Bass

That’s right. I’m talking about basses.

I don’t mean the guys who stand next to you in chorus and sing bass: those are usually baritones. I mean the guys who make your coffee table rumble when they speak, and have been known to destroy subwoofers the way Ella Fitzgerald can shatter crystal. You all know the kind: the REAL basses.

See if you don’t agree with the following statements:

• Bass singers can sleep anywhere, anytime. Turn your head for a moment, and there he is, asleep on the couch or in the van. Heck, he could be sleeping on a ping-pong table or bathtub. Doesn’t matter. Could this be the result of having your body awash in testosterone? Maybe they have a secret society, and they’re always up late for their secret meetings (don’t bother going – they speak in tones too low to be heard by the human ear), so they’re always sleepy?

• Basses are, how shall we put it, adored by the ladies. They’re not always the most handsome guys (yeah, I know, I sound like a defensive tenor), and their fashion sense is often quite questionable, but the fact remains that regardless of how good looking they are in a traditional sense, women seem unusually attracted to them. I’ll bet the word “pheromones” is Latin for “low tones.”

• Bass singers have a tendency to be late. I don’t know why; perhaps because they’ve been waylaid by some alluring lass, or they’re asleep. Maybe because they can’t read a damned watch, which brings me to my next point…

• I’m not sure any basses are functionally literate. Have you ever seen one reading anything more complex than a comic book? They have better things to do: when the rest of us are asleep, their secret meeting followed by at least one even later secret rendezvous. Can you imagine, night after night? I wouldn’t have the concentration to read anything more complex than a street sign. And yet,

• They never get in trouble. Think about it. Any time they’re in a jam, they just flash a smile and mumble a couple words that you can’t quite make out, and yet you feel somehow relaxed. I think this is their version of the Jedi mind trick. Think about it: can you recall a cogent argument ever put together by a bass, or might it just be that the conversation took another direction.

• They lose things all the time: keys, passports, their sheet music. I guess the sheet music part doesn’t matter, because they never sing what’s on the page anyway.

• They have giant shoes. If you know what I mean.

• They can do anything they’d like, and their voice only gets lower and richer. Eating, drinking, smoking, partying: perhaps they’re semi-human machines sent back in time to absorb all the fun they can possibly manage and then they return to the future and release the energy, which fuels lunar colonies. That might explain why they’re always late. Damn, I hate those guys! I have to go to bed at a reasonable hour, and if I have too much…

…hang on, I’ve got to answer this call – it’s from Barry Carl…

All done. Now, what was I saying? I can’t quite recall. I feel very relaxed, and I vaguely remember being all worked up about something, but I’m sure it doesn’t matter.