Bart got into his bunk but didn’t end up staying there. No one really felt like settling down; it was like a sleepover party. Colin had a nap and then got back up, and Chris never even got in bed, I don’t think. People had quiet conversations, or read a little, and checked out the various parts of the bus all over again.

It took me a little while to figure out why there were holes in all the tables. As soon as someone stuck a Coke can into one it was obvious, though. There were two toilets, one in each “lounge” area. The one in back was tiled and had gold-tone fixtures. (“Crap. This is nicer than the bathroom we have at home,” Chris joked.) The front lounge had a door that could shut us off from the driver completely, but there was a phone Marty could use to call us or vice versa. The front lounge was just a lounge, with a TV set in one corner and a VCR, while in the back the corners held some kitchen stuff, a microwave, coffee maker, freezer and so on. Ten people could comfortably hang around in the back, twelve if you were friendly. The banquette-type seats that lined it had drawers under them. There were also storage drawers under the double bunks that could be pulled out so that instead of eight bunks, you could sleep twelve.

The shower really seemed like something from the set of a science fiction movie. The entire interior was a uniform beige color and it was like it had been molded from a single piece of plastic, which I guess it was. When Chris got in I seriously wondered how he’d wash the lower half of himself since there wasn’t room for him to bend over. Those of us of the smaller species of human had a lot less trouble. Chris said he planned to shower at the venues whenever he could, which got a thumbs up from Carynne.

Looking down the list I could see we were going to be playing some pretty varied places. The sports arenas where we’d been so far almost always had full shower setups because they had locker rooms and stuff. The locker rooms were off limits if there were sports teams playing there, but there were always showers. With the smaller theaters and amphitheaters, sometimes you didn’t know what kind of facilities would be there. I had heard some stories that at outdoor festivals you might be lucky to have flush toilets.

I felt too good to really be worrying about all that, exactly. There’s a difference between thinking and worrying.

I fell asleep as the sky was lightening. The windows in the back lounge were tinted, but I could make out stuff along the side of the road as the blackness lifted. I didn’t actually get into my bunk. One minute I was staring out the window, the next, I was out cold with my face against the top of the bench-type seat.

When someone woke me, it was full morning, and the bus was parked behind a sand-colored building inside a fenced in area.

The someone was the bus driver, a short, olive-skinned man named Marty. “You’ll get a crick,” he said, and jerked his thumb toward the bunks.

“What time is it?”

“You get a couple more hours sleep. I’m getting breakfast.” He shuffled up the aisle toward the front.

I was wide awake by the time I stood up. “I’ll come with you.”

He looked back at me like I said I was going to get a second head attached.

“Um, unless you don’t want company.”

He broke into a crooked smile. “You’re a good kid. Come on. But bring a jacket.”

I grabbed my denim jacket and I followed him out into what was clearly a production parking lot. I saw our equipment truck. A soft drink delivery truck was backed into the loading dock and someone was whistling.

“You been here before?” Marty asked.

“No. Well, Arizona once. To film a video. Never played a show here, though.”

“This place is nice,” he said. When he said that I suddenly recognized his New York accent.

The sun was blindingly bright and I was glad to find a pair of sunglasses in the pocket of my jacket. He brought me around the building and I realized it was the stage itself, all one big structure. In the front was a sculpted lawn, bright green, sloping up in elegant tiers. Looked like a fabulous place to see a show.

“This place is nice,” I agreed.

He took me out the front of the place, and then we walked. He wasn’t a tall man, and he had a bit of a hunch, so I had no trouble keeping up.

For some reason I was sort of surprised to find we were smack dab in the middle of a city. I guess I always think of these shed venues as being in the middle of nowhere. Mesa wasn’t as densely packed as an East Coast city, but it was definitely a city.

By the second block, I was starting to feel very thirsty and hot. “Last time we were here, it was a hundred degrees,” I said.

He nodded. “Not today. Maybe ninety. We’re lucky.”

“Yeah.” I wondered why he’d told me to bring a jacket. Marty himself was wearing a kind of bus driver uniform. Baggy, navy blue pants and vest over a light blue, button-down shirt. He was carrying a blue jacket over one arm.

I understood why when we got where we were going. He led me into an aggressively colorful coffee shop and it was like walking into a refrigerator. The place was crowded and we got in line to place an order.

“Brunch,” he said with a knowing nod.

“Is it Sunday?” I asked.

He nodded again.

We didn’t say much while we ate. Marty was a man of few words, which suited me just fine. We had a good laugh, though, when a waitress asked if we were father and son. I paid for both of us, and he bought a couple of cups of coffee to go. I didn’t know if he was bringing them for other folks or if they were all for him.

We were just walking back into the heat when he said to me, “This is good.”

“What’s good?”

“You’re not crazy.”

“I’m not?”

“Nah. And since you’re not crazy, they don’t go crazy.” He waved back at the restaurant.

“I think they just don’t recognize me.”

“It’s not just that. You don’t have the crazy hair. You don’t have the crazy clothes. You don’t have the crazy face.” He squinted at me. I probably still had a smudge of eyeliner but maybe it had finally sweated off.

“Um, thanks?”

He grinned. It was like parts of his face had sagged over the years and smiling only lifted up some of the parts. His explanation: “It’s not every guy I can walk to breakfast with.”

“Oh. Well, thanks.”

Back at the venue, Carynne introduced me to another young woman who showed us backstage. There were two fully decked out dressing rooms, the kind lined with makeup tables and mirrors with round lights, a small production office Carynne had already moved into, and check it out: a fully functional shower. Three guitar cases were already lined up next to one of the dressing tables.

I went and sat down in Carynne’s temporary office. She had a bunch of papers spread out on the desk and was staring at them. She looked up at me. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s great,” I said. “Marty’s a gem.”

“Isn’t he, though? He’s a find. Where’d you guys go?”

“He took me to get breakfast. I’m just checking in with you since how am I supposed to know where to be if there was no schedule under my door this morning?”

“Hah. But, you have a point. I’ll post it on the bus door each morning. Starting tomorrow. Today’s check is at one-thirty. Spread the word.”

“That early?”

“Because the show starts early, doofus. Five p.m.”

“Ohh, right. It’s Sunday. How many does this place seat?”

“Five K. Doors open at three.”

“And we have the day off tomorrow…?”

“Well, sort of. It’s a fourteen hour drive to Denver.”

“Holy crap.” I went on a fourteen-hour bus trip once, before I quit high school band, to a competition. At the time it hadn’t even occurred to me that the bus drivers didn’t get much of a rest that whole trip. I supposed Marty was a pro, maybe fourteen hours was nothing to him.

“Then it’s another fourteen hours to Dallas from Denver,” Carynne said with a yawn. “But it’ll be worth it. If you think this place is beautiful, wait till you see Red Rocks.”

I’ll admit it, I got a little goosebumpy when she said “Red Rocks.” I’m the one who wore out the tape of the U2 concert from there, after all.

“Money’s better there, too,” she said, no romance in her voice at all. “Seats twice what they do here, and the expenses are lower.”

I took a cue from Marty and just nodded.
–
(Kickstarter update: We hit our goal last night!! Yes, we’re fully funded! You’ve still got 6 days, though, to order an autographed book or other swag. Don’t forget tonight 5pm – 7pm Eastern: Google Hangout! DGC video chat, should be viewable to all here: https://plus.google.com/106322465979385944906/posts?hl=en)
–

Kickstarter
The Kickstarter stands as of this writing at 86% funded! $2,367 pledged, $383 to go.

Posting Schedule
Plesae note that as soon as the Kickstarter ends, we’re dropping back to Tuesday/Thursday posting, and I’m going to have to raise my rate for earning a Saturday post from $25 to $50. I’m just having trouble keeping up! Daron’s been extra chatty lately, which means longer posts, and they take longer to write. A usual post is a thousand words. Lately, he’s been going on for 2000 or more. I know, I know, he’s working out his stuff. But I only have so many hours in the day, and other deadlines are clamoring.

So: back to Tuesday/Thursday and the new post-trigger threshold is $50. Any week where donations go over $50 will still get a third post! But it’s only good that week. (So if we get $100 some week, for example, it doesn’t carry over to the next week.)

Bonus Erotic Story!!
The latest “bedroom scene” for Daron came after chapter 266, when he left the band for a night in LA, and then met back up with them in San Diego. Folks wanted to know what happened on “Daron’s Night Out.” So I wrote a story. Not just a scene, a full, five-thousand word short story of what Daron did that night. To get this bonus scene, though, you have to be a backer of the Kickstarter. Regular “tip jar” donations do not count for this one! You have to go and put at least a dollar into the Kickstarter and help us make that goal! The PDF is already done and available for Kickstarter backers, who should have gotten a nice notification email about it. If you didn’t get yours, ping me and I’ll send you the special link to the file!

