Cash Your Dreams Before They Slip Away

"Catch your dreams?"

Ruby Tuesday, who could pin a name on you
(i.e. SHE could pin a name on YOU!)


FROM BOOK: Dylan “I look like Robert Frost, but I feel Like Billy the Kid”
Actual Line: I look like Robert ____

Que Sera Sera
"The future's not HOURS to see"
==
Just walk away Renee: sounded like it was sung in French, vague and running together
Left Bank as the name of the group
Renee
by Michael Brown
Monkees in Paris
the empty sidewalks on my/block are not the same
from deep inside the tears/I force to cry
If a foreigner heard this song, what would it sound like to them if they had to guess at the words?

Kinda Like Hot Pants

"Why did you leave me, that first time?"
"I don't know what you are talking about,"
"Yes, you do.  That VERY first concert you went to. You were dancing all up in my face, you were SO hot for me. And then you snuck into my room!"
"I did not!  What are you talking about?  It must've been another one of your groupies!"

He knew it was her.
She remembered that night and was hoping if she denied it enough times, he'd forget.
They had just had sex, Recreational, Fun, Post-Show Sex.  An 8 out of 10.
3 years on the road, together as an act, plus the 3 years before that.  Before.

She didn't want to tell him the reason she'd bailed. It seemed so silly now.

==
FLASHBACK to her 1st concert with him, her in the audience.
DANCING.  Wanting to strip for him right there on the floor!
Surprised at herself, and delighted at the same time.
After the show, she took a swig from a bottle she was carrying.  Spits it out into a plant in the hotel lobby.
Knocks on his door, "Room Service", she says in a forced deep tone.
He knows it's not Room Service.  Not from the hotel, anyway.

Opens the door, smiling at her, kindly but one eyebrow cocked.
She looks him in the eye and says, very carefully and deliberately.
"LET'S. FUCK."
He smiles and in a showy gracious manner, "Well, then, why don't you come in?"

She sighs with relief and walks 5 paces into the room, then stands awkwardly.
He wants to be a good host, offers her food from the fruit basket, offers her a boa (where did that come from?) an overpriced drink from the mini-bar.
"Can you give me a few minutes?  I have to see a man about a horse."
He grabs a paper and heads to the bathroom.

She's slightly dizzy and coming down from the dancing buzz.  Excited to be in his room, but now what? SEX?  Really?  She suddenly feels like the dog who chased the car and caught it.

Sits on the bed.  Unbuttons her blouse.  Takes it off. Nervous that her bra isn't fancy enough.  Wonders if she should take it off.  Tries to strike a VERY sexy pose.

Suddenly, she hears him farting and making other bathroom noises. Begins to smile, and then is overtaken by a giggling fit and falls to the floor.  She quickly sobers up and gets dressed.

By the time he's opening the door (echoes of the toilet flush still in the air/the toilet flush lingering beyond any good sense of timing) he opens the door to an empty room.

She's gone. He shrugs and eats the apple she left behind.

==
Next Monday, at her radio station, there's a Big Announcement.  They are bringing on a new DJ and it's up to her to show him the ropes. He starts next week.

Meanwhile, she tells a co-worker about how she tried to seduce "a boy" and couldn't go through with it.  But she wonders if that was her big chance.  "I was on the subway platform, and I realized that I will NEVER get that close to a perfect seduction again"

Her boss nudges her.  "You are gonna love me forever for this.  You'll never ask for a raise again,"

HE walks in to the boardroom. Long table.  SHE IS SHOCKED and tries to pretend.
HE ribs her, but she wont' take the bait. SCENE.

==
Lying in bed.
Really?  You want to know?
Because I could hear you farting in the bathroom.
But I KNOW how much you love it NOW!
They wrestle and giggle, he tries to get her under the covers.
==
She had been afraid that she would regret that night the rest of her life.








*Tango Patti Griffith

Oooh La La!

Do somethign we both know!
How am I supposed to read your mind?

But he did.

They had a meeting of the minds arounf the 1950's.  She still liked her standards (stuff from the 1930's, he thought it was corny) He liked guitar power ballads, lots of stuff that he was uite versitile one, but wasn't conducive to singalongs.

They both adored the Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly.

They turned to face each other, in profile to the audience.  A surprise and a joke at the same time. (and an in-joke was born)  She liked to do a twang with her voice, he liked harmonies.



Wake Up Little Susie by the Everly Brothers

The Toughest Road I Know

The toughest road she knows does not have alcoholism on it.  Or denial. Or mental illness.

There is poverty  And a lack of audiences. And being sick on the road, and tired, and arriving in tiny bars with no audience or payments.  It contained the knowledge and probability of accidents.  It contained heart attacks and death (but ignored the possibility of suicides)

It included having a love that died young, or of alcohol or of a drug overdose, but it was all quickly and beautifully and dramatically done.  A Playboy-Clean version of passion, not Penthouse messy.

It included love, and losing love, and groupies and competition-both real and imagined.  It included being in the shadows. It included luggin all the equipment both in and out.  It included lots of tears.

It included everything that was in all the Hollywood movies and some of what was included in the music.  Little did she know that the lyrics and notes would turn and twist like the road before them.  Just when she thought she understood a song, or had internalized it and sung it a million times, a trapdoor would open and she'd be floating in space, the rug pulled out from under her (or whatever that quote is from PT's song)


She had no idea what she would actually be facing, how terrifying it was.  How much there was no controlling it.  And even though he had seen everything by age 42, there were STILL surprises in store for him.  The toughest road he knew was not even a beginning.


