Rock On (9 page)

“You know . . . I kinda just do whatever I need to do and nobody really asks me any questions. Yesterday I took a two-and-a-half hour lunch with a friend. Whatever. What are they gonna say? You know what I mean?”

Just then, the product manager and the vice president or whatever from radio come in from the control room. The product manager is one of the guys that spend a solid four-year stint working his ass off as an assistant before getting the break; one of those guys who started from the ground up to get his job and has wanted it, has tasted it, longer than I've even been in the building.

“Hey, you guys! You look great! Did you have a good flight?” This, from the product manager.

“Yeah, it was good. Kind of tired, we played in Boston last night and today after we do MTV stuff, we have radio stuff, a dinner, and then we'll play at Irving Plaza tonight.”

“Oh, wow! Okay, well this shouldn't take long, we should have you out of here pretty quick. I see you've already met Dan.”

And that's when it happened. To this day I can't remember which one started it. I think it was the bassist.

“Yeah we met. He was telling us how he takes two-and-a-half-hour lunches with his friend and nobody says anything.”

Then the other girls in the band start laughing and chiming in.

“Yeah, he's all, ‘What are they gonna say?'” This from the one who sings the songs about slutting it up in people's sedans!

I give them a look while biting my lip, bulging my eyes a little bit, and barely shaking my head “no” in hopes of discreetly stopping this. But there's no way to get them to turn back. Maybe it looks like I'm freaking out and that's why they're saying even more things. I feel like Schwarzenegger before California made him governor, when he's in that movie where the kindergarten class is getting out of control and he can't stop it.
Kindergarten Cop
, I think it's called. He's like a big lion being harassed by a pack of hyenas or something. Another one of them speaks up.

“Yeah, we asked him if he likes his job and he was like, ‘I guess . . . if you gotta have a job' or something like that.”

What? Drop it! Jesus, you guys sing about tempting motorists with sexual favors or whatever the hell you're singing about and
you're
telling on
me?

I stand there with a terrified polite little smile frozen on my face avoiding eye contact with the product manager and vice president, waiting for that moment when the three of us would start laughing. After five or six seconds of silence, it becomes apparent that this isn't one of those moments.

“We should get started on these,” I say to no one in particular.

I walk back into the little control room on the other side of the glass so we can get started.

After a handful of takes, one serious, one sweet, one rocking, it's time to leave. They take off their headphones and we all file out of the studio; I close the door and it fades back into the wall. We say good-bye; they keep asking me if it was good
enough.
Yes, God, it was good enough. Just go. You've done enough
. They walk down the south hall back to fancy elevators that will gently set them back down on the street twenty-six stories below so they can be on their way to their hotel before playing for a venue packed with adoring fans. I take a different elevator. An elevator that takes a much shorter trip two floors down. Time to get back into my office, check my e-mail, surf the Internet, and, well, heal.

I think that's muscle, not fat.

I think you're hair's still rad.

You and your friends still seem like rockers.

It turns me on, the way you tuck your short-sleeve Polo

into your pleated khaki Dockers.

Hey, baby, did you hear?

Big changes in the tax laws this year.

You can write off almost all of your travel

Doesn't matter if it's business or personal.

What? [sexy moan] Oh, yeah!

[Chorus]

Hello, Sir, we wanna do it to you after the show.

Hello, mister, we could do it and your wife would never know.

We wanna have two Amstel Lights

and party till eleven on a Tuesday night, yeah!

I think your four-door rocks.

I love those sandals with those socks.

I swear to God you turn me on.

It gets me hot when you brag about

Underreporting your gross annual income.

[solo, repeat chorus, to END]

I'm staring at the calming, soothing colors of the calendar on my computer screen when suddenly Amy interrupts my post-Donnas healing process.

“We're all heading down to Vallerie's office to hear this guy that they just signed.”

Act like you don't hear her
.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see her still standing in my doorway.

Ignore her. She answers your phone. She can't boss you around. She's so nice, though. I want to be young again like her. Jesus, easy, Sport
.

“Vallerie's office in ten minutes if you want to hear this new guy.”

“Oh, yeah. Good. Just checking . . . things on my computer. The calendar there. Good. Looks good.”

There is something entirely surreal and uncomfortable about being crammed into an office with your coworkers and bosses while a newly signed star-to-be sits in an ergonomically correct office chair with an acoustic guitar and emotionally croons about heartbreak and sexual mishaps; almost always about the general rigors of young hard-living lovers plagued with emotional problems and bound for quasicrippling emotional disaster designed to bring a tear to your eye, it seems.

I mean, I'm not saying I even find them particularly moving. I'm just saying . . . we're all being shoved into an office together listening to songs that are supposed to make you cry . . . and we're at work. So I'm concerned that, you know, worst-case scenario, somebody gets choked up in there; that would be a little awkward. And the musicians who do this, they always look completely comfortable in their skin, oddly enough. Totally fine doing this. Most people would feel pretty damn awkward even talking too much about a health insurance claim while sitting in somebody's office, but these guys seem to be able to sing about relationship difficulties, struggles with addiction, sexual problems, emotional inadequacies, you name it! They seem to be saying, “Want to hear an intimate performance of my song that talks about my inconsistent weight, surprisingly positive sperm analysis, divorce, and subsequent pill addiction? No problem, which office do you want me to play it in?” My hat is off to them. I can't even talk to my boss about my weekend plans without stuttering and blinking my eyes seven thousand times.

