The holidays were kind of a drag for me this year. Despite all my efforts to eat healthy, get plenty of rest and occasionally exercise, I ended up getting sick for Christmas. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, since nearly everyone at my office had the flu. But for the past two years I've been pretty good at avoiding whatever's been going around. Finally, it all caught up with me. Christmas Day I woke up with a stomach ache and a fever and I was pretty much out of it for the next week or so. I did crawl in to work between Christmas and New Years to take care of a few "urgent" projects, but that left me exhausted and bedridden for the next long weekend.
As if that wasn't bad enough, I went back to work the next week where the two lawyers I was working with basically coughed in my face all day long. Thanks guys. By Friday I had another sore throat. This had me especially worried because Saturday was the biggest Buzzard's gig ever: our CD release party. We've been putting the final touches on our debut CD for the past several months: mastering, sequencing, creating the cover art, finding a manufacturer to duplicate the CDs, etc. Not to mention rehearsing with our new guitar player and trying to find a new bass player. Now it was time to unleash it on the public. We booked a gig at a local club with plenty of room and even a little counter in the back to sell our "product." I even made up some Buzzards T-shirts and completely redesigned our website to reflect our new lineup and our new CD. Everything was coming together -- except my throat.
By Saturday morning I had a full-on sore throat. I gargled with echinacia and garlic and drank soup and slept all day. By late afternoon I decided I was all better and got ready for the gig. I put on my black jeans, black cowboy shirt and tuxedo jacket, filled up a duffel bag with T-shirts and hauled my gear over to the club. I was actually feeling pretty good by now, especially once I started setting up my equipment. We ran through a couple of songs as a sound check and we sounded great. Everyone was really psyched. When they opened the doors, we had a pretty good-sized crowd. In fact we packed the place. When we kicked into the first number, I felt great.
The show was amazing. Everything went as well as we could have hoped. The music was tight, the audience was awesome and we sold about 30 CDs. And somewhere during the course of the evening, a change occurred. What started out as a gig to hawk some CDs turned into a communal ritual of transformation. The music was flowing from the band to the audience and the energy of the audience was flowing back into the band and infusing the music with a kind of spiritual vibe. I was sick, I hadn't eaten all day, I was sweating gallons, I should have been in bed asleep, but something was keeping me going, making me aware of everything that was happening and allowing me to focus on what I was doing. Perhaps it was the fever. But it felt more like a surge of positive energy generated by the collective electricity of everybody in that room. The lines between the band, the music and the audience were erased and what resulted was a communal experience that elevated all of us to a state of inspired harmony. And all this without drugs.
They wouldn't let us leave the stage. We played all of the songs from the CD plus two new songs, plus one more song that our current bass-player-for-hire hadn't even rehearsed with us before. They gave us a standing ovation and stayed around to talk and buy CDs. It was the beginning of the Year of the Buzzard.
After the gig I met the band at Canter's Deli a for a late night breakfast and then finally dragged myself home and collapsed in bed. I was exhausted, but still wired with energy. It took a while to finally get to sleep. The next day I woke up sick again. I went into work on Monday feeling like I had swallowed a handful of razor blades. I went to the doctor and got some killer antibiotics, even though I am philosophically opposed to them. I went back home and back to bed.
We got a lot of positive feedback from the gig. The band is very psyched and everyone has ideas about what we should do next. We have another gig coming up in a few weeks and we are planning to sell more CDs and shirts there too. And of course we need to find a manager and a record company and book more gigs and learn more songs and find a permanent bass player... But all I could think about was sleeping.
I think this past year I must have burned myself out. My job was pretty stressful. The band went through a bunch of changes. And I wrote another screenplay and have now started working on two more at the same time. I had my yearly evaluation at work the other day and I got the usual comments about lack of prioritizing (I do what I think is important, not what they think is), lack of a sense of "urgency" about the job (I don't care), failure to submit administrative paperwork on time (also don't care), and failure to meet my billable hours requirement (I've been sick for the past three weeks). It occurred to me that this job is making me sick. I told them I'm going to need to take a long break pretty soon. I didn't tell them that it might be a permanent one.
I'm actually starting to feel better now, and I'm really looking forward to this year. One way or another, things are going to change this year. After so much time spent putting energy into the band, we actually have a product we can point to and give people and say "this is what we do." I believe that people will respond to it once they get a chance to hear it. If the concert we gave the other night is any indication, people are going to respond to it in a big way.
If you want, you can check out the website at www.bandofbuzzards.com. There are a couple of links on there will take you to other sites (like MySpace) where we have some full-length samples you can listen to. We have to be ready for anything -- this is the Year of the Buzzard.
Christmas came early this year in the form of an unexpected gift. Last Saturday I was lying around feeling physically and emotionally drained from a protracted dental procedure I had endured the day before. The phone rang and I decided to let the machine pick up since I lacked sufficient motivation to get up and cross the room to answer it. My message machine chirped on and I heard a voice I haven't heard for about two years, a friend named Peter Huchthausen with whom I have collaborated on two screenplays.
Our first collaboration took place several years ago when I read his book about his experiences in as a Navy Lieutenant in Vietnam and asked him if I could adapt it into a screenplay. He lived on the same small island in Maine as my parents, so I went up to meet with him. He cruised over in his little motorboat and we stood in the driveway and talked about our arrangement. We made a fifty-fifty deal on whatever came out of the screenplay and shook hands. That handshake deal still stands as one of my most valued commitments.
I jumped out of bed and grabbed the phone. Peter was in Paris working on a new book. He'd had a visit from a Canadian producer who wants to make a movie of another of Peter's books. The book, October Fury, reveals the untold story of the role of Russian submarines equipped with nuclear torpedoes menacing American ships during the blockade of Cuba in October of 1962. Peter told me that he had already made a deal for the rights and that he had recommended that I write the screenplay. He said the producer was prepared to offer me $100,000 up front.
I said, "What?"
Now, Peter is a former Naval Intelligence officer who was stationed in Moscow during the cold war. He doesn't usually get his facts wrong. He doesn't ever get his facts wrong. He told me the producer would be sending me an agreement by email.
I said, "Wow."
Then I said, "Thanks, Peter."
He couldn't stay on the phone too long, he just wanted to make sure that I was still at the same email address and was interested in the project.
I said, "Sure."
Then I said, "Thanks, Peter."
After we hung up I went over my notes. Yes, it said "$100,000" and "money up front." Holy shit.
I wasn't sure what to do. I wanted to call everyone I knew. But I didn't. I decided to wait. Instead, I did my laundry. Then I went over to Irv's Burgers to have lunch and work on a crossword puzzle.
On the way over to Irv's, I felt amazing. The post-dental work malaise I'd been suffering from had vanished, along with just about every other care, woe, ache, pain, doubt or fear that had been dragging me down for the past fifteen years. There's this woman I've been kind of hung up on lately who hasn't been too responsive to my attempted romantic incursions. It had been getting me down. No more. Who cares about her? I'm a screenwriter! And my job, which has been sapping my life-forces at an unrelenting pace, leaving me burned-out, disgruntled and humorless. Screw them! I quit! I have $100,000! Hah!
I devoured my grilled chicken sandwich and blazed through my crossword puzzle, basking in the glow of my recent ascension from the ranks of the hopeless loser to the vaunted realm of the working screenwriter. I had made it. My dream had come true.
Then I went home to check my email.
Sure enough, I had received something from the producer Peter told me about. And it had an attachment! That must be the agreement. My ticket to freedom. I read the first few lines of the email and suddenly my precious bubble burst. He wasn't quite prepared to pay any money up front for a screenplay. First, he needed to go convince some big Hollywood studio to pony up some cash. Then he and I would talk about a deal. And he had attached a copy of the treatment he planned to bring with him when he took Hollywood by storm. I took a look at it. There was no way any studio exec was going to fork over any cheddar for a 45 page treatment that began with a list of no fewer than a dozen Russian characters each with a name harder to pronounce than the one before.
This guy didn't know what he was doing. And he didn't have the cash. I was an idiot to think I was going to get $100,000 or even $1000 for writing anything for anyone.
I spent the rest of the day watching TV, trying to summon the energy to go see a movie, but it never came.
The next morning I got another call -- this one from my friend Glen. He works for a hugely successful producer at Sony and has been trying to come up with a project to break out on his own. He's been reading my scripts for a couple of years and a few weeks ago he pitched me an idea. At that point I was willing to say yes to anything. As it turned out his idea was pretty good, and we've been working on an outline for me to write the script. All on "spec" as we say, which means "for free." But it's a cool project and we work together well and this particular morning we were really cooking. We worked out the whole third act and even came up with an ending that we both liked. It was great.
I told Glen the story of the vanishing $100,000 and he just laughed. "I have a dozen stories like that," he said.
But as we talked about it I realized something. Even though I didn't have the money, I still had the feeling that it gave me. I had lost it for a while the night before, but now as I told Glen about how I had been walking on clouds for two hours, I realized that I didn't need the money to feel that way. Because if all of those things that had been bothering me could disappear so quickly and so completely, then they must not have been real in the first place. All I have to do is pretend that I have $100,000 in my pocket and voila -- no more troubles.
It sounds goofy, but it really works. I've been walking around all week with my imaginary $100,000 in my back pocket and it's been working like a charm to ward off negative energy. Besides, if I really want to quit my job, I can. And if this woman doesn't want me, there are thousands of others out there. And a man with an imaginary $100,000 in his pocket is a lot more intriguing than some ordinary schmuck.
I did follow-up with Peter on the actual $100,000 and we are now working out a deal with the producer for writing the screenplay. Assuming he gets financing he will pay me half for writing it and the rest if the screenplay is accepted. I also volunteered to rewrite the treatment to give us a much better shot at actually selling the damn thing. On "spec" of course.
It may never happen. They may choose another writer. It could be a complete waste of time. But I got those two hours of pure joy out of it. And I got my imaginary $100,000. And that, as they say, is priceless.
Once upon a time I went to a lot of rock concerts. It all began back in high school with Jethro Tull -- I sat in the 4th row and wore my concert T-shirt to school the next day. I saw Yes (cool laser light show), Jeff Beck (loudest show ever) and Pink Floyd (giant floating animal balloons). Once I got to college I went to my first of at least a dozen Grateful Dead shows, I saw Springsteen when he used to run up and down the aisles, The Rolling Stones when they still had Bill Wyman on bass, The Who at Madison Square before Keith Moon died, Eric Clapton with Muddy Waters, the original Little Feat, the great late Frank Zappa and the legendary Bob Dylan. I saw Dylan with the Dead, Dylan with Tom Petty, Dylan when he was very good, Dylan when he was not so good and Dylan unplugged. I saw Crosby Stills and Nash without Neil Young. I saw George Harrison and Ringo Starr play 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' with Eric Clapton at Wembley Arena with Princess Di in the audience wearing a Sergeant Pepper outfit. That was pretty cool.
But at some point I stopped going to concerts. There weren't as many acts around that I really wanted to see. I tried to get tickets to U2 a couple of times but was never successful. And the ticket prices got so high, it didn't really seem worth it. I never heard of half the bands out there anyway and the ones I knew had either broken up or died.
So when my niece and nephew announced that they were going to a two-day concert festival in Las Vegas, I thought it might be fun to tag along. I didn't think that I would actually be going to the concert -- I figured I would lounge around the hotel all day and hang out with them after the show. But they went ahead and bought me a ticket and the next thing I knew I was road-tripping to the Vegoose festival with Chris (age 19), Annie (age 24) and Annie's boyfriend Tony (also 24).
