“That’s delightful.”
“I didn’t make it up.”
“What about it?” he asks.
“Just wondering if you’ve ever heard of it.”
“Because . . . why?”
“I don’t know. Seemed like you needed a distraction,” I say as I read the ingredients on a Jolt can.
“So you tell me about vaginas with teeth?”
“Uh-huh,” I say.
“You know what? That kind of distraction—I don’t need.”
“Fine. Sorry. Jeez,” I say. “Wanna thumb-wrestle now?” I ask.
“No.” He opens the trunk and starts loading up the Jolt. So I help.
“I have thirty teeth,” I say as I lift another six-pack of Jolt into the trunk. “Not in my vagina, obviously—in my mouth.” Brady doesn’t say anything. “Most mouths have twenty-eight teeth. But an untouched mouth has thirty-two teeth. And four are removed when the wisdom teeth come out.”
“Yeah?” Brady says, feigning interest.
“I used to have thirty-two teeth. And then I had one wisdom tooth removed, so I had thirty-one. And I hated it. It was uneven. I just felt off-kilter for that whole year. I think that was 1998. But then in 1999 I got the other side done, and everything was better.”
“I’m so glad.”
“Like feng shui of the mouth.”
“Right.”
“But I never got the other two taken out to make me have the average mouth of twenty-eight teeth. Which is okay. I’m happy with thirty.” Brady still doesn’t say anything. “Sharks have multiple rows of teeth—”
“You’ve gotta stop,” Brady suddenly says. “I can’t hear any more about teeth. I don’t want to hear about teeth in your mouth . . . teeth in your vagina . . . shark teeth . . . no more discussion of teeth.”
“I don’t have teeth in my vagina,” I say, rolling my eyes at him. “Did you know that I was born at 5:21 p.m.?”
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“What do you mean?” I ask back.
“You keep talking about ridiculous things. Why?”
“I’m just making conversation.”
“Well, don’t,” Brady says. And we finish loading up the last of the Jolt and get into the car.
There’s a dog beach out here, and it’s something I think Strummer needs to experience. For starters, he’s only been to dog parks before, never dog beaches. But I also don’t know if he’s ever even seen a beach.
Brady and I start heading west, and when we finally get to the beach it’s like nothing any of us have seen before. Dogs upon dogs. More dogs than I’ve ever seen in one place. And Strummer is having a blast.
“That little man is in doggie heaven,” I say to Brady, who is watching Strummer and smiling.
“So this guy walks into a vet with his dog and places him on the examining table,” Brady says. “The doctor looks at the dog and says, ‘I’m sorry, sir, but your dog is dead.’”
I look around immediately to see if there are any dogs within earshot, and indeed there is a border collie about three feet away.
“Shush!” I say to Brady. “Don’t talk about dead dogs here. You’re going to upset the poor pups.”
“It’s a joke.”
“Dead dogs aren’t funny.”
“You didn’t let me finish.”
“Does the dog come back to life?” I ask.
“Can I finish?”
“Fine,” I say.
“So the vet says, ‘I’m sorry, but your dog is—’” and Brady whispers, “‘—dead.’ And the guy says, ‘I want a second opinion.’ So the vet opens up a cage and lets out a Labrador. The Lab sniffs the dog, paws him a little bit, and concurs that indeed the dog is dead. So the guy says, ‘I demand a third opinion.’ So the vet opens up another cage and lets out a cat. The cat walks around the dog and looks him over. When he’s finished, he also agrees that the dog is dead. ‘Fine,’ the man says. ‘So what do I owe you?’ ‘Fifteen hundred,’ the vet says. ‘What? You’re going to charge me fifteen hundred just to tell me that my dog is dead?’ ‘Hey,’ the vet says, ‘you’re the one who ordered the Lab report and the cat scan.’”
I laugh a little, even though it was silly. And then we’re quiet for a while, just watching the dogs play. Strummer seems to be scared of the water. He runs along the edge, but he recoils every time the wave comes in.
