Love, Danny

I am working on the song, “Who I’d Be,” from Shrek for my presumed callback. They will be auditioning through Friday and Callbacks are Saturday, which means we will be notified Friday night. Zero time for preparation. So I am preparing now (and all day yesterday) for that “presumed” callback.

The syncopated rhythms are actually really tricky, so I am speak-counting the notes-tick-a-tick-a for the four sixteenth notes so I can line everything up. I would be singing with a click track, so in order to stay in sync I need to know the timing perfectly. I drilled for two hours yesterday and already another hour today.

Shrek’s begrudged talking-donkey-partner asks him, "if you could be anyone you wanted, who would you be?” The song begins conversationally with light orchestration, intimate, sparse: a single sustained violin note with a two note chord on electric piano, only twice per bar (and without a live accompanist following me, I need to have the tempo ingrained in me and silent beats happening in my head in order to hit the timing of those chords). Shrek says, “I guess I’d be a hero.” I guess? What an understatement, right? One doesn’t just, meh, be a hero. It is an all or nothing, do or die thing. You get the idea that either he’s not serious or this is just the visible tip of an enormous iceberg. You can probably guess which. He goes on to imagine looking semi-dashing with a sword and armor, then maybe living a life of adventure as a Viking.

Then the texture begins to grow a bit—more movement, a little rhythm with another note from the electric piano and adding an oboe. There is an ascending harmonic progression and Shrek’s voice and Melody bloom and ascend into longer notes as he says, “I’d feel the wind, I’d taste the salt and sea and maybe storm some beaches.” Oh yes, this is not casual. Shrek’s heart is beginning to open up and reveal buried desires.

He goes on with more examples of “who I’d be.” But then the orchestration scales back again as he says, “But we all learn.” And I am reminded of the dreams I had as a child and in college before I became a cog in a corporate machine. And I wonder how many billions of dreams linger in souls throughout the world only as icebergs beneath the visible tip of the life most of us live because—”we all learn.”

Now the orchestration is back to the sparse beginning as Shrek explains that an ogre always hides. An ogre’s fate is known. An ogre always stays in the dark and all alone. But “alone” grows with anger. Drums begin, there are trumpets as Shrek holds his highest note so far for two full bars. The tension is revealed and the rhythm becomes driving as Shrek defiantly exclaims, “so yes, I’d be a hero!” And the song strides confidently as Shrek tells the story of scaling a tower, defeating a monster and rescuing the princess. Something in my soul cries out with this, and I think it lingers at some depth in every man’s soul—the deep longing to do something extraordinary—to pursue the dream, to pursue the lady, to be the hero!

And I am sobbing. Absolutely overcome with emotion. Consumed by a song? Or is the song consumed with me? It is a window into the universe of the soul, truth, humanity. This is art. This is why I am here.

“A perfect happy ending; that’s how it should be!” The song climaxes with a massive swell in the orchestra as Shrek holds his last note for three full bars plus a fermata.

I sing to connect with people where the soul lives. Pray with me that I get this role and this opportunity to connect. Maybe someone will be reminded of a dream they once had, and take a step toward pursuing an extraordinary, heroic life.

Thanks to Ani Beeler, my editor. Months ago she asked, “how did this make you feel? Bring us in! Let us feel what you feel!” When I was overcome with emotion, being consumed by this song, I remembered those words, Ani, so here it is!

Love, Danny

​The following doesn’t mean I’m the best fit for the what the director has in mind for the role but, this is what she had to say…

​“Oh my God, um, I don’t know what to say… That was amazing!”

​So… there was that…

​I’ll keep you all updated. Thanks so much for tagging along!

My next audition is tonight! Anacortes Community Theater will be producing the musical, Shrek.

I have known about this for over a month but dismissed it. I figured it would be in a style of music not suited to my voice. Then in the dressing room of Damn Yankees, Chase, playing one of the Senators said, “you could play Shrek.”

So I watched the musical. Wow! I loved it! And it turns out that Shrek is an amazing role with great songs! I have been preparing for a couple of days now, but it has been hard to find time. We had our first meeting for Cabaret rehearsals this week and we had four shows for Damn Yankees last week and three more this week, and then of course boat work to pay the bills. But practicing again today.

Wish me luck!

I’ll send an update after auditions.

Love, Danny

Herr Schulz will be yet another step up for me in Character depth and complexity - an exciting challenge!

Love, Danny

Photo credit: Annie Ryan

It has been twenty years since my last time on a theater stage, until tonight! The nerves, the excitement, the adrenaline, are already mounting seven hours before curtain. Of course I fell asleep reviewing my lines and scenes from last night’s dress rehearsal, drillng the changes I will make on opening night, probably dreamed the backstory and woke to the critical moments in the action. I want to practice my song as usual this morning, but will save my voice for the performance.

Joe Boyd is a relatively complex character for me, since my former professional career consisted of rather two dimensional romantic leading men. This role is an exciting challenge—something to sink my teeth into. It means that there is always more of the character to uncover as I continue to work with him. This will make every performance new and exciting.

Photo credit: Annie Ryan

Many of you will be there! I can’t wait to share this story with you. It is the story of Love, and the power of Love over time and life changes; the power of Love over fame and fortune and lust and the power of Love over evil itself. It is a story staged where the soul lives, where we can connect and know each other as one. I look forward to sharing this connection with each and every one of you.

Love, Danny

I think I haven’t told you about a new audition I had just yesterday.

I was having a random email exchange with my former voice teacher. She reached out because she had open slots in her schedule and didn’t see me on her calendar. I told her I had cancelled the lesson because boats were too busy, and that I had also decided to try a different teacher for awhile. She said thanks for letting her know, and that she heard of an opportunity for a role that would fit me.