Kickstarter Hangout
After a few days in a row where the Kickstarter seemed to have slacked off, I announced that on Tuesday I’ll be hosting a Google Hangout from 5pm to 7pm Eastern. Anyone with an Internet connection should be able to see the broadcast of the video chat here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/106322465979385944906/posts. Go circle me on G+ though, if you’re on there!

Once I announced the chat, I made a Facebook “event” for it and invited about 75% of my Facebook friends to attend. About 25 said yes, which propogated the info to *their* FB friends, 25 said maybe, and many declined the invite, but then posted to their walls about the Kickstarter anyway. I had been posting to my own wall every day about the Kickstarter, but this really woke people up, I think.

Guest Blogs!
The other things I’ve been doing to try to spread the word about DGC and the Kickstarter is I have been guestblogging like a madwoman. Here’s a complete list of all the DGC guestblogs I’ve published since the KS began:

• At Lambda Literary Foundation — on why crowdfunded self-publishing is a vital part of the ecology of queer/independent publishing now
• At Beth Wylde’s Born 2 B Wylde blog — on how writing a piece set in the 1980s is historical fiction
• At Ryan Field’s blog — on how the realism of homophobia and queer life in the 80s intensifies the emotional impact of DGC rather than making it “mere” escapism
• At Kayelle Allen’s Romance Lives Forever blog — on the ways Daron’s Guitar Chronicles is a love story, ie. is and is not a “romance”. There’s also an interview with Daron there, too!
• At Mary Anne Moharaj’s blog — a piece on how writing in the world of rock and roll is like writing science fiction

There should be two more forthcoming, I believe. One will be a piece at MeiLin Miranda’s blog, about how a long-term ongoing serial like DGC is like a long-term relationship. And also addictive. The other will be for Elizabeth Barrette, on my experience with crowdfunding.

Cover Art Search Begun
Since it looks very likely that we’ll meet our Kickstarter goal, I’m beginning to look for an artist to do the cover of the book. If you have suggestions for who, or samples to show, please don’t hesitate to ping me! ctan.writer @ gmail.com

$3,500 Incentive
Remember, if we pass the regular funding goal and make it all the way to $3,500, Daron will do an IM chat with all backers/donors! (At $4,000, Ziggy will do one…)

Okay, that is all for now. Next story post will be Tuesday like usual, and that night will be the online video chat! See you then!

–Cecilia

“The first show where we have to get on the road overnight and you decide to go overtime?” he admonished.

“But it was worth it, wasn’t it?” I said.

He didn’t answer, just handed the newspaper to Petey, who whapped me with it again.

Digger caught up to me while I was waiting around for the rest of the stuff to be loaded into the bus. I was sitting in the little lounge area just inside the bus, at the miniature Formica table. He took the other seat at the table. “It’s all set for New Orleans,” he said.

“The recording day, you mean?”

“Yeah. You’re okay with it? If you’re not, it’s not too late for me to kill it.”

“I’m totally fine with it,” I said. “Why wouldn’t I want the band to do a track? I’d much rather that than Ziggy do it on his own.”

“Well, that’s good, because BNC wasn’t too keen on him doing it solo either.”

“They weren’t?”

“Yeah, not really sure why. They’re against anything they don’t control, though.” He shrugged. “Good thing it’s all in the same conglomerate, though. Wouldn’t want them to decide doing a movie track was breach of contract.”

“Shit. I hadn’t event thought of that.” I shook my head. “Seriously? Would they try to enforce something like that?”

Digger drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “Not for this one they wouldn’t, because the film is being distributed by their own parent company and the record by a sister company. But if it had been Arista or RCA? Probably unless we could convince them it was worth whatever kickback they get.”

“So is this film going to be good?” I asked. “I don’t know anything about it.”

“It is what it is,” he said. Which I took to mean he thought either it sucked and wouldn’t say so, or that he didn’t know what to think of it and didn’t want to seem wrong when it either succeeded or failed. “You don’t need me there in NOLA, do you?”

“Why would we?”

“Just checking. I’ve got some stuff to take care of here this week. And you’re in good hands with Cary. I’ll catch up with you in New York, probably.” He stood to go.

I could have just let him go, you know. I could’ve just waved and not dealt with him for another month.

But I forced myself to say, “We still have to talk contract extension.”

He froze where he was. His voice was even, though. “Are you saying you’re not happy with the status quo? I think things are working pretty good.”

“I’m saying it’s nuts to try to talk about it during a tour. Status quo is a good word. Let’s keep the status quo until we get off the road, and then we need to at least go through the formality of getting the band’s opinions.” Did I sound like a diplomat, or what?

“Okay, that makes sense,” he said. We shook hands. “See you in New York.”

“See you in New York.”

He left the bus and I sat back down. That had been easier than I thought. Of course, all I’d done was put off the conversation until later. But still.

Bart was walking by outside and I cracked open the window and shouted, “Come on, let’s get this show on the road!”

Which made him laugh. He climbed in and stowed his book bag in a bunk, then came and sat with me. “You almost never hear that used literally.”

“Hear what?”

“‘Get this show on the road.’” He chuckled to himself. “So Digger’s not coming along?”

“No. Thank god.”

“You seem like you’re getting along okay.”

“That’s because we’re both too busy doing our jobs to be in each other’s face.” I let out a sigh. “I told him we’ll talk contract after we get off the road. There’s no way we’re dealing with it in the middle like this.”

Bart said the same thing Digger did. “Makes sense. Does Carynne know?”

“No. I only just now made the decision and told him, when he was about to duck out.” Hey, did that mean for once I wasn’t the one who did the ducking? Except that thenI did. I leaned my head on my hands. “Does it actually make sense? Or did I make it make sense by waiting so long?”

“Daron, don’t overthink it. You want Carynne to take over? She can’t do that in the middle of a tour either.”

“True.”

“One thing at a time.”

“Okay. Although speaking of multitasking, that recording day is going to happen after all.”

“In New Orleans?”

“Yeah. In fact, we should have a band meeting about it.”

“Dar’, were about to be living in a the same bus for a while. Every minute of the day is a band meeting.”

“Point. Well then, where the hell is everyone?”

That was when Chris climbed in, and the three of us moved to the larger lounge area in the back, and I ended up telling him about both Digger and NOLA, and then Carynne came along, and I told her, and Ziggy was last–after the driver had started the engine–and so I had to tell him, too. A meeting would have been smarter, or at least more efficient.

I looked around as the bus started to move. “Is this everyone?” Ziggy and Colin were in their bunks.

Carynne took a seat against the lounge window as the bus lurched, making a right out of the parking lot onto a service road. “Paco’s going with the drums. So it’s you four, Colin, and me.” She made a disgusted face. “And I better take a bottom bunk after all.”

“Why?”

She crossed her arms and Bart answered. “Because she lost her lunch on the way here. Driver says there’s less motion sickness in the bottom bunks.”

I patted her on the shoulder. “It’s okay, Car. Nothing bad is going to happen. No Cliff Burton here.”

She frowned. “Remind me who Cliff Burton is?”

Bart spoke up. “Bassist for Metallica. Got killed in a tour bus crash a few years back. He was fucking amazing.”

“Oh, right. I just forgot his name,” Carynne said, looking sheepish. “Metallica was one of the bands my mother wouldn’t let me play in the house.”

“No kidding? My stepmother had a thing against them, too,” Bart said. “Then again the fact that I blew out the speakers on the home stereo system might have had something to do with that.”

“You can buy her a new system now,” I said.

Bart laughed. “Yeah. Didn’t you cover some Metallica?” Bart asked Chris.

“Yeah” Chris said. “And some Megadeth and Anthrax, in the early days of Highway Death.”

“Wait, I just…” I looked at him. “Was the band name a Cliff Burton reference?”

“Kinda, yeah,” Chris said. “Since we started in ’86 right after it happened.”

“Can we pleeeeeease stop talking about tour bus accidents?” Carynne put her hands over her ears.

“Here, I got something for you,” Chris said. He dug into the bag on the seat next to him and pulled out a Walkman and head phones. He handed them to her. “Here.”

She snatched it up. “Is that ‘Kill Em All’?”

“Yup. And ‘Ride the Lightning’ on the back of the cassette.” Chris grinned as she stuck the headphones on her head and hit play.