Someday Soon- Judy Collins

Cry For Something that Might've Bean

They were on 1-95 somewhere, munching on Ramen Noodles (dry) and cheese sticks, when it came on.  Even the DJ was making fun of poor Frank.

A disco version of some hit of his. He was trying to keep up (keep upright), while disco lights swirled around him.  You could picture him in the center of the dance floor, looking embarrassed.  The agent/adviser would be asking him to pose like Vinnie Barbarino in a minute.

"This is every singer's nightmare!"
"It's not so bad. You can hear the bones of the song," she had loved that phrase when she heard it and tried to work it into as many conversations as she could when trying to be Smart about music.

"Please.  When you see me, up on a stage, trying to update my music like that.  Just shoot me."

She refused to say the oath out loud and just nodded.  She had no idea how to tell him that that's exactly who he was.  A 45ish over-the-hill former semi-rock star, the least popular member of a 4 person band, the band she still had to explain to people.  And everyone still mistook him for Ringo. Popular for 2 years, and then HE was the guy who left first.  Little did he know that was as good as it would get.
And the act, last night, and then this afternoon, at bars, at rodeos and farm festivals, when she was only one of 5 people in the audience.  He was on stage, trying SO HARD, for jokes, for laughs, for attention.  She loved him in all his efforts, still smiled at every bad joke.  Tried to warm up the audience by making friends with them.  Tried to act as if she wasn't his intern from a different job.  Tried to act like an audience member.

But last night, he was Sinatra doing disco.

"The song does have great bones.  I should dig out his earlier recordings of it, "

But just as the DJ had been making fun of him before, he put on the recording from the 60's, a decade earlier.

"That's a guy who has just had a one night stand with a girl who he wants to marry in the morning.  He's trying to play it off, and he knows that she's much too free, or something like that.  But he wants her.  Wants the whole she-bang."

And then, his first recording, solemn, lots of strings.  Slowly, the strings taking to flight.  He'd rather say no, because you are driving him crazy.  He'd rather die a lonely old man than be just one of your followers.  And it's breaking his heart, because this is the ultimatum, he's laid his heart at your feet.  But he can walk offstage proud.  That's an actor!!"

At this monologue, she knew that he was being won over.  She loved the corny songs. The "Standards"  the Broadway show tunes.  And he did too, sometimes.  individually, not as a whole.  She imagined it was like segregation.  You professed to hate a whole race, except for a few exceptions-the people you knew.  And then, before you knew it, all your friends were black and you were happy.  The End.

Can I believe the magic of your size?

She had always heard he was big. 

Like with most musicians, it was all hype.

Mondegreens

Finding another man who loves music

Either helpful or hurtful

I did not go to Bordentown,

And feel empty of emotion

And the music plays on.

You Love A Mother Man

He was used to being the one the girls would walk away from.

And so it was no surprise to him when he saw that look in her eyes.  About another man.


"I Truly Understand"

Rain Songs of the 1960's

The early songs existed in partial photographs.  God, he could write a whole new set of songs based on these photographs alone.  And all the things that were left out of them.

How the girl's hand, just below the photograph, remained bare, even though he had BEGGED her to marry him.  She was wise.  Wiser than he.

But WOW, they had some lovely moments together.  He had trapped her in a barn on a shoot, it wasn't raining, but maybe if it was, she'd have stayed longer.  She made some remarkable observation and he could still smell the hay, and wondered if her hair would smell that sweet.  And if she'd let him put his nose in her hair.

A year later, he could ask anything of any girl, they'd let him put his nose and any other body part wherever he'd like, and they'd be eager.  But she never fully warmed up to him.

Even now, she was as old as he was, somehow she looked like a grandmother-type and he wore the look of a has-been rocker.  She had kept her radiant smile, and he still fell for her every time. Now she was more likely to pose with him, with her arms around him, as if they were still good friends, or as if they had been lovers.

As if she hadn't married a music producer, had a few kids, gone on her own road-as complicated as his.  And still in the business, playing grannies and other old lady parts.  Clinging to him for whatever aura of fading fame.  They still shared a smile of possibility, of lovers who've never consummated.

Maybe too late to ask her, or if he did, he was sure to be disappointed.  Maybe she was the type who had left sex back in her 50's.  Better not to ask-unless they get to have a long conversation-unless she stays long after the concert.  But she "Had to go".  Again, that phrase.  The awkward parting of people who have more to discuss.  Better to leave the party early, while there is still fun to be had.

(And that was how she died, with the conversation still ahead of them.  So much to reunite over.  He should have insisted she stay. Opened a bottle of champagne, or sparkling apple juice.  Anything to get her to realize the moment, how precious it was.  But she was gone.  Dematerialized as quickly as she'd come.

START WITH?? He never knew who was in the audience until after the show.  Even then, he couldn't be sure of those people who just didn't have the nerve to come backstage.  Some people just looked like other people. Only so many faces and arrangements of features available; only so many variations on a theme.  But that night, he was sure he saw Val in the back.  That same radiant smile. That song that was not about her , but was.  The songwriters confessed they had seen a call sheet with her name, it was floating in the immediate ether.  They chose it because it had enough syllables.  They wrote the song on the way to the producers' office.)



This recent picture, taken just before her death, his nose is close enough to her hair.  She smelled like shampoo.  And his fantasies began anew.