I contacted the theater and learned I had missed the audition. But the director said that, having seen my resume, she would like to invite me for the callback anyway. I couldn’t make the callback time because of rehearsals for Damn Yankees, so she scheduled a separate time for me. That audition was yesterday.

It is for the role of Herr Schultz in Cabaret. It is what she called a “princess role.” Very little stage time but still the emotional heart of the show. In this respect, identical to the role of Joe Boyd, in Damn Yankees. Joe Boyd appears only in the first scene and the last scene of the show, but is the emotional soul of the story. In both cases, I have the opportunity for building my stage experience, while still having time to work the boat business to support my art, and with minimized commute time.

My path back into singing seems laid before me, every single step laid like a stone step through a new wilderness, not one of the steps planned, not one forseen or even wished for by me, but just materialzized. Not a “random” email exchange at all, it would seem.

As always, thank you for joining me in this miraculous adventure.

With much Love, Danny

For example, yesterday, Monday 6/22, after warm-ups, I spent a full hour working on my “ee” vowel (the [ i ] vowel in the International Phonetic Alphabet). How is that possible? Where to begin…

I recorded my lesson with Professor Thomas Harper last week. Listening back, I hear him sing a descending five-note scale on an [ i ]. Then I hear myself trying to imitate him. There is a “ring” to his tone that sounds completely relaxed and full. Mine, in comparison, sounds a little bit flat and tight—a little too “brassy.” Not a lot different, but a little.

Then I hear him on the recording explaining what I need to do differently. I hear myself try again, and it improves. But the real work happens when I turn the recording off. I repeat that scale over and over, chasing that exact ring, running different scales at different pitches until the muscle memory solidifies and I can hit the placement perfectly on the very first note.

For a while, there’s a split second at the start where my voice is still searching, and I have to adjust mid-stream. But I need it to happen immediately; that is how I know the muscle memory is locking in. It is exactly like any other athletic endeavor—skiing, golf, baseball, tennis. You drill the mechanics until you don’t have to think. Until it is automatic.

Then you may ask, what makes Professor Harper’s technique the better one? Oooh, that is an even better question.

When I was growing up, I had vocal idols, singers who I wished I could sing like and worked to imitate: Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin, Ian Gillan of Deep Purple, and Sebastian Bach of Skid Row. Then I fell in love with Pavarotti’s singing. (If you haven’t read my Substack memoir, here is the link for the installment with the story of how I suddenly, shockingly, fell in love with opera):

So, yeah—heavy metal and opera. There really aren’t any singers from other genres that move me like these guys, and certainly nothing from any of current pop. What do heavy metal and opera have in common? Passion! Joy and adoration, love, lust, sex, anger, longing, jealousy, rage, torment, revenge. To me, these two genres reach the deepest into human emotion and pour it out powerfully, viscerally.

Recently, I listened to some YouTube videos of my childhood idols singing live today… Yikes. All of them, every single one, has destroyed their voice. It is literally, viscerally painful to hear them try to sing now. I tried and had to turn it off. It hurt my ears, my throat, and my brain to listen. Their voices are completely different—broken, handicapped, not even a shadow of what they used to be.

Then there is Pavarotti. He sang at the Metropolitan Opera at age 68, as Mario in Tosca, his healthy tenor voice soaring over a massive orchestra of 80 to 90 musicians. He received an eleven-minute standing ovation. He was still singing a year before his death at age 70. Placido Domingo, another of the famous “Three Tenors,” was still singing full opera roles at age 80.

Why? Technique. Healthy technique. Those pioneering heavy metal stars had passion, but bad technique. (Though I will say that many top-tier heavy metal singers today are taking advantage of science and vocal technique to develop a healthy way of singing in their style.)

After my work on the [ i ] vowel yesterday, I transitioned a bit into the [ o ] vowel, and then worked to incorporate this new placement into Joe Boyd’s song in Damn Yankees. Before I knew it, two and a half hours had passed.

It was time to go do some work to pay the bills. I am so looking forward to the day when singing pays the bills and I don’t have to do anything else but bring souls together through art.

Sooo… First run-through of Act one of Damn Yankees was Monday and my first singing lesson with a new teacher was yesterday! AND, I finally took the course and earned my motorcycle endorsement last week so I could ride my bike to the UW for my first lesson! (There is a hefty fine if you are pulled over without it).

Damn Yankees run-through was lots of fun, of course! It was also our official “off-book” day and there was a designated person to follow the script for us. An actor can at any time call out, “line” and the “line” person will read their line for them. Nearly everyone called out “line” at some point. Some clearly had less time to work on their lines than others. This is community theater, everyone has another life, most have full-time jobs, and memorizing lines takes time. Then there was me. Yeah, I practice every single day. Run through my one little scene several times, spend hours writing backstory and subtext, etc… I have already done everything else in life that I needed to do. My focus now is singular: Connecting with people, with souls, through art—music, theater, drama—is my raison d’etre. The work is every bit as thrilling as the performance.

Then, my voice lesson yesterday. The photo above is the building I “have to” commute to—the home of the University of Washington School of Music. As I approach, music drifts from the upper-floor practice rooms, floating into clear blue sky and lush Pacific Northwest greenery like a fresh breeze, caressing my skin with the young life of creation. Exuberant.

Chill-bumps hit my arms and I have to pause mid-stride and listen: a jazz ensemble, a singer vocalizing and, in the distance, a clarinet probably practicing a jury piece, since this is finals week at the UW. This is where it happens, the crafting of chaos into music. The raw materials of the instruments assembled by master craftsmen, the music written by inspired composers over the centuries, the energy and passion of young souls, all clashing in chaos. Then there is the tension, as discipline and practice and drive hone the chaos into music. And that tension of the struggle is where the life of the soul blossoms. The tension between chaos and order. Isn’t that life—where we love it, where we hate it, where we struggle?