“Oh my god, I haven’t listened to this in like five years…” she said, mostly to herself since now she couldn’t hear any of us.

I wanted to ask her why she hadn’t listened to it in five years, but then I thought there were a ton of things I listened to a million times when I was in high school that I hadn’t really listened to since. Likewise stuff from Providence. I had a ton of stuff I picked up at Tower when I worked there, some of it I only heard once or twice before it went to the bottom of the stack, while other things I would have worn out if I hadn’t gotten them on CD.

“What’s your biggest guilty pleasure album?” I asked Bart.

“What do you mean?”

“Like, the thing you played until it wore out, but you’re embarrassed to admit.”

“Man, let me think.” He scratched his face. “Sheila E. Glamorous Life.”

“Wait, what’s wrong with Sheila E? She’s an awesome drummer, and like… her uncle was in Santana, and Tito Puente’s her godfather,” Ziggy burst out.

“Oh. Yeah. I dunno. I just thought she was hot, and after the whole Purple Rain explosion I just, well, yeah.” Bart’s cheeks were pink.

“Yeah, you could’ve said Morris Day instead,” I joked. “Jeez, you’d think you said Debbie Gibson or Tiffany.”

“Okay, what’s yours?” Bart asked.

“Shout at the Devil, by Motley Crue, no doubt,” I said.

“Aw, that’s a great fucking album!” Chris said. “Nothing wrong with that.”

“Well, maybe. At the time I felt it was kind of cheesy but I wanted to play it over and over, you know? I had it on a cassette tape–I’d taped it from some burnout at school. To try to prove to myself I wasn’t taking it too seriously, you know what I taped on the flip side?” I paused while they wondered. “The soundtrack from ‘Spinal Tap.’”

That got a laugh, but I was serious. That’s what I did.

“Fuck, man, play something off that next sound check,” Chris said. “I’ll be right there with ya.”

Ziggy chuckled. “You’ll have to play it on the bus stereo so I can hear that one.”

“Aw, c’mon, you had to have heard Motley Crue,” Chris said.

“Not so much. I think the only song I really know is that one from ‘Theater of Pain’ Daron made me learn way back when we met.”

“Wait, I made you learn a Motley Crue song?” I was racking my brain, trying to think of what. “Wait, for your audition?”

“Wasn’t it? ‘Home Sweet Home’ or something like that?”

Bart looked surprised, too. “I’d forgotten all about that.”

“I think I was just trying to pick something with a wide vocal range,” I said. “And which was popular enough to be easy to find. So what’s your guilty pleasure?”

Ziggy stretched, showing his rib cage through the artfully torn holes in his shirt. “Ah, let me see. I went through a Madonna phase, I guess. You know the whole thing with all the girls dressing up as her, the Madonna Wanna-Bes? That was what started me on the road to eyeliner and fishnet and lots of rubber bracelets. At which point I fell directly into lilywhite goth.”

I didn’t know whether that was a subset of goth I didn’t know the term for, or if he was saying goth was itself full of white people. Which I supposed it was. “How about you, Chris? Guilty pleasure?”

Chris shook his head. “I don’t have one. I’m not a snob like you guys. I like it all. I embrace it all. It’s all fucking great.”

Ziggy snorted. “There’s got to be something,” he pressed. “Everyone’s got something they’re either ashamed of or the people around them didn’t approve of, but that you just couldn’t stop playing again and again.”

Chris dug the fingers of one hand into his hair. “Shit, man, I dunno. Wait, I got it. The Beastie Boys. ‘You Gotta Fight, For Your Right–’”

“To paaaaaartay!” Bart and I shouted simultaneously.

I went on. “Are you fucking kidding me? The Beastie Boys are awesome.”

“It’s just some stupid white boys rapping,” Chris said.

“Oh, now the gloves come off,” Ziggy said, in what I can only describe as the New-York-iest accent I ever heard him use. “Now you’re messing with Brooklyn.”

“You’re from Brooklyn?” Chris asked, surprised.

“Did three years in the borough, and I went to Edward Murrow,” Ziggy said, then began to laugh at the rappish rhyme he made. “No seriously, that’s the school where at least one of ‘em went. Marisa Tomei, too. They were a couple of years ahead of me.”

“Who’s Marisa Tomei?” I asked.

“An actress,” Ziggy answered. “She was on soaps and did a movie with Matt Dillon.” He shrugged like we should all know this. “The point is, there’s more to the Beastie Boys than just ‘white boys’ trying to rap.”

“Rolling Stone did call the album a ‘masterpiece,’” Bart put in.

“All right, all right fine, then I can enjoy the Beastie Boys without worry that they’re beneath me, jeez,” Chris said.

“Amen to that,” Bart said. “I’m going to try to get some sleep.”

Carynne’s head shot up as he stood. “Head toward the–”

“Back of the bus,” Bart and I said simultaneously. “We know.”
–
(Kickstarter news: As of this morning we had hit $2,330, which means only $420 to go with 10 days left! Don’t forget anyone who backs the Kickstarter will now automatically receive the bonus scene I’m writing of Daron’s night out. This coming Tuesday from 5p to 7p Eastern I’ll be hosting a Google Hangout video chat to talk about DGC, the Kickstarter, 80s music, read from the serial, etc… You don’t have to be signed up to G+ to see the video chat. I’ll take questions via IM. Please keep spreading the word: http://kck.st/IlE7Bi And huge thank yous to everyone who has backed us so far! It’s amazing and I love you!)
–

I didn’t get to San Diego until the next day and was actually an hour late returning the car, but if it mattered I didn’t hear anything about it.

From the rental car place by the airport I took a cab to the venue. It was yet another one of those round places that looked like a UFO landed in the middle of nowhere, and then they built a parking lot and stuff around it.

The crew and the equipment were there, the rest of the band was not.

I took the Ovation out into the middle of the hall, another sports arena set up for a concert. I found the edge of what would have been the basketball court, where the seats started to slope upward, and just sat there and played whatever came into my head, listening to the sound getting swallowed up by the space.

I think I played for about an hour. I wasn’t in the mood to write anything down. I worked a little on “Thin Ice,” but just on riffs, licks, stuff for the bridge. And played a lot of other things I knew, and some I didn’t.

I can hear music in my head sometimes. I hear things in the shower, in the road noise, in the background of other songs. Other times I have an abstract concept of something and I don’t know how it’s going to sound until I start playing. If I don’t spend the time just playing, I won’t uncover those things. Sometimes I hear one lick and I can imagine the whole song that should come before or after. It wasn’t always like that. In the early days writing with Bart and with Roger I had to dig a lot deeper to get to what I wanted. But at some point it all got closer to the surface, whether because my playing got better and I was in better control of it, or because I knew what I wanted…. or both… I don’t know.

Bart tried to sneak up on me, but I heard him coming. I turned around to see him coming down the stairs of the seating bowl.

He sat down in the row behind me and leaned on the back of the seat next to mine. I kept playing, but quieter, so we could talk.

“Michelle got off all right?” I asked.

“Yep. Put her on a plane this morning,” he said with a yawn. “Too early, but there you go. How you doing?”

“Good. A little time away cleared my head.”

“That’s good.” He nodded along with what I was noodling at. “I think we were all ready to get out of Los Angeles.”

“And we’ll be out of California by late tonight.” I paused and stretched. “Did you get a nap on the way at least?”

“Oh yeah. I picked out a bunk and everything. It’s got my drool on the pillow so it’s mine for sure.” He laughed. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

I stopped playing and looked at him. “Why, do I not seem okay?”

“You seem perfectly, okay, I just didn’t want later for you to think no one cared.” He smirked.

“Haha. Yes, I really am fine.” Getting laid certainly did take the edge off a lot of my worries, anyway. “What time is it?”

“About forty five minutes to sound check,” he said. “Carynne wanted me to remind you to eat. There’s food in the green room.”

“On my way,” I said, standing up and slinging the guitar across my back. “She gets really cranky when I don’t eat. Wouldn’t want that.”

So I ate something that wasn’t memorable and washed my hands, and went out to the stage for my usual warm up.

How about something a little classic rock? I found myself in The Who, “Behind Blue Eyes,” which has a really gentle but intricate-sounding guitar riff to start off, one of those riffs that every high school guitarist has to learn and play a million times. Bart hopped in immediately, and by the time we were repeating the opening again, Ziggy jumped in with a very Ziggy-like interpretation of the words. I mean, it was mostly there, but he only knew the song from us having listened to the tape a few dozen times on the last tour, and in the end the three of us broke down laughing before we got to the part where the drums would come in. Which was just as well, because I’m not sure I remembered that part anyway. So there was Chris, sitting there with sticks ready, waiting, and then just cracking up with the rest of us when it became clear that moment wasn’t going to come.

