We talked about the indie label idea again, and about finding a drummer. I fretted. Bart suggested we not hold our audition in the park this time. “We must know someone,” I said, again.

“How about Chris?”

“Chris…?”

“Christian. From Miracle Mile. Formerly Highway Death?”

“I thought their drummer’s name was Mark or something.”

“No, the keyboard player. But he’s really a drummer, I remember him telling me. He wants to quit playing with the Mile. I think.”

We settled on putting up some signs, me near Berklee, Bart at the studios where he’d been doing dubbing work. I said I’d call Carynne and ask her to ask around, too.

When Bart dropped me off at home I called her, figuring I’d get her machine. To my surprise, she picked up.

“It’s Daron,” I said. “Hey, how are you?”

“Oh my God you are so full of shit I can smell it through the phone,” she said with a laugh. “What kind of favor do you need?”

“What, I’m not allowed to just call up to say high to an old friend, who by the way only lives half a mile from me but who I haven’t seen in months?”

“Dude, live with it, I’ve got exams and stuff. Now seriously, of course you can call me up anytime, but I can tell you didn’t call to say hi.”

“Maybe I should be haranguing you to come see me play.” I sat down on the futon and cradled the phone with my shoulder while I flipped open the Ovation’s case with my foot.

“Daron…”

“Okay, okay. Do you know any drummers? We need one.”

She laughed. “You’re kidding, right? I thought drummers were a dime a dozen.”

“A good one.”

“Oh, well, that’s different.”

“Bart says Christian from Miracle Mile wants to quit playing keys for them and get a drumming gig. Do you know him?”

“As it so happens, I do.”

“And?”

“And I’ve never seen him play drums, but he’s good people, if that’s what you’re asking.”

I supposed it was. “Cool. Bart’s going to call him.” I wondered if I could make things work out with Christian just by wishing it would all be fine. Right then it felt like I could. “Meanwhile, you should still come see us play sometime. We’re working on new stuff all the time. We’ll be at the Ret next week, oh no wait, that was last week… shit…” I couldn’t reach the notebook with our upcoming gigs in it. It was usually by the phone, but apparently I’d carried it over to the card table. I needed to get a cordless phone.

“Well, how about telling me about a show before instead of after? Then I might actually show up, you doofus.”

“Yeah, okay, I know we have some coming up…” We chatted a little more after than and when I hung up the phone I felt pretty good. She didn’t make any weird come-ons and I hoped she really would come to a show and bring friends.

It was almost midnight by then. I couldn’t stand the thought of lying in bed thinking about Ziggy sitting next to me and chewing me out, so I plugged in my four track recorder and headphones and started to play. I figured I’d just put down a few ideas that had been rattling loose in my skull for a while. It didn’t work out that way. At some point I felt a crick in my neck and I raised my head to find the sun coming up over the skyline of Boston.

I went down on one knee and kept my eyes on the ground. Bart had stopped playing but the drum machine droned on. Ziggy took a step toward me — are you okay? –but I pulled away, getting to my feet and stamping on the pedal that shut the drum machine up. It was quiet now, but my head continued to pound. The other two were staring at me.

“Are you okay?” Ziggy repeated.

“Head rush,” I said, my voice almost too quiet to be heard. I’m not trying to brag when I say I couldn’t remember the last time I’d missed a note. That was probably why Bart was staring at me like I had two heads. “I’m fine, really.” Ziggy was coming toward me again. “No really.” I looked him in the eye. What was he coming toward me to do? What had I been going toward him to do? Maybe I did feel a little rush-y; maybe I really wasn’t okay. Everything seemed cloudy and confused.

Bart swung his bass of his shoulder and said “Let’s take five. I could use some fresh air, too.”

I guess it was hot in there, the little concrete room with no windows, and I was watching a bead of sweat travel down Ziggy’s forehead. “You need to relax,” he said to me.

Yeah. Could be. I slung the Strat off my shoulder and laid it into its stand. Ziggy was watching me. I stuck the guitar pick into my back pocket and brushed my hair out of my eyes, trying not to watch him watch me. He was between me and the door. I resisted the urge to pace and almost wished for a cigarette to light. He took another step toward me and I brushed past him and out the door.

I went to the loading dock and sat with my legs hanging over the edge. This was definitely why people smoked, to have something to do at times like this. I looked at my hands while I tried to take deep breaths. Relax, I told myself. He’s right, relax.

But when I wasn’t thinking about Ziggy I was thinking about the dickhead music publisher, and I knew if I wasn’t thinking about that I’d be chewing on my calluses while I tried to line up gigs for next month and trading nights working with people so I’d have off, and …

Ziggy coughed quietly behind me. I jumped a little but didn’t turn around. He sat down next to me, bouncing his heels off the concrete wall under us. “What’s eating you?”