This is precisely why AI cannot make music. It can play the notes perfectly, but there is no tension. In music, humanity is expressed through the notes, not vice versa. The notes are a container for the passion, a structure of expression and there is always tension between the two. Without the tension teetering on the edge of crashing, there is no music. Yes, music is a pure expression of life—of the soul. That is why I am here. My raison d’etre.

Well yesterday, I spent all day practicing. Did my usual singing exercises, worked on the song for Damn Yankees and then worked lines and blocking. Then I wrote a backstory and subtext for Joe Boyd. Subtext is especially helpful when you are not speaking. It gives you something to think about instead of staring into space waiting for your next line. Acting is about being real in imaginary circumstances. Backstory and subtext are how you become real. In reality, we aren’t waiting for our next line, are minds are full of thoughts that we are constantly trying to bring into line - to focus. A really thorough backstory is how I can get my mind to start generating those back thoughts that make the character real. So, yeah, I spent several hours on that. Monday is a run-through of act I and we are supposed to be off-book. The backstory was really emotional, so that was fulfilling and helpful. (I’d tell you about it but many of you will see the show and I think that may take away from your experience.)

In other really exciting news…! I have a new voice teacher. I wasn’t feeling really connected with the last one. She is phenomenal, a world class expert in vocal pedagogy—a PhD who has written a seminal book in the subject. But singing and a partnership with a teacher is intimate - it is important to connect really well and I wasn’t feeling that connection. Then I found Professor Thomas Harper at the University of Washington.

Mr. Harper had a three-decade very successful career as a tenor, singing at top opera houses around the world, and has made award-winning recordings. As a tenor, he explains the sensations of singing in a way that I can identify with more readily. I didn’t know whether I could study with him, since he works for the UW and I am not enrolled there. This is the exciting part. He actually does not work with students outside UW enrollment, but he is making an exception for me. He heard me sing and wants to work with me. I am very excited about that! I already had my first lesson with him as a trial and I am going back on June 9.

Thanks again for your support-new recording coming soon!

Love, Danny

Several of you indicated interest in “newsie” updates, so here you are! I am still practicing at least four hours a day now. An hour of warm-up and exercises, an hour of repertoire, an hour of Damn Yankees practice and an hour of audition prep for Wizard of Oz.

I mentioned that I was a little scared of this change in character type. I am comfortable with romantic lead, but this “Wiz” role is a comedic character. SOO… I worked with an acting coach a couple days ago! Charles Michel is in Damn Yankees and he is a rather famous acting coach from New York. He said that there was tension in my character voice. HUH! That is exactly what my voice teacher said about my singing. I’m working on that tension! He also had some great things to say about how to play the characters that I am working on.

Audition is tomorrow, Friday May 29th, 11:40 am for Uncle Henry/Emerald City Guard in the 5th Avenue Theater’s production of, The Wizard of OZ! Wish me luck and send your prayers! Thanks!

Love, Danny

It has been a long time of silence—a full month since my last article, when I was posting weekly. So here is the update:

As you read in my memoir installments, the rebirth of this soul meant singing! God has literally pulled me back into my art and showed me clearly that this is what I was meant to do. In fact, it is all I want to do now. For three full years, I have been vocalizing, exercising my voice back into shape after losing it completely. As you read, I had some magical experiences that showed me I could still sing and touch people, even when I had half a voice, I could connect with people where our souls live, where we know each other as one.

I am still practicing 2 hours a day, 6 days a week. The voice is getting better, but still not back to where it was during my previous professional career. Maybe 80%. But I began auditioning.

I auditioned for Village Theater, 5th Avenue Theater (the two largest venues in the Northwest), and Anacortes Community Theater. I received callbacks at all three! And I got a role at ACT! - Joe Boyd in “Damn Yankees.” This will be my debut performance after 25 years away from the Musical Theater stage. I am thrilled! The very first rehearsal felt like being home again. Many of you already know, but that production will run from July 10 through August 8 at Anacortes Community Theater.

Then—the lastest news. I just received the callback for 5th Avenue Theater this week. They invited me to audition for the role of UncleHenry/Emerald City Guard in “The Wizard of Oz.” The 5th Avenue Theater is the big time in this region—the largest venue in the Pacific Northwest. I can’t tell you how exciting this is! This is the level where an artist can actually make a living.

So now my practicing is up to four hours or more per day. I do my routine exercises and repertoire work, followed by rehearsing for Joe Boyd at ACT, followed by preparing for this 5th Avenue audition on May 29th.

In other news, thanks to my paid Subscibers! This week I had my first voice lesson in five months. These are critical as I retrain my voice for professional performance. That lesson was totally paid for by Substack subscribers, as will be the next two after that! Thank you! Singing and all other art, I think, is tough. You don’t make money in the beginning and it is always difficult financially. I couldn’t do this without your support! And there will be another recording coming soon for paid subscribers!

If you appreciate the update and would like me to continue with “newsie” updates on my restarting singing career, please let me know with a like or a comment. It is breathlessly exiting to me and I love sharing that!

With much love and appreciation,

Danny

Thank you again for your support… and Motivation!!!

I wrote a song called “From Here” way back in 2010 but never recorded it. You have motivated me to do so and I finally got a decent take yesterday, May 3rd at 5:54am, before I had to go start packing stuff for the move. A…

Read more

However, good news on the recording front. I have also been working on a song this week to record. Thank you to my paid subscribers for this motivation! I promised paid subscribers exclusive access to new recordings. So this is number two and I'll try to do one a month. This song is an original that I wrote in the wake of divorce around 2008.

