This was a song I worked on translating with my then mentor, Jean Kelly, in 1994, and I performed it as the finale to a one-man show I put on San Diego in 1995. I was only 28 then! If you can’t tell, I sang & signed this song simultaneously– a hard feat because what I was signing was not the same as what I was singing. I signed it as ASL as I could while singing English. Do you like it? Leave a comment to let me know what you think. Or, if you would sign it differently, post a video response.

By the way, looking back I can see that I took this song too slow, and my singing and signing were a bit over-the-top. Oh, well!

P.S. “Over the Rainbow” was composed by Harold Arlan with lyrics by E. Y. Harburg. It is from the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz, and it was sung by Judy Garland in the role of Dorothy. Judy Garland was known for "Over the Rainbow" her whole life. My piano accompanist on this song was James Bianchi.

One of my favorite songs for one of my favorite months: “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over” from the Broadway musical Carousel– music by Richard Rogers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. Have a great June!

I’m working on overcoming my classical training to sing the way I talk. Here I’m talking about and showing the difference between my “standardized” voice and my “individualized” voice, using the song Chasing Cars to give examples. What do you think?

This is a creative interpretation of The Birthday Song sung in English while signed in ASL (American Sign Language). It is more a compilation of different ways people sign Happy Birthday in ASL than it is an answer to “how do you sign Happy Birthday in ASL?” It is difficult to sing these words and produce these signs at the same time, because the signs do not match the words verbatim— it’s like trying to rub your belly and pat your head at the same time.

I chose these sign couplets with similar handshapes to create sign rhymes; for example, the line CAN’T-WAIT ARRIVE-BIRTHDAY BABY YOU uses the B handshape for all four signs, the line CONDUCT-SONG-BIRTHDAY, TUG-EAR-BIRTHDAY uses the “Closed X” handshape for both signs, the line THRILLED BIRTHDAY uses the “Open 8″ handshape for both signs, and the line HAPPY BIRTH DAY TO YOU uses the 1 handshape twice and the B handshape thrice. I saved the “regular” signs for last, as the last two lines are the two most popular ways to sign Happy Birthday.

I thank the deaf people from other regions from whom I learned the signs CONDUCT-SONG-BIRTHDAY and EAR-TUG-BIRTHDAY, and I thank YouTuber hippiesordo for the line “YOU BORN TODAY, WOO-HOO.” This song is dedicated to my ASL interpreter friend Paul on whose birthday I made this video.

I put on a one–man cabaret concert in 1996. This is one of the songs I sang— “Try To Remember” from The Fantasticks, lyrics by Tom Jones & music by David Schmidt. This performance was held at A Better Worlde Galleria in the Mission Hills neighborhood of San Diego, California in 1996. My pianist was James Bianchi.

My mom, Jonni Greene, is here to visit me for the holidays, and I thought it would be great fun to sing a few songs together. So, here we are singing The Christmas Waltz, The Christmas Song, and Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. It was wonderful to share the love of music — and each other — with my mother this evening! And it’s neat that we can share it with the world as well.

Here’s me being, well, me! I had just got an HD mini camcorder so I could record videos in HD and fill up those widescreen video frames on YouTube, Facebook, and Flickr, and here I was singing a song off the top of my head, just playing around and trying it out.

I had intended to do a more rehearsed video that told people I was moving to HD. I had never intended this silly, off-the-cuff home movie for the public, but then I thought, “There’s no substitute for spontaneity!” and decided to go for it and post this one.

Enjoy the silliness– now in HD and CC!

This is my singing & signing contribution to the celebration of what would be John Lennon’s 70th birthday. Upon deaf YouTube friend mkrajnak‘s suggestion, I sang the soundtrack and did an ASL interpretation over it so that the grammar and rhythm of the signing would be more natural than if I sang and signed at the same time.

“Imagine” music & lyrics by John Lennon

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today…

Imagine there’s no country
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possession
I wonder if we can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

When I was twenty years old, I made up a couple of outgoing greetings for my answering machine based on an old TV show theme song and a showtune from Bye Bye Birdie. The TV show theme song was from I Love Lucy and the song from Bye Bye Birdie was “Talk to Me” which is originally sung from a telephone booth. Anyway, I created these outgoing greetings and I left them on my answering machine for a little while, and then I felt sort of silly about them and afraid of what people might think, so I took them off. But now here we are in the Age of YouTube, and it’s—gosh—almost twenty-five years later, and I figured, “Why not? Just for fun, share them with the world.” So, here are my silly outgoing greeting songs that I created in 1988. Hope you enjoy!

Talk to me. Don’t hang up. Please talk to me.
I don’t care what you say. Talk to me.
Leave your name and telephone—
Gratefully, when I come home,
I will listen very near.
Then I’ll call you, dear.
Talk to me. Leave a message. Talk to me!
And I’ll get back to you— talk to me.

This is Daniel, and I’m not home.
If I were, I’d pick up the phone.
Just leave your name and a message—
I’ll call you before you can rhyme “message.”
Keep it simple and not too long.
If you’d like, you can sing a song!
Just leave your name and number,
And then, you have yourself a wonderful day!
Ba-ba-ba Ba-ba-ba-Ba-ba-bah Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-bah!

Original music for “Talk to Me” written by Charles Strouse with lyrics by Lee Adams; new lyrics by Daniel Greene.
Original music for I Love Lucy theme song written by Eliot Daniel; new lyrics by Daniel Greene.

You may have heard the jazz standard “My Satin Doll” written by Johnny Mercer, Duke Ellington, and Billy Strayhorn. Well, I learned that song when I was in high school and I attended the Fullerton Jazz Festival music contest— singing contest. It was adjudicated, and we got to go up there are do our stuff and get some feedback from the adjudicators. Well, I remember when I learned that song it just struck me as a little odd, like why would you call her your satin doll, and why would she speak Latin?

Well, a few years went by, and I learned a little bit more about the Jazz Age, and Harlem, and the different people that hung out there, and some of the lingo. And it really struck me that maybe the song was originally written “My Latin Doll.” Meaning, like, my “Latina” doll. Because if you think about the lyrics, there’s all kinds of Spanish in there, like “careful amigo, you’re flippin’” and, uh… “doin’ my rhumbas with uno.” So there’s at least three “Latin”—Spanish—words in there. And think about it— who “speaks” Latin, anyway? I mean, maybe people read Latin, or they can write Latin (or sing or recite Latin), but Latin’s a dead language. Nobody really “speaks” Latin. And even if there are some academicians that meet at, like, some special conference once a year and maybe they speak a little Latin with each other? Eh, I’m not buyin’ it. I don’t see how that’s a sexy thing, that “I’m going out with this girl who speaks Latin.” Okay?

So, at the risk of questioning the lyrics of the great songwriters, I just want to sing it the way it makes sense to me. Think about it. I would love to hear your comments, and I would love it if anyone knew any historical facts about this song and if there were some way to know what the intention was originally. ‘Cause I’m wondering if there was a little political correctness going on where they had to change it from what it originally was.

Anyway, here’s the way it makes sense to me:

Cigarette holder
Which wigs me
Over her shoulder
She digs me
Out cattin’ that Latin doll

Baby shall we go
Out skippin’?
Careful amigo, you’re flippin’
Wears satin, that Latin doll

She’s nobody’s fool so I’m playing it cool as can be
I’ll give it a whirl but I ain’t for no girl catching me

Switcheroonie!

Telephone numbers
Well you know
Doing my rhumbas
With uno
And that’n my Latin doll
And that’n my Latin doll
Wears satin, my Latin doll