“Okay, for real, what are we checking with today?” Bart asked, when he stopped laughing.

“What haven’t we done in a while?” I asked. They all gave me their blank looks, which meant they wanted me to pick. I delegated. “Chris, you pick.”

“How about Wonderland?”

“Good idea, yeah.” While we played it through I tried to remember when the video was supposed to be done. Wasn’t the plan to have the single drop while we were on the road? But when? No one had mentioned it at all while we’d been in LA, which made me wonder if the plan had changed and no one told me. I decided I was better off concentrating on making the show that night great than worrying about business details that were out of my control anyway.

The show, by the way, kicked ass.
–
(Kickstarter Campaign Update! As of this writing, we just topped $1,900 so there’s around $800 to go to hit the goal! I just posted a new update at the Kickstarter page that has more details, but I’ll be doing a live “Google Hangout” chat to talk about DGC this coming Tuesday, 5-7pm eastern. I’ve also posted a few guest blogs about Daron, the project, etc. Daron himself even has a short interview over at the Romance Lives Forever blog! Click HERE for the full update.)
–

No, they didn’t. I just wanted to try saying that and see how it sounded. Because things don’t just suddenly go to hell in the same way they don’t just magically get better, either. If there’s a miracle in my life, it’s the miracle of patience. I don’t give up on things. Even when I’m not even sure what those things are.

And in fact the next day was pretty good, all things considered.

It was the aforementioned last media day, and part of that was yet another photo shoot with all four of us. Christian didn’t take his sunglasses off, but I didn’t find that too unusual when what they wanted was us outdoors anyway. They took us to the beach in Santa Monica, which was actually kind of nice and somewhere I wouldn’t have minded walking around for a few hours. It was a nice boardwalk to contemplate sitting down with a guitar and an open case for tips. Maybe someday when I didn’t have people rushing me from place to place.

One thing that surprised me: an open air pumping-iron type of gym right there on the sand. Is that where the term “Muscle Beach” comes from? I had no idea.

When the last of the media obligations was done, I asked Carynne if I could head to San Diego on my own, right away instead of waiting until morning.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because I’m getting itchy from being in one place too long,” I said, which was not a lie. “Is there something we have to do in LA tonight?”

“Miraculously, there is not,” she said, and acted like she was looking something up in the datebook inside her head.

“The crew’s there already, aren’t they? Could I rent a car?”

She chuckled. “You really are antsy, aren’t you?”

“I”m so not used to being around so many people all the time,” I said.

“Well, half of them are your housemates, but point taken,” she said. “Why don’t we ask the concierge desk of the hotel? Just promise me you’re not going to die in a fiery wreck.”

“I promise. No James Dean act.” It was Dean in the car wreck, right? Buddy Holly: plane crash, Elvis: drugs. Johnny Cash was still going strong.

I ended up talking to the concierge myself, and failed to convince him that a shitbox would suit me just fine. He got me some kind of convertible, pristine white as if the LA smog had never touched it. It would probably be gray by the time I returned it, but whatever.

I almost got away without anyone else noticing. But as the bellman was hiding the guitar case in the trunk, Ziggy sauntered up.

“Where you going?” he asked, hands in his pockets.

I contemplated a couple of answers, all of which were true. San Diego. South. Out. For a spin.

What came out of my mouth was, “To find relief.”

He didn’t say anything. Just gave me a little chin-lift and turned around and went back inside.

I drove for a while without really knowing where I was going, radio on. I had the rental car map from the glove compartment, but mostly was going on the mental map I’d built of LA the few other times I’d been here.

I’d once gotten picked up by an airline steward on the way to LA, I suddenly remembered. At the time, what had I been thinking? Mostly I’d been terrified of fucking it up, when I should have been terrified of AIDS or being taken advantage of. It had been one of the few times I’d let things happen without fucking them up, actually.

Just like I’d let things happen with Remo and the Nomad gig. I could have probably talked my way into a permanent gig with them. Remo had hinted as much. They’d take me anytime I wanted to. Much as I liked playing with Nomad, it was good, but it wasn’t the end-all, be-all. Or at least it wasn’t right then.

Moondog 3 was the end-all, be-all… for now. What would happen when things ran their course? Some bands are forever. Some aren’t. I close my eyes at a stoplight, struck again by that vision from my dream, Ziggy airbrushed as the night sky full of stars and reaching for me.

A honk from behind me brought me back to reality. I drove until I saw a payphone outside of a convenience store.

I took a page from Jonathan’s book and called the hotel I’d just left and had the concierge desk look up the name and address of a gay bookstore. It was one way to start the hunt, anyway. If nothing else I knew I could pick up a newspaper there with information in it on where I could go, if not pick up a person who could take care of my needs. They pointed me to a place in West Hollywood, where it seemed my rambling drive had taken me anyway.

I didn’t have to return the car until noon the next day, in San Diego.

All I’ll tell you is I made good use of my time.
–
(Kickstarter update! I posted tour dates and a mock up of how a tour T-shirt might look over at the updates section: click here to see! Unfortunately, yesterday was the first day ZERO pledges came in, so we’re stuck at $1,650. That’s $1,100 to go, with 13 days left! TODAY I’m chatting in the Yahoo group of Beth Wylde, a writer of queer erotica and romance if anyone wants to drop by and say hi to me. here’s the link to her group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bethwylde. Thank you thank you for continuing to spread the word! We need about 40 more donors to make it!)
–

I tempered my questions about various details with inquiries as to her opinion on things, which kept her talking and kept it from seeming like I was second-guessing her. What was going to be our best venue? Which show was likely to pull top gross? Did we need to know anything special about Canada? Et cetera.

Sometimes I am a really good bullshitter.

She didn’t have a lot else to do just then, either. The luxury of playing two shows in a row in the same place.

“It’s almost weird,” I said. “One and done feels so normal now. Two nights same stage… I’m going to be having deja vu all over again.”

“Don’t get too used to it,” she joked.

“Hah. So how much media is lined up tomorrow?”

“Not that much, actually,” she said. “You knocked off just about everyone today. Ziggy’s got one TV spot to do, and we should be checked out of the hotel by noon anyway. With traffic, figure three hours to get to San Diego…” She trailed off, as her eyes met someone coming from behind me.

I turned to see Mills. I almost didn’t recognize him not in a suit. He was wearing a polo shirt and slacks and had a sweater tied around his shoulders like he’d just walked out of the J. Crew catalog. California-style, I guess. I stood up and shook his hand. He and Carynne gave each other little chin-nods like they’d already talked, which they probably had.

“Everything going good?” he asked me. His hair was thinning on top, making the gel-stiffened waves look even stiffer.

“From my end, yeah,” I said.

He slapped me on the shoulder with a knowing smile. “Dodged a bullet the other night though, you know that.”

“You mean with Lacey?”

He nodded. “We’re going to throw you guys a going away party tonight, too. A couple of other BNC artists may pass through. Actually, a couple of non-BNC guys, too.”

“Cool.” I wondered if he would tell me who, or if he was waiting for me to ask. I settled on, “Anyone I know?”

“By name, at least,” he said with a wink. Okay, so he wasn’t going to tell me. Or maybe he just wasn’t going to get me too excited. “A couple of them are putting up tracks for a soundtrack album for your friend, there.”

If I haven’t made it clear before, I hate the way these guys talk. “Your friend.” He either meant Ziggy or Digger, and why couldn’t he just come out and either say their names or say who they were? Like it was some kind of unspeakable thing. Like a dirty secret. I had enough actual dirty secrets, I didn’t need more innuendo in my life.

“The film isn’t scored already?” is what my brain thought to say.

“Oh, it is, but this is the new thing, orchestral score is one album, soundtrack of pop songs used in the film is another. Fantastic market synergy.”

Synergy was one of those words Digger used a lot. “Ah, I get it. Instead of just one ‘theme song,’ yeah, that makes sense. How come it wasn’t always done this way?”

“You want to know the truth? Artists were too greedy and studios were too cheap. The artists wanted way too much to get them to ‘sell out’ like that, they all wanted to get paid was the theme song would get, and that just wasn’t going to happen when the studios were trying to get away with not paying for anything at all.”

“Huh. What changed?”

“Well, for one thing, the studios and the record companies are owned by the same media conglomerates now, so cooperation isn’t just encouraged, it’s practically mandated,” Mills said. “But it’s good for everyone. Everyone makes a little more money–at least on the music side we do–and you get exposure to an audience who might pass you over in the album section. It’s win-win.”

“I like winning.”

“Do you like it enough to cut a new song on your day off in New Orleans?”

“I take it you’ve already discussed this in some detail, then,” I said. If he knew our schedule that well, that is.

He chuckled and slapped me on the arm again like I should lighten up. “There’s a good studio there will take you, and I hear tell you’ve got a lot of new songs in the works.”

“That is true,” I said.

“If you’re open to the idea, I’ll pursue it with Digger a little more. If you’re not sure, we might just kidnap your singer for a day and have him lay down a solo track with some studio musicians.”

I rubbed my eyebrows. Shouldn’t this all have been figured out months ago? Maybe not. I didn’t know how the movie business worked, and knowing Digger the rules probably changed as often as his underwear. “I’m open to it,” I said. At least, I liked the idea of getting the band into a studio better than the idea of Ziggy going in without us. As in: over my dead body was he going to cut a solo track with backing musicians.

In fact, the entire conversation put me in the mood to work on a new song, the whole “your friend” thing, how two nice words, normal words, can just mean the shittiest thing. One of those songs that starts out like it’s going to be a nice song… but then isn’t. I sat on the floor of the green room with a guitar and my notebook on a milkcrate and no one bothered me.

So remember how I thought everything would be the same, since we were playing the same place two nights in a row? I was wrong. This crowd was way more lively than the previous night, much more fun, and Ziggy was on fire, and so was I in that I don’t even remember half of what went on. Which was probably because I wasn’t worrying about where everything was or the new venue, I just let everything go on autopilot, but the crazy-good kind of autopilot, not the boring kind.

I forgot all about Mills and the party, and soundtracks, and Digger, and Colin, and it was just me and Ziggy up there turning the air around us into fire, basically.

After we took our final bows and came off stage, he had his arm around my shoulders like it was the most natural thing in the world.

But maybe it was. He was touchy feely to everyone for a while there, a pair of women Petey introduced him to included. I lost track of them before we got back to the hotel.

I took a shower and changed my clothes, blowing my hair partly dry for the sake of being somewhat presentable, and went up to the party.

I met a lot of people. Remo introduced me to some of his soundtrack contacts. Paul Simon was there. (Paul Fucking Simon!) He wasn’t on BNC as far as I knew but I guess that was the place to be that night. Bart told me later that Michael Keaton had been there, too. I tried to be nice to everyone. I tried to remember some names. That might have succeeded better if I hadn’t ended up in a side room later, after having drunk too much champagne, smoking something that seemed mild enough but I think was laced with something.

How else do you explain that I woke up from a nightmare, in my bed alone later? Nightmare isn’t the right word, but I sat bolt upright in bed, the way I would if I were terrified, except I wasn’t afraid, just deeply startled by the image burned into my brain. It was of Ziggy, on an album cover, looking straight into the camera, and therefore straight into my eyes, reaching for me with his hands looking like some pale alien space orchid, and his face and body painted with streaks of black and white almost like clouds in a moonlit sky, with rhinestones and bits of glitter on his skin shining like his whole body was the Milky Way.

Maybe I was terrified, actually. Because I could see it so clearly. Only a solo album would have a cover like that. My heart hammered like it had happened already, like I’d already lost him, like I had to remind myself it was only a dream.

But it seemed so real.

–
(Kickstarter update: We are just past the halfway point in the campaign calendar, and also just past 53% funded! With 16 days to go, if we keep up the pace of funding, we should make it. I’m still chewing my nails a little, but if folks keep spreading the word, we’ll get there: http://kck.st/IlE7Bi).

Meanwhile, I posted some song lyrics and such over at the Kickstarter update page, and if you are a donor, you can even leave comments over there. So go check out the words to “One Two Three”: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1458565937/darons-guitar-chronicles-omnibus-book/posts
–

Digger put the schmooze on each one before or after they spoke to me, and steered one or two to Ziggy, who was entertaining in the suite upstairs, from what I heard. It was a little tiring talking to so many people, and answering the same questions again and again, but really not high on the difficulty scale. It seemed to me as we went up the fame scale, the questions got dumber and more repetitive. Or maybe Jonathan had spoiled me.

Or maybe I was just bored. I used to be terrified of talking to reporters, afraid of giving something away. But this bunch didn’t seem very muck-rakey. Not a single one asked if I had a girlfriend back home.

The last one of the day was a guy from Musician who was doing a big story on stage set-ups and was going to come to the Forum to see ours. He hopped into the van with us for the ride back to the Forum. We were in the back seat of the van, me all the way in by the window, Bradley (the reporter), and then Chris who sat with his legs sticking into the door well.

“Who’s your main sound man, again?” he asked. “Russell Peters? He worked with Wickenham and those guys, didn’t he?”

“Who?” I asked, but Chris seemed to know what he was talking about.

“The Wall of Sound guys?” Chris asked. “Yeah, he might’ve mentioned something like that. But this set up isn’t cray like that.”

“Crazy like what?” I asked him.

“The Grateful Dead used to have this insane setup where they had all their amps, like, up on stilts and stuff so that the sound came from above, and they had no monitors or mixing. Each instrument had it’s own stack, basically, and it was self-monitoring since the band heard what the audience heard.”

“Wow. What was the point of that?”

“They didn’t like the way the sound got muddy with echo in all the concrete stadiums they played, and so this is how they dealt with it.” Chris gestured like he was pulling taffy upward. “Not stilts. What do you call ‘em. Scaffolds. Man.”

Bradley nodded. “Yeah, it was legendary. They had two rigs actually, and it took so long to set it up that they had to have a crew leapfrogging ahead of them on the tour so that it could be set up by the time they got there.”

“That must’ve been fucking expensive,” I said.

“It was. Which was why they quit doing it after a while,” he said. “Plus I think monitoring and mixing technology was starting to improve.”

Chris snorted. “I suppose we could ask Petey about that if he was around then.”

“He knows his stuff, that’s for sure,” I said. I haven’t said much about Russell Peters, I know. Honestly, there wasn’t much to say. He was a professional, through and through, and didn’t hang around with us much. If anything I got the feeling he didn’t care who we were or what band, all he cared about was that the sound was good. So far, it had been tremendous, as far as I was concerned, so I stayed out of his way and didn’t criticize. He talked to Colin and Paco and some other roadies more than he talked to me. It worked, so I didn’t mess with it.

When we got there and the reporter was safely taking a tour of the set up with Peters, and we were back in the green room, I asked Chris, “So how’s Lacey? She coming to the show tonight?”

“Nah, man, she’s already on a jet to Bali or somewhere for a photo shoot.”

“Bali or somewhere?”

“She told me, but I can’t remember. Started with a ‘B’ though, I think. Bali, Bangladesh, Burma… It’s possible she wasn’t even sure, hah.” He looked kind of tired. Or maybe he always looked that way and I was just searching for anything that looked off.

“How are you doing? I mean, generally.”

“Not bad, boss,” he said, with a bit of a puzzled look.

Okay, pardon me for asking? “Cool.” I just gave him a nod and walked away at that point.

I spent the rest of the time until soundcheck talking tech with Colin. I’d been giving him a crash course in electric guitar design and construction ever since he took the gig as my sherpa, but there’s a limit to what I could tell him. I’m just like those guys who know all about car engines and features but beyond changing their own oil, they haven’t actually gotten under the hood. That, though, was possibly about to change, because Colin had an idea.

“We could totally build a guitar for you. A custom one,” he said, when I was saying there were some things I liked about this one versus that one. “Right? We should be able to buy the humbuckers separately, and the body and all that.”

“I suppose.”

“There are ads in the back of Guitar Player, and I’ve been talking to some of the other guys on the crew.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Don’t you think it’s a great idea? I’ll learn so much. We both will.” He was sitting on the stage, his combat-booted feet crossed and the ankles and leaning back on his hands. He was wearing a tank top that was too loose and showed his arm and chest tattoos. One of them was of a dragon with one of his nipples in its teeth.

For some reason I had to look away from it. Easy enough to do. I was sitting on an upturned milkcrate with a guitar in my lap. “We should do a solid body,” I said. “When we get back to Mass–”

“Oh, I meant we should try to start it now.”

“On the road?”

“Sure. We’re carrying a ton of shit anyway, and there’s hours a day I’m not doing anything. And you should see all the tools and stuff the road crew have.” He bounced his feet. His combat boot were well polished, a serious shine.