As another thank you to paid subscribers, I will let you know where that money goes: As you have read in my memoir, voice lessons are critical to restarting my singing career. I need a lesson at least once a month and hopefully twice per month. Each two yearly subscribers have paid for one of those voice lessons (after the Substack cut). I promise you that that money will go nowhere else but singing lessons to get my voice trained back into professional stage fitness.

Thank all of you for your continued support!

Love, Danny

Singing Boy with a Flute, Frans Hals

You are four years old. Your cousin Gina takes you to her children’s choir practice at the Lutheran church in Shoreline. She tells you that her choir director really needs to hear you sing. She says that you are too young but that they should still let you sing with them. They are all big kids, and you feel small and out of place. You stand next to the studio piano that towers over you. You can just see over the keys of the piano, where the choir director sits. All the big kids are circled around you. You hold the music and you are scared. But it is easy—you know that song. The choir director says you can sing with them. Then you feel proud. You are singing with the big kids.

At age seven, taking piano lessons, you don’t practice like you should. At your lesson, playing Beethoven’s Fϋr Elise, you haven’t learned the ending. So, under pressure, you make up your own ending—in the right key with a Dominant to Tonic conclusion that fits very well (though you have, of course, no idea what those things mean or what you have done—you just play what sounds right). Your piano teacher asks if you like to improvise. You say yes, but you think she is just being nice because you haven’t practiced and learned the ending like the music says.

In fourth grade, you are in the “special choir.” That means what it implies: the talented bunch. There is a photo of you doing a flourish at the end of the hat-and-cane dance routine, dipping your hat to the crowd, with the other kids looking at you like “Woah, what are you doing?”

In sixth grade, you have a choice of electives. You walk by the choir room at Marysville Middle School, and they are singing the same song you sang in 5th grade with the special choir. There are very few boys, and they are what you think are “geeks.” You tell your mom that you don’t want to be in choir. And that is the end of it. Then you pursue money, career, success. Your plan is to be a millionaire, and it doesn’t matter how. You make no connection between your talent for music or love of writing and actual life. Actual life means meeting the expectations of someone, everyone, yourself? And those expectations are money and success.

Even though you do nothing to develop your talent, you think singing the national anthem for graduation from high school would be cool, so you audition. You listen to the lifers—kids who live and breathe chorus. Some are okay, most are bad. You sing it better than all of them. The teacher straight-up tells you they would give it to you if you were actually in chorus, but it wouldn’t be fair to the kids who put in the years. You understand. You play the trumpet in the ensemble instead.

You are not encouraged to pursue the arts. There are no singers, dancers, or writers among your family or close friends. Even so, these are your decisions. You think that the arts have nothing to do with real life. Arts are for kids, or leisure diversion—of no value to anyone.

You. Were. Wrong.

You have a chance. You are pulled into musical theater by accident when you join a rock band to find a girlfriend and then take voice lessons. Then you actually get a music degree, just because it’s a way to use your GI bill and it’s fun. Then you have success for a bit, singing in Seattle. But you think you are just lucky, that you don’t really belong there and that your luck will run out. So, when the first baby arrives, you quit musical theater. It’s just not responsible, you think.

You are successful in the corporate world. Very successful. You turn a failing business around, making millions for the owners. Then you climb into the top 5% of earners in corporate America, making a massive impact, optimizing quality, leading people, helping them do their jobs better. It is of incalculable value. But when you hit fifty-five, they discard you, and nobody else will hire you. You pour twenty years of your life-blood into the corporate machine, and it leaves you with exactly—nothing. Nothing but a sacrificed life.

In order to function in that corporate life, you swallow Adderall. It is the only way you can stay focused on a career that is otherwise empty and uninspiring. Years of amphetamine use raises your blood pressure, so you start taking blood pressure medicine at age 45. Your cholesterol starts to climb. You need reading glasses now, probably from staring at a computer screen most of the day. Your body becomes weak, pasty, flabby. You are aging. Sure, you pay your child support and are a very good father. But you are a man without passion. You abandon your authentic self and live life as a shell of a man that your children cannot respect. Had you lived your authentic life, followed your passions, perhaps you would be a father they could respect. But that isn’t what you thought you were supposed to do.

Instead, you lived a mostly dead life when you could have been alive. You could have developed that talent when you were a kid. You could have had a lifetime of dance lessons and not be an uncoordinated “white-guys-can’t-dance” old man. You could have developed your talent for music and singing at an early age when your brain was developing and learning was easy. You could have been in theater, developed your acting ability. You could have spent a fulfilling life connecting with souls and helping people feel more human. Instead, you spent a life becoming less and less human.

And today, those decisions torture me.

At age fifty-nine, I am spending all my energy trying to scrape up what might be left for me of a life that you dismissed—a life of feeling more alive and helping others to feel more alive. My family, who knows me only as a shell of a man, is taken aback. They don’t know what to do with this man. They feel that I have gone off the rails and that they need to prod me back into line. They don’t know that to prod me back to a “responsible” life is as good as pushing me off the edge of a skyscraper.

I will sing. When I sing, it connects people, transcending differences, even of space and time. Composers and poets from other centuries and other continents are connected with musicians and audiences of today. We connect in our joys and pains, in beauty and sorrow, in love and heartbreak—the sacred turbulence of life that is shared by all humanity. We connect where the soul lives and in sharing that connection feel more alive, more human.

I will write. I can only hope that the decades of disregard for my own humanity have left me to appreciate it more and be extraordinarily motivated to share my experience with others, so that someone else might not make the same mistakes. I need to show others the value of art. That art is the way to send your unique value into the world and through that, bring people together. In a world of separation, art is what leads us to where the soul lives, to where we know each other as one.