From "You and me and rain on the roof"
Lovin Spoonful

(Him in love with Val)

Why The Hell Are You SO SAD??

And then she blew up.

"What the fuck are you thinking? Why the Hell are we DOING this?  If you are going to be such a FUCKING BASTARD about everything, why the FUCK am I devoting so much time to you?? I have to apologize to EVERYONE we meet about how awful you are, just so we can try to make music.  But EVERYTHING has to be done your way, even when YOU can't stay on pitch and you forget the chords!!

The band wasn't used to her swearing so sincerely.  Or even her screaming at the top of her lungs.  In short, she was the one who had kept everyone together.  They all kept their eyes low to the ground and thought about how much much was in their bank account.  And if they could get back that gig they had so smugly said NO to.

The high wire/wired act was over.

"I don't need to take this!" he said and slung his guitar up over his shoulder, getting tangled in the cable and custom Japanese shoulderstrap at the same time.

"Yes, you do!  See how awful it is to work with someone who screams, who yells?  We all do this to make you happy. You do this to make you happy-but you are so stuck inside yourself that you can't see happiness  , she stepped into his potential path and he stopped.  Stuck listening to her, waiting for his next opportunity to exit the scene on stage.

It was all true.

"And nothing hurts sweeter than a song"

Mondegreen:
"Ain't Nothin' Heard Sweeter Than a Song"
===

"Found" article on the unreleased video of the "Best New Group in Vocal-Jazz-Ease"
(unreleased song found in the university archives).  (The author had very little info and obviously did minimal research.  He/she could not even discover the female singer's name, so it is not confirmed that this is indeed her. It sounds an awful lot like her.  (And there is a program in the archives with PT, her and MD doing a performance at Rose Hall at Jazz at Lincoln Center.  And there is that recurring phrase in her letters, to that "evening by the Park", "sunset" and "the wall of windows", the evening when he proposed to her-the very event he would later deny.

This video session would have been recorded in the afternoon, with a white backdrop behind them, on the very stage they would be performing on. There is mention of a single long shot, which describes this very setup. And includes the gorgeous view of what must be Central Park in full Autumn colors)

(The Bottom Line, Saratoga Springs-place named after ....

==

The article is as follows:

The archival video was edited to include the outtakes.  It clocks in at exactly 3:31, the same length as the released recording.  However, the video has been in the possession of the original recording company and never released to the public.

The entire session is extant (16:08). It includes only 3 attempts at the song, including the first, which was aborted prior to the second verse due to the female singer being overwhelmed by laughter (otherwise known as "cutting up").

The polished video (hereafter referred to Tape #4, as catalogued by the record company) begins with a bridge, which includes various members either laughing to someone off-camera, or flirting directly with the camera.

She begins by snapping directly in front of the camera, which seems to be one of the only clear moments of choreography that was followed.

Everyone seems to either be tipsy, drunk, or just naturally happy.  The two male singers have a known history of working together for 30+ years in another comedy band.  The female singer's name is unrecorded.


She is sandwiched in the center, the bearded male singer behind her standing close and starting with his hand on her downstage hip.  As they sing, he begins to embrace her as they all begin to sway in unison.
In short order, he begins to encircle her waist with his hands, and it is

The second time around, they begin in place.  At the moment which someone, presumably the director ____ (2:08) is heard to say :"Let's go again right away", there is a sudden uncharacteristic (in the rest of the video) motion which the female singer makes to the bearded singer.  She pulls one of his hands off of her waist dismissively, as if it were irritating her.

This action is noteworthy in that the rest of the video explores permissiveness and the three performers seem to be VERY comfortable with each other indeed.

In fact, the overt style of the original song seems to have comedic intent indeed ("Just retain your poise/Sing a pretty noise)

Notes:
Recording of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, Vocalese

Lyrics:
http://www.gugalyrics.com/lyrics-2390791/lambert,-hendricks-%26-ross-in-a-mellow-tone.html

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVE8bG_YBcg

Every Word You've Whispered

"This is a total fangirl song."

"Yeah, right?"

"I'm going to play it slowly."

"Don't be surprised if I go out of tune."

"Well, stay in tune.  No matter what speed I play."
===

The first time she sang it, that's all she thought about. How scared she was when she first met him.

He liked the "Vulnerable" sound in her voice, especially as it grew into the confident part.

Then she thought more about him.
How this could be a song about when they first met, yes.
But also a bride singing it, thinking about her future.
How there are so many songs about the falling in love, but so few about staying in love.


And then she placed herself exactly in reality.

As if they were the characters she was singing about.
He is holding back.
But she wants to let him know it's okay.
She's seen the ugly, drunk side of him, and she still imagines everything to be beautiful.
Because it will be.
Because the reality is better than the dream.






I Have Dreamed, sung by Nancy Lamott

Dark are the Stars That Shine

The next performer was a young female singer and a full band with a ridiculous name. They had seen this configuration before; played on the same vill, even.  This star had opened for them, and they had most recently (and graciously) opened for her.

Settling down in the darkness for another round of familiar music.  Why does he keep doing this to himself?

Music festival.  Again.  Camping out because it is easier on the wallet.  Not that it is unusual for them to go without showers or to be roughing it.  It's just nice to be part of a larger audience.

Back with all the smelly hippies.

Oh god, how he misses the 60's.