“If you think so.”

“Great. One of the guys knows a shop in town that sells some of the stuff we want. We can totally hit it before we hit the road to San Diego tomorrow.”

“I think it’s another media day tomorrow,” I said. “But maybe I’m getting mixed up what day it is.”

He shrugged. “Might be, for you. Road crew’s moving on. Show’s not until the day after.”

I nodded like I knew that, even though I hadn’t actually tracked on it. Truth be told, I couldn’t believe we were still in California and it felt like we’d been here for a month. San Diego was the last West Coast show before we started making our way east, though. Almost done.

I looked up from where I was picking out a little riff and caught Colin staring.

He folded his legs and stood up then, pretending he hadn’t been. “Should I round up the guys?”

“Just patch me in and I’ll get ‘em,” I said, standing up, too.

Okay, yeah, I knew Colin had a kind of hero worship thing going on with me, but it was a little thing, I thought. We’d been living together for like two years already, and he knew me when I was a working stiff. So I didn’t really get the hero worship thing. But then I thought maybe I did, thinking about Mr. Caterer.

My dick leaped to attention behind the guitar as it wondered if Colin could or would suck like that guy had. Stupid, I told it. Don’t even think it.

I started to play. The riff had been stuck in my head since hearing it on the radio the other day. It was something that sounded like it had the echo of Buddy Holly in it, like it could have broken into a Tom Petty song at any point, except it never did, because it was “Desire” by U2, and U2 songs never went where I really expected them to, somehow.

Writing with Ziggy was like that. He never did what I would do, but he always did something that made sense and made it better. Well, okay, he didn’t “always” do something that made sense, which was why we fought, but mostly, mostly it worked. Which was why we worked.

He and Bart jumped in at about the same time, while the crew got themselves in place. Chris was last, and was waving his sticks, but not hitting anything, like he was trying to figure out where the beat was.

When he finally came in, he wasn’t even close to having the right rhythm, though, and the whole thing devolved into laughter.

Chris threw his sticks at Bart, playfully, but his face was a bit red. “What the hell time signature is it supposed to be?”

“Hell if I know,” Bart said. “I just play along.”

“If I had to give it one, I’d say it was 2:2,” I said.

“Two-two is different from 4:4 how exactly?” Ziggy asked, scratching his hair and making it stand up.

“Music theory lessons later, guys,” I said with a chuckle. “Crew’s waiting.”

Bart. “What do you want to check with?”

“Can we try running through something new?” I asked.

“How new?” all three of them said in unison.

“Like, so new that we’ve never played it before?” I took a mock-shy step back as I asked.

“Hah, and we’re not supposed to waste the crew’s time?” Ziggy joked, but he had that feral grin that meant he would take any dare.

“I want to work on that thing you and I wrote that night, the thing that you mixed ‘Changes’ into,” I said.

“Ooooh.” His eyes lit up even more.

Bart put a damper on our enthusiasm. “Let’s at least work out parts on the bus or something before we go noodling on something like that here.”

“Okay, fine. I don’t care what we do, then.”

“Pick something in 4:4 so Chris can get back in the groove, eh?” Ziggy joked.

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s give Walking a run-through, then.” A song we could all do in our sleep. I didn’t figure the crew would have to do much anyway, what with it being the same set-up as the night before. I didn’t think we’d even have to do the whole song.

But once we were on autopilot, we did the whole song, Petey gave us the thumbs up. And that was that.

Time to figure out now how to avoid Colin for two hours until show time, before I did something stupid.
–

(A few more details about the Kickstarter campaign to raise enough donations to make a paperback omnibus of DGC. We just need $150 more to hit the halfway point: we’re at $1225. So $1525 to go, with 19 days left. Interestingly, it appears that the most generous donors followed links from Facebook. Curious, no? Please pledge if you haven’t yet! http://kck.st/IlE7Bi)

–

I didn’t see Chris. “Everything okay?” I asked, sitting down on a leather couch. It creaked under me.

“Yep,” Carynne said. “So far anyway.”

I raised my eyebrows at her and didn’t have to ask specifically.

“Chris is already in bed,” she said. “If you can believe that.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Not really. But I believe him this time, anyway.” She shrugged. “Right now, he seems more embarrassed about falling off the wagon than anything else.”

“How’d the video look?”

“Good,” she said at the same time as Bart.

Bart added, “They did a bit extra with the lights here, knowing we’d be two days with the same rig and they had extra time to set up.”

“I will admit, I didn’t really notice from the stage,” I said, leaning forward on my knees.

“I did a teensy bit, but it’s mostly stuff for the audience to see, you know.”

“I suppose that makes sense. Did it sound okay to you? It felt a little flat.”

“It was fine, Daron,” he said with a yawn. “Really.”

“Okay. I’ll hold off worrying about it for another day.”

A knock came at the door then. Carynne opened it. “Oh.” She sounded surprised. “Um, put it by the table, I guess.”

The cute caterer I’d flirted with yesterday came in carrying one of those ice buckets with a built in stand. In it was perched a bottle of champagne.

He caught my eye as he crossed the room. Okay, caught isn’t the right word. He was giving me the eye.

He set the thing down and turned to Carynne. “Would you like it, um, popped?” he asked.

“Um, no thanks, we’ll do it. Do I need to sign for it?” she asked, still looking confused.

“No no,” he said. “It’s paid for.”

“Who is it from?” she demanded.

“A secret admirer,” he said, and then fussed with the napkin that was threaded around the handles of the thing. “It’s… not uncommon.”

But he blushed when he said it. Or maybe he was blushing because of the way I was staring back at him. I don’t know. It gets kind of fuzzy after that.

I do remember trying to wait a sufficient amount of time so as not to seem suspicious. I do remember being anxious I waited too long.

I do remember being half-breathless when I reached the little bend of the elevator lobby and saw him waiting there.

I wanted to ask why he changed his mind. I wanted to know what was different. But he just held my gaze and pushed the button on the elevator.

We got in together. I wondered if he expected me to make a move right then? He had that sort of forced casual look. I wondered if that was what I looked like when I tried to pretend I was unconcerned.

I followed him out a few doors below. We went to a room and he tried a key, then cursed under his breath and pulled out another one, and then the door opened.

A regular hotel room, unoccupied, beds freshly made.

I finally spoke. “Who’s room is this?”

“No one’s,” he said as he turned to me. “Brilliant, no?”

“Sure,” I said, still trying to figure out how to work up to the questions I was supposed to ask, about whether we were safe to do this in other ways. But his hands were on my fly then.

He sucked me off with me pressed against the full-length mirror on the wall, tugging my jeans down just enough so he could get a hand between my legs to play with my balls.

He was good. In my memory he made it last and yet he got me there with ease. My brain was completely locked up by that point, so much so that I couldn’t even freak out about what might happen next.

What happened after I came was I looked down and discovered he’d put a condom onto me and I hadn’t even realized it. You’d think I’d drunk that bottle of champagne first.

He steered me to the edge of the bed, which was good, because my legs were pretty much jelly, and then got a damp washcloth and cleaned me up. He then returned to the bathroom and returned without the cloth.

“I thought you could lose your job,” I finally said.

He leaned over and kissed me on the forehead, with a smile, the way you would kiss a precocious child. “You don’t even remember my name, I bet,” he said.

I thought it might be Michael, but I wasn’t sure. I might have been making that up. He just smiled like I’d proved his point when I didn’t protest right away.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ve got to go now.” He moved toward the door.

I stood. “What? I mean–yeah, I mean ‘what.’” I shook my head. “You don’t want a turn?”

He shook his head.

“You’re sure? I should be the one thanking you, don’t you think?”

He chuckled. “You’re very welcome, and I mean that.” He wiped his mouth with an exaggerated motion of the back of his hand.

“I’m serious,” I said, trying to figure out how to explain it. “I’m not one of these self-centered celebrity types. I would be happy to get you off.”

He just shook his head again, slowly. “And I’m not your lover,” he said. “This was plenty, thanks. Have a good trip.”

And with that he was out the door, giving me one last wave after it closed behind him.

I waited what seemed like a reasonable amount of time before leaving myself, to be sure we wouldn’t end up waiting for the elevator together. As disquieting as the situation might have been, he seemed happy. And my dick was happy. I hadn’t even jerked off in two or three days, plus getting off with the help of another person always made me feel more relaxed than just doing it myself.

Wouldn’t you know it, I slept well.