I roll up my jeans and go in a little to show him that it’s okay, but he won’t budge.
Until he sees this bird. Some seagull comes swooping down, and Strummer starts to chase it, chasing it all the way into the ocean. Of course the seagull is flying, so Strummer has no chance of actually getting near it, but he doesn’t know this. The next thing I know, Strummer is paddling away in the water, and it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. I feel like a proud parent, and I hear Brady hollering from where we were sitting.
“Whoo-hoo! You go, Strummer! Thatta boy!” he yells. I turn around to see Brady jumping up and down with a similar sense of pride. I wave him over, and he walks down and joins us in the water.
Now Strummer is having so much fun he doesn’t want to get out. We splash and play for at least another hour, and it’s like we’ve forgotten all of our problems. For this moment it’s just the three of us, playing at the dog beach in sunny California.
And then Brady’s cell phone rings.
“Hello?” he says. “Hey, Sam! How are ya?” I watch his expression turn from excitement to frustration in about five seconds. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Wow . . . yeah, that must have been really cool. Yeah, Eddie Vedder . . . he’s big-time. Then again, all of his recent stuff is crap, but that’s another story . . .” He listens a little more, picks up a rock from the sand and chucks it as hard as he can. “Look, just meet me later today, okay? Don’t sign anything with him. Promise?”
Brady is sweating, and I hate to see him look this stressed out. He hangs up the phone and looks like he’s going to explode.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Your boyfriend took the band out drinking last night with Pearl Jam.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Whatever. Darren Rosenfuck arranged it so they got to hang out with Eddie Vedder all night. I mean, how the fuck am I supposed to compete with that?”
“Fuck Pearl Jam,” I say. “Who cares?”
“They did! You should have heard how excited he was.”
“Are they meeting you later?”
“Yeah,” he says. “We gotta head back into Hollyweird.”
“Good. Look, it’s not over till it’s over. I have every faith in the world that you are gonna get this band. I know things.”
“Yeah?” Brady says with about as much belief as a thirty-year-old being told that the Easter Bunny exists.
“I do. I’m clairvoyant. I am. I always have been. And I know that you are going to sign this band. So have a little faith. I promise you.”
“If you say so . . .” he says reluctantly. And we get our things and take off.
On our way back to the hotel we stop at a 7-Eleven because I want a Slurpee, and Brady, all of a sudden, gets on his knees.
“Oh my God!” Brady exclaims. “No freakin’ way! This is like my birthday and Christmas all rolled into one!”
“What are you talking about? Get up!” I say and pull Brady up off the floor.
“Look!”
“What am I looking at?”
“Munchos! And Funyons! You can’t get these things anymore.”
“Apparently you can,” I say.
“This is unbelievable,” he says as he starts taking practically every bag of chips off the rack. “What’s the deal? This is the city of gold! Is Los Angeles like the land of the lost snack foods?”
“Oh, no. Please tell me you aren’t going to buy up all of these too.”
“Damn skippy, I am.”
“Christ,” I say. And then I help him grab the rest of the Funyons and Munchos.
The car is now practically sagg
ing in the back. We have a four-door rental, but there is no room for any other person or snack food/beverage in this car. We’re also going to be leaving in the morning for Seattle, so I’m not quite sure what Brady is planning to do with all of this stuff.
My cell phone rings, and it’s Sydney. I haven’t spoken to her since I’ve been out here, and she’s pissed.
“Um . . . hi. Remember me?” she asks.
“Sure do, missy!” I say. “What’s shakin’? Holding down the New York fort?”
“Yeah. You could call me, you know!”
“I’m sorry. We’ve just been running around nonstop.”
“Guess what I just did?” she asks.
“I can’t imagine.”
“I just set up a PayPal account.”
“To buy things off eBay?” I ask, because this is why I have a PayPal account.
“Nope,” Sydney says, totally serious. “Guess again?”
“I really have no idea.”
