There's a bass player shortage in Los Angeles.
Everywhere I go, every time I meet musicians, I hear the same thing: "Our bass player just left the band-- you want to play with us?"
If I didn't have a day job, and if all of these offers were paying gigs, I'd just devote my time to being a professional bass player. I'm far from pro, but I have a few strengths that I have been wise to maximize.
For one thing, I have learned over the years to play by ear. Since the bass is rarely a lead instrument, my forte has been to adapt to the lead guitar/lead melody's notes. As long as I'm in the background, I'm fine. I had to turn down one gig with a funk band because the basslines were practically lead lines, and I didn't feel I had the confidence to pull them off.
I still might call that band, but since they haven't called me, I'm assuming that they either found someone else, or the band has been halted temporarily. I guess I should give them a ring to see if I'm still in the loop, because they were a great band of players.
Anyway, Boy Johnny has asked me to play with his group. Boy Johnny is a co-worker here at the radio network. (For the sake of B___________, I edit traffic reports every fifteen minutes at my computer-- that's what I do all day...)
Boy Johnny has a show in Downey in two weeks, and on Thursday I'm going to meet the rest of his band and rehearse. The songs, which I have on CD, are easier than a $2 floozy, but chemistry is the key-- if we don't gel, the music won't sell.
I'm not going to get paid a lot, but it's still money.
*/*
Talking with some friends on Sunday night, half an hour after taking the Window Pane 'cid, I stumbled upon a weird realization.
Bill had asked me what was the deal with Eve. "Aw, man," I said. "She's mad at me right now."
"Why's that?"
"Because of something I said."
"It's always something the guy said," Bill replied, placing a Dunhill in his mouth.
"It wouldn't be the first time for me," I said.
"Well... what'd you say?"
"We were all at dinner for Nona's birthday," I said, "and Nona's sister asked me if I drew the whole cartoon myself. And I answered that it was me, Paulie and Peter, with help from Eve."
"That's what you said?"
"Yes."
"And she got mad?"
"Yeah."
Bill, having been in on the cartoon since the inception (after all, he is one of the main characters), looked at me and said, "Jimmy boy... Sounds like she was after something other than your love."
"Like what?"
"Like your cash, man."
I laughed. "Yeah, because I'm such a millionaire..."
"No, hear me out, man. Dig this," Bill said, dipping into '60s lingo. "She saw dollar signs, don't you see? And when a woman sees dollar signs, she wants to make sure she's in on the action, know what I mean?"
"I don't think so, bro," I said. "I'm not rich, and I don't think girls look at me as a moneybag."
"No, but women are smart... sometimes, they see a guy and think 'he's going places' and they hitch themselves onto you early on so that they can be the first to benefit from the man's success. Let me ask you something: this girl, Eve... does she ever do her own thing, or does she latch onto other projects?"
I thought about it for a second. "Well, she's an actress... so she tends to get involved with other people's projects."
"Right. She hasn't started anything herself, has she?"
"No... well, she wrote a screenplay..."
"Doesn't count. Every waiter in town has a screenplay, bro. How many of those scripts ever get optioned or produced?"
"Are you trying to tell me that Eve is a gold-digger?"
"Naw, man," Bill said, chuckling in that William Burroughs-esque giggle. "I'm just saying that she saw you as a meal ticket... a future meal ticket, but a meal ticket nonetheless. I mean, I'll be honest, man-- one of the reasons why I'm not mad about you guys caricaturing me is because I see this thing being very successful, if done right... plus, you did a great job of drawing me. I show that cartoon to everyone I see, and they all agree that you drew me to a tee."
Bill's life has sort of changed, since we started this cartoon. His friends see him as a minor celebrity now. Whereas Bill was once depressed, he now laughs a lot and even recites bits of the dialogue we made up for his character. He met a girl, and is convinced that she is the human version of Jenny, the voluptuous bartender we created for the cartoon. He gets laid all the time now, and I think he mystically attributes this newfound happiness to my drawings.
It goes back to a blog I posted about how things tend to come to life for me, once I create them. I feel like, in this instance, I created an alternate reality for these characters, and the real-life counterparts like it so much that they feel like it is a part of their own reality.
I thought about what Bill had said. I never thought about it that way, but when you look back at my love track record (as I do often) you'll find that most girls I was into felt I wasn't motivated enough to translate my talents into lucre. Jeanie definitely made it a point to tell me that she thought I was a genius-- I just thought she was trying to flatter me, but when I think about it, maybe she thought that I would hit the bigtime soon... and that if she could be on my arm when it happened, she'd have it made.
This is a highly cynical POV to have, and I've never entertained it. But it makes sense, in a way. Why else would a girl get upset about her credits on a cartoon, for fuck's sake? I didn't cheat, I didn't lie to her, I didn't exclude her altogether... in fact, I TOLD THE TRUTH. All I ever do is tell the truth, and maybe the truth was too much for her to bear.
I don't know, I'd like to think that women see more in me than just a chance to become upwardly mobile, but now that Bill has brought that up, maybe I should look back and see if there were any clues, any telltale signs. Off the top of my head, I can think of a few mystifying instances where I felt the girls I was with were getting ahead of themselves. I remember comments along the lines of "My boyfriend is going to get signed to a record label" or "One of these days he's going to be a great artist"...
I remember taking Jeanie to my company Christmas party one year. She saw that I worked with a bunch of radio celebritites, like Rick Dees, Casy Kasem, Dr. Laura, Phil Hendrie and others. By the end of the night, she was talking to me about long-term commitments. It was also the first night that she gave me the pussy, well after the party had ended.
If what Bill said is even halfway true, then maybe I am going to go back into my solitary hole, and work on my creative projects a little more. It would be such a disappointment to find that I was never taken seriously as a person, but rather as a financial bonanza waiting to happen.
It would really sadden me to find that out.
On a related note, we are in talks right now with some producers that Peter once worked for, and they look like they are interested in giving us some money to improve the cartoon. Their suggestions are realistic and in line with what we originally wanted. The big irony is that they want to see more female characters-- that's something I was telling Eve to work on, but she lost interest after a while.
I think Eve thought that there was nothing going on with the cartoon. Boy, wouldn't that be something if the cartoon got financed while she wasn't a part of it?
That would mean she picked a bad time to get petty with me.
But, if Bill is correct, she will come to her senses... especially if greenbacks are involved.
(sigh)
I don't want to believe it.
Bill wasn't trying to bum me out-- he was speaking from experience, having worked at IBM in the '70s and seen firsthand what money or the promise of fame can do to someone's standing in the world.
Then, the effects of the acid started to kick in, and before I knew it I was laughing hysterically at The Amityville Horror on cable. I like horror movies when I'm tripping-- they're funnier that way.
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