“Nothing.” The automatic answer, could mean anything. I cleared my throat a little while I worked up something better. “It’s this whole music publishing thing, I guess.”

“Forget it,” he said, his voice low, serious. “Just worry about what we’re doing, not what we’re not doing.”

“What do you mean?” I looked at him sidelong through my hair.

“I mean, we’re a band, right?” He cocked a Mr. Spock eyebrow. “What were we put on God’s green Earth to do? Play music, right?”

“Yeah, I guess. But–”

He cut me off with a hand held palm-out like a crossing guard. “But nothing.”

“No, Zig, listen to me, the business is important…”

“Not as important as the music. The creative satisfaction.”

I didn’t want to tell him how naive that sounded coming from someone who wasn’t even a professional until he’d thrown in with us. “Dammit, I don’t want to work in a record store the rest of my life.” I still didn’t know what he did for money. I’d never thought it polite to ask if he didn’t offer the information, and thinking about it now I couldn’t picture him working retail, delivering newspapers, bartending… He wasn’t a trust fund case like Bart, but I couldn’t quite make it all add up. “And what is this ‘creative satisfaction’ bullshit?” It sounded creepily like something Roger would have said. “Before I met you you’d never even written a song…”

That was a mistake. He was glaring at me now while I tried to think of something else to say. He spoke first. “Who made you such a self-righteous asshole?”

Fuck, I’m sorry, I wanted to say. But although I was sorry, I still thought I was right. “No, seriously. When have you ever really thought about what we need to do to make it? Maybe if you concerned yourself with it a little more, I wouldn’t have to worry about it so much.” He opened his mouth to speak but I didn’t let him. I guess maybe his attitude about business did bother me. “Maybe this is just a fun trip for you, but it’s my fucking life, and I’m sick of your whither-it-comes attitude…”

“Well if I’m such a fucking burden why don’t you fire me, boss!” He made like he was about to get up and before I could think I grabbed him by the wrist.

“Look.” I didn’t face him, but I held him there and spoke. “I don’t want another singer, I want you.” I even said that without stumbling. “I want to make this work. I want us to make it. That’s all.” He relaxed a little and I let go of his arm. “If you don’t know it by now, I happen to think you’re a fucking genius, okay? I just wish, sometimes…” I had to stop before I said anything else too stupid. “I wish you’d be a little more responsible.”

“Hey, I’ve been good,” he said. It was almost true. He hadn’t missed a rehearsal or been late to a soundcheck in a while. The last thing was when he didn’t come back from New York for like a week and had us wondering what had happened to him. “Give me a break.”

OK, say it now, you stupid ass. “You’re right, I’m sorry.” I rubbed my face. “I’m just kind of stressed out. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

“That’s okay, boss.” He cuffed me on the shoulder and gave a little laugh. “‘Whither-it-comes…’?”

“You know what I mean.” I couldn’t quite manage a smile. “Come on.” I went back to the rehearsal room with him in tow. Bart was noodling around waiting and drinking Yoo Hoo out of a carton with a straw. I guess he’d been to the convenience store. He gave me a quizzical glance as we came in but I didn’t acknowledge it. “Candlelight,” I said, as I picked up the guitar. “No drums. One, two, three, four…”

I say “we” because this really is a group project, and it was followers/readers like you who voted for DGC to win the award. I’m humbled by some of the names we beat out, too. (You can see the original nominees list here: http://community.livejournal.com/crowdfunding/164346.html. Lots of good serial novels and online fiction worth reading there.)

While we’re on the subject of cool stuff found on the Internet…

Do you know about the CodeOrgan?

It turns the HTML of any web site into a song. So, yeah, Daron’s Guitar Chronicles, by codeorgan, you heard it first: http://www.codeorgan.com/?url=daron.ceciliatan.com (Give it a minute to process.)

Apparently, my hidden soul is trip hop. Who knew? It sure sounds drastically different from plugging in the Nine Inch Nails URL, for example. I suppose it does fit my laid-back exterior and my sometimes spastic interior.

Then there’s Heavy Metal Picks. Beautiful iridescent pendants made from handcrafted steel or copper guitar picks, made iridescent by torching them. Some have studs and things added. Each design is named for a song title, too. This is the kind of cool, handcrafted stuff I’d never find without the Internet.

I actually came across the Heavy Metal Picks site because they popped up as an ad on DGC. Cecilia and I tend to agree on accessories, i.e. neither of us wears much, but this is one thing either of us would put on. She’ll never get around to buying one, though. I’m still trying to get her to invest in a new red flannel shirt. The one she’s wearing right now is literally worn through in the sleeves. It’ll be the third one she’s worn down to the threads since the days when we lived in Providence. The first one came from a used clothing shop on Thayer Street, on the second floor above Spats restaurant, if I remember right. The second one came from Salvation Army. The third was bought new at the Britches going out of business sale in the Copley Place mall, probably in 2000. Please consider putting a donation in the tip jar so I can convince her the purchase would be justified. (C’mon, Cele, it’ll last TEN MORE YEARS…)

So, people have been asking me who my musical influences are, but I think the question they are really asking is something else. The thing is, there are so many, if you’re trying to figure out what Moondog Three sounds like from that, it’s going to be tough to triangulate. Probably the closest band in sound (and in the difficulty the music business had in classifying them) to us is Jane’s Addiction, though we predate them by a few years. And no one sounds like Perry Farrell. (Or Ziggy for that matter.)