“I’ve just set up a Boob Fund,” she announces proudly. I take the phone away from my ear and look at it. Why I do this, I don’t know. I guess to amuse myself. When I put the phone back she is still talking. “—so for my twenty-sixth birthday, as a gift to myself, I’ve decided to buy myself a new set of boobs.”
“Oh my . . .” I say.
“But I don’t have enough money, so I’ve set up a Web site where people can donate to the Sydney’s New Boobs Fund and I put a link to it on my Friendster page and my MySpace page.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Nope, I’m totally serious. And people have already donated! Can you believe it? There’s $153.67 in the account.”
“No, I really can’t. And who would donate sixty-seven cents, is what I wanna know.”
“Who cares? It’s so cool. Why didn’t I think of this before?”
“Because you were sane?”
“Pot . . . kettle . . . hello,” she says. “Anyway . . . how’s la la land?”
“It’s good. We’re having fun.”
“If you can call having Darren Rosenthal parade bloated rock stars before your potential band fun, it’s fun,” Brady shouts.
“What’s he yelling about? Darren Rosenthal, your Darren Rosenthal?” Syd asks.
“No, not my Darren Rosenthal, but yes, the one you know.”
“Oh, yes it is her Darren Rosenthal,” Brady contests. “You’ll be happy to know that Heaven and Darren were reunited!” and he starts singing the seventies song by Peaches and Herb, “‘Reunited and it feeeels so gooood!’”
“What?” Sydney asks.
“Can you shut up?” I say to Brady. “It was nothing,” I say into the phone. “Look, Brady is meeting with the band in a few minutes, so let me call you back.”
I hang up the phone and stare at Brady, who is driving and looking straight ahead.
“What is wrong with you?” I say.
“Besides everything?”he says back.
“What did I tell you before? Stop stressing. You’re gonna get this deal. You will walk away from this meeting with a deal.”
“Yeah . . . so you say.”
“I believe in you,” I say, and he looks over at me for the first time. “It’s gonna happen. I promise.”
“Thanks,” he says. We pull into the Hyatt driveway, where Strummer and I jump out, and he drives off to meet the band.
Brady
You know how you see those movies about the music and entertainment business and you think, Wow, that seems like a really cool job. Well, it’s not. It’s nearly fucking impossible to have any kind of success. There’s one Lester Bangs for every trillion wannabe music critics. There’s one Clive Davis or David Geffen for every zillion A&R dudes. And any way you look at it, Cameron Crowe is just one lucky motherfucker. Sure, he’s talented as shit, but who gets to write for Rolling Stone magazine at age fifteen? Who gets to write genius movies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Say Anything, Singles, and Almost Famous? Ever hear of a flop, Cameron? And my God, the guy even got to marry the hot chick from Heart! (Oh, I forgot about Vanilla Sky. Guess Cameron Crowe isn’t untouchable. Still . . . the dude’s had a pretty good run so far.)
Well, I sit on the other side of the fence, in the house on the wrong side of the tracks. (Cue the soundtrack from Some Kind of Wonderful.) Where I sit, I have three hundred sixty-four dollars in my business bank account, a psycho-woman who may or may not be carrying my child, no Top 20 albums on my label—or even Top 1,000 for that matter—and I’m pretty sure I’m losing my hair.
I pull up to where I’m meeting the band, and they’re all peering into my car.
“Dude . . . what the fuck?” Sam says.
“Oh, this?” I say when I realize they are talking about the many bags of snacks that have taken over the car. I explain about my long-lost foods, and they all start cracking up.
“How are you getting this stuff home?” Justin asks.
“I guess I need to ship it. Because from here I’m actually going to Seattle.”
“What’s in Seattle?” Sam asks. I don’t want to tell him about Howard Schultz and my Cinnamilk get-rich plan, because I want him to think I’m committed to the label. And I am. If he would just give me a reason to stay committed. I’m pretty much hanging my hopes on this band. But that’s too much pressure to put on them. I get out of the car and walk with the band into their rehearsal space.
“Just visiting some friends up there,” I say.
“Cool. So listen,” Sam says. “Darren offered us ten thousand dollars to record some demos.”
