Whenever I drive to a poker tournament, I sing REEEALLY LOUD in the car. It’s a ritual. It neither brings me luck nor does it cause the opposite. I just do.

Which reminds me…

When I was 8 years old, I finally made my stage debut.

Camp Wahanowin 1967, it was already my third year spending two months at overnight camp. (Don’t ask. I know, someone should’ve called Children’s Aid on my parents). I’d auditioned for the  camp plays before with calamitous results, so I was excited to win the part. This was my first time actually getting a line in the play. A singing line no less. The play was “Oliver”, and I was one of the orphan boys. The song was “Food, Glorious Food”. Here’s the stanza if you want to sing along.

Food, glorious food!

Hot sausage and mustard!

While we’re in the mood —

Cold jelly and custard!

Peas, pudding and saveloys!

What next is the question?

Rich gentlemen have it, boys —

In-di-gestion!

That was my line, right there, third from the bottom.

What next is the question?

It’s a very important line. I mean really, if I don’t say that line, the song is effectively over, right? If I don’t create that continuum, if there are no other questions, why would anyone bother finishing the song?

Plus, it marries one of the great rhymes in all of lyrical history as songwriter Lionel Bart managed to pair “question” with “indigestion” (only to be usurped decades later when BIGGIE shamelessly rhymed “Thriller in Manilla” with “condom filler”)

The point is I had a singing part. A solo, if you will, albeit a one-line solo, but still.

I fuckin’ nailed it.

I mean, I didn’t bring the house down exactly, but that wasn’t my job, was it? My job was to blend and, if I do say so myself, my crackly prepubescent voice melded beautifully with the other nascent warblers, and the production went off without a hitch to rave reviews. And I contributed.

Which is why I am mystified to this day how completely tone deaf I turned out.

I love to sing. Alone. In the car. With the roof closed and the windows rolled up. Out of town.

It’s that bad. It really is, you have to trust me on this. It’s not just bad singing. It’s the sound a piece of chalk would make on a chalkboard if the piece of chalk was having an MRI at the same time.

It’s funny because when I sing in my head I sound just like Lou Rawls. I’m a smooth silky baritone. But then it comes out of my head, and it sounds like a forest creature being tortured with a standing mixer.

Anyway, I’m in South Florida. I’ve rented a silver Mercedes SLK 2-seater convertible to get me around. And later this afternoon, I’ll be headed to The Hard Rock for a little tourney, voice-ablarin’. I’ll let you know how it goes.