Eminent Hipsters (9781101638095) (10 page)

Predictably, the Soul Bus is good for kidding around, funky playlists, singing, a really nice hang. Freddie watches old movies on TCM. The Horn Bus is a little quieter. They also watch films, try to decimate each other at Scrabble and there are a couple of wickedly funny people. Horn players talk about their mouthpieces and reeds
a lot
. As far as I can tell, there's about the same amount of (generally moderate) alcohol consumption on both buses. You couldn't ask for a mellower bunch of cats and kitties. And they're all mighty road warriors, not puny malcontents like myself.

As I've mentioned, when Steely Dan is touring, Walter and I stay in nice hotels. The band usually stays in somewhat cruddier hotels, and the crew, God bless 'em—I don't know where they stay. On the Dukes tour, though, I'm often with the band on the cruddy level, though not tonight in Ashland, where Vince and I are in our own cruddy hotel.

Okay, not cruddy—sort of charming, really, but someone did only perfunctory research: no room service at the Plaza Inn. After threading our way through the intense holiday crowd scene on the streets of Ashland (bands, food concessions, etc.), Vince and I found a sort of fern bar that was open for lunch. Passing the town square, we were surprised to see an operational “lithia fountain” spewing out water from an underground spring that's apparently rich in lithium salts. Being aware of the salubrious effect of pharmaceutical lithium on
manic-depressives, I considered taking a sip, but was finally put off by sanitation concerns. Oh, well.

In the evening, having zero interest in the town fireworks display, Vince and I saw a film at the cute little movie theater, Wes Anderson's
Moonrise Kingdom
, which was intelligent and carefully made, as his films always are. Walter and I once had a bizarre interaction with Anderson's fans over the Internet, which started when we posted a couple of humorous letters (we thought) on the Steely Dan website.

I think one of the reasons we're intrigued by Anderson is that he seems to be fixated on the sort of geekish, early-sixties adolescent experience that he's too young to have had but that Walter and I actually lived through. And yet he nails the mood precisely, using comic exaggeration and fantasy to do the job. Although it was no picnic, it's too bad everyone's coming-of-age can't take place in the early sixties. Seeing the scouts in
Moonrise Kingdom
, I was reminded of my own experience at Boy Scout camp. I remember spending a lot of time in my tent worrying over a huge pot of boiling water in which I was trying to brew just the right blend of herbal tea, mostly wintergreen picked in the forest, following some recipe in the Scout handbook.

Speaking of tea, I guess some Snapple leaked onto my MacBook Pro keyboard so that now some keys are sticky and make a disturbing sucking noise. Plus, we're at an uncomfortable gig in Medford, Oregon. Backstage, there's heinously bad feng shui or whatever you call it, cramped dressing rooms (the girls' room is
in the kitchen), two little bathrooms for, like, fifty backstage people. Can't wait to crash out of here.

I'm finally back in a civilized hotel, the Four Seasons on Elliott Bay in Seattle, though only for a few hours. Just outside, I see they now have one of those giant Ferris wheels like in Paris and London. They have a serious spa here and there's just time enough to get a massage.

I drew a girl—let's call her Naomi—who was young and pretty, which is always nice. But she looked a little scrawny for the job.

Working on the backs of my calves with some minty oil, she asked me if I wanted her to go deeper, so I said sure, a little bit. Suddenly Naomi from Seattle turned into Rosa Klebb, the SMERSH interrogator from the James Bond series. I couldn't believe the force with which she was driving her knobby little knuckles into my petrified muscles and tendons. It was excruciating, but I have this stupid thing—like, no son of Staff Sergeant Joseph Fagen, veteran of the Big One, is going to whine about a little pain in front of some strange girl. Finally, all greased up and smelling like a Twizzler, I limped into the elevator in my bathrobe, crab-walked back to my room and started to pack for the gig.

Okay, that's it. Not even three weeks out and I'm starting to crumble. I feel crazy. It's time to assess my condition and make some recommendations.