She had picked a perfect spot on the grass, an incline so steep they didn't need an adjustable lawn-chair.  Even with her sun umbrellas, they both got Sun-Sick during the day, that burning sensation that gets into your intestines.  This is what is feels like to be baked alive.  They traded off and wandered independently and together.  Leaving behind their worldly goods on the blanket so they could walk holding hands for a while in the sun.  And I love her.

At a hippie music festival, the most valuable of valuables is sun screen or water, and really-if you need it that badly-help yourself.  Money and equipment was locked up in the car. Which was now cemented around by baked mud.  The first night had a biblical thunderstorm and rumors of a tornado.  The dance tent collapsed on Friday, but was resurrected on Saturday morning, which gave the survivors a sense of solidarity and hopefulness that the sun would dry things out.

By Sunday afternoon, the apple cheeked kids would be baked to a crisp.  But it was still Saturday night, plenty of time to still Relax and Enjoy.  Distant smells of barbeque were enough to tempt a longtime vegetarian like himself.  (He had a burger every so often, but never told Her).

And then, there was a perfect view of the sunset earlier that night.  As if he had never seen a sunset before.  The path of the sun in an arc overhead, and then to the rim of the far mountain, casting a premature shadow on them.  Bringing a chill.  But the colors kept changing, even when the ball of fire had disappeared over whatever the real horizon was.  Further away, mountains beyond mountains, the sky kept changing.  Out here in Western Mass, or Eastern New York, or Northwestern Connecticut, whatever you called it.  No noxious gasses to enhance the color and the irony.  Sweet smelling air, and lots of wondrous slow moving color, like being on acid.  Like a being who is trapped in a lava lamp. And I love her.

Being in a car mostly, you dread the change of circumstance between light and dark.  You hope to make it to your destination with plenty of time to learn the route from the bar to the motel room.  Sometimes you fight it on your own and trust the GPS.  This was a thing that had seriously frightened him.  It had been on his top 10 list of reasons NOT to tour again.  10 years ago.  He always figured if he had 10 reasons NOT to do something, it overruled the Joy of Performing.  Why was he doing this to himself?  Funny how Her presence drives away all the fears and discomforts.  And I love her.

Somehow, he had amnesia. He could never remember being sober when drunk.  Or drunk when sober. Never remembered how Glorious he felt when singing and receiving applause, or even the glow after-show of someone giving a genuine compliment.  That little girl giving him a flower, saying she really liked that funny song.

That little girl in the loft, dancing, when he played at the Red Barn in Goshen.  She kept running in front of the stage and completing the circle backstage.  He tried to make a joke about her, gently, after his first song.  Adopted by his lesbian friends from some mother with drug abuse and lots of stories that all ended badly.  All the kids he'd never have.

Maybe he should pin a hole in the condom. Do it sneaky.  Act slightly mad when she turns up surprised and pregnant.  Pretend he's jealous of whoever else she has. But he'd raise the kid.

Her kid.

Their kid.

What is he thinking about?  Really?  Their legacy is The Music.  Here, people recognize them.  They are a Regular Duo.  Opening day they do a set, and a few workshops during the weekend.  PR for music.  The kid who says: "Someday I'd like to be on that stage!"  And he waves that kid up.
"Come on.  Now is your chance, don't miss an opportunity!"

And how She looks at him in those moments.  She witnesses.  And I love her.

She can't play guitar.  Doesn't have the elegant hands or the skill.  Dylan hates women guitarists.  Thinks they look cheap.  She has no musical training.  She has a lovely voice, that blends away all bad notes, that saves him and his songs.

The song on stage sends out a single word, " . . . tenderly . . . "  It lingers in the air somehow, like the sound system had an extend pedal on the microphone.

He looks at her, gazes at her.  That's exactly it.  She's so tender with me. And I love her.

And lying here, on the blanket with Her, staring up at the stars, listening to a band in the distance, he tears up.  Another moment he'll lose.  He's forgetting things now, so many things.  Losing the thread, where things happened, and with who.  It's partly him aging, but he's worried about something larger.  Alzheimer's.  Or Dementia.  Dr. Dementia.  It's really not funny.

As if he is so rich with these moments, he can afford to lose it.  He collects shit, a packrat in his house and car.  But his mental life is spartan.

He needs to remember THIS moment.  How beautiful She is, this line of music-the guitar-and then the voices when they sing accapella-a surprise to highlight the beauty of a single line.  Taking it from a simple love song to the thing that makes him CRY.  And he rarely cries for beauty.

Already, he wants to call it back, to rewind the moment.  Panic seizes him.  Wanting to keep the music from ending.  Don't stop, he thinks-DON'T STOP!  As if the music is oxygen, as if he's going underwater-losing light and air without it.

The song travels down the road to where it stops and soon there is silence.  And a few more feet of road later, applause.  The palate cleanser.  The turnoff that takes them off the highway.  Bringing them back to the reality of the harsh fluorescents of the motel room.

He should ask her to sing that song.  Maybe at the fireside swap-no, it might be awkward-trying to steal mainstage glory.  Or as a lullabye tonight, in the tent.  He knows she knows the words.  If they are both awake.  If he remembers to remember.  It might just be another song that floats away, lost in the sensory jumble of the festival.  A bubble, a scarf in the breeze, a tent carried away by a tornado.

He can barely make out the edge of her nose against the moonlight. She turns and snuggles up to him, and he to her, suddenly worried about falling off the mountain.  Trying to find something solid to hold on to as the world spins around.