I was even more uncomfortable with the deal he wanted to make, in which he would put up seed money for us to produce an album which he would then essentially own. He would then shop the product around to different labels. When I pushed him on the details, eventually his strategy came out–make a band big in the “underground” music scene, and then when the big labels start to show interest, auction them off to the highest bidder. I was cringing when I asked, “Is this what a music publisher does?”

He went on to describe other benefits he could provide, like contract negotiating and in-house producers, while I was thinking: isn’t that what a manager is supposed to do? I’d already heard more than enough but I let him go on until the clock read 6:15. “Look, I have a rehearsal to get to.”

“That’s fine, my boy. Send your demo tape around to me and I’ll send you a contract.”

My boy. Jeezus. Downstairs Bart was waiting in a no parking zone, leaning on the horn. “Oversleep?” he said as I slid into the passenger seat.

“Nah, talking to some dickhead on the phone.” I recounted the conversation.

“Shit, this is the guy Artie pawned us off to?”

“Let’s talk about it later. If we’re going to talk business, let’s have everyone here.”

“Like Ziggy’ll give a shit.” Bart said and then put a hand over his mouth mockingly. “Oh, I’m sorry, that was an uncharitable thing for me to say.”

Ziggy often acted blasé or disinterested over business concerns, but technically, I had all the control and decision-making power, so why should he get involved, right? I shrugged.

A few blocks later we picked Ziggy up and I started the story over again of Michael Knight and his “my boy” attitude. “Anyway,” I finished, “the guy sounds like a dickhead and I don’t think I want his money.”

“Sheez.” Ziggy said.

“Damn straight,” Bart pounded on the steering wheel for effect. “But what do we do now?”

“Why not do exactly what he was gonna do?” Ziggy sat forward and hung on the back of my seat, and I was a little surprised to hear him speak. “Cut a record with an independent label and become college rock legends. Bank on that infamy to major label stardom.”

I was about to object, like where were we going to get the money and how were we going to promote the thing and so on… but we were pulling into the parking lot by the rehearsal studio and I wanted to be playing rather than talking business. “Why the hell not,” I said as Bart jerked the car to a stop. “What the fuck.”

“Awright!” Ziggy jumped out of the car. “Let’s get cracking boys, my public awaits.”

Bart and I went about the business of getting our guitars out of the car and locking it up. When we walked into the studio, Ziggy was already standing in front of the center mic waiting for us.

I had stumbled my way through the bar ritual before in Providence. The last time had been one night I had talked my way into the No Name. I ended up at a dorm room at Brown University, where my pickup convinced his roommate to go to his girlfriend’s room while I hid my face in the bathroom. We used condoms he’d gotten out of a candy dish in the bar. An hour later I was on my way home, all the while worrying his roommate recognized me from the two gigs we’d done on the campus. As I was leaving I saw two people I knew from the Copa in the hallway and never went back there again.

The man in the leather vest stood up, putting down his beer glass with a loud thump. His eyes passed over me like searchlights. He had the same mustache as the bartender. A pair of mirrored sunglasses rested at the center of his shirt collar, dragging it down to show a tuft of chest hair. He circled around behind me and I shivered again, feeling like a diver in a shark cage. He looked rough, gruff, and tough, like a drill sargent or a prison guard. If he touched me or spoke to me I wondered what I would say, or if I would just flee like the prey his attention made me feel like I was. Perhaps I would merely be transfixed by him, unable to refuse. The very thought made me want to get up and leave, but I didn’t.

Mr. Leather Vest passed back behind me again, his heavy boots sounding on the wooden floor. He gave a wave to the bartender and with a flash of blinding sunlight, was gone.

Unobserved, I put my denim jacket back on. I finished the club soda, put the glass down with a thunk, and stood up. I made a guess that the restroom would be in the back, and strode that way, letting my feet fall with the rhythm of the music. I felt the heads of the two pool players swivel as I went past. This early in the day, it seemed, the pickings were slim. I should be getting on a train, I thought, not hanging around hoping something will happen that probably won’t.

In the men’s room there were three cramped stalls, no urinals, which seemed odd. I went into the middle one and shut the door. It had no latch but stuck shut. There was someone in the stall on the right. I unzipped my fly.