Also, I feel like I was beaten by bullies while I was asleep. Maybe that massage. Singing too hard, I think I blew a gasket. I can feel it in my throat. The bones in my fingers are throbbing from pounding the keys like a baboon. I woke up in Vancouver, BC, but I can't exactly remember where we played last night. Oh—a winery gig a couple of hours from here. Tonight we play in a theater in town. That will make three shows in three days, not nice for elderly singers. There are a couple of three-day runs on this tour, which I mostly avoid with Steely Dan. But as Irving says, “This tour ain't Steely Dan.” Luckily, with the Dukes, I'm singing only a third of the time.

It's true that at about this point in every tour, the nice little plans and resolutions I made previously become irrelevant. Swimming? Pools are grungy or freezing or crowded or there's just not enough time. Treadmill in the hotel gym? Go fuck yourself—I'm too wasted to exercise. Someone suggested, well, why don't I try bicycling? You mean, call the concierge, inquire about rentals, roll around unfamiliar streets while cars and trucks are trying to kill me? I can't even get the hell out of bed. I know, I'm in a comfortable room in another Four Seasons Hotel with a view of the harbor. So fucking what? I've been spoiled over the years and, anyway, it doesn't matter where you are when your body hurts and you're depressed and angry. Right now, I'm too mentally ill to even order breakfast. Until I cool out, I dread any contact with another human being. Back in the day, as the kids say, my wife used to accompany me on tour, at least part of the time, so it was easier. But she's had enough of that now and she's busy at home.

Some might say, But wait—don't you have a personal
assistant who can make all this easier for you? I once had a pretty good one on a Steely Dan tour. The answer is no: times are tough, too expensive. I guess I could force myself to call Vince and have him check out the pool or call the concierge or call room service. But, though Vince is great, his main gig is tour accountant, and the “Donald's tour manager” thing is just because we need to economize. Like, it's obvious that Vince has a thing about carrying other people's luggage. To Vince, my suitcase might as well be an isotope of Cesium 137. Fair enough, but he's just not cut out to be a personal assistant. Plus, I've never been comfortable ordering people to do little stuff like that. On the road, Madonna and Mick Jagger have personal assistants, trainers, vegan chefs and, I don't know, ass buffers who they can order around and abuse. But this isn't that sort of thing.

Here's the deal: If I were just the piano player, it would be fine. My mother was a great natural singer, but I fell into the job by accident—I have to work like a dog just to get it out. And loud electric music is a whole other thing: you're fighting the amps, the delayed blowback off the walls, the screaming monitors (I've tried those in-ear monitors you see singers use on TV: I felt way too alienated from my labor). Then there's the pressure of being the front man and the trauma of facing the crowd. Three weeks out, you start to pay the price. Don't get me wrong, I love the work, but my sixty-four-year-old body and brain are starting to fail.

You may be wondering, What's the problem, dude? Sure, travel's tough on an old guy, it's a gnarly gig, but, really, why are you so beat up? Well, here's what it's about, and this isn't in
the ATD description: For a lot of performing artists, every night in front of an audience, no matter how exhilarating, is a bit of a ritual slaying. Without necessarily letting it show, you use every last bit of your marrow, every last atom of your energy in an attempt to satisfy the hungry crowd. On some level, you're trying to extinguish yourself. Because, corny and Red Shoes-y as it may seem, that's what you are, and they need it. And it's exhausting.

•   •   •

T
he Orpheum in Vancouver is home to the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. For all I know, the orchestra sounds spectacular in this place. But, as is the case with many old symphony halls, when you're playing electric music at pretty high volume, you might as well be playing in an airplane hangar. If there's a sonic hell, the entrance is somewhere on the stage of the Orpheum in Vancouver.
Entre nous
, I suspect they built these places hoping the monstrous reverberation off every surface would disguise how rotten the orchestras actually were.

Dazed with fatigue, I barely made it though the sound check. Then I remembered that, in Canada, it's possible to get a tablet over the counter containing aspirin or Tylenol, caffeine and—here's the good part—eight milligrams of codeine. It's marketed as 222 or AC&C. I mean, William Burroughs definitely couldn't be bothered, but, if you take four of them, it's almost as good as taking a Tylenol 3 with codeine, I think. It might just hit the spot. So I had Vince send a runner out to score a few bottles (not Pasqual; they stopped him at the border because of some unresolved issues). By showtime, I was feeling a little better.