And I Love Her, performed by Heather Maloney
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNlp89ebdx0

Morgan Freeman in Paris

Freeman Avenue.  That's the place they stayed.

"Morgan Freeman in Paris" she sang.
"I was Morgan Freeman in Paris" he responded.

You are my sunshine
SunshineHe whispers in a dreamHe has been dreaming of herAnd of a song he can't quite manage to rememberIt might even be one of hisIt floats away from him like a fragrance of that woman in ColoradoThe one that walked away asShe was wearing whiteShe begins singing to himYou are my sunshineMy only sunshineHer standing by the windows at JALC in the sunsetEarly morning Saturdays, driving to the gigThe sunrise behind herHer making faces at him from behind the wheelPursing her lipsSlightly sticking out her tongueTheir signalFlashes of memoryThem walking down a streetWhere?Portland?Baltimore?Philadelphia?Greenpoint?Somerville?One of those cities which has made an art of trash.Recycled thrift store designIn storefrontsAnd restaurantsUnfinished or peeling ceilings.Hopefully done artfully and to codeHe was always certain there were paint chips in the food he was served.Detritus of the 20th century.Just like The Set of The Show.@@@Staying in an artists loft, surprised by a dog! Someone has discovered them!!No, it must have been later"Hold my hand, it gives me a feeling of security!"Him quoting himself.At a moment when he's more psychic than he intends to be.Screech of tires.
--"It's all downhill from here!"She enthused, just as he was getting a swelled head. Again."Dont quote me," he laughed!  Not here, not now! You are creating your own future. The idea of it terrified him. As if he waste Joan Baez to her Dylan. Her Svengali.Plus she was flirting with The Comedian.Not funny.Not allowed!He couldn't Ask Her now.Not on stage, the ring box in his pants pocket.Hard as a cancer.God, she is beautiful when she laughs.Except when the Comedian is making her laugh. Touching her arm, admiring her bracelet.Damn, not tonight.And he was hoping for such great sex, too!Sunshine fading behind herThey had a fight that nightIn the darkWhen the warmth is gone from the day@@@@The light disappearing from his dining room window.Sunshine@@Walking through BrooklynHer holding his handCrossing the streetWas that the accident?He didn't see it.Remembered lifting the baby gently out of the streetHow fine it looked, crying, no bruises or blood evenMaybe 1 or 2No language yetBut beautiful blonde curlsShe said how it had been knocked to the groundAnd how it looked so much worseWhen the paramedics arrivedAnd the parent panic.Where his Old FaceComes in handy, age equals wisdom."I've seen this before""It will all be okay"Which is needed in the momentWords flowing when medicine and real help are still miles away.They tried to call him a hero.But he saw something in the toddlers eyes than made him run away.The dark eyes, pupils dilating like a junkie.Not sure if it was a sign of loss of oxygen or oncoming death.He didn't want to be around to find out.@@@One night, ConnecticutShe told him how she still rememberedAnd wove it into her life narrative about him.How his music and his "gifts"Proved that he was an angel.(and GOD how he needed to hear tTHAT!!)

==
Free Man in Paris by Joni Mitchell

I don't care who you sleep with, but don't you ever SING with anyone else!!

She said this and her whole demeanor turned into a smile.

He should have asked her then.

Begged her.
Got down on his knees and not allowed her to let go of his hand until she agreed to be by his side for the rest of his life.

Because he betrayed her.

After their tour ended, he didn't push to bring her along on the Reunion Tour of The Band. Just didn't mention it. The Cute One was trying to bring his 27year old wife onboard, she was a Star Collector\Fucker if ever there was one. Unstable, Fiery Latina, she had him pussy whipped. All the other Boys in the Band were embarrassed for him.

Especially when they overheard the fights; she'd throw shoes against the wall. Scarring him in the process.

Backstage before rehearsal:
"Nice shiner! What happened to you?"
"I walked into a door."
"You sound like a battered wife!"
They both walked away when they realized how true that statement was.

And so he just couldn't bring any of his own issues to the show. They only needed one female backup singer. The Funny One had his sister and The Rich One had 3 sons and a daughter, plus the opportunistic in-laws.

No room for HER.

And so he went on tour, again and again. Invited her to come along, even. Blue jean Baby, LA Lady. Everything seemed fine.

And them he was Bogart in "Casablanca", rain falling on the note that told him that she wouldn't be coming.

Why she had to go, I don't know, she wouldn't say.

And things were never the same.

Their First Time

After the concert, after everyone has left, after they are done with discussing the details for tomorrow's event, he casually invites her to stay and help him finish up the champagne.  As if it's still part of her job.  Not a perk, a responsibility.  He still imagines her in her perfect little Catholic school uniform, although she gives off the attitude of wearing a nun's severe black habit.

Champagne never gave him a buzz, so he still drinks it.  It's the one alcohol that he still allows himself. Well, and a beer every now and then.  But only when he's smoking a joint.

It's more out of habit to offer the rest to her, girls like champagne; it makes them bubbier.  And it works with her. They've been flirting heavily in the past week.  She even has been taking the lead.  Maybe the rock star pheremone has gotten to her.

He approaches her, leading with his lips.  A smooth, clean move that usually ends up in a kiss.  But she's too giggly.  He giggles a bit himself, more as a rescue than a genuine laugh.