“You gonna piss?” His voice came through a hole bored in the stall wall, about the size of the soundhole of the guitar.

“Excuse me?” My hand was on my dick and I was trying to figure out how I felt about some pervert watching me when he said:

“Put it through after you’re done.”

My hand trembled a little as I turned my attention back to the toilet. He was watching me through the hole; I could hear him breathing. I wasn’t having any luck getting started.

“You look nice,” he went on. “I like cut men.”

I wanted to say “excuse me?” again, because I wasn’t sure what he meant. Circumcised, I realized then, not sure where I’d heard it before. Maybe I’d seen something in that porno shop in Boston.

He kept talking like that, and I started to get hard as the first drops of piss began to fall. He was telling me about my dick, and about what he was going to do with it. I couldn’t piss much as I got harder. “Best blow in town,” he said. I could smell my own piss and knew he could, too. “Don’t shake it out! Give it here.”

I felt a drop fall from the tip. I was harder than I thought I could be from just listening to a stranger in a men’s room.

“Come on, man, you’re letting it get cold! Put it through!”

I felt then like an actor in a play, with no will to go against the stage direction, and I ‘put it through.’ I had to stand on tiptoe to clear the hole, and there was his mouth, hot and wet. My bare stomach pressed against the cold metal of the prefab wall as he sucked the rest of the piss out of me in expert fashion. For a while I wondered how he did what he did, but I began to lose my train of thought as the sensation built. My calves began to ache from holding myself up, and I gripped the top of the stall wall with both hands and moaned as he increased his pace. And then I stopped feeling my hands or feet as the heat spread through me from my cock on outward. I hung there, emptying into him, gasping, shuddering, and for a moment forgetting who I was, where I was.

By the time I had collected myself enough to say ‘thanks’ he had gone. I wasn’t sure who I thought was more pathetic, me for being desperate enough to stick my dick through a hole in a bathroom stall, or him, who sat there on the john waiting for someone like me to come along. Maybe the guys out there took turns in here. I didn’t want to know–the whole thing now seemed sick and twisted to me. Well, I thought, at least he sure as hell isn’t going to recognize me again someday. I sat there on the lid for a few minutes, catching my breath before I tucked myself back in and decided it was time to head home.

Some things Artie had said kept echoing in my head like some horror movie soundtrack. Two problems. Originality, ambition. I liked what I saw. Two problems. Time to grow. I felt like it hadn’t even been me sitting in that chair, it was some phantom in my shape. I sat in a far corner of the train car, letting the roar obliterate the sound of my shaky breathing. Is this who I am? Pathetic, scared and lonely? The only time that had seemed real in the past few days had been those moments on the stage when I had forgotten all the reasons and business and worry. I wondered if that was what it was like for Remo, or if he enjoyed the worrying a little more. My fingers clawed at my jeans. I felt hollow. I wanted to play, to bask on the stage, to make eye contact with someone, to lose myself in playing, to fill up on it. To live.

I got out of the train a block west of the Village. There were only two things that came close to the need I had, and one of them was expensive and difficult to find for someone who didn’t know the turf, besides, I’d already had my fill of drugs with Jeremy and I needed my cash for getting home. The other thing, I thought, I’m not supposed to have because I’ve sworn off it. But I was thinking about that dance club where I’d gone the night I ditched Carynne; it had to be near here somewhere. But it would be closed in the middle of the day.

I reasoned with myself. No one knew me here, I might meet someone that I’d really never see again. In Boston, everyone knew everyone, it was just too small, but here… I felt that tightness in my gut, tugging at me. It had been three months. I knew I was justifying wildly, but by then I thought I’d do anything to shake the feelings of guilt and emptiness, even for just a little while. Once every three months, I thought. That’s only four times a year. Surely you can’t blame yourself for this once. The rationales began to play over again like a brainwashing tape. No one knows you here… and it’ll cost you nothing more than forgetting for a while…

Alright. I combed out my hair with my fingers, swept it to one side, turned up the collar of my denim jacket, and struck a pose in a store window. Not enough. I really needed to attract someone’s attention. I took off the jacket, and then my t-shirt, and put the jacket back on. I stuffed the shirt into my backpack and slung that over my shoulder and checked my reflection again. It would have to do. I wanted to fish out my sunglasses, but I needed to make eye contact for this to work. This wasn’t the time to hide. The afternoon was just beginning.

I sailed through the streets working my way east, hoping to stumble on a bar where making a connection would be easy, expected. I followed my dick like a divining rod, until I realized I was right behind a brawny crew-cut type. He went into a bookstore on St. Marks and I went after him.

Mr. Crew Cut went toward the back of the store. I pretended to browse along the way, feeling too much like a lost puppy for my own taste. Another thing Digger used to say: when you’re hungry the first thing you swallow is pride. I stood next to him as he picked a book from the shelf and opened it. We were standing in the mystery section and I thought of Matthew.

