Never Say No To A Rock Star

by Berger, Glenn

  This would turn out to be the greatest project of my career. But there was a crash to come. Little did I know in that first session that it would also expose my greatest flaw, which would lead to a catastrophe that I would regret for the rest of my life. In those early moments, I glowed with the magnificence that comes before the fall, the glorious innocence (and ignorance) of hubris.

  ACT TWO: DANCIN’ WITH THE DEVIL

  SCENE ONE:

  Temptation

  Film dates like All That Jazz were union gigs, and we had to follow the rules. We cut tracks from ten to one, took a one-hour lunch break, and recorded again from two to five. I didn’t have a nighttime session that day, so I got to leave at a decent hour. I took the M-5 uptown bus to my Upper West Side apartment on 80th Street between West End and Riverside. New York was about to become gentrified into a haven for the rich, but it hadn’t quite yet. Side by side on this one block you could find middle class apartments, gorgeous townhouses, and welfare hotels.

  My girlfriend Ivy and I lived in a renovated townhouse, cut up into apartments. The owner, a failed actor who somehow had managed to put together the dough to purchase the architectural masterpiece, decorated it in a mock medieval style, and supported his acting habit by renting out the upper floors.

  I sat at my desk in the living room of our little two-room apartment. Its southern, street-facing wall was dominated by two floor-to-ceiling French doors in the shape of gothic arches with small, wrought-iron lattice panes and balcony railings.

  The sun began to descend over the Hudson River, to the right, casting parallelograms of orange light on the room’s walls. I placed the album cover of John Lennon’s Walls and Bridges on the desk. I opened the desk drawer and pulled out a bag of weed and Bambu rolling papers. I shooed our big black cat, Familiar, off the desk. I crumbled some of the sticky, fluffy buds onto the cover and separated out the unusually large white seeds. This was one of the first crops of locally grown cannabis indica. It was the deepest pot I’d ever smoked.

  I was finally cool enough to have my very own Greenwich Village pot dealer, known to us only as CJ. His pad on Leroy Street was a coveted hang. His witch girlfriend read some Tarot cards while freaks with long, kinky hair and plushy beards played mandolins and Dobros. Once, while waiting for CJ to weigh my stuff, I absentmindedly stuck my hand in the crevice of the couch and found a bag marked “Panama Red, 1971.” Legendary. The shit I was buying was thirty bucks an ounce.

  I could roll with the best of ‘em. I was practiced. I licked two papers together and placed the crushed leaves into a well I’d made. I spun deftly between thumbs and forefingers, licked the glue, rolled it into a joint, and stuck the whole thing in my mouth to moisten. I sat back, lit a match, squinted my eyes, and inhaled deep.

  One hit, and my mind began to expand. My pupils dilated, and the colors got brighter. The doors started opening in my head. I began to lift off the ground. I reveled in the reality that I was working on a major motion picture with one of the top directors in the world. This movie was going to be huge. As the drug passed the brain-barrier, I indulged a very pleasant fantasy. I saw myself on stage at the Academy Awards. I’d thank Bob for the opportunity, and my mom, who would be watching on her TV back in Brooklyn. Yes. I could feel the wanting deep in my belly. Once I had that, I would have it all. Then I had to acknowledge that it would never happen. The guy who recorded the music didn’t win those awards. But I’d give anything for that one moment.

  Suddenly I felt very high. The previous seven years seemed to descend on me in an instant. I had to lie down, so I stretched out on the Persian rug on the floor.

  Sinking into the carpet, a warm feeling filled my belly as I pictured Fosse. Now here was someone I wish I could be like! He was brilliant, won every award, fucked the most gorgeous chicks. It could be fun to be … A thought popped into my head that I hadn’t dared indulge before. I could be famous. Shit, look at what I’d done by age twenty-three! I wanted it. I could taste it. But how? What would I need to do to make it happen? The answer descended on me. Of course. It was simple. I just needed the guts. That’s what I saw around me: artists who were cold enough to stay in the studio all night even if it pissed off their wife; who had no compunction about torturing their fellow man by making them play that part all night long; who had the chutzpah to rip off a good friend’s idea and take credit for it.