"What is it?"  he asks finally.  The more he looks at her, the more beautiful he sees her.  Young skin, pale against her dark hair; her smirk and the playfulness of her expressions.  Levels of complexity in her eyes they he hadn't noticed before.

"You're the Rock Star.  I can't do it.  You were my boss, my rude boss, and now you are this rock star.  All those women!! I just had no idea!"

"It's past midnight, would you kiss me if I went back to being your rude boss?"
She giggled at that even more; this was beginning to feel like rejection.
"I mean, lately, it seems like you want to . . ."
"Oh, I do!! I'm not backing out, or being a cock-tease or anything, I just have to stop giggling"
"Because from what you said the other night . . ."
They had come so close . . .. staying up late, planning the logistics for the concert/fundraiser.  Getting him ready to be a star took more planning these days.  Especially in that house still haunted by his ex wife.  #2.  How he used the word "Punk" to describe her.  Or Goth.  And how she misspelled "skeleton" on the wall of the Halloween room.  Which ruined all pretensions to seriousness.

The girl had gotten a tour the first night they had gotten together to mail out "Save the Date" postcards.  They had begun to make out stuffing envelopes for the detailed invitations.  And just this week, the reminder donations had to be out exactly the night before the concert, by request of his boss.   What had changed other than his incredible performance onstage?  He found the same old fear of failure factor, present in his touring days.  Not being able to live up to the rock star role in the bedroom.  He was even intimidated by himself.  But even Cary Grant is not Cary Grant all the time, and he had to figure out a way to stop being himself in the moment.

After a few more minutes of hesitation nuzzling, he got a brilliant idea.

"Why don't YOU be the Rock Star?"
What?
You just played an incredible concert and I am the star struck fan!

He dropped to his knees in a sexy, worshipful gesture.

More giggling.

But there was a certain light in her eyes.

How about if I go outside and come back in. Seriously!  Give yourself a minute to prepare!!

While he was out of the room, she grabbed a feather boa, left behind by a rich and sloppy drunken admirer of too many years who had talked her way backstage and then up into the hotel room by doing god-knows-what to all the Security men.  He recognized her and excused them for a period of no longer than 10 minutes.   She was shocked when she imagined what actually happened. The boa ended up on a lamp.  The hotel room had a certain Zsa Zsa Gabor overdone glamor which matched the groupie, and she played up the setting.  Even adopting a terrible an inconsistent accent.

And so they began a charade, him declaring himself as "Roomservice" in a deep tone.  A fan's story of sneaking into her hotel room.

She began to enjoy it.

And laugh like a woman in charge of herself.

DJ Moment

He wanted to surprise her with Cole Porter.  Something easy, in his range.  Something that Jimmy Stewart got away with.

==
At the radio station, early or late, noone else around, he found her crying. They often did the too-early shifts together, and when needed, the too-late shifts.  There was always a lot of coffee and very little light.

"Hey, where's the news?!" He rounded the corner of the cubicle before he saw that her eyes were filled with tears.

She looked away quickly.  "It's here, " tearing the sheet off the old fax machine.  The slick paper and the purple ink always rubbed off on his hands and he'd stare at his fingers in the control room.  Turning knobs, wondering how he'd gone wrong and why he didn't merit his own engineer.

"You're crying!"  He declared.  He was getting very good at these declarative statements; no matter how early it was, he could still identify reality.

"No," she shook her head, avoiding his eyes.  When he came close, she backed away, as if he were going to attack her by giving her a hug.  She was still new at being his assistant, and he knew he was failing her.  She had introduced herself as a lifelong fan (which only served to make him feel old, not honored.  She'd been watching his 22 year old self on tv.  The time machine.)  And all he ever did was yell.  He was an even worse boss.

"Look, I'm sorry if I raise my voice all the time,"  he was following her down the hallway of carpeted cubicles, back towards the control room.

"It doesn't matter.  It's not you," she called over her shoulder.

He heard the record ending, and as always, pondered the size of his listenership.  How much dead-air they would take.  It might even be his signature style.  But he never let it go longer than a few seconds. And he was due for a bunch of business, the ads, the station id, the news.

Instead of chasing her to the Ladies room (he didn't even know her THAT well, yet), he went back to work.

She walked in, just as he was coming back from commercial.  Even though he was reading the news off the blurry paper, he felt her eyes on him.  He even tried to make eye contact when he could.  As soon as he finished reading, he was able to set the next record by feel.  His hands moving, carefully in sequence, to get the record moving, to pull up the sound on turntable 2, already cued up.  To turn off his mic and the other faders, just in case the used car commercial was repeating itself.  He held her eyes, waiting for her to talk.

"When  I was a kid, I'd watch your show with my brother.  He was a year younger than me.  He loved it because I loved it.  It was only on in the summer, and we'd go out and play-usually a variation of the plot of whatever show we saw.  He was killed when he was 11. Today, it's his birthday.  And it marks the same number of years that I had known him as he's been gone.  And somehow, even though I know it's not true, I've always throught that you were a witness to him, to us playing together.  Like you shared all those mornings. And I'm completely aware that you aren't--"

She stopped talking just as the record finished and he announced the next one.  It was their signalling language, nodding to each other when he went back to steering the big ship (The Titanic).  He was a pilot, a captain, making sure the music kept rolling on.  Silence was the crash, the train wreck.