I will use what is left of my life and talent to bring some humanity back into a world of technology and capitalist drones, to remind people what it is like to feel alive, to be human.

April 9, 2026
Seattle, WA

Tonight I was almost tackled by a police officer.

I’d just purchased my dream bike, a 2001 Yamaha R1. It was around 10 p.m. I was on a two-hour ride home from Tacoma and pulled into a McDonald’s parking lot to stretch my legs and maybe get a snack. I was maneuvering the bike back and forth to reposition it in the parking spot when I heard someone yell,

“Get off of the bike, NOW.”

I turned my head, bringing blue flashing lights and the face of a policewoman into my visor’s field of vision. There was a fierce look in her eyes, and she stood like she was braced for a fight.

So, what is an R1? Why did I buy it? And why was this policewoman ready for a flight-risk confrontation?

I guess I am a bit of an adrenaline junky, which has its ups and downs. But when my son introduced me to the R1 five years ago, I became… attached.

November 2021
Colorado Springs, CO

I embraced the bike. I didn’t know you could embrace a bike, but there isn’t a better way to describe it. I’ve ridden motorcycles all my life—dirt bikes, cruisers. With those bikes, you sit upright, the bike is beneath you, and you ride it. But this was a superbike, a barely road-legal 1000cc monster. You embrace that bike. You lay yourself over the fuel tank, grip the waist of it between your thighs, and feel the heat of the engine in the squeeze. The fuel tank is wide enough to hold between your upper arms. And when that power is unleashed and starts to pull you along with its gut-wrenching acceleration, you hold on for dear life with a full-body embrace. You become one with the motorcycle, just a part of a screaming, adrenaline-infusing machine.

When I’d first arrived in Colorado Springs to look at homes to purchase, I was staying at a SpringHill Suites. I had just checked in and was seated on the sofa, and my son, Taylor, was on the ottoman scrolling on his phone. He had joined a motorcycle riding club at the Air Force Academy. He’d fallen in love with riding, and finding Dad a motorcycle was task number one. I hadn’t even met with the realtor yet.

We did the practical thing. We got Dad a Yamaha FZ-09. It was what I would now call an old man’s sport bike. It had a ton of power and acceleration, but it was a “naked” sport bike—stripped of the plastic fairings—and it was a “sit-upright” bike. Then we headed to the motorcycle supply store, where we purchased riding boots, a helmet with Bluetooth so we could chat while we rode, and other protective gear. We left the motorcycle shop all decked-out in new gear, and as I fired-up my new, screaming FZ-09, it occurred to me that I didn’t have a place to park the bike. Better find a home.

I eventually got a home with a nice garage where Taylor and I parked our bikes (along with several of his friends, who did not have covered parking at the Academy).

We were out on a ride one day. Taylor had just purchased a new bike: a 2000 Yamaha R1. This was Yamaha’s flagship superbike. 1000ccs. A monster. We pulled over at a convenience store, and Taylor asked if I wanted to try it. I didn’t really want to. It was twenty-one years old and pretty rough looking. It had needed some work before it even ran right, and there was something loose that rattled a bit.

Apparently, I quickly forgot my trepidation, because I was now embracing this machine. We had merged onto Marksheffel Road in the Springs. It was a wide-open, four-lane highway, and it was empty of cars. I had just been casually riding until now. But once I began accelerating aggressively, this bike revealed its pedigree. It wasn’t made for sitting in a parking lot, rattling. It was made for this: death-defying acceleration. The purring had built into a thrumming roar that reverberated through my entire body along with the full-throated scream of four Mikuni carburetors sucking in 90 liters of air per second.

My right hand rotated the throttle as I shifted through third, fourth, and fifth gear. As the R1 accelerated, she squatted down, closer and closer to the road. I felt one with the bike, and one with the road. I felt more stable and comfortable with this bike than I had at 140 mph in my car. I shifted again, and looked down at the gauges for the first time, to see that I was already traveling 150 mph. I hadn’t even accelerated into sixth gear.

April 9, 2026
Seattle, WA

I got off the bike.

I removed my helmet and asked the policewoman, “What did I do?” The way she was behaving—and now backup had just arrived—I figured she must have mistaken me for another red sport bike riding BOLO, maybe an armed gang member or something.

“This is a traffic stop,” she said. “For one thing, your tabs are expired.”

“Oh,” I said, “I just bought the bike tonight. I haven’t registered it yet.”

“I need to see your driver’s license.” I gave her my driver’s license.

“I have the title and Bill of Sale in my...”

“Do not reach into that backpack!” she barked.

Woah, oKAY…

So, apparently, with my limited peripheral vision and the also limited rearview mirrors, I didn’t notice her behind me when I turned into McDonald’s. She must have gotten behind me in the turn lane because I was “suspicious,” and then noticed my 2018 expired tabs, which made her even more suspicious. She had followed me into the parking lot and probably had her lights on for a while, which I apparently also didn’t notice. Maybe she even blipped her siren at me? I don’t know, but my hearing was also dampened by my racing helmet. Anyway, all that might explain why she thought I was about to “dash” as soon as she got out of her vehicle.

Once my license had been cleared she came back and explained that “You Guys” (I had apparently joined a Bad Boy club when I got this bike) “always try to get away. And we are trained to knock you down if you don’t get off your bike immediately.”

I said, “Really? They (hey, man don’t categorize me—I respect police) actually try to get away?”

“All day, every day.”

