A Greene Man’s Blog

On our Alaskan cruise in June, the ship held a talent show/contest. I hemmed and hawed about joining it, but finally decided to go for it at the last minute. I chose to sing “Our Love Is Here to Stay” by George Gershwin because the band had the music, and because I had sung it on my first cruise in 1993 on Norwegian Cruise Lines (which we were traveling with again). I could pick apart my own performance, but I’m sharing it anyway for what it’s worth. Several passengers came up to me after the contest and said they thought I should have won, although the woman who won was not a singer but a fabulous flamenco dancer. Anyway, enjoy!

Here are the lyrics:

It’s very clear / Our love is here to stay / Not for a year / But ever and a day.
The radio and the telephone / And the movies that we know / May just be passing fancies / And in time may go!
But, oh my dear / Our love is here to stay / Together we’re / Going a long, long way
In time the Rockies may crumble / Gibraltar may tumble / They’re only made of clay / But our love is here to stay.

Worth waiting for: Sandra Bernhard

Originally uploaded by danielgreene.

I’m not a big event-goer, and I don’t like sitting through a lot of awards and speeches, but someone with seats to spare invited me and Andy to the AHRF (now Equality Arizona) benefit dinner starring Sandra Bernhard. Well… there were awards and speeches (most of them brief, thank God!) and it was worth the wait for “La Bernhard” as she jokingly called herself.

She may have shocked some of the people in the audience (by being a potty mouth and dissing Arizona, where she’s from but is glad she left), but I’ve enjoyed her satirical sense of humor ever since I saw her in “Without You, I’m Nothing” in 1990, and nothing she said or did last night came as much of shocker to me. I just enjoyed her, and Andy did too.

Here I am singing and signing the song “Pure Imagination” from the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, one of my favorite songs since I was a little kid.

And here are the lyrics:

Come with me / and you’ll be / in a world of pure imagination / Take a look / and you’ll see / into your imagination

We’ll begin / with a spin / traveling in a world of my creation / What we’ll see / will defy / explanation

If you want to view paradise / simply look around and view it / anything you want to, do it / want to change the world? / there’s nothing to it

There is no / life I know / to compare with pure imagination / living there / you’ll be free / if you truly wish to be