–
Kickstarter Update:
Did you know, if you’re waiting for your paycheck to clear before donating to the DGC Kickstarter, that your donation WON’T be charged until the last day of the campaign? Kickstarter waits to see if the target is successfully reached, and if it is, they charge everyone at once at the end. So you won’t be charged until May 22 at the earliest.

A little over a week has passed on the fundraiser, and it’s going great! We’ve been averaging about $100 per day, and at that pace we’ll just hit the target with maybe a day to spare? It’d be AWESOME if it sped up because I worry I don’t want to hit people over the head with it. But the one day I didn’t post, tweet, or Facebook about it was the one day donations were zero. So that seems to say I have to mention it every day to keep it going until we hit the target.

As of this writing we’ve raised $819 with $1,933 to go to make the $2,750 target. Here’s the link to the Kickstarter page, which has all the info on rewards (one of which is you just pre-order the paperback tome for $25) and where you pledge! http://kck.st/IlE7Bi Thanks! And remember, spreading the word and telling other people why you think the project is worthy of support helps, too!
–

It was a very professional crowd, it seemed to me. They clapped in all the right places, cheered in all the right places, never got too crazy, but never lagged in energy either. Don’t get me wrong; that was perfectly fine. But it wasn’t special. Or maybe it was me. I was so ready for something to go wrong, and when nothing did, maybe my head wasn’t in the right place.

Ziggy knew how to play a crowd like that. Let’s face it, he knew how to play any crowd, deep or shallow, rowdy or subdued. Lacey didn’t show up as far as I could tell and I had to keep reminding myself she was okay.

I forgot all that when I came off stage and saw Remo standing there, whistling and clapping. He gave me a big bear hug, which surprised me, since he was usually more a shoulder-slap kind of guy.

Maybe the show was better than I gave it credit for.

I stripped out of my sweaty shirt and put on a dry one. The green room seemed noisier and more chaotic than usual after a show. I just concentrated on drinking a bottle of water and waiting for my blood pressure to return to normal.

“Digger says no promo party tonight,” Remo said, sitting down next to me on a folding chair. “You want to get away from the hotel for a while?”

“Yes,” I said, with feeling. Then I looked up and Ziggy was standing there. “Is that invitation open to everyone or just me?”

Remo opened his mouth to answer but Ziggy cut in. “No no, don’t worry about me. I’m beat. You go on.”

Remo and I said, simultaneously, “If you’re sure.”

Ziggy cracked up a little at that. “I’m sure. I’ll tell the guys you’re out if they start looking for you.”

“Okay.” I stood up, grabbed the Ovation’s case, Remo jerked his thumb toward the door, and we were outta there, that fast.

He was driving the same SUV he’d had the last time he drove me somewhere, or one that looked a hell of a lot like it. From the lot where he’d parked, which must have been for VIPs, a guard directed us toward an exit and we merged with the rest of the cars trying to leave just at the roadway. “So what kind of car should I buy?” I asked, as he eased us into traffic.

“Well, what kind of car do you want?”

“I have no idea. Something easy to park. Parking in Boston sucks. And we don’t have room for more cars in the driveway anyway, so I’ll probably have to park it on the street.”

“Well, that’s a start. Go test drive some things, I guess?”

“Chris says buying a car is like a part-time job until you pick one.” I shrugged. “Hey, thank you for Cat Elvis.”

Remo chuckled. “That’s one of those ‘I saw it and I thought of you’ gifts.”

“Ha. Well, so far so good, aside from last night’s mishap.”

“She’s going to be okay, though?” Remo asked.

“Yeah, far as I can tell. They let her out of the hospital in the middle of the day and she went home and Chris visited her there.”

“She’s his girl?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t even know she was famous until your old man told me,” Remo said. He drummed his hands quietly on the wheel to the radio, which was turned down so low I could almost not make out the song. Almost. Bob Seger, “Old Time Rock and Roll.”

“Famouser than we are anyway,” I said. “Where by we I mean me and the guys, not you.”

He shrugged. “Dunno about that. You brought the house down tonight.”

I didn’t want to contradict him so I just shrugged right back.

“You hungry? We could hit a deli or just do an In-and-Out Burger and take ‘em home.”

“Those are the burgers that are supposed to actually be good, right? Man, I miss White Castle.” I was half pulling his leg there.

“You do not,” he said, not falling for it. “You never really liked their burgers and Digger only went through that drive-thru because it was the cheapest thing there was.”

“And he really liked it,” I said.

“Or at least the girl who ran the drive-thru,” Remo added.

“Point. Hey, you don’t think he’ll be mad that you and I went off without him, do you?” Not that I gave a shit if he did, but it occurred to me to wonder.

“I can see him anytime,” Remo pointed out, “since he’s on this coast most of the time. I don’t get a lot of quality time with you.”

“Awww,” I said, making fun, but feeling kind of warm and fuzzy at the same time.

“You didn’t decide.”

“Decide what?”

“Deli or In-and-Out.”

“Oh, um, I’m supposed to decide?”

“Who are you, Hamlet?”

“Burger, then, and let’s go to your house and play.”

“I was hoping you were going to say that.”

“You’re easy to please, Reem’.”

It was maybe an hour later we pulled into his driveway, burgers long since eaten, and we went up to his back deck and sat outside playing together for a while. He’d clearly been doing a lot with folk in his spare time, and we played some Appalachian folk tunes I recognized from a class way back when, tossing the riff back and forth like a game of catch.

It started to feel a little chilly when the wind whipped up, and it wasn’t like you can see the stars through the smog anyway, so we went inside after a while. “When’d you start getting into Appalachian folk?” I had to ask, while he got out a bottle of bourbon and two glasses. I sat on a stool at his kitchen counter while he got the glasses down from a cabinet.

“Oh, I’m working on a soundtrack project right now, and thought it’d be the thing.” He poured just a splash into each glass. “Turns out it’s kind of tricky to score, but I like the sound. Especially the way you play it. I might have to fly you back out here when your tour’s done so we can lay down a few tracks.”

He handed me a glass and we clinked, which I guess was my way of agreeing to it, and then I took a cautious sip of what he had poured. Huh, good. He knocked his back in one gulp, but like I said it was only a splash. “Does it pay well?”

“Union scale,” he said. “Probably only need you for two days, tops.”

“No no, I mean composing for soundtracks.”

“Well enough. It’d pay better for you, I’d bet, since you can do more of the actual scoring.”

“I can?”

“You’re the one with the degree in music.” He twisted the cork out of the bottle again.

“No, I’m the one with three semesters of music school and no degree,” I reminded him. “But, point taken, I probably could.” It wasn’t the first time the thought had crossed my mind. “I’m sure there’s a learning curve.”

He looked at me then, his hands stilling in their uncorking. “You’re a special player, Daron.”

“Playing and composing are two totally different things.”

“I know. I’m saying it anyway. Most of the people in this business don’t appreciate it. But I do. You’re a talent. I get reminded of it every time we play together.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I tried, “Thanks.”

He looked like he was going to say something else, but then didn’t, instead pouring himself another splash of bourbon and downing it in one shot again.

“So when do you hit the road again next?” I asked.

“August and September. And a couple of festivals in the UK and Europe after that. Come on in the studio.”

I followed him into his home studio, which was as nicely decked out as many pro studios, though without the immense mixing board, just a small one.

I sat on a stool and crossed my ankle over my knee, swung one of his 12-string Ovations into my lap, and started to play. Just a few riffs at first, but you know how sometimes your fingers have a kind of momentum of their own. For a minute or two I thought he’d pick up a guitar and join me, but he ended up just sitting back, listening. I played through a rendition of Hotel California, and then just went off on whatever tangent my ears liked. He was recording it, I think.

Eventually I wound down.

“I should get you back to the hotel,” he said.

“Yeah, I guess you should. You coming to the Forum again tomorrow?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

When we were on the freeway, I thought of the question I’d wanted to ask him weeks ago but only just remembered. “Do you get lonely, Reem’? Living in a big house on a hill by yourself?”

He laughed. “Marlene moves in for a few weeks at a time,” he said. “Then she goes off to New York or Europe or somewhere and I don’t see her for a few months.”

“Marlene?” This was the first I’d heard the name, I swear.

“Yeah. Been seeing her on again off again for… about six years now.”

“Six years?”

“Yeah. Neither of us is the marrying kind. She was here once three straight months and we were both crazy by the end of it. It works better long-distance with some sustained weeks of playing house.”

“Long-distance?”

“Her regular home is New York. She’s an actress.”

“Oh. Um. How old…?”

Remo laughed again. “My age, if that’s what you were thinking.”