"That you weren't there. But after he died, I confided to your poster.  And it was a great copng mechanism.  And I don't expect that in real life----, I just wish that I could cnfide in you and that you would be kind enough to listen.  And instead, all you do is yell at me,"

His hand had been resting a few inches from hers, the music was playing, but the room was silent and motionless.  He reaches his hand out slightly to rest his fingers on hers.  But the music ends abruptly, Something's wrong with the continuity of sound; the great ocean is turbulent again.

She leaves the door slightly ajar, breaking the sanctity of the dj booth, but at this hour, it was only them anyway and no other sound will leak in.  The entire office is silent.

Shit!

Thoreau's Journal: 04-May-1852

R.W.E. tells me he does not like Haynes as well as I do. I tell him that he makes better manure than most men.

==

After a while, her nap was rudely interrupted.

She hadn't remembered falling asleep, probably something that happened when the music lulled both of them into a lovely quiet space. A lot of ghosts gently entered into the space then, a familiar feeling of love and the old tenderness.  Just yesterday, he was stroking her cheek.  Some dream of their lovemaking got conjured up and she remembered the hollows and muscles of his body.

But there was something wrong.

"Shit!" he shouted.

She smelt it too.

It wasn't a metaphor or a declaration of frustration.  It was literal.  Her eyes opened and almost immediately began to water.  He had shat himself in the hospital bed in his dining room.

His nurse had called in sick yesterday and the day before. In fact, she was just beginning to regret speaking to her at all when she arrived.  She had betrayed him and somehow volunteered herself as his last living caretaker.

His face was turned to the wall, depressed and humiliated.  She jumped up, ready for the task.

"No worries, a little shit doesn't scare me. I've heard you sing,"

He smiled at that. When he looked at her, his eyes seemed to be watery.  She couldn't tell if it was his age or sickness or if he was starting to cry out of gratitude.

She gave him a tender sponge bath at 3am, running her hands over the body she knew so well.  The biceps that had always been so strong (as solid as his prick) were gone, replaced by bone and slippery skin.

She had to resist the urge to kiss all of his old freckles.

She made jokes instead, which was just as good.

I Love The Way You Call Me Baby

Part 1
He's lost, he's tired.  They've been driving for miles.  She's trying to have an intelligent conversation, full of nervous energy.

As usual, with 40 more miles to go. He needs to pee. All his brain energy is focused on keeping the bladder in check.

"Whatever you say, Baby,"

"Wait. Did you just call me 'Baby' ???"

LONG PAUSE.  Careful and considered.

"Whatever it was I didn't mean ta!"

He hopes that by quoting a fragment from a song, he can stop her from exploding.  It's the first thing that comes into his mind really, every time he finds himself dealing with a woman who is about to explode.  Or a drunk guy at a bar who is eager to punch him.  He knows she knows this song.  The problem is that he can't remember what song it's from.  This puzzles takes up much more brain space than whatever it is she is telling him.

"I can't believe I'm riding around with a guy who uses the word "Baby" in an un-ironic manner.  It's like you are trying to infantalize me!"

His ears catch up with his brain: Hang on, did she just say something about an infant?  Could she be pregnant?

He looks over at her, hoping to say something brilliant.  Pull some great joke out of his ass.  He raises an eyebrow.

"You've come a long way? Baby?"

He flashes his characteristic smile.

He breaks her.

She can't help but laugh.

Miraculously, they make it to the gig without him ruining his only clean pair of trousers.  Although it was a close call when the owner wanted an autograph before giving directions to the bathroom.

Mary Mary by the Monkees

==
PART 2

Sometime during their Sound Check, she wants to get back at him.  She tries teasing him, but he is all focus and frustration.  He climbs off the stage to check the balance of the speakers.

She begins to sing tunelessly:
"Don't use that toilet if you have to go to the bathroom during the show. I can hear you onstage"
She manages to whisper it into the mic in a somewhat sultry manner.

He whirls around.

"KEEP SINGING! I need to hear how it sounds!"

Suddenly she's stung, staring back at his words, surprised and suddenly scared, as if he's asked her to strip.

He thinks: She's so stuck up about things. Such a prude.  How am I even on tour with someone like her, so uptight all the time?

"Wait, wait, wait. What-what should I sing?  You usually . . . "

All her bravado is gone. She's lost without him and his guitar.  He knows she HATES singing acapella, and he's being slightly cruel.  But he likes it somehow.  Maybe he'll throw her a note.

"SHUT UP AND SING!"

Or maybe he'll just yell at her.  Sometimes that works too.

With lasers of hatred beaming from her eyes, she begins.

"I'll buy you Rogaine
When you start losing all your hair/
I'll sew on patches/
To all your underwear"

Her eyes.  They look so mean, but she has twisted the lyrics out of shape.  It's some random hit song on the radio.  "Underwear" is clearly her own invention.

"Keep going!'  He yells over his shoulder as he walks into the shadows, trying to hide a smirk. But it's too late.  They were making fun of the real lines in the song while they were in the car, randomly and not nearly this cleverly.  She keeps going until he falls on the floor laughing.  And nearly ruins his pants a second time.

==
PART 3

It's a small crowd, but after a full set, he decides it's a perfect time to do an encore.  As usual, she has no idea where's he's going with this.

"We have a tradition.  MUSICIANS, that is, have a tradition.  Of carrying on a great song, of carrying on the tradition."  He's very serious.  She looks over at him, dubiously. Wondering where her part comes in.  If he has decided to include her at all.

"Are WE serious musicians?" She asks, both to him and to the crowd, neither of which takes any of this patter seriously.