  All I had to do was get the brass cullions to say fuck it to love, my health, damn, my life, to get what I wanted, to get the only thing I really wanted. I felt a flash of embarrassment realizing that I wanted something as shallow as fame. No, that wasn’t it. I wanted achievement, success, greatness.

  But was that all it took? Wasn’t there such a thing as talent? Who was to say that I had that? Maybe I’ll just suck, screw up my whole life and end up with nothing. Isn’t that what happens to most people?

  Then I heard a voice in my head that I barely dared to listen to. You’ve got the magic, Berger! Think about it! You’re twenty-three years old and you’ve made it with Bob Fosse!

  That was too scary. Bullshit.

  Besides, I wasn’t sure if I was willing to make the requisite sacrifices. Was I willing to tell my girlfriend to go fuck herself? I wished I was willing to kill for my work, I knew that was the secret, but sacrificing my love? That was a big price.

  But it sure would be nice to win that Academy Award …

  I could feel a shudder pass through my body. I stood up and walked over to the desk. I’m not going to relinquish love! All you need is love, that’s what John taught me. I lifted up the album cover, forgetting it was covered with weed, and the leaves flew all over the room. “Shit!”

  The room started to spin. I had to lie down again. I couldn’t shut up the argument in my head.

  You can live a long life of bourgeois, ordinary reality. Kids spitting up on you, maybe a tear at their wedding, if you are lucky and you don’t croak like your father, maybe even a grandkid on your knee, that is, if your children don’t forsake you. You can have a house in the suburbs, two cars, a nice wife, grow old together, watch each other wrinkle, eventually you start to drool, and it all ends pathetically. You’ll struggle and scrimp and save, live honestly, and even feel good about yourself, until you realize you never really fulfilled your potential. But by then, it’ll be too late. And you’ll have your love. Or you get a few amazing years. You live everything to excess. You live hard. You push yourself to every limit. You go where no one else goes. Yeah, you die young. But you get to suck the marrow out of this bone of a universe. You live an extraordinary life. You fuck more people in those years than most people fuck in lifetimes. Your heart beats more times, you have those moments of superhuman achievement, when you wield a kind of power reserved for just a few mortals. You’ve got something to say and an obligation to say it! Yes, there will be fear, pain, and humiliation, but there will also be victory, accolades, awards. You will be recognized, you will get the cheers for moving the multitudes. You will bring pleasure to a pain-besotted world, and you will receive the laurels for it. And at the end of it all, you’re annihilated. That’s all. Just like everyone else.

  Wait. I shook my head, like trying to wake myself from the fantasy’s spell. It’s all one goddamn lie, this whole show biz thing! It’s a lie! Don’t get suckered in!

  But what if this is my one chance? What if I say no now, and then I regret it? Then I’ll be too old. What if I live a life of regret? Now is my one and only moment to be young, at the peak of my powers. Now is the time to make the commitment, to break through. You get one shot. Blow this one, and it is gone forever. Forever. Grab the world by the balls now, baby, ‘cause you’ll never be able to again. Don’t you realize that so few are chosen? Don’t you comprehend the golden opportunity you are getting right now? Don’t you see?

  I could feel the fear and desire coursing through my being as the huge sun, setting over the Hudson River, burnished the room.

  SCENE TWO:

  Ivy

 
; I opened my eyes and saw Ivy as she turned on all the lights in the living room. I was still lying on the floor.

  “You’re home early, aren’t you?” she said.

  I began to answer, “I, I must’ve passed out. I had such a weird …”

  But while I was speaking, I could tell Ivy wasn’t listening. She just went on. “What is that strange smell?”

  She was right. There was a weird odor. It wasn’t just the weed. It was more like burning trash.

  “I hate this place,” she ranted. “This city is so disgusting! The filth… the whole city stinks like garbage…I just got hassled on the street by some asshole. I can’t stand it anymore! When are we going to get out of here?”