I looked over the titles, absorbed none of them. He stood there, close enough that I imagined I could feel the warmth from his bare forearms. I waved my hand at the books and he looked up. “What do you recommend?”

“Hm?” He looked half at me, half at the shelf.

I let my hair fall back, and threw out my real opening line. “I’m stuck in town until this evening with nothing to do.” I raised an eyebrow at the books. “What would you recommend?” A woman brushed past us in the aisle and was gone.

A half-smile spread across his face as he began to comprehend my meaning. At least, I think he did, as his eyes also traveled the length of my chest where it showed between the open slit of the jacket. My heart was pounding hard, as if he had touched me along that strip of exposed skin. I hoped my nervousness didn’t show, or if it did, that he found it sexy. I kept my eyes on the books now, but I could see the tapered outline of his forearm as he put the book in his hand back on the shelf. His hands were large and there was golden hair on the back of them.

“Mysteries are okay,” he said. He took a step back. “But I tend to stick with the ones I know, you know, I’m leery of trying something new.”

Such as me. “Well, you never know what you might find.” I wracked my brains for something to say, something that would make it irrefutable that this was a come on, something that if he shrugged off I would be sure it was out of lack of interest, not misunderstanding. But I couldn’t say something like “I want to fuck your brains out.” I looked him in the eye now, hoping it was the right thing to do.

This time the half-smile came with a little setting of the jaw and he shook his head in a quick no. “I usually find I’m disappointed. So I stick with the old-standbys.” He gave a little shrug as if to say ‘no offense.’ “Good luck finding what you want, though.” He waved as he walked away from me.

I stood there staring at the books until my heart had slowed to normal. Then I went and loitered outside the bookstore for a while, the midday sun heating me up until I took off the jacket. I slung it over my shoulder with the knapsack and tried to think of what to do next. Maybe I should give up and get back on the wagon.

“Hey.”

I looked up and Mr. Crew Cut was standing there. He took a half step toward me. “You might try Number One-eleven.”

I cocked my head and narrowed my eyes–where?

He jerked his head east. “About two blocks that way.”

“Thanks.” I shoved one hand into the pocket of my jeans. I stood there, giving him one last chance to change his mind. He repeated the little wave and walked on.

I went past the Italian restaurant where Carynne and I had eaten dinner a million years before. And came upon a wooden door in a white storefront, no windows, no sign, just white raised numbers that read “111.” A speakeasy couldn’t have been more subtle.

Inside I was contrast-blind as I stood blinking and waiting for my eyes to adjust. I hoped I looked like a desirable piece of fresh meat, not some slumming tourist or hustler. I could see bar stools, the old soda-fountain kind anchored into the floor, the kind that spun around. I took the one nearest the door. Some kind of techno-disco music throbbed quietly in the background.

The bartender came down to me. He had a trim build and a mustache, the kind of impeccable neat that I was coming to associate with older gay men.

“Give me a club soda.” I set the bag down at my feet, left my jacket across my legs.

“Drinkin’ heavy today, eh?” he joked, filling a glass from a gun-dispenser.

“It’s too early for me,” I said, and added a little too loudly, “I’m just trying to kill an afternoon.”

Now I could see the other patrons a little better. The man several stools down, the closest to me, wore a white undershirt with a leather vest. Nearer the back, two men were playing pool without speaking. Two or three others drifted. Mr. Crew Cut had definitely understood what I was looking for.

My stomach was in knots, churning alternately with fear and hope. If Artie’d wanted to sign us I’d have known it, he would have said something, I thought. He would have asked all three of us to come down to the office. But then, he couldn’t be meeting me just to tell me to get lost, you suck, he wouldn’t waste his time with that. As the subway car rattled its way uptown I let these two thoughts chase each other back and forth through my brain until I thought I would be sick. I shivered a little, thinking, this is what managers worry about. Ziggy hadn’t even given it a first, much less a second thought, or so it seemed. And I began to wonder where he’d spent the night and almost missed my stop.

Wenco’s offices were in midtown, near Radio City and Rockefeller Center. They didn’t challenge me in the lobby, I went straight to the elevators and up to the eighth floor. There a big-haired receptionist stopped me and asked me to sit in a chair by a potted plant. A glass coffee table was littered with promo material for some bands, press releases, photos, and a copy of Billboard magazine open to the Top 100 with some of the titles highlighted with marker. “I’m a little bit late,” I told the receptionist–Judy, it said on her desk plate–as she reached for her intercom.

Artie came out a few minutes later, looking the same as he always did, faded jeans, cotton button-down shirt tucked in. I followed him through a narrow hallway to his office, a crowded affair that was larger than it looked crammed with demo tapes, press packages, and the like. He cleared a pile of magazines from a chair and indicated I should sit before he went behind his own desk. He moved a pair of headphones from the blotter and put his feet up. I felt for a moment like I was visiting the principal’s office, but only for a moment. I forced myself to lean back in the chair and say something, while looking over the piles of stuff. “Nice office.”