“That’s a lot of money,” I say as my heart sinks into my stomach and the bile crawls up my throat.
“Just so I understand correctly . . . is that an advance that he’s offered to pay you guys or is that money he’s going to put into studio time?”
“Studio time,” Sam says. “Look, we all really like you,” he goes on to say, and I feel like I’m getting dumped. It always feels the same. Suddenly I’m in the fifth grade, standing on the playground in my orange and blue plaid pants, and Danielle Boranski is telling me that Stuart Armstrong gave her his peanut butter and jelly sandwich, so she’s going to be his girlfriend starting right after lunch. “But the thing is, Darren has the money to back up the promises.” And I’m wishing I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to offer Sam. “We really do like you, though, dude.”
“Thanks,” I say. I mean, what do you fucking say when you have only three hundred sixty-four dollars in your business account? “Look . . . I know it seems really cool that you got to hang out with Pearl Jam last night, and that Darren is all slick and trying to give you a taste of the good life,” I say. “But the fact still remains that Darren is going to have to walk into his boss’s office at the end of the year, and if you haven’t met the quota they had in mind—you’re done.” They look at each other and start to get uneasy. This is the one thing I still have going for me. My loyalty.
“Yeah, we know,” Ethan says. “That’s the one scary thing.”
“Well, that’s not going to happen with me. As I’ve told you, I’ll start from the ground up and make it happen for you guys. I have faith that we’ll make it on the first time out, but if not, there’ll be a second and a third chance. As many as it takes. When you’re done recording, I’ll get you set up with a good booking agent. Plus, with my contacts, I have no doubt I’ll be able to get you set up on some good tours and that’s where you’ll develop a wider fan base.”
“We’re into that,” Sam says, and they all nod in agreement.
“I’ll set up a big grassroots, street-team marketing campaign all over the country,” I continue. “And as far as the record goes, I’ll get it into all the stores, targeting the places you need to be . . . all of the major online retailers, all major chains, and the super-cool indies. And mom-and-pops too, which major labels sometimes neglect. Plus, I’ll place the record in overseas stores and retail programs, and we can also secure separate overseas deals for you—which cou
ld mean more advance money that goes directly to you guys.”
“That sounds cool,” they all agree.
“Plus, I don’t know if you’re into it, but we could place your music in TV or movies—”
“Car commercials?” Justin says.
“No car commercials,” Sam says. And then he adds, “Unless the price is right.” They all high-five. “Brady, we totally dig your vibe. For real. But seriously, dude, it’s the ten grand.”
All of these things are the same as what Darren is offering them. But the difference is, there’s a chain of command in Darren’s world that’s nonexistent in mine. He has to answer to someone, and I don’t. Therefore, if Darren’s boss says to get rid of them . . . he will. I’ve got loyalty to offer. A guaranteed home. Everybody wants to feel safe, and that safety is the one thing that I can offer that Darren can’t.
“Are you telling me that if it wasn’t for Darren Rosenthal offering you guys ten thousand dollars worth of recording time, you’d sign with me?”
“Absolutely,” Sam says, and they all nod to back him.
“Really?” I ask.
“Totally,” they all say. I think about it. I think about it long and hard—for at least thirty-seven seconds.
“I’ll match it,” I say. “I’ll put ten grand into recording your demos, too. And I can even pull some favors and get enough studio time to record your whole album.”
“Cool,” Sam says. “Then we’re in.”
“Yeah?” I say, so happy that I want to cry. Finally something is going right. So what if I just promised ten grand that I don’t have.
“Yeah,” Sam says. “We were hoping you’d say that. It wasn’t at all about you. It was just that we needed to make sure we could have the same opportunities in the studio.”
“I’ll do you guys proud,” I say. “I promise.” And when I say “I promise,” I think about the fact that those were the last words Heaven said to me before she got out of the car. She promised me it would work out with the band, and she was right. I don’t know how she had so much faith, because I was barely hanging on by my fingernails, but I can’t wait to tell her.
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