser, but I couldn’t really see your outfit that night, being that it was winter and you were driving a cab. What were you wearing?

Ray: A long time ago I read or heard an old salesman say: “Every day is special. Dress up for it.” I took that to heart. Even as a kid I tried not to dress like a child but like a adult man, usually guys I saw in the movies. I still dress like that.

It’s all what I call “found art”, that is to say, I bought it in thrift stores for next to nothing.

A lot of next to nothing can add up to a lot of something over a period of time. For example, I own over 1200 neckties. It’s a fact. nine years ago when I was moving I figured I might as well count them as I was packing. Lost count after 1200. Most cost less than a dollar, but still, added up, that’s some arithmetic.

A stylin’ kid of guy? Yes I am. Every day is new so every day is different. I wear the costumes of the story of my life, in which I am the eccentric hero. Might as well dress the part, right?

I have no idea what I was wearing when you rode with me, but I’m sure it was something gentlemanly, seasonally appropriate and possibly anachronistic.

You can see the variety of my outfits in my blogs.

Me: I’m genuinely bummed that I didn’t get to see your outfit. What are you wearing right now?

Ray: Avert your glance, please. Right now I’m not wearing anything.

Me: What’s your favorite comic strip no longer being published?

Ray: Alex Raymond’s FLASH GORDON daily and color strips from the thirties. Each panel is a framable masterpiece of pen and ink.

Me: What’s the greatest thing about Chicago?

Ray: Besides The Singing Cab Driver? The weather, I guess. It does demand that you pay attention to the environment and gives one a reason to own several wardrobes.

Me: “The weather” is not an answer I would have guessed, but you totally sold me on it. When’s the next Chameleon World show?

Ray: The next Chameleon World show is MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26 at HUNGRY BRAIN, 2319 Belmont, Chicago.

We will also play the CLUB LUCKY stage at 1824 W. Wabansia on SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1st at 4:00 pm as part of COYOTEFEST.

You can check out more about Chameleon World on their website.

Ever had any memorable cab rides?

Time, Out At My Boss’s House

My boss watched the kids last Sunday.

He offered.

“For fun,” he said, though at the time he made the offer we were at a going away party for a colleague and I’m not entirely sure he was sober enough to be making that kind of an offer. When it turned out that none of our sitters were available because one was in Hawaii and one was in Spain and the others were out of state (yeah, it’s killing me too) we took him up on it. He didn’t back out when we gave him the chance. In fact, he made us all breakfast when we dropped them off.

#5’s first words to him upon entering the apartment were, “I know bacon when I smell it!”

My boss has a ten-year-old Vizsla. Currently, a temporary bonus dog that belongs to the other guy who mixes my show is staying there: a ten-month-old teacup chihuahua named Vato (that’s Spanish for Dude).

Um, he’s awesome. I loves him.

Vato has a bark control collar. Instead of shocking the dog when it barks, the collar sprays the dog in the face with a refreshing burst of citronella.

If you’ve read about them here, you know that the Puggle and the Fuggle are horribly trained dogs. Or, more correctly, they have us trained very well. Barking’s a problem. We even got a ticket one time, for the barking. I’m thinking about giving the Vato collar a try, though knowing my dogs either Casey will make Jack do all the barking for both of them, or else they’ll develop a citronella habit and bite open their collars to start mainlining it.

Here was the kids’ day with my boss (who has actually known them longer than I have):

He took the kids and the main dog plus the bonus dog for a walk in Central Park, where #5 almost fell into the boat basin; #2 and #3 renamed Vato PC, for Precious Cargo; #5 asked to be carried on the walk back to the apartment, to which my boss replied that he could only be carried upside down, which #5 agreed to until the point where he started falling out of his pants because gravity was working against him; and finally they came back to the apartment where they played an epic game of Monopoly and ate Chinese food.

(#5 keeps talking about how much money my boss has. I finally figured out he’s talking about the Monopoly game, which is some modern version that appears to be adjusted for inflation and has $500,000 bills.)

Then they went to the drug store where he bought them $36 worth of candy and did his damnedest to have them eat at least $20 worth of it before I came back.

When I came to pick them up after work, #5 immediately said to me, “Don’t ever leave him in charge of me again!” I asked what had happened but it took a minute to get the story, because #5 was shifting back and forth between the little boy stubbornness of trying to appear wronged and starting to realize that what had happened was very, very funny, and my boss was literally doubled over laughing so hard he couldn’t get the words out.

While Vato was not wearing his bark control collar, #5 barked into it, and it controlled him.

It is unclear exactly whose idea this was.

As we were leaving, #5 gave my boss this parting prediction: “You’re going to be a really great parent, and a really terrible parent. Great because you’ll buy your kids lots of candy, and terrible because you’ll let them get squirted in the face.”

When you were a kid, what did you think made for a great parent? What’s your favorite thing to do with other people’s kids?

Time Out At My House

There’s very a strict boys-don’t-hit-girls rule at our house. The girls know that if they egg #5 on just to try and make him hit so that he violates the rule, they’ll get punished too.

We were in the kitchen talking about which girls at school like #5 and which girls he likes back. Apparently we picked the right one (psst… it’s Iris), because he suddenly overreacted and kicked #3 in the back of the knee, hard. I sent him to his room.

Here’s the thing about sending this kid to his room. I always forget he’s in there.

Every. Damn. Time.

I’ll send him to his room and go along about my business and start feeling really smug and productive, entirely forgetting that the productivity is solely due to not getting interrupted every ten seconds- because I sent #5 to his room. I get so productive that I lose track of time. At some point, but usually not until at least forty minutes into it, I wonder where he is.

So last week when he kicked his sister, I sent him to his room, laughed with #3 about how he actually does like Iris no matter what he says, finished making dinner, got dressed, even put on makeup (which really should have been my first clue that something was amiss because there’s never time for that), packed my bag for work and went out to the car to work on my late Easter present for the kids. More about the gift in a minute.

I had something for #5 and went to get him. He was not in the music room. Not playing video games or watching TV. Not reading on my bed.

Me: Where did he go?

#2: You sent him to his room.

Me: Oh crap! I totally forgot.

#2: Wasn’t that like, an hour ago?

Me: Ummm. . .

#2 and #4, in unison: Parenting Fail!

So I went in to #5’s room and we talked about why he got sent there in the first place. We don’t want him to ever be a man who hits a woman, hence the rule. He gets it, and knows why it’s important. He still doesn’t believe that one day he’s going to be bigger than all his sisters.

I did not own up to the fact that I had forgotten him. He can work that out in therapy later when he figures it out. Then I showed him why I was looking for him, what I had saved. And I took him outside and let him put the last one on the car.

One what, you ask?

In Kristin Lamb’s excellent book Are You There Blog? It’s Me, Writer she talks a bit about privacy and mentions that she doesn’t like the little stick people that you put on the minivan because it tells robbers exactly how many people they’re going to have to subdue when they break in, plus a hamburger full of sleeping pills for the dog. She’s totally right. There’s even an episode of Dexter where the predator gets his prey that way.

My message to robbers here is clear: