After Bart dropped Ziggy off, he turned the car toward Cambridge. We parked behind the McDonalds, but crossed the street to the Middle East where greater quantities of food could be had, cheaper, if you didn’t mind rude waitresses and a lot of spillover noise from the club room in the back. He wanted to [...]
A lot of the time when I play, it’s like my brain shuts off. Later, I kind of wake up in the middle of a song and I can remember everything that has been going on, but it’s almost like someone else was doing it. I don’t realize it when I’m slipping into that state, [...]
The name on the card Artie had given me was Michael Knight. I had figured he’d be a guy a lot like Artie, but he wasn’t really. We played phone tag for about two weeks and then one day his secretary caught me at home and told me Mister Knight was on the line–after which [...]
Another shiver ran through my shoulders, and I wondered if I should put my jacket back on. I wondered if I should just sit here and see what attention I might snare, or if I should be out hunting more aggressively.
I had stumbled my way through the bar ritual before in Providence. The last [...]
I fumbled as I put the token in the turnstile. The meeting had shaken me, not just because of what Artie had said, but because I realized I’d had some illusions about how much power Artie himself had, illusions that were shattered now. I remembered Artie from a few years ago as a kind of [...]
I was late to the Wenco office. I could probably have been on time, but when I woke up and felt my head and tasted my mouth, I knew I had to have a shower. Jeremy had every shampoo known to man in his bathroom and offered me the use of his hair dryer, gel, [...]
I unplugged from my amp and started rolling the cord in my hands, concentrating on doing it, making each loop of uniform size, keeping my fingers from trembling. I didn’t know if I should be going to talk to Artie, if I should ask what he thought, or if I even wanted to know. I [...]
By eleven o’clock, when we were supposed to play, Artie still hadn’t showed. About a dozen or so disinterested-looking New Yorkers had and the room looked a little bigger with people in it. Jeremy shrugged, indicating the empty stage with a jerk of his head. I held off until 11:15 when Ziggy stepped up on [...]
As soon as I could, I booked us a gig in New York, anywhere, so we could showcase for Artie. This was not a simple feat, even for a band willing to play for basically nothing. NYC is crawling with underworked bands and the club owners don’t even have to give you the time of [...]
The next day was a gray wash from the moment I crawled into the shower onward. I stood there with the water running down around the my ears and swore myself to celibacy. It seemed the only sensible option, the only possible way to avoid the self-loathing, the anxiety, the worst of the loneliness. I [...]