But he plows forward. "We, of course, being SERIOUS musicians, WE have followed in the tradition of hearing a song and wanting to make it our own.  Excuse me, we take it, make it our own, and thereby-we ruin it.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen!  We, in particular, LOVE to ruin songs!"

"I have no idea where this is going, but I like it!" She interjects. The audience laughs.  They are with them, wherever they are going.

"So here is a song, I'm not even sure what it is called or who sings it, but we heard it on the radio, one of the 'commercial' stations, so it must be a hit,"

"So therefore, we hate it!" Gleefully, she can't let him alone.

"No, no, no.  We DON'T hate it.  We only ruin songs we LOVE!  The songs we hate don't get played at all!"

"RIGHT!" She is all cheer and fun and games at this point, "So, what song IS this?  I'm just curious."

"You want to know the song you are going to be singing?"  He strums his guitar absentmindedly, like he's a cowboy loading a gun.

"I'M going to be singing?"  There's that fear again, just behind her eyes.

"I hope you sing it.  I certainly don't know it!"  The audience laughs again, a little more uncertainly this time.  "Start by singing it straight, and then do what you were doing before.  When we were doing the sound check,"
"Oh that. Hmm. Okay...."
He strums a vague intro, and instead of jumping in with a brilliant line, she giggles.

"Wait, I don't think I can sing it straight!! Just play and I'll sing . . ."
"Usually I like to introduce the name of the song we're ruining, but here I'll just assume you guys will recognize this famous hit.  Or if we are really lucky, maybe by the end of the night, it'll be a whole NEW song!"

He started again, and this time, miracle of miracles, she came in perfectly.

"I'll knit you Rogaine/
when you stop losing all your hair/
I'll bring you flowers/
for all your underwear"

And it just got worse.  But her voice was lovely, and everyone in the audience was drunk, and happy to stay for their private joke, which expanded to include the entire roomful of drunken customers of the bar.  And those people who were fed up with the music business, or the "Mucus Business" as he called it, being sold crap as their only option.  But it was fun to listen to her, making up endless variations on a theme, vaguely resembling a hit song on the radio, that was too precious anyway.

From that night on, members of the audience would hear the song on the radio and be disappointed that it wasn't her perfect, Dr. Demento version of it.  But they would smile anyway.


OTHER VARIATIONS

I'll sew on patches
When you start losing all your hair
I'll buy you flowers
To match your sweater!

I'll buy you flowers
When you start losing all your hair
I'll buy you Rogaine
For all your underwear

I'll buy you Rogaine
To fix your sweater
I'll buy you flowers
To make it better

I'll knit you Rogaine
When you stop losing all your hair
I'll buy you flowers
For all your underwear

Cause I-I-I Love
The way you call me patches
And you-oo-oo-oh 
Take me the way I am!


The Way I Am by Ingrid Michaelson

May I Suggest /One more hour of Light

And then it happened.

The crash came.  The sound of breaking glass.

He said, "It's over.  It's all over."

The guitar fell, smashing into pieces 6 floors below.

She said, "I don't see any reason to stay, either"

They finally had the fight that consumed the last morsel of their love.

And then she laughed.

And he flashed his brilliant smile.

All the anxieties that had been lingering, unspoken, tension that collects in her eyebrows and shoulders.  So many moments of feeling bad, of beating yourself up. Regrets, lost moments, hours, days, years. All that awful stuff that lasted too long.

And their eyes fell into harmony again.  One simple look, and they could laugh at the world.  And themselves.

Because in those darkest moments, when they had lost everything, a single song of laughter saved them.

Looking in his eyes, she felt him holding her in their tent, looking up at the stars.

(The next morning was their least romantic moment; they awoke clumsily groping each other until they could no longer take the moist heat inside the canvas colored oven. Comedy always flipped over the moments when they took themselves too seriously.)

Every moment was a new beginning and was pulled into the past so quickly, eroding their days until their final moments together.  On their first tour.  Their last moments onstage together.  The last time they sang.  Their last moments together.

==
(Back to the present)

She lay smiling, feeling the strange gravel under her wrist.  Hearing the music playing, thank god the music was still on.  Although it was probably a hallucination.

God, she hated goodbyes.

But she felt a sleepiness approaching. Something like a stage going dark.  Like that afternoon at the valley festival, watching the sun setting over the hillside. Lying down on a camping pad, almost vertical on the hill. His arm around her shoulder for a pillow.

She was dreaming of a harmony, so sweet, so beautiful, she needed to wake up and get it down! But she couldn't move, her limbs had been rearranged somehow and down was up and everything was vice versa.  The parts that she could move felt weighed down and the parts she couldn't feel made her feel free.

God, the harmony was gorgeous.  She couldn't tell if she was tearing up or if her vision was shifting too.  Maybe she was drowning . . . but no, the highway wasn't under water. The gravel under her wrist, the tiny pebbles hurt her wrist as she moved her hand. She was trapped between her rental car and the road.

And wasn't going to get out.

Damn, just her luck to have a fatal accident and not have HIM in the car. HE wanted to die.  She, she was fine with life. So many things left undone  .... well, the thing that was the worst was not being able to write down this harmony that she was hearing.  Or to be able to sing it with him.

With that, the tears came. She opened her mouth to sing.

And that was all.




May I Suggest To You by Susan Werner (video)

Susan Werner and Red Molly (video with crickets)