by Jewel
When I was in L.A. shortly after that, he saw a show of mine at the Wiltern. He screened the film for me the next day. The movie was intense and dark and interesting. Sean was the same, and also charming, witty, and bright, and our instant verbal sparring characterized our friendship for the next year. I was headed back to San Diego for a long-overdue surf session, and we agreed to talk creative soon.
Several weeks later I was in a salon, getting a cut from my gay hairdresser and friend, when Sean called, saying he was in San Diego and asking where we could meet. I gave him the address of the salon, and the next thing I knew, a town car had dropped him off and my car was all we had left. My hairdresser asked if he could come along—although I have no recollection where we were headed. Sean was friendly and unpretentious and said sure. My car was a total mess. Like a holy mess. Clothes and food wrappers everywhere. There was so much crammed in there that the only open space was the front passenger seat. So Sean let my hairdresser sit on his lap. Who got no small thrill out of it.
I wrote a song called “Emily” for the movie while out on the road. I cut it in a radio station on the station mic and Sean put it in the film. In the meantime, we spoke on the phone a lot and he was a fantastic flirt and I did not mind one bit. But I intended to give him no such conquest. I put that man through his paces and he took it in stride. He began to court me in earnest, following me around on tour, acting as my de facto roadie. I was nowhere near famous, opening for Peter Murphy of Bauhaus in small clubs. Goth fans in makeup, fangs and scars, and black clothes. I’d play earnest folk songs and inevitably stop mid-song to ask someone to be quiet or kick someone out. Sean stood side stage. We talked about art and books and had a great time. I moved very slowly with him but he was a persistent and inventive suitor, and I enjoyed it immensely. He sincerely believed in my music, and this felt as good as anything. He was a talented artist and took my songs and lyrics seriously, and I was starving for anyone who believed in me. I kept our burgeoning relationship very quiet. I was determined not to be “discovered” because I was dating someone in the public eye. I liked his mind, and had fun sparring with him. When I told him this in all seriousness, in a dive bar after a sound check, he responded with a melancholy stare and then a canary-eating grin and said that it would be impossible not to fall in love with me. I looked at him to see if he was serious. It seemed he was.
When the movie was finished, he asked me to go to the Venice Film Festival with him to debut it. I was nervous and excited—so far my experience in the music biz had been decidedly not glamorous. My time with Sean wasn’t spent at Hollywood parties, but on the road with me at Red Roof Inns, where he would get his own room and carry my guitar back after my humiliating gigs. No tabloid had yet picked up on us, so I was anxious about a trip like this. At the same time, I couldn’t turn it down. It was the first time I’d ever been out of the country apart from Mexico. I told him I didn’t have the money for a ticket. He said I could fly on the private plane with him.
Sean said there would be a red carpet and lots of press and I would need to bring something to wear. I didn’t want to walk down a carpet with him, and he said I could walk it on my own as songwriter for the film, which seemed okay. It was my first time getting gussied up with a professional stylist. The very fashionable woman eyed my polyester ensemble and began to pull dresses—as I tried them on I felt like a dog someone had dressed in sunglasses and a ball cap and a sweater. I also felt a little like Cinderella going to the ball. But I was not a girly princess and not used to standing out unless I was standing behind a guitar. I finally decided on a pair of satin pants and a beaded asymmetrical top that showed a bit of midriff. I had no idea how to do makeup or hair, and had no idea there were teams of people to do it for me. At a TV taping before leaving for Venice, I confided to the union hair and makeup lady, and she was kind enough to spend an hour with me and teach me how to put on eyeliner and shadow. I showed her a Polaroid of my outfit, and when she found out I owned no makeup, she gave me a lip liner, a blush, and shadow from her kit. She then drew pictures and step-by-step instructions on a piece of paper that I could refer to when the time came to get ready. I thanked her profusely and then kept busy with work so I wouldn’t have time to be too nervous. My manager Inga took me shopping at a Nordstrom Rack store for cute shorts, coats, and sweaters, and I was ready to go.
The day arrived for the flight and there I was walking onto a private jet and finding myself face-to-face with several other Hollywood types. I tried not to make a fool of myself, but I fear I may have asked to feel people’s noses when a good one came around. When I studied sculpture in school I’d become obsessed with feeling faces so I could better feel the shape I had to re-create. Particularly feeling the tips of people’s noses. The curve and spring of each was so idiosyncratic that when I saw a good nose, I’d ask complete strangers if I could feel it.
First we went to Paris. We stayed in beautiful hotels and ate with Roman Polanski. Of course I had to be told who he was. I had shocking gaps in my knowledge of pop culture and knew no one, nor who anyone was. Sean would whisper in my ear and explain everyone’s backstory to me. It was not my world and I was pretty sure it never would be. Sean took me to see the sights in Montmartre and wrote me sweet notes that he hid in my pockets. Next was Venice, and while Sean was in meetings, I took water taxis around and explored canals and cathedrals. Heaven. It felt exotic and luxurious to be so free. I’d never been on this side of travel—“this” meaning not staying in youth hostels and hitchhiking with knives. This was the Cipriani and private drivers and all the food I could eat, like fresh figs and prosciutto. Interesting people to talk with, some well educated, some well read, some simply vain and drunk on their power, but altogether an especially rarified, fascinating breed I had not come across before. I recorded each moment in my mind to write about later. One day I went to lunch with several women and Jack Nicholson. He was gregarious and entertaining. He struck me as very bright and possibly bored with most people, able to cope with the help of a mild combination of recreational drugs and a curiosity for watching interesting circumstances unfold. I liked him. I can only imagine what he thought of me—I looked like I was twelve. None of it was lost on me, but it was all a game and I was enjoying myself. I trusted myself to be me. I enjoyed Sean and would eventually fall in love, but I did not go around holding hands or trying to be seen or noticed. At the end of lunch Jack said in his classic way, “Ladies, who wants to go lingerie shopping?” I declined.
The morning of the film premiere, I nervously pulled out my crinkled paper with the makeup instructions for a little review. I looked at the drawings and then at my face, and after about five minutes of frustration, abandoned the mirror and notes and went to find some food in the sun. When I came back, Sean’s assistant, a friendly and outgoing Australian girl, had been tidying the suite and walked out of the bathroom with my makeup crib sheets in her hand. “Jesus Christ in hell, is this yours?” I froze for a second and just stared at her. She looked at me with a broad smile and said, “You poor kid. You don’t know how to put makeup on?” She didn’t seem mean-spirited, but she was getting a kick out of it. She seemed to understand that this was nowhere near my world. She handed me my notes and left me alone with my thoughts, which felt like fish that had gotten spooked and swam away.
I did my best with the plum lip liner and the sheer nude lipstick, to highlight my brow bone and the lid of my eye, and worked the mascara wand into the lash line like I had been shown. I pulled my hair back simply and got dressed. I think Sean sensed how out of my element I was, and he was kind and careful to give me my space. When I walked out, he said I looked beautiful.