I don't want to go to this. If Amy's supposed to be my assistant, why do I have to do everything she tells me to?

I'm going to start stabbing myself in the arms and chest with a Bic Paper Mate pen as soon as the new genius starts to sing, how's that for a little number about emotional difficulty?

I shuffle into Vallerie's office with some other stragglers and there he is. Really thin, kind of shaggy hair and a small chin beard. You've seen this guy in every university district of every city you've ever been to or lived in. He's the guy who's muscular
and gangly, bright-eyed if it weren't for being a little stoned, and he thinks he's cute and charming when he says something wittier than the other street poets and beautiful losers when you walk by. Something like, “Hey, support your favorite starving musician, man. . . . Got a spare million bucks or a spare record deal, maybe?” I usually smile and maybe sometimes give the clever self-referential singer-songwriter types a spare dollar and walk on. Well, apparently someone gave this one a record deal. He's got a friend, too. A bit more meat on his bones and he's the one who plays the guitar while the other one sings. I can't help picturing him sneaking money out of the guitar case on the street when the singer's not looking; he's seriously, like, fifteen pounds heavier and the other dude looks like a lean lost dog. They sit there quietly waiting for us all to file in. What if a fax comes in on the machine they're going to be playing next to?

Everyone is here. The smattering of VPs, Rob/Dick, Vallerie, Amy, Chocolate Chip, the product managers, Aging Suburban Classic Rock Guy, Aged Robert Wagner Character From Sales. Dick says something in an introduction to the lot of us about how brilliant these two are. Which, really, is simply his way of saying that he has heard from someone above him that somebody here thinks these two are brilliant. Wouldn't that be such a sweet introduction? I bet even these guys getting ready to play for us would start cracking up if Dick went, “Welcome to Vallerie's office, everyone. I've never heard of this young man with the guitar, or the guy sitting next to him who apparently doesn't play an instrument, but trust me when I say it's probably a good sign that I've never heard of them. Anyway, I have been told by my boss to tell you and your bosses that they're brilliant, and I basically do whatever the bosses say. That's my
own problem to deal with. Anyway, let's hope Vallerie doesn't get a fax while they're playing — hit it, guys.”

If he had the heart and guts and sense of humor to say something like that I would follow him to the end of the earth, seriously. If we collectively had that kind of heart and guts as a company, we would have the coolest bands on the planet wanting to sign with us.

The guitarist starts to play as the other guy sings while smacking his legs like a focused and caffeinated psychic teen runaway keeping time to a beat that only he can hear, and only when he closes his eyes.

Slim starts in with his singing: “Yeah, she's gone again. Whiskey and cigarettes. The front door slams, heartbreak and nothing left, but she's . . . ”

It gets heavier from there. Sentiment about feelings, emotions about pain, and frankly, the guy's doing an amazing job of describing these, well, just sad feelings that . . . you know? What I mean? Jesus, try not to look at the others in the room. Don't listen to what he's singing. Don't think about it, just try to look like the guys who run entire divisions of this company; calm, cool, a reserved and polite tap of the foot or bob of the head. Just do that.

I can almost, I mean, with his gentle strumming and singing about this stuff that screws all of us up, I can almost see every executive in this room as they were when we were all . . . innocent . . . children. I'm just saying, you have to be a human being about it, you know? You can't stand here and say this isn't moving. It feels like when you see a Mother's Day commercial that makes you cry because you're tired or a little hung over. Man, how do things get so messed up between two people? What the hell goes wrong with love? Why does some
love last and some just blows up so fast? Or worse, blows up in your face after so long, when you never thought the end would come. Why can't we figure love out! Nobody knows. God, how do we settle for some of the messes we all get into, these things that should've ended years ago by the time they finally fall apart. I . . . I love my girlfriend so much. We're really good for each other. We have a lot of love and a lot of laughs together. We're kind. Kind to each other, because that's what . . . what love is. That's what hearts do. But getting close to somebody, that's how we all got hurt at one point or another. Everyone in this room. It's scary, you know? Opening your . . . your
heart
to somebody. I wonder if I'm ever going to be a dad. More love near us, more life around us. Or would it be a drag somehow? It could be a total drag. Everyone says that having kids changes everything, but what they don't tell you is that so does sitting in a studio apartment alone in your forties. I'm so afraid of marriage, and all that. It just freaks me out for some reason. As if it could ruin everything we have and we'd be stuck like that. Christ, I'm probably screwing up every good thing in my life because of fear. I feel like I've been so lucky to have ever been in love and have loving feelings that seem to love like a lover who . . .
Holy Christ, you're listening! Snap out of it! The song's got you in its grip
!

Look around the office and get your mind off it! Now, dammit! Look at anything! Stare at the Stone Temple Pilots platinum plaque like you've never really noticed it! “Hmmm. Interesting plaque. I love that band. ‘Interstate Love Song' was a great song,” I seem to be saying when I look at it, tilting my head a little to indicate that I'm really appreciating it. I keep looking around the room, so these guys can't make me have feelings.
Hey, I like the way Vallerie has her plant right there
so it kind of covers up all her phone lines and computer cables. Good thinking. That's smart. Hey, nice picture frames, she's really got some good ones
. I try to think about the first time I heard the Pixies and that feeling of walking around college towns aimless in life, but happy to at least finally feel connected to something. I think of anything I can to get out of this sad love song's grip — like ineffective names for hardcore death metal bands. I distract myself by building this list in my head: