Celtic Woman, not to be confused with Laker Girls

I am going to make a somewhat embarrassing admission here: I have this thing for Celtic Women.

I came by it honestly enough. One day I was flipping channels and came across a title on the cable guide that said “Celtic Women,” and I clicked “OK” because I thought it was going to be a show about the Boston Celtics cheerleaders; you know, like the “Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders” show.

Instead I found that it’s not the NBA Celtics at all; it was PBS. And they don't pronounce "Celtic" like "Seltic" but rather "Keltic." It was a pretty over-produced concert of some kind, featuring this full orchestra led by a guy who looks like the geek sidekick to Flo on those Progressive Insurance commercials, three women singers who continually change into elaborate gowns, and this one blond woman who is equally dressed up but just shows up at random moments to run around stage, twirling and skipping and smiling, all the while playing a fiddle – except on PBS it’s called a “violin.” However, the way she plays it is like some of the guys I’ve seen in Cajun’ bands, who can play holding the fiddle at their waist, behind their heads, or even one guy I saw who got bandmates to hold him upside down while he knocked out some Doug Kershaw tune.

Here’s the thing: when I tuned into the “Celtic Woman” – despite there being at least four of them, they go by the singular title ‘woman’ rather than ‘women’ – I thought I’d tuned in for the end of the show. The song, whatever it was, sounded like a grand finale, like the third encore, and everyone was clapping and carrying on and the ladies were smiling and bowing as if whatever they’d just sung made Whitney Houston’s “Star Spangled Banner” seem like a third grade recital of “Mary Had A Little Lamb.”

Only it wasn’t the finale, or the encore, or even close to being the last song of the concert. Turns out, every song these people do is staged like it’s a grand finale. Given that I was only vaguely familiar with most of the songs they were performing – to say they were ‘singing’ doesn’t do it justice – I wasn’t sure if this was like a ‘greatest hits’ concert or this group was like a highbrow Slim Whitman (who, if you were remember the late night TV ads from the 1980s, reportedly sold more albums that Elvis Presley and the Beatles in England). But you never saw an audience so enraptured, so mesmerized, so enthralled, so old and white (except for the occasional small child – usually a little girl – that came along for a night out with grandma and grandpa while mom and dad went to the casino).

And, I have to admit, I got hooked. The staging, the drama, the costumes, the absolutely adoring way the women looked at each other every time one came on the stage as if it was Michael Jordan coming back for one last title run with the Bulls – it was shear PBS genius.

But it was PBS.

Which means, of course, that the orchestra would start up and one of the women would start to sing “Oh Danny Boy” and then a second woman would suddenly come out and the first one would look as if she were so glad to see her, then the blond fiddle player would come skipping around all of them, twirling and bowing and bowing (that’s “bowing” as in bending from the waist and “bowing” as in using a bow to play the violin; aren’t I clever?), and you’d really get caught up in the absolutely swell of orchestration as they got ready to go into the final verse when …

When suddenly these two old crones appeared on the screen, saying, “Aren’t you enjoying this performance of ‘Celtic Woman?’ Aren’t they marvelous? Wouldn’t you like to hear the rest of the song? Well, we’re about $672 dollars short of our pledge amount, so if you pull out your credit card right now and call this number, we’ll get off the screen and let you see the climactic finish of ‘Oh Danny Boy!’ Operators are standing by!’’

I have no idea what the Celtic Woman do for an actual finale or encore. I’ve always heard you don’t pay the kidnappers in a hostage situation because it only encourages them to do it again.

Now, if instead of “Celtic Woman’’ it was “Laker Girls” ….