“I wasn’t!”

“You were.”

“Okay, I was. Well, that’s nice. I was kind of worried about you.”

“Ha! Well, appreciate the concern and all, but no, I’m not living a loveless hermit life, if that’s what you’re worrying about.”

“Who me, worry?” I grinned. “Can I be really nosy, then?”

“Sure.”

“Do you see other people, too?”

He plowed right into it, like he’d answered this question before. “It’s about being happy, Daron. We both see other people. We’re both happy that the other person is having a good time. We just try to, you know, when we’re together, we make like it’s only us. That makes us both happy, even though we know we’ll hit a wall if we try to stay like that all the time, forever.”

What he said reminded me of Jonathan asking me to promise to be focused on him when we were together. “Yeah, I get it.”

“You should meet her sometime,” Remo said. “She’s out of town right now, or I would’ve brought her to the show.”

“Okay.” On again, off again, eh? I wondered if that could really work long term. I wondered if that was what J. and I were headed for. “Hey, so how’s Matthew?”

“Doing well, last I heard. He’s got a place in New York now, you know. You should look him up while you’re there.”

“Yeah? Or maybe he should look me up. I’m sure Digger would give him free run of backstage.”

“Could be. But if you have a chance, call him. I’ll write his number down for you when I drop you off.”

“Okay.” I got the feeling there was something Remo wasn’t telling me though. “Everything okay with him?”

“Oh yeah, far as I know. He’s taking a break from music work, he told me, and doing photography and some stuff, which is awesome. Let the man have the spotlight instead of the backstage role for once.”

“Photography, really?”

“Yeah, I think he’s even got a gallery show going up soon. Call him and ask and you can tell me what he says,” Remo said. “Okay?”

“Okay.” I tried to remember how many days we’d have in New York. A few in the New York/New Jersey area. I also remembered that I’d be seeing Jonathan then, most likely. I wondered if I should arrange for them to meet. For some reason the thought of Jonathan meeting someone I’d slept with before sounded very uncomfortable, as if he’d be able to tell somehow. I told myself I was being ridiculous. But I worried just the same.
–
(And the Kickstarter has been going almost a week! We’re up to $585 which is 21% of the way there! If you haven’t checked out the pledge and reward levels yet, or watched the fun little promo video I made, it’s all at the DGC Kickstarter page here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1458565937/darons-guitar-chronicles-omnibus-book)
–

He trooped inside with the rest of us. The sound system had been set up long ago–yesterday probably? I didn’t know. After the beautiful open air place we’d been in Santa Barbara, this felt like an airplane bunker.

I finally cornered him in the men’s room. He was washing his hands after doing what you do. “Hey,” I said. “So what happened last night? If you remember, that is.”

His hear jerked up like I’d goosed him, his long hair tossing like a mane. “You don’t have to be snarky about it.”

“Sorry, wasn’t trying to be. She okay?”

“Yeah, she’s fine now. She just got a little carried away last night. I didn’t think we even did that much, but I guess she already had something in her system. Prescription medication of some kind.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse. “I just, you know, I have to say this, right? I don’t want it to be you we cart out on a stretcher next.”

“I know. I know. Trust me, Dar’. I don’t need the lecture.” He leaned on the sink and let out a long breath. “Or maybe I do. I’ll be more careful. No, wait. I won’t have to because she’s quitting, so it won’t come up again.”

So Bart was right. Scared straight. “Okay. Okay, right.” I didn’t know what else to say.

Fortunately Chris was more than ready to change the subject. His eyes were on his own reflection in the mirror, as he finger-fluffed his hair for a moment. “Hey, so this is the place where that Deep Purple album was recorded.”

The Forum, in Inglewood. “Led Zep, too, right?” I asked, as I held open the door so we could exit together.

“Yeah, lotta bands, actually. Kinda neat, don’t you think?”

“Christmas Cat Elvis says ‘yeah,’” I said, as we made our way into the green room.

“Christmas Cat Elvis?” he asked, giving me the hairy eyeball.

“Did I not show you this before? Remo sent me a good luck charm.” I dug Cat Elvis out of the Ovation’s case and dangled him from his string. I whistled at Colin, who was at that moment just standing around. “Hey, one last thing to set up.”

“Sure thing, boss.” He took the figurine and went to put him on stage.

Chris was chuckling. “You’re a nut. And I mean that in a good way.”

I cracked a smile. “Aren’t I, though?” Since we were doing so well now, I decided to push the one other thing that had been nagging me. I sat cross-legged on the floor next to the guitar case. “Hey, by the way, I wanted you to know, I didn’t, like, get offended at what you said the other night.”

He must’ve known exactly what I was talking about, because he blushed to the roots of his hair, and Chris did not blush easily. “Oh, man. The second I said it I wanted to kick myself.”

“It’s really okay. I knew you didn’t mean it in a mean sort of way.”

“Yeah, of course not, but that didn’t mean you might… I mean…” He rocked from foot to foot towering over me, and then crouched down. “I’m glad you’re not offended, but I think Ziggy was.”

Well, maybe he was, but I couldn’t be responsible for how everyone felt, only how I felt.

“I mean, not like he can really talk exactly,” Chris went on, when I didn’t say anything. “I mean, how could he take offense at someone calling him gay or whatever when he goes out of his way to provoke it?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, before I had quite digested what he’d said.

“I mean, come on, the whole sashaying around and the Bowie references and the, well, the makeup…”

“Wait a second, you used to wear just as much back when Highway went through the goth phase…”

“And I used to get called ‘faggot’ for it, too,” Chris snapped back.

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“I’m not.”

“And that gives you the right to–?”

“No! No. It doesn’t give me the right. Oh fuck Daron, can we just shut up about it now before I dig my grave any deeper? I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I didn’t anything by it.” He made a frustrated noise and pushed his fingers into his hair.

“Yeah, okay,” I said, because what the hell else was I going to say? And how did me telling him everything was okay and no apology was necessary turn into him apologizing and BOTH of us feeling like we’d put our feet into our mouths? Argh. Words. Humans. Sometimes I hate both.

I fled to the stage then, pretending to check out the setup. It was almost time anyway. To amuse myself while I waited for the other guys so we could do a soundcheck, I strummed idly and tried to remember the specs on the venue. Carynne had a chart that listed each place, the date, the number of seats, et cetera. I couldn’t remember exactly but it was somewhere between ten and twenty thousand, but closer to twenty thousand. The Forum. It was to the West Coast what Madison Square Garden was to the northeast, a canonical venue.

And we’d sold it out for tonight and they’d added a second show tomorrow night, which last I heard was sold out, also. That’s what the deejay had said on the morning show and they’d given away a bunch of tickets.

Carynne came to the foot of the stage. “Hey.”

“Hay is for horses. How are you holding up?” I asked, resting my hands on the top of the guitar and feeling the weight on my shoulders.

“Not too bad. Tired. How about you?”

“I had two naps today so I’m golden. Are there plans for tonight?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean is anyone throwing a party tonight? Do we have to do anything or be anywhere?”

“Oh. Not officially, no. There are two reporters here looking for interviews, which you should do after soundcheck and before show time, and once they’re out of the way, you’re off until soundcheck tomorrow, unless something comes up.” She leaned against the stage, clutching a clipboard in one arm.

“Everything’s all right with the crew?” I asked.

“Peachy,” she said. “I’ll tell you when to worry about something.”

“Haha, okay.” I smiled. Maybe everything was going to be okay. I stepped on the foot pedal that cut me into the sound system and let loose a little riff.

I did the thing of not being able to place it myself until I realized it was “Save It For Later” which I really didn’t know. So I meandered around with chords until I settled on something else.

It was like the Pied Piper, the sound of my guitar, bringing band and crew members out of the woodwork like the children of Hamlin, right? Chris jumped in with a basic backbeat, and Bart picked it up too, and then Ziggy finally came in on the chorus of “No New Tale to Tell” by Love and Rockets.

We ground to a halt not long after, and picked up our real soundcheck, doing about half of Grenadier and half of Candlelight, which were the two extremes of dynamic range in the show. And that was plenty.

Then came the waiting around. And the eyeliner. I was looking forward to one much more than the other, as you might imagine.
–
(The Daron’s Guitar Chronicles Kickstarter has raised $355 so far! We need to get to $2,750 by May 21st to make our goal of having a printed omnibus paperback. If you haven’t donated to the site in a while, this is a great way to do so and get some nice perks and/or books for the trouble! Full details on the Kickstarter page here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1458565937/darons-guitar-chronicles-omnibus-book)
–