He smiled. “Yeah, when I used to do a lot of traveling, it was neater. My assistant would take care of it while I was gone. But the past two years, well, now she’s afraid to even come near it.” He shrugged. “Heard from Remo lately?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing.” Which was true.

He pulled on his lip. “He’s been out of touch for the past two months or so, working on things. I’ll hear from him as soon as he needs something.”

“I haven’t really heard from him, either.” This was also true. I leaned on one armrest, but then Artie put his feet down so I sat up a little straighter. I guess the small-talk part of the meeting was over.

“That was a pretty good show you put on last night.” I kept quiet, waiting for him to go on. “It’s a fresh sound, lot of creative energy. Where’d you find that singer?”

“On the street.” I let myself smile a little, a wet strand of my hair falling across my eyes as I did.

“Good potential. He never gets dull.”

“That’s what we like about him.”

He looked away from me for a moment and I knew what came next would be important. “I’m a little concerned, though, about the band’s focus. The guitar work is great, but I’m afraid with the drum machine you’ll get lumped into the dance music category, and that’s obviously not right. I mean, what bands have drum machines that are taken seriously as rock?”

“Sisters of Mercy?” I suggested, not sure if the question was rhetorical. “And Echo and the Bunnymen…”

“British gloom and doom bands.” His eyes flicked toward the posters on the wall behind him. “That’s not the audience I see for you.”

Now I felt more like I was talking to a guidance counselor. “What audience do you see for us?”

He gave that shrug again. “That’s the difficulty. I don’t see any one category, any one hook, any one market.”

“So you’re saying we have broad appeal.” I knew he wasn’t, but I clutched at the chance to cast this into a positive light.

He grimaced. “Broad appeal, accessible, these are words I used to equate with boring, middle of the road, middle age, dull.” He leaned forward and whispered, “And I still do.” He shook his head. “You’re more exciting than that.”

“Thanks.”

We were both quiet for a moment. He exhaled through his nose and looked serious. “It comes down to this. I liked what I saw, my interest has only gotten more intense. But we have two problems.” It sounded like he included me in the ‘we.’ He picked up a pair of sunglasses with some band’s logo emblazoned on them and fiddled with them as he spoke. “Being good isn’t enough. I need some kind of focused image I can sell to the higher ups. Which they’ll need when they sell you to the public. That’s problem number one. Problem number two is, you’re young. Band-wise, I mean. As a band, you’re young. No one, including you three, knows what kind of staying power you will or won’t have.”

I nodded, more to keep him talking than because I agreed.

“Fortunately, I think these are the only problems you have. You have talent, originality, ambition, business sense, even some experience. These things will all help you in the long run. And your songs are good.”

I wanted to know where all this was leading. “So, what now?”

He put down the sunglasses. “There’s some chance that as the band matures a natural focus will come about for you. That would solve both problems. So, for now, I have to say I’m not ready to sign you, yet. But I’m also not ready to leave you out in the cold, either.” He smiled and it looked less like he was passing judgement. “See, here’s my dilemma, the classic A&R dilemma. If I sign you now and you go nowhere, it looks bad. On the other hand, if I don’t sign you, and you become a mega-hot property next year, then either we lose you to another company, or we have to pay a very high price to get you when we could have got you cheaper before.”

“Which means?”

“Which means I wish I could sign you now, but can’t risk the ‘I told you so’ if you flop because of reason one or two. But I want to keep you in the loop. Do you have a publisher?”

“A who?” The question popped out before I could keep myself from showing my ignorance.

“A music publisher.” He opened a drawer and rummaged while he talked. “Most artists don’t, until they get a record contract. But these days publishers are doing more A&R, putting up money for recording, creative development, stuff like that.” He fished out a card and passed it to me. “I’m going to tell this guy you’re calling, and you tell him I sent you. He’s brought me some ‘discoveries’ in the past, the higher ups trust him. I figure with his help, you can get an indie EP or LP off the ground, establish some track record, get some good reviews, maybe a little notoriety, give yourselves time to grow.” He stood up and I figured that meant this was the end of the meeting. I stood up and shook his hand. “But please, keep me informed.”

I shook his hand, not quite sure what to say.

He sighed a little. “I’m sorry I don’t have better news. In a perfect world I would have signed you last night. But it isn’t so simple, Daron.”

“I know,” I said, though until he’d said it I hadn’t.

“It’s not my decision alone. We had a meeting this morning and I’ll just tell you there’s more people here than me who believe in you.”

That explained why he’d wanted to see me today, why he couldn’t tell me last night what he thought. Because what Artie thought and what Wenco thought were two different things.