The Stranger, an Innocent Man

I had a gift card for Barnes and Noble that was left over from something, and it turned out I had just enough left to buy a CD of Billy Joel's greatest hits.
Well, some of his greatest hits, anyway. "Scenes from an Italian Resturant" was missing. And some of the quirkier stuff, like "Stilleto."
But there were plenty of other songs, songs that remind you of that guilty pleasure of listening to Billy Joel music.
I say guilty pleasure because it's not cool to like Billy Joel. Despite how many albums the guy has sold, despite the number of hits he produced, Billy Joel has never carried that cache of, say, Bruce Springstein or Bono even though he's sold roughly the same number of records.
And the very fact that I'd mention those three in the same sentence has some of you screaming at this screen right now, either literally or figuratively.
Joel's song "The Stranger'' is not one of my favorites. On the other hand, is there anybody out there who doesn't understand what Joel is talking about? Don't we all have that hidden part of ourselves that, for whatever reason, we know better than to take out and show on any kind of regular basis?
Maybe it's that dark side that we don't want to admit too, or a soft side that we're embarassed about, or just that part of us that believes down deep, we really are more dangerous than anyone realizes.

                                        "Well we all have a face that we hide away forever
                                        And we take them out and show ourselves
                                        When everyone has gone
                                        Some are satin some are steel;
                                        Some are silk and some are leather
                                        They're the faces of the stranger
                                        But we love to try them on ..."

To expose that side is to become truly vulnerable to another person, to risk no longer being liked or at least changing the relationship forever.
I know it's popular to say that we admire people for being vulnerable, but I don't buy it. There is a reason we call such secrets "deep and dark." They're not meant to be exposed to the light of human relationship except as an act of ego on our own part that craves attention.
I mean, what's to be gained by it anyway? Oh, sure, the person we share those feelings with feel connected to us and act all emotionally moved that we'd be so willing to share our true feelings with them.
But it seems to me that what most of us want is the ability be vulnerable with someone else, not necessarily have them be vulnerable back to us. And when we "open'' ourselves up like that to someone, doesn't it come with the unspoken obligation to allow the other person to be vulnerable right back?
Here's the thing: I know women always say the love it when men show their vulnerable side, I think they really mean it - for about 24 hours. Then those same women realize they've seen a weakness, and I don't care what you say, women don't want to see weakness in the men they expect to support and care for them for the rest of their lives.
How can you protect, care, support, and all those other things that, down deep, women still want from a man and at the same time know his weakness? Superman never went around sharing with his friends his fear of kryptonite. Lois Lane knew about it, but not because in a moment of emotional vulnerability Superman - with tears in his eyes - "shared'' his darkest secret. Lois knew about it because at some point, in the course of saving Lois as well as all of humanity, she saw Superman nearly felled by exposure to kryptonite.
From that moment on, Superman knew Lois knew his weakness, just as Lois knew it; but I doubt they ever spoke of it again.
That's why if or when we let the "stranger'' out, it's always better to do it around people we don't know or will probably never see again; people that we have a limited relationship with, that we can cut off easily with no repercussions. Paid professionals. Or bartenders.
Joel does that in his music, whether it's self-destructive relationships (Stilleto or All for Leyna), inherit professional insecurity (Piano Man, The Entertainer), an obsessions with phone sex (Sometimes A Fantasy), insecurity (Sleeping With The Television On), a general disappointment with life (Where's The Orchestra), even the embarassingly mushy "Just The Way You Are" - embarassing, because the woman he wrote the song about he divorced, but everyone knows he wrote it about his first wife.
You don't really want to know the deep, dark me that is hidden away. I don't really want to take that me out, either, because the point is to grow and mature into that person we can be, rather than give in to that person we started out being.
I can tell you things about myself that will let you know me better. But then I'd have to break off all communication with you.
And I like you too much to do that.
Most of you, anyway.
Maybe that's why Billy Joel never quite pulled off the "cool'' factor of most of his contemporaries.
He told us all about his vulnerabilities in his songs.
We related, because we shared many of them ourselves.
And then we had to break off the relationship.
It was just too painful to keep going.


                                    You may be right
                                    I may be crazy.
                                    But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for ....