Then it occurred to me that if I was a violent criminal with warrants for my arrest, this was exactly the bike I would buy. With a top speed of around 190 mph and acceleration that would leave any police car in the dust, by the time an officer returned to their vehicle, I could already be a bad memory. I guess I just have to welcome the opportunity to have a nice little chat with a police officer now and then and show them that some of us “bad boys” are kind and respectful of police.

And, I resolved, next time I’d sing them a song.

Forty years ago, I learned a song. But I didn’t know who I had learned it for. Over those decades, I sang it to many girls, and then ladies. But it never quite fit. There was always one line, or several, that just didn’t fit that particular person.

            Until I met an angel.

I had been a single dad, but my kids had moved out and had adult lives now. I had abandoned a corporate career, turned my four-bedroom home into a short-term rental to pay the mortgage, and started living on a boat. I was trying to build a new life but feeling uninspired.

            Honestly, I was having trouble finding a reason to live.

I realized that I was becoming a recluse. Now that the easy connection of family in a home together was gone, I would need to get off my ass and do something to connect with people. I was once a singer, so I thought of an open mic night. I should just go check it out, I thought—get comfortable with the scene. I’m an introvert, so going out, being around people, is work. When the time came, it was a cold, dark fall night, and I almost talked myself out of it. But I kicked my own ass out the door.

I was standing outside the entrance to the Honey Moon Mead and Cider Bar, the scent of fresh-pressed apples and spiced cider wafting out the door. All the seats inside were taken and there wasn’t even standing room. So, I looked in through the window from an outside seating area. It was dark. The walkway to the bar was lit by overhead string lights. I stood next to a large potted plant that was my drink holder. There was a beautiful married couple on stage—probably around seventy years of age. Each of them wore a cowboy hat and boots. The husband was playing the guitar, and the wife was singing a song they had written called “Morphine and Ice Cream.” It was hilarious, and I was laughing.

There was a young lady standing behind me in a hoody. She had performed earlier, and I had complimented her performance. She was beautiful. And I was here to meet people, but I didn’t approach. She wouldn’t be interested in me, I thought. But now we were exchanging glances and chuckling about the song. Then she took a couple of purposeful strides toward me. She had the confidence that this recluse had yet to find again. Now we were standing together. She had brown curly hair, a heart-shaped face, warm, rosy cheeks and soft brown eyes. We began to chat, and within a minute of our conversation, she looked up at me tenderly and said,

“I think you’re lonely.”

My eyes tightened. I looked away. Ouch! Who are you?

“...And I want... to recondition your heart,” she added.

Ummm, what?! I thought. I tried not to look stunned, and after a probably too-long pause, I asked, “So, what does reconditioning one’s heart look like?”

“We should have a date,” she said.

In fifteen years, I’d had one date that I could remember. I’d had kids and a career, not dates.

I spent the next morning cleaning up the 34-foot trawler that is my bachelor pad: organizing, sweeping, vacuuming, tossing clutter into a suitcase and hiding it. I even bought some fresh-cut flowers to liven up the place. With a fresh look at my abode and the satin-varnished, engraved teak, I was reminded that it really is a work of art, not just a cheap place to live.

I picked her up the next day, and we had lunch and talked for a while. Then we started the drive to my boat. It was about an hour’s drive, so we chatted some more and listened to some music. She hadn’t given a really clear answer as to what “reconditioning” one’s heart entailed beyond asking me out—which was admittedly a pretty good start. But I was still wondering what was in store for me.

I had my arm resting on the center console of my truck when suddenly, gently, sweetly, she slipped her hand under mine.

            The softest skin imaginable
            reaching for mine, touching mine.
            It was electric.

My heart felt like it had just been hit by a defibrillator. I felt my face flush with heat. I felt…

            Alive.

And I began to wonder, how long have I been dead inside?

It was a ten-hour date. We talked a lot more, had dinner together and… we sang songs to each other. I have guitars and a keyboard on my boat. I sang songs to her, she sang songs to me. And then, I sang that song to her that I had learned forty years before. It fit my angel. Every line of Billy Joel’s song, “She’s Got a Way.”

And before we said goodbye—forever—she sang one last song to me. “Nature Boy,” made famous by Nat King Cole, with the last lines:

            The greatest thing
            You’ll ever learn
            Is just to love
            And be loved in return.

Of course, that was true. Had I forgotten that? Why had I forgotten that? Why had I just stayed alone for twenty years after the divorce? The next day, the contrast was clear:

            Yesterday I fell in love
            Today the world is still
            Today the world is dim

My angel told me that day that these moments would be our entire story. She lived across the sea, and we would not be seeing each other again. My heart didn’t get the memo. It latched onto her like an oasis in a vast desert, the only water for an arid soul. And when she disappeared, my heart broke. Love turned to longing and absence felt like torture. I wanted to rip my angel out of the sky and bring her back to me.

I wrote her a barrage of texts, of course. Looking back at them now, the flood of longing is desperate and embarrassing—all that the dating gurus say drives women away. But eventually the texts calmed down a bit and became more introspective.

            The sun rises on another day
            With my heart full of Maria
            11 hours and two whole days
            Since my life was brushed by an angel

            A lover’s heart?
            Yes, so it is. Still.
            Perhaps reborn?

            And Hope, yes
            There it also is
            Welcome

            Love and Hope, old friends
            A hearty welcome home!

Either I am really slow, or the reconditioning of one’s heart takes time. Because I continued reflecting on that experience, and it wasn’t until five weeks later that I finally realized the Billy Joel song was never about a particular person. It wasn’t even about my angel. It was simply about Love.

            I don’t know what it is
            but I know that I
            can’t live without her
            anywhere

Sorry, Billy, no person can be with you every moment of your life, everywhere you go.