“I wouldn’t blame you at all if you did sign on with another company, so don’t feel obligated to me. But nonetheless, I’d like a crack at signing Moondog Three.” He ushered me toward the door with a hooked arm. “If you get some other major label interest, let me know, maybe I can drum up a counter-offer, at least give us the chance to make a bid.” That made it sound almost like I was the one in control.

I shook his hand again. “I’ll let you know when we’ll be playing in town, again,” I said, in a neutral voice Digger would have described as “not showing any cards.” Not that I had any to show. “And tell Remo I said hi if you talk to him.”

“I will, I will,” he was saying as I went down the hall, back to Judy’s desk, retracing my steps to the elevator, the lobby, the subway.

(I figured you guys have seen enough Paul McCartney in your lives already so here’s a solo guitar version of ‘Maybe I’m Amazed.’ OK, so this guy’s a little stiff, but still, nice arrangement, eh?)

Ziggy was planting himself on a bar stool next to a woman with big hair and a yellow miniskirt. Artie was deep in conversation in the circle of execs. I knelt to open my guitar case and stashed the cord in it. Then, instead of putting the Ovation away, I sat down on a milk crate and cradled it in my lap. Should I have brought the Strat instead? Artie was coming this way.

He shook my hand and I didn’t hear at all the first few words out of his mouth.

“Thanks,” I said, anyway.

“We would have been here sooner but Angie insisted we check out some show in Midtown.” He shrugged. He looked older than I remembered, starting to bald.

I should have said something like, “Really? Who?” or something equally schmoozy, but I just nodded.

“Anyway, I want to talk to you in the morning, if that’s possible. Can you come up to my office?”

“Sure.” I said immediately, even though my brain had already come up with numerous reasons why I couldn’t, chief among them that I wouldn’t be in NYC in the morning. I took his card from him with the address. “What time?”

“Not too early. Let’s say 11?”

“Sure,” I repeated. We shook hands again and he took the rest of them in tow and left.

Bart touched me on the shoulder. He must have been standing next to me most of the conversation. “What did he mean by that?”

“By what?” I unhooked the shoulder strap and let the guitar slide down between my legs until the peg touched the floor.

“Why didn’t he just tell you what he thought right now?”

“I haven’t the slightest.” Ziggy was putting his arm around Ms. Miniskirt. “But I guess I have an appointment to keep.”

Bart shook his head. “How are you planning to do it? Are we driving back tonight, or not?”

I rubbed my eyes. “We’d never make it back in one piece. Didn’t Michelle say we could stay with her parents in Connecticut?”

Bart was watching Ziggy now, too. “Yeah, that was if we were planning to stay over. I don’t know how kindly they’d take me calling them up now. And they haven’t even met you or,” he jerked his head toward our illustrious singer.

“Well, they’d take you, wouldn’t they?”

He didn’t look happy. “If it came to that.”

“It looks like Ziggy is going to find his own place to sleep tonight,” I pointed out. The guitar felt strange and unbalanced now that its weight was on the floor.

“And what about you?”

“I’ll take care of myself,” I said, turning away from him to slip the guitar into the velvet of the case.

A bit later Bart and I and Jeremy loaded the stuff back into Bart’s car. I was making a last sweep of the stage for anything of ours when Ziggy hissed from behind me.

He was grinning, his hands behind his back. “Hey, boss.”

I was too tired for witty repartee, so I just turned around and waited for him to say what he had to say.

“You guys mind if I don’t go back with you?”

I mustered part of a smile. “Go on. But how are you going to get back?” I was asking myself that question at the same moment.

“Bus? Train? Either one,” he finished. “I have some cash.” Sometimes Ziggy was part of our threesome and other times he was like he was that day in the park, an outsider along the ride. This felt like one of the latter.

“Have fun,” I said and watched him cross the room, take her under his arm, and disappear. Bus, train, either one. I guess it was a good thing I was obsessing over what Artie was going to say since I probably did enough worrying for both of us.

I didn’t feel guilty about leaving Bart to do all the driving, since I know he would have done it all anyway. I got my bag of dry clothes out of the trunk, and Jeremy and I watched him pull away from the curb. I resisted the urge to wave.

“So, what are you up for now?” Jeremy lit a cigarette while he talked, his purple pants garish under the streetlamp. I was glad I didn’t find him attractive. I was celibate, anyway, right?

I shrugged. “I guess I’m on my own.”

Jeremy clubbed my shoulder with a soft fist. “You want to get stoned?”

It was as good an idea as any, so I waited on the street while Jeremy locked up the club. I was still jangly from the show and I wanted nothing more than to get laid, but I would settle for stoned. That was a nice, normal thing to do.