  Hearing her complaints brought me down. Ivy sat down on the couch and perused the Village Voice. “I don’t know what you see in this place. It’s a rat nest.”

  I retorted, “What can you find anywhere that you can’t find here? I mean, John Lennon could live anywhere in the world, and he chose New York.”

  “You are such a provincial boy. You don’t even know that the rest of the world exists.”

  This pissed me off, especially since I knew she was right. “What do you know? You grew up under some little flower in a suburb in Wisconsin. What do you know about life, sitting around writing poetry half the time?”

  Not taking the bait, Ivy threw back her luxurious, dark hair, and leaned her tight body toward mine. She implored me with her huge, sensuous green eyes. “Just come with me to Europe. Just promise me right now that we will go. That’s all I ask.”

  “If that will put you in a good mood! OK! I’ll go! I’ll go!” But deep down inside it was a feeling of inadequacy that led to my grumbling. I had never left the continent, and I both loved and envied Ivy’s cultured intelligence. I just didn’t want to admit it.

  Ivy crouched over me, and I felt an intensity coming off her so fierce it burned. “That’s why I love you!” she said, without a hint of sarcasm, and gave me a big kiss. She got a big smile on her face, jumped up, and twirled around.

  With excitement in her voice, she said, “Wanna go to the movies? There’s a double bill at the Thalia of The Jazz Singer and Damn Yankees.”

  Damn Yankees, a musical choreographed by Fosse, was about a guy who makes a deal with the devil to become a star, and The Jazz Singer is a story of a Jew who gives up his family to make it in show biz. I gulped at the ironic coincidence. “Yeah, yeah, sure.”

  “Hey, is there any of that joint left?” I got up, smiled wickedly, and handed the doobie to my partner in crime and best friend.

  ACT THREE: THE FATEFUL DECISION

  SCENE ONE:

  The Trip To Europe

  I got a break in recording in the spring and, following through on my promise, we booked our trip to Europe.

  When we got off the plane in London, the city completely blew my mind. It was true. I was provincial. I was shocked to see it was in such full color and bustling. I had been so certain that Europe was in grainy black and white, like I’d seen in such movies as The Third Man from the post-World War Two era, bombed out, with starving children in threadbare coats rummaging through the rubble in the streets. But that was not how it was at all. It was clean and safe, with stylish graphics and stunning architecture. I didn’t think a city could be like this. It was … civilized. As we toured the Roman ruins of the earliest part of London known as the City, it penetrated my small mind that entire, highly developed civilizations had existed there for thousands of years.

  In Amsterdam, we visited the plaza of the Concertgebouw, a white and gold neo-classical concert hall that seemed straight out of a fairy tale. Above the entrance to the hall a prominent sign read “Free Concert.” Ivy and I could see people handing the door attendant large white tickets with ornate gold print. I asked the man how one got such tickets.

  He said, “You want some?”

  I nodded. He handed me two and invited us in.

  I was entranced and confused as we wandered inside the magical main hall. There were no seats, just small tables, with families picknicking and couples dining and drinking Heinekens. In the middle of the floor a crowd of children along with a few grownups surrounded a huge barrel organ. A round man with a moustache that looked like it had been shellacked to his face, in a funny hat, a black and white striped shirt, and suspenders holding up old tuxedo pants, turned the wheel on the mechanical device, causing a carousel-like tune to emanate from the big wooden wheezer. I wandered toward the gathering, appreciating the charming scene. While he rotated the musical contraption, folks around the floor chatted and sipped their coffees and beers.

  When the song finished everyone burst into applause. But, all the man had done was turn the wheel; yet, everyone clapped! I collapsed into a seat and started to weep. This place, it was like paradise, no pretense, where music was just a natural part of this world. Here music was so highly regarded and loved that even the hurdy-gurdy man got respect. Everything seemed so familiar, like I was coming home, as if I belonged here.