            But Love can
            Because it is inside each one of us
            And all we have to do is share it

What is this Man? At the very least, at the core of his soul, this man is someone who needs to feel, who needs to love and be loved. That is what my open mic night angel reminded me of. And it is why I am telling my story.

            Stripped of material identities
            down to the vulnerable soul of existence
            and living a life of silent death

            I was revived by pure love
            with no expectations and no obligations
            just sharing and connecting

            And remembering what it’s like to feel.

For paid subscribers, I will be recording the songs from this post soon!

January 2024
Everett, WA

“Yeah, I’m goin’ down. I’m goin’ down, down, down, down, down.”

I was sitting alone in my huge, empty white Suburban, parked at the distribution center and finishing the song I had been working on during the commute: Joe Bonamassa’s “Going Down.” I would just scream it. Lots of rock singers scream and have done it for fifty-plus years. Like Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Roger Daltrey of The Who, etc. I just needed to learn a new technique, and maybe screaming would break free my elusive top range. I had finally hit a G4 today, and I was excited, so I screamed it out.

“Yeah...”

Shit. That didn’t feel good. What am I doing? I can’t even sing rock-n-roll.

But let me back up a bit. I had left Colorado and moved in with Mom. Then began applying for jobs in Washington. I really wanted to put corporate life behind me, but that probably wasn’t an option. I had begun detailing boats, but the work was just neighbors so far. Not paying the bills. So, I got a job managing a distribution facility in Everett, Washington, at less than half my previous salary. I was also helping to build a blues rock band called “Distilled”

The 21-mile commute to the Distribution Center took a full hour each way. Lovely Everett traffic. But I made use of the time. I spent the morning drive doing vocal exercises, trying to get my voice back. Then, on the drive home, after a quick warm-up, I would work on songs for the band.

As I pulled out onto the highway that morning, I started my warm-up—humming. Mmm, nnn, and nnng—five-note scales from the bottom of my range up to about a C4 and back down. That would get me about halfway to work. Then an ‘a’ vowel. To the top of my range, which still hadn’t made it up to a G4. During my professional career, I had performed a solid D5, seven steps higher. That is a huge difference. It is the difference between a tenor and a baritone. I am a tenor, and two years after having completely lost my voice, I still couldn’t sing higher than a baritone. However, a year before, I was another seven steps lower, so this was progress. Reason for hope. But my voice was different. It didn’t ring like it used to, so I had settled for rock. Back to the adrenaline stage. But even that wasn’t going well.

And then the scream: “Yeah..!”

At the second rehearsal, I had to tell them I had blown out my voice, and I couldn’t sing very much. I wasn’t disappointed. I would just listen to them play. The guitarist and bass player were both masterful with their instruments, it was a joy to listen. But singing in this band just wasn’t doing it for me. They didn’t even listen to my voice. It was just another instrument in the wall of sound. And at this point, I was having to force my voice. It didn’t feel natural. But it was all I could do. I had no voice for opera or even musical theater anymore.

I rested my voice for two weeks after that attempted “Goin’ down” scream and began again. Vocalizing. Practicing. Two hours every day. There had been progress, I kept reminding myself. But it was still far away from the singing that had once felt so thrilling—when my whole body would become music and connect with souls. Every day I practiced with a voice that just didn’t feel like it was part of me. It was a struggle. I had to push, and it wasn’t responding right.

Then I went to get “scoped.” What was going on with my voice? Was singing no longer a reality? Were my vocal cords destroyed? Were they now too old for legitimate singing? Had they atrophied? Did I have lesions, nodules?

I went to the University of Washington Performing Voice Clinic for a comprehensive voice evaluation, which included a laryngeal videostroboscopy. There was a voice “team” in the room there: the doctor, his assistant and a voice coach. I sat in a dentist-like chair, and the doctor began the scope. There is a camera on a stick (a flexible fiber-optic nasopharyngoscope). They stick it up your nose and work it down into your throat to get a video of your vocal cords. The first time I had this done, there were sensations of needing to sneeze and then to vomit. But I was experienced now. I focused on relaxing all the muscles of that passageway.

The assistant asked me to sing some pitches and then sing part of an easy song. I tried to sing “Doctor My Eyes” by Jackson Browne. It was the easiest song I was working on for Distilled, and depressingly, it was still difficult. I was embarrassed. My cheeks warmed. I was sure they were wondering, Why is this guy here wasting our time. Then they asked me to sing something challenging. I started “Che gelida manina” from Puccini’s La Bohème, which I sang at my senior recital. This would show them that I was a real singer. But I couldn’t get through the first phrase.

After the scope, they analyzed the video. The voice coach said that I was creating extreme subglottal pressure with what she called “belly-breathing.” I was filling my lungs with air and forcing that air against my vocal cords with high pressure from a rock-hard stomach of “support.” Bottom line: I was trying to get my voice to work right with sheer muscular force. It made sense. That’s exactly what I was doing. Like anything in life, I thought, you wanted to make something happen, you work. And if you wanted it badly, you worked really hard. Maybe not for singing—at least not like that.

But the more important part to me came from the otolaryngologist. How are my cords?

“They are perfectly healthy. I don’t see any nodules, and there are no lesions. I suspect from your description that you did have lesions. But they are gone now. I also see no signs of aging atrophy.”

My God. This was miraculous. I felt like crying. I had not damaged my voice permanently. This meant I just needed to be patient and keep working.

I got a voice teacher: Dr. Kari Ragan, a world-renowned pedagogist who had written a book on training the voice. She confirmed the “belly-breathing” diagnosis. That first lesson was an epiphany. She helped me relax my breath pressure and I realized at that moment that I wasn’t broken; that a technical adjustment could make a difference. The pushing I had been doing to try to force my voice to work right was actually the problem—not the solution. I had to relearn how to breath! She gave me some tools and techniques for training, and I continued with voice exercises, vocalizing and practicing at least two hours a day, nearly every day. My range continued to advance at the breathtaking pace of one-half step... per... year.