We left fairly early Saturday morning, stopping for a ridiculously unhealthy breakfast at a fast food place along the way. People say it is a four hour drive to Vegas but those people are generally liars. Either that or they do not drive 4-cylinder Hondas with three passengers and they do not have bladders. Apparently you have to cross some type of mountain range in order to get to Vegas and in my car that means top speeds of 40-50 mph. Also I was guzzling iced tea the whole way, so pit stops were essential.
We arrived in Vegas around three after fighting some crosstown traffic to get to Sam Boyd stadium where the Vegoose festival was located. It was a pretty big deal -- there was a main stage inside the stadium and two or three other stages set up in a large field next to the stadium. There was also a carnival-like midway with various booths selling everything from vegetarian burritos to tie-dyed underwear.
We went straight to the main stage to see a band called "String Cheese Incident" -- they were pretty good, but the most entertaining part was the crowd. It seems that the hula hoop has made a comeback among the clove-cigarette-and-patchouli set and there were several slinky young girls gyrating quite impressively with their oversized and decorated hoops. Of course there were also plenty of skinny guys playing hacky-sack and frisbee as well. And since it was almost Halloween, about half the people there were wearing wacky costumes. There were a lot of pixies and fairies and other magical creatures flitting about. They all seemed to know each other.
I couldn't help noticing a familiar and rather pungent aroma wafting around the stadium. And this time it wasn't clove cigarettes. I guess concerts haven't changed that much after all.
The next band was former Grateful Dead bass player Phil Lesh and friends playing good old Dead chestnuts, but with a crispness and polish that you didn't always get back in the day. It helped a lot that Joan Osborne was singing vocals -- I swear those old songs never sounded so good. I was actually getting into it, standing up and swaying back and forth, singing along to every word. It was fun.
The last band of the day was Dave Matthews, who was joined by former Phish frontman Trey Anastasio. They played a few of Dave's tunes but the songs that really rocked the house were the oldies. They did Billy Preston's "Will It Go Round In Circles", Sly & the Family Stone's "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)", "Tell Me Something Good" by Chaka Khan, a scorching "Rocky Mountain Way" from Joe Walsh and "Up On Cripple Creek" by The Band. That's my kind of music.
We had a little trouble getting back to the hotel that night. Annie and Tony had dropped Chris and me off at the stadium earlier and gone back to check in at the hotel. They took a taxi to the show, so we had no car. There were supposed to be shuttle buses, but the line for buses was quite long and there were no buses in sight. We stood in a taxi line in the cold night air for about a half hour with no luck and finally ended up paying a limo driver $100 bucks to drive us back. That's Vegas, baby!
The next day I toured around the other venues a little more and checked out the midway. We saw quite a variety of acts including The Flaming Lips, Jack Johnson and Beck. I even shopped for a Grateful Dead T-shirt. I was really getting caught up in the spirit of things. The final two acts of the weekend were Trey Anastasio and Widespread Panic. Trey is accorded demi-godlike status by the post-Phish pseudo-hippie crowd and his every move was lauded and acclaimed. Widespread Panic is a band I've never heard before but they sure did rock the joint.
The drive back was kind of an ordeal as my three young companions conked out on me within minutes of crossing the Clark County line. I drove from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. with only a couple of breaks for iced tea and almonds. It was a challenge, but it also brought me back to the good old days, like the time I had to drive home from the Who concert on the old CT turnpike when they still had tolls in an old VW that kept stalling -- so I had to glide through the tollbooths with the car in neutral and keep the engine revving while rolling down the window and tossing coins into the basket then pop the clutch back in before the engine died.
We had such a good time at the Vegoose festival that we decided to make it an annual event. And I had such a good time that I've started going to concerts again. Last week, on my birthday, I finally got to see U2. And they were amazing. For Thanksgiving weekend I'm going back to Vegas with Annie and Tony and I'm seeing Paul McCartney at the MGM Grand. Paul will be the third Beatle I've seen in concert. Now I just have to see Neil Young and I'll be all set.