We went on foot to his fourth floor walkup. He had last week’s Headbanger’s Ball on VHS and we watched it while we smoked and he told me dirt about Riki Rachtman and miscellaneous other LA metal scene people and I wondered maybe what had happened to him out there. I didn’t say much. Mostly I let each sweet puff unknot me a little more, until I almost felt relaxed. By the time I did feel relaxed, we had both fallen asleep in our clothes on the floor.

He circled around the chorus again, and I joined in with a twangy riff. It was a sweet interpretation of the song, and I had visions of us doing it this way in front of thousands of people, with lit candles in their hands, singing in one voice, “Candlelight, candlelight…” It was joyous and mournful at the same time.

I let a note trail off and a smattering of polite claps brought me back to the room, but I kept seeing it with a double-vision of my dream of someday’s success. I hoped it was a good omen and not a delusion. Ziggy introduced the first song in the set list. I kicked on the drum machine with a foot pedal and we got down to business, revving the volume up with “Welcome” and not letting it back down.

I didn’t even notice Artie had come in until we were nearing the end. He and a few other people, some in businesswear, were shuffling their feet in front of the bar. I had no idea how long they had been there, or if they had just come in. I forced myself to take my eyes off of them. We finished “Walking” and the other two looked at me. “Go straight to the encore” I said, not sure if they heard me. I riffed out the opening of “Desire” so it didn’t matter. I felt suddenly as if every note I played had to be imbued with some extra significance. What that could be, though, I didn’t know: what did they want? What could they be listening for? I closed my eyes but that scared me, so instead I looked at Ziggy.

He had put the mic into the stand and was singing with both hands at his throat in a sensuous hold, his eyes half-lidded, then closed as he slid down deep into the bottom of his range. My hands kept playing but the sense that I was in the audience returned. I did not take my eyes off of him until he opened his and was saying “Thanks for coming, this is our last song.” I played the opening note without realizing it, and then looked back at the gaggle of execs Artie had brought in. Some of them were nodding their heads in time. I hoped that was a sign they were into it, not that they were trying to look like they were into it.

And then it was over. Jeremy applauded loudly, shouting “Alright!” Then he switched the tape player on and went back to tending bar.

Chinatown itself is really cleaned up, too, with very little now in the way of streetwalkers and drug dealers compared to 20 years ago. What I hear is that it’s like this most places–no one stands on a street corner to sell illegal wares anymore, whether its sex or drugs, because now we have the Internet. The city trumpets its “cleanup” efforts, but the plain truth is that porn businesses long ago figured out that they sold more when they opened shops in the suburbs, where the actual customers are, and with the ease of the Internet, both for purchasing DVDs and getting streaming video, no one really wants to go to a porn theater anymore.

What I don’t know is if “the block”–where the gay hustlers would stand–is still in use. The jewelry store (Shreve, Crump, & Lowe) that was the landmark one used to find it, which had been there for a hundred years or something, has also moved a few blocks away, to occupy the former FAO Schwarz building, so the spot itself is pretty much anonymous now. I’ve asked around some gay male friends but the answer was inconclusive as to whether it’s still there.

According to the late, infamous gay writer John Preston, it was no coincidence that “the block” was located so close to the Park Plaza Hotel–which in its days as the Statler Hilton had been THE “businessman’s hotel.” It was a warren of single rooms for traveling salesmen. The straight ones could find what they needed in one direction, the closeted gay ones in the other. To think that the nation’s commerce used to depend on a constant army of salespeople, nearly all men, who went door to door and place to place. Their ranks have been in decline since the 1950s.

I had two lovers who both worked “the block” from time to time around 1990-1992. One of them was very cute and thought I didn’t know he was a hustler; he thought I was too innocent and naive to know what he did. I just figured he was being coy by not talking about it and kind of hinting around it without coming out and saying it. One day I said something about it and he was like “how did you know?” (Honey, it wasn’t hard to figure out.) After that, I got to hear plenty of stories about being a rentboy from him, and he ended up giving advice to the other one when he started doing it.

The Pool Bar was a real place and Jeremy was a real person. I managed a band called Sexploitation back in the day and they played a showcase there during the College Music Journal (CMJ) festival one year (it must have been 1991?). That was the same CMJ where they also played a showcase at Limelight, and swapped time slots with another up and coming band who were not yet signed: Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids. No, I am not making this up. Manson & co. were managed at the time by two obnoxious, middle-aged guys from Florida, and the band members were–get this–completely decked out in neon colors, including one who had on a lime green babydoll dress with a giant magenta and orange daisy on it. He looked VERY unhappy about wearing it, but I was under the impression the manager-types had decided that raver psychedelia was the “in” thing and they had convinced the band to go along with it. They did not get a record contract as a result of that gig. (If I have the story right, Brian/Marilyn jettisoned the fat managers a year or so later and sought out Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails himself, landing a deal in 1993.)

I’ll write more about Sexploitation in a future liner note, possibly more than one. There’s a lot to say about them which will become relevant at various points.

-ctan