I was still trying, unsuccessfully, to sing rock-and-roll, when I was asked to sing in the Anacortes Lutheran Church choir.

Then, I was asked to sing a solo.

I really couldn’t sing any solo that I used to sing for church, or anything I had sung during my once-upon-a-time career. But I could do this one thing. It was a hymn—“Were You There?” And she wanted it a cappella—no accompaniment. This meant that I could sing it in whatever key I wanted, however I wanted. I could even change the melody if there was something I still couldn’t sing. I could improvise it into anything. It was literally the only version of a “solo” performance that I was capable of.

April 18, 2025
Anacortes, WA

I stood alone in the choir loft at the back of the church above the congregation, looking down at the backs of their heads and resting my hands on the cold brass balustrade. I was nervous. What would my voice do? I told myself that it was fine; I would just improvise the song into whatever my voice could do. The screen at the front of the church said, “Special Music - Danny Markham.” The scripture reading had finished. I was up.

I had decided to add interest to the five verses of the hymn by modulating up a step with each verse. That introduced the problem of my limited range. A cappella, you can’t rely on staying right in key unless you have perfect pitch, which I do not. I knew adrenaline would possibly push me sharp. That made me fearful, because I was already pushing my functional range of a G4.

I began the song. I sang the first verse, modulated up for the second, then again for the third, and my voice broke, so I sang in falsetto. Then halfway through the song, when I was trying to be soft, I lost my breath support, and my voice began breaking again. During practice, I had some great images and subtext in mind, but during this performance, with fear and my voice breaking, much of that preparation just vanished.

In other words, I felt the song was pretty bad.

Later, my choir director would tell me that she had never seen as many of the congregation in tears during her forty years of being at that church. So, with my bad voice, limited range, anxiety, my voice breaking, and the lost characterization, forgotten images and subtext, the song had still moved much of the congregation to tears.

Looking back at my decision to return to real singing, it’s easy to trace it to that day. That solo, on Good Friday. But it occurs to me that it wasn’t just that solo, that day. The Pivot point was much more specific:

I had finished the song and was still standing on the balcony at the back of the church, looking over at the backs of everyone’s heads (which is why I didn’t know so many had teared up until I was told later). I backed away from the rail, receding from a pretty bad performance. I turned around and saw a woman standing in the doorway to the balcony. It was K.C., one of the sopranos in the choir. And she had streams of tears running from both eyes down her face. She was blocking the doorway, and I didn’t know what to say. She looked at me with all earnestness and said, with a cry still in her voice:

“You are amazing!”

I had connected with a soul. Even though my voice felt different, wrong even, this is what it was for. I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around her. I felt her wet tears on my neck and said the only true thing I could think to say.

“No, God is amazing.”

In appreciation for my paid subscribers, the live recording of that performance is below. Just click the play button.

Read more

If you have read the first six chapters of my little memoir, you know that...

I am 59 years old and I've jumped ship
Without a life raft.

After fifteen years of a successful corporate career, I walked away. 
I am long divorced and my children have grown and moved out, 
so I left my home as well.

Stripped of the identities of career, family and home.
Stripped to the raw soul of existence.
I am left with the driving question: What is this Man? 

My memoir has been telling the story of that journey by digging into the backstory. Yet, I think it is more interesting for this Substack to know how it’s going right now. My welcome page invites you to “Witness a slow claw out of the crumbled ruins of identities.” So, let’s get to it.

I do intend to continue working on the longer-form memoir. But for the sake of this platform, let’s hit the fast-forward button.

When the job search for my e-commerce career failed in Colorado, I needed to pay the mortgage. I turned my house into a short-term rental, which meant I became essentially homeless. That is a wild story for another time. I became a ski instructor at Breckenridge and drove for Lyft. I slept in my home when it was available, but usually, I stayed in a hostel at Breck, a hotel in Denver, or sometimes in my truck if I couldn’t afford either.

That wasn’t a particularly good long-term plan, so I ended up moving back to Washington state and moving in with Mom. That is a painful stereotype to fall into, and I will tell that story eventually, too. But I can at least assure you that I wasn’t sitting in the basement playing video games. I eventually restarted a boat detailing business I ran back around 2000, and that pays the bills now.

Singing (the part you were waiting for)

I wanted to sing now that I had the freedom to do so, but my voice was broken. I completely lost my voice in 2022. It took 18 months just to speak normally again, and I still didn’t have the singing voice that I had once built a professional stage career with. I abandoned my dream of musical theater because I thought my voice would never be the same. Instead, I decided to join a rock-n-roll band and get back to my roots—I didn’t need an opera or musical theater voice to sing rock.

Eventually, I moved out of Mom’s house and onto a boat in Shelter Bay, La Conner. It got lonely, so I started trying to get out. After a bit of “church shopping,” I joined Anacortes Lutheran Church, to meet people and become part of a community in my new home.

When I arrived at ALC, they were singing hymns. I had found my church. I love singing hymns. I was in the congregation, just singing to myself, but someone heard me and said they wanted to introduce me to the choir director. I didn’t even know they had a choir, but I said “okay.”

That Wednesday, I was at choir practice. This was perfect, I thought. This was a community I could get to know and settle in with.

And that is where the story changes. That was the pivot point. It is where the searching ended and the slow crawl out of the rubble began. It has been almost exactly one year since I joined the choir, and that is where I will pick up the story next week.

Love,

Danny