  An orchestra then filled the stage, a conductor appeared, lifted his baton, and the musicians began to play. I could hear musical colors I had never encountered before, shimmering, glistening. Iridescent objects appeared to flit through the air. The music seemed to tumble, swoop, and become purling liquid. I felt something far away, like a distant memory from down a long, dark hallway, a song from another floor in an apartment building on a rainy night. Something stirred, intangible on the tip of my tongue, an ache, a longing for something, but out of reach. I felt as though I was returning from a long journey, not knowing if I’d ever get to my destination.

  I thought I had almost found it when suddenly the music ended, and I was left with a feeling of deep loss. The world in the studio now seemed so far away. Everything that had appeared so important there had shrunk to a small image as if on a distant TV screen with muted sound. I dropped into a state of exhaustion seven years overdue, the end result of 20-hour days crashing in on me. I slumped in the chair, my hand over my face.

  I could feel the pain in my bones from the abuse I’d endured at the hands of the narcissistic prick artists, who needed to kick me down in order to boost themselves up, the recalcitrance and stupidity of the maintenance guys, who always seemed more interested in obstructing my work than facilitating it, the frustration with the broken-down equipment, which seemed to have a nefarious life of its own, the opposition of management to make it any better, for who knows what reason, the cheap hack clients who just wanted the work done even it if wasn’t very good; all of this started screaming in my head that it all wasn’t worth it, that there was more to life that I needed to learn, that it was time to get out.

  Ivy came over to me, enraptured, and said, “Isn’t this place magical?” and then noticed my posture. Concerned, she sat down next to me, put her arm around me, and said, “What’s the matter, sweetie?”

  I shook my head, unable to speak. She held my hand, patiently, as if she understood. Then she spoke. “Take a look around. This is what I wanted you to see, to feel, to experience. And this is just the doorway. Everywhere you look, if you just know how to see, you can find the wonder of the universe.”

  I went back to my reverie. There was something about this music. Maybe it wasn’t about being a star. Maybe it was about finding something real, something enduring, something ennobling.

  Besides, if I really wanted to be a star, I’d have to be a producer, and if I wanted to be a producer, I should at least study music theory, right?

  What was the name of that music I’d just heard?

  SCENE TWO:

  What it’s all About

  Back in the city, I told Emile that I wanted to study music, and he turned me on to one of his minions, a guy named Alex Grimes, who lived in a little apartment overrun with manuscript paper. One day, between music exercises, Alex asked me why I wanted to study harmony when my engineering career was going just fine.

  “I’m looking for the magic,” I repl
ied. “I want to understand music from the inside. I want to know how it works. Besides, I don’t want to be an engineer all my life. I want to produce. I never really studied all the way, and I want to feel like I know what I’m doing. I don’t know. Then there’s this side of me that just wants to get away from the whole thing. I’m exhausted, and, I figure, maybe I should just take some time off and go back to school.”

  Alex stopped and looked at me seriously. “I’ve got an idea. You should visit Maneri. He teaches up in Boston. He’s a genius. He’ll tell you what to do.”

  Taking this as a sign, Ivy and I drove up to Boston. She dropped me off at the entrance of a formidable looking beaux-arts building and went off exploring on her own. I walked into the Boston Conservatory of Music. Whereas I felt powerful in the pop world, here I felt small and intimidated as I entered the hallowed hall with the busts of the great composers in scalloped niches along the walls. I hadn’t been in a school since high school, and certainly nothing like this. No one here would care about my work with Fosse. I was just the schlepper again.

  I found Maneri’s class and took a seat as far in the back as I could. My body tight, I watched the other students fooling around. The bell rang, but there was no professor. No one else seemed to notice or mind. I watched the clock hand turn as the minutes passed.

  Finally, about fifteen minutes into the period, a rotund guy, with a shaved head and a long white beard like an Italian Santa Claus, burst into the room. He was talking as he opened the door and just kept going. He had a voice that sounded like he had spent the last couple of decades chewing a bag of rocks. Despite his heft, his energy was palpable.

  “Let me tell you what it’s all about.”

  I was ready to hear his ideas about modulations, passing tones, and voicings, the stuff I was beginning to grapple with in my studies. But that’s not what he got into.