The Mentor and the "Shower Trick" #Metoo?

For those of you who are have followed my story for years, you know what a role the man I refer to as The Mentor played in it all.  He got me to sing, he awakened my feelings of desire, and through his influence, I retooled my personal image which, over the previous decade, had morphed from glamorous to sexless (albeit dressed for success), and redecorated my apartment, replacing a lot of the pastels with brilliant reds.  I lusted after him, to no avail, I envied him his freedom from both monogamy and office jobs, I wanted to please him, I cowered when he turned on a dime from being seductively admiring to being gratuitously cruel.  It was through having him as a muse that I wrote a play, with him as anti-hero, which was actually quite good, although too rom-com-ish for today's playgoers, certainly in major metropolitan areas (it was produced by a community theater in Texas). 

Over the years, when I would descibe some of his behavior, the words "sexual harrassment" would creep into the conversation (never used by me).  And I would wonder.  How could this be "sexual harrassment" if he was gay and was not interested in me?  Is teasing someone into lusting after you, then dancing away and laughing, particularly if you're in a position of power "sexual harrassment"? 

Here is one of his archetypal choice quotes that I have shared with people in speech and in writing (it even ended up as a "laugh line" in my play).

ME: (singing "Mon Coeur S'Ouvre a ta Voix")

HIM: What do the words mean?

ME: "My heart opens at your voice like a flower"

HIM: (leering) Weeeelll, so what kind of a flower do you think she's talking about"

And there was the time he told me to sing something like an orgasm, and the time he told me to put my hand on my "heart" or rather my "tits" (his word).

But now here's something I never told anyone, not because I was afraid or ashamed, but simply because I didn't attach any importance to it, until I heard about Charlie Rose and "the shower trick".

The very first time I showed up at the Mentor's apartment for a lesson, he took a while to answer the bell.  When he finally came to the door, he was wearing nothing but a towel.  He said he had just come out of the shower.  True, nothing "private" was visible, but what voice teacher takes a shower right before a student arrives?  What was the hidden agenda here, and believe me, there was one!  He didn't want to have sex with me, obviously.  But he did want to have power over me and what better way to do that than to sexualize our first encounter in his apartment.

So maybe that was a #metoo moment after all.  Because sexual harrassment is not about sex, but about power.

Who Ever Thought it Would Be So Hard to Give Away Something for Free

As one of my soapbox issues is how much I resent people who belittle those who sing or perform for free, I now have yet another argument.  Unless you have a large living room with a piano, it is really not all that easy to find places to do solo singing for free. 

First, the opera and other groups that don't pay people.  Those are so overrun with semi-pros, emerging pros, and pros who can't get work (or aren't paid to sing roles that they want to sing) that they are off the table for someone like me.  I do sing in a church choir that performs high level music (and I insist on staying in the soprano section to keep my upper register in shape) but choral music just doesn't "do it" for me.  Yes, I love being in that choir and aren't giving it up any time soon, but I would like to be doing more.  I also occasionally get to sing a solo, but solos at this church are not a big priority, so we're talking about maybe four times a year.  The church hosts other events, but needless to say because it's on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the people who perform there are "up and coming" chamber music groups.  They even hosted some of Marilyn Horne's foundation receipients' recitals in the past.  A secular-themed talent show for the choir people? Not happening.  They have poetry slams and "coffee houses" for people who sing and play the guitar, but nothing that I would be interested in doing. 

So here's what I've done so far, since I started singing in 2004.

1. Two talent shows at the Unitarian Church, before they dumped all the classical music.
2. One concert at a cash-strapped church that wanted to raise money.
3. One concert version of Samson et Dalila at the church where I sing now, as part of a series to raise money for the Tiffany windows.
4. A concert at a studio that I had to pay to rent, where the air was so foul (they had an air conditioner that they had not cleaned) that I choked my way through it.
5. A concert version of the Verdi Requiem at the church where I sing. I billed it as a fundraiser for their food pantry.
6. A concert version of Carmen sponsored by a woman who runs a group that puts on various sorts of performances.  I also sang in concerts on September 11 and in her living room, but at some point she either "went off" classical music, or "went off" me, or both.
7. Two abridged concert operas at an LGBT senior center (I might call them again; the only problem is that I had a quarrel with a case worker there; on the other hand, she has nothing to do with the special events staff).
8. Two concerts at a nursing home.

If readers are asking "why now"? The reason is that I have come to two dead ends trying to find a concert venue.  The nursing home where my partner was last year, which has a beautiful room with a piano, had originally said that I could get in contact with the event coordinator, but I left him two voice mail messages and left one message with his assistant (live) but they never called back.  Today I got in touch with a library where my voice teacher will be performing with the pay to sing group he sings with (he doesn't pay anything, as they always need men) and they said they didn't need any more musical events right now and that I would be subject to "extreme vetting" (fine, but I think Hell will freeze over before they get in touch with me).

So I just want to put my head down and sob.  I feel that I have all this huge solo voice that's bursting out of me and nobody is interested.  So OK, I'm not a finished product, I'm not young, and I have no resume other than the above.  But to anyone, even a music lover with an ear, who's not an obsessive opera afficianado or a high level trained classical singer, I have something to offer.  And I'm not ready to throw in the towel.