It was really cool to hear my song on the big screen. The next day the producers and industry folks got together for some big lunch, and Sean asked me to sing. He seemed to love watching people’s reaction to me, and I’m sure he was also trying in his way to get the word out about my music. Someone handed me a guitar and I sa
t up at the banquet table, the whole room staring at me. No mic. Just a giant ballroom full of jaded execs. It was broad daylight and the room was busy talking until Jack spoke up and asked me to sing “Angel Standing By.” I obliged, not knowing where the hell else to start. I shut my eyes, blocked the room out, and focused on the message of the song and then on my heart and on the particular feeling of needing to feel peace when unsettled. Of needing to be told you are loved when you are scared. That small concentrated feeling expands outward like heat from a flame. I get goose bumps and my eyes tear and my voice shakes just slightly when I harness emotion and force it through my throat and out of me like a warm wave. No vibrato for this song. Straight falsetto tone. Tone and vibrato have different effects, and for this a straight clean tone can cut you like a divine knife. When I wrote that song I was seventeen, and it was only the singing that would help me get through the nights when my anxiety would rise to almost insufferable levels. I experimented on myself and found that a widespread vibrato distracted me but that a straight tone was pleasing and calming. I learned to let passion and angst spill out occasionally in riffs like I’ll be right there baby, holding your hand, telling you everything’s going to be alright, and then go back to a straight tone, creating a vocal map of my own longing. When I opened my eyes, the room was quiet and no one clapped for a moment. I suddenly worried that I was just another part of the long day they had to endure when the whole room erupted at the same time. Sean requested “Nicotine Love,” about a woman who had been raped as a child and so damaged that she became a monster who wanted to harm men the same way she had been hurt. The performance was intense and cinematic. When I finished, the room was quiet again. Then applause. Folks came up to me afterward who’d ignored me previously. Sean stood back and watched their reaction. An agent came over and Sean told him that if he had any sense he would sign me to some acting jobs. “Will she fix her teeth?” the agent asked. I remember the look of total amazement on Sean’s face. He shook his head. The agent looked at me, unconvinced.
Sean seemed to think I was talented and smart, which was nice, because no one had ever told me I was smart before. He enjoyed putting me in situations that brought out the best in me, and he never ridiculed what was still so half-wild and messy about me.
One day at lunch in L.A. Warren Beatty walked in and sat down. I knew Warren from the movies, but mainly I knew he had been with Joni Mitchell. That made him some sort of a god to me. Sean asked me to sing for him. “Would you?” Warren asked. I sang something with my guitar and Warren rested his head on his hands, looking up at me with a dreamy look on his face, like he was watching a kitten knit mittens. When I finished, he tilted his head toward Sean and after a dreamy sigh said, “Where did you find her?” as if I were a puppy or something that could be acquired. I laughed at the absurdity of it all.
nineteen
arriving
I got another cool break that same year. I had been singing on NPR and talking about my life, and a director heard the interview and cast me as Dorothy in an all-star production of The Wizard of Oz that would be performed at Lincoln Center and broadcast on TV. He took a big risk in casting me, as I was the only unknown, and yet he was certain I was his Dorothy. I had never acted before but was excited to dig in. When I first showed up at rehearsal, the all-star talent was pretty intimidating. Roger Daltrey, Jackson Browne, Natalie Cole, Debra Winger, Nathan Lane, Joel Grey . . . and yours truly, who had no clue what she was doing in the lead role. Holy shit. Deep breath. I dove in and studied and worked hard.
Jackson would come over to my hotel with his girlfriend and listen to my songs, mentoring me along. He taught me to play a bit of slide guitar and gave me a lug nut to practice with. He was paternal and protective of me, and it showed one day when we had a comical misunderstanding. One day in the rehearsal studios I borrowed his shirt because I was cold. The next day he pulled me aside and said, “Jewel. I found what you left in my pocket.” I waited for him to tell me what it was. I had no idea. “Jewel. I found it. Do you want to talk about it?” I could not imagine what he was talking about. He kept staring at me like I should come clean and I was getting nervous. Finally he said, “Look, I can’t make you talk about it. All I can say is, if you ever want to come clean, I’m here,” and walked away. I was perplexed but had no idea what I should feel guilty about. I walked over to my mom, who was waiting in the wings, and told her the weirdest thing had happened. Later that day I had another bout of the miserable headache I’d had for a week and went to my mom for some BC, a powdered aspirin that comes in wax paper. Suddenly it dawned on me. I ran over to Jackson and looked around as if to make sure we weren’t being watched, then pulled the sachet of powder out of my pocket and said, “Hey, you want any?” He looked at me with such shock and disappointment until I told him it was just aspirin. He was so relieved he laughed out loud and hugged me. “Jewel! I’m so relieved! I was so worried you were doing drugs! I quit years ago, but I had a friend come over and test it when I found it. He actually snorted it and said whatever it was, it wasn’t very quality shit!” “Did it get rid of his headache?” I asked, laughing.