In Bill Bradley's book
Life on the Run
, about playing for the Knicks in the seventies, there's a description of going back to the motel after another punishing game (he was a small forward, always getting beat up, sometimes by Wilt Chamberlain, no less) and collapsing into a bathtub filled with ice water. Oh, brother. Imagine that.

It's no wonder so many traveling performers end up in rehab or worse. It's easy to see how it happens. They want to be alert and vibrant so that the audience won't think badly of them, won't punish them for not being as talented or magnetic as you thought they were. So that your crush won't suddenly end. I know, it's pathetic.

The crowd at the Orpheum was the oldest yet. They must have bused in people from nursing homes. There were people on slabs, decomposing, people in mummy cases.

Also, they were Canadian, by which I mean to imply that they've inherited their culture from Britain. As is the case in Japan, another island nation where folks are all squeezed together in a small space, Brits, by necessity, had to evolve a system of rigorous interpersonal courtesy so that they wouldn't tear each other apart. Fine, except that there are side effects: the more civilization, the more repression. So, unlike typical American audiences presented with an irresistible groove, Canadians (at least when they're sober) just sit motionless for two hours, fighting every impulse to nod, tap a foot, say hooray or move any part of their bodies. That is, until the big finish of the show, when, as their superegos are no longer able to contain the
furious directive of the lower brain, they rise to their feet and, at last, explode with bestial cries and applause. Of course, when islanders drink, it's a different story. As Freud liked to say, the superego is soluble in alcohol.

Vince and I flew into Denver last night (again, the yo-yo routing). Another Four Seasons Hotel, except that instead of a Ferris wheel, I can see a roller coaster out the window and imagine the people screaming. The gig at the Paramount's not until tomorrow, so it's a day off.

I really don't know a lot about Denver, except that, like Aspen, the altitude makes it harder to sleep, breathe and think. The place still has that boomtown vibe, maybe because it's so flat, like a board game. Two of the most famous con men of all time, Lou Blonger and Soapy Smith, operated out of Denver. Neal Cassady, Kerouac's pal, grew up here stealing cars.

When Steely Dan was playing here a few years ago, our opening act, organist Sam Yahel, was driving through a nasty snowstorm when he was stopped by the police for “weaving in the lane” or something like that. Mind you, he was driving on icy roads in a blizzard. A sweet, talented guy, Sam's got a beard and unruly hair and looks like he might very well be from Jew York City. So the cop makes him get out of the car, walk in a straight line, count backward, all that stuff, and finally says, “I can't catch ya, but I know yer on sumpin' by just lookin' in your eyes.” He kept Sam, his drummer and his bass player over an hour, but finally had to let them go. They just made the gig on time. Again, this didn't happen in 1969. This was 2009. The
point being, if y'all have to be in Denver, you best mind yer p's and q's. But that might not be enough.

I force myself to take the elevator to the third-floor rooftop pool. Very few people around in the early afternoon. A couple of rich wifey types and a block of obviously gay men. I later found out there was a large convention of choristers in town.

After a swim, I was tricked into ordering lunch by a trio of rather exotic, good-looking pool girls who had been carefully coached, or so it seemed, to be initially seductive and then abruptly aloof, like the femme fatale characters in hard-boiled novels. The way it worked was, they turn on the heat when they welcome you to the pool area and get you to look at the menu, behaving as if you were James Bond, using all sorts of lip-pursings and sly looks over the shoulder as they walk off with the drink tray, and so on. After being asked about the menu several times, I finally gave in and ordered something, though I wasn't particularly hungry. From then on, all three sirens either ignored me completely or, if they happened to catch my eye, looked at me as if I were a lump of shit. They seemed to be giving all their attention to the gay choristers. As I was leaving, tying my sneakers, gathering up my newspaper, the girls became suddenly alert, chased me down and made sure I signed the check. Then they stood in a line and watched me, now a broken, sorry creature, as I walked toward the elevator bank.

•   •   •