The show went well, apart from a minor snafu when I lost track of where we were in the story and jumped ahead in the wrong costume, luckily realizing it just in time (when I heard my cue) to run out onstage with the wrong outfit on and my boots unlaced, but able to deliver the correct lines. Roger Daltrey as the Tin Man and Jackson Browne as the Scarecrow were unbelievable. The whole cast was encouraging and kind to me and I worked hard not to let anyone down and to make the director proud, as well as myself. I have never been competitive with other people, but I am highly competitive with myself. It’s pointless to focus on others, as we can only control ourselves. I set a high bar and then it is my own private race. No one knows I’m winning or losing but me. I try to make the hard parts look easy, especially in my music. Whether it’s seeing if I can elicit a visceral reaction from an audience, hit a particular note, or get a song on the radio, it has been a wholly internal process that, as it grew and spilled over, eventually led me to awards and money and chart positions. I am convinced that if I had started out with an eye on the prizes, I would have failed. For me, success was finding the courage to be true to myself, and holding on to a sense of humor along the way while refining my craft.
Sean surprised me by flying my dad in from Alaska for opening night. It was such a welcome surprise. My dad and I didn’t talk often, although he had been sober, in therapy, and working on his own healing. And while I would not say our relationship was close at this point, it also wasn’t hostile or angry. I was working hard myself on figuring things out, dating someone who believed in me, acting with a cast of people I never dared to dream would be peers. And there my dad was to see it!
I don’t know if any of you were raised on a ranch, but my dad showed up in his “town clothes.” In Alaska we had two sets of clothes: work clothes we did chores in and played in, and town clothes we touched only when we were going to school or to sing. My dad wore his creased jeans and good boots and a clean new cowboy hat and his largest, sharpest, shiniest animal necklace. Did I mention my dad makes jewelry out of animal parts? Roadkill is an accessory where I come from. His pieces are actually very beautiful, made of eagle talons, bear claws, wolf teeth, and bird bones. As a thank-you to Sean for flying him in, Dad made him a grizzly claw necklace in the shape of an anchor, because he’d heard Sean had a tattoo of the same. He also wrote Sean a song. He was so excited about both that he previewed them for me before presenting them to Sean, and all I can say is I was so touched by the gesture that I could only hope Sean would be too. My dad is a very authentic and earnest person, and the song he wrote was his way of trying to understand and pay homage to Sean’s world, which was so different from his own. My grandmother Ruth, who was living in Tennessee at this point, had kept every headline printed about Sean, and my dad had strung them together into a song. At the time, some of the lines were so uncomforta
ble that I was sure they would be seared into my mind forever, but as I write this now I can recall only a few. Sean sat through the song with a smile, seeing through to the heart and spirit of my dad’s intentions.
At the party after the Oz performance, someone came up to Dad, in all his glory, candlelight glinting off his shiny animal-carcass necklace, and said, You must be very proud of your daughter, she did very well. For some reason everyone in the room turned to hear his response. Jackson Browne, Debra Winger, Natalie Cole, all waited to hear what he would say. The room was hushed just as my dad slapped the guy on the shoulder jovially and said, “Well, I guess I put my best sperm into that one!” Awesome. The crowd was kind enough not to gasp collectively in horror, and I had to admit that as embarrassing as it was, it was touching. He did not change because he was around other people. And I knew that it was his way of acknowledging that he was not the best parent, but that he was proud of who I was becoming and the work I had done to get there. What seemed like an awkward and seemingly tacky moment to everyone else spoke volumes to me. He was growing and changing. We were a long way from healing but there was hope.