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24 july 2000
----- When I was young, I dreamed of being a fireman, then a policeman, then Superman ... my dreams changed so often back then. As I grew older, my dreams became longer lasting and more complex. I spent more time constructing them, working out every little detail. Junior high had me wanting to be a professional soccer player. I would have been world class too, had I worked on it, or so I was told by my coaches. High school, though, all I did was dream of being a famous musician, a rock star, whatever ya wanna call it. I envisioned myself on stage in front of thousands of people, reaching out with my music, hearing the crowd, feeling the energy, being "backstage" in the dressing room holding court as a swarm of people came in to see me. I was certainly enticed by the glamour of it all, but moreso by the idea of performing for a large and appreciative audience, the whole idea of playing rock and roll. After high school I went to college and became a pothead. My dreams of musicianship were fulfilled by playing organ at the basketball games and drums in marching band. I grew my hair long, made a lot of good friends, and got damned good grades to boot. I never played rock and roll though. Instead I went to a load of concerts, and while I loved the music, I couldn't help but feel a minor twinge of envy for the performers. As the years passed and my hairline receded, I couldn't help but accept the fact that my final Big Dream would never come true. In 1992, haven chosen architecture as the "practical thing I would do with my life," I moved to Los Angeles for grad school. I quit smoking pot and took up beer. I started playing music again, sitting in at local blues jams and regaining my chops on cover tunes. I figured if I wasn't gonna do music for fame, I might as well do it for fun. A year later I was in the Torpedoes, a blues band with three older guys who liked me becuase I was easy to play with and never pissed anyone off. I bought the Hammond B-3 around that time too. We played every tuesday night at a club called 14 Below for three years. Most of the time we performed for less than twenty people, but they were twenty heavy drinkers (something about the blues), and the club still made money on the slowest night of the week. Occasionally we'd pack the place, just because if you do something over and over and over again, you're bound to have a good night every so often. During my incredibly grueling three years of architecture school, The Torpedoes kept me sane. I looked forward to playing every tuesday night just because I was playing. It wasn't about being a rock star anymore, it was just about blowing off a shitload of steam by doing something that I really loved to do. The band broke up less then a year after graduation. The Hammond B-3 went into storage. I cut what was left of my hair, entered Corporate America and got lost there, forgetting my life and everything I loved about it. I started feeling old. A good three years went by and I never played a single note. Around the time I started this journal thingie, Brutus introduced me to jazz, in the form of impromptu sit-downs in his living room. To return the favor, I reintroduced him to rock and roll. We played a bit, mostly by ourselves, but there was the occasional jam session with an audience. These little musical get-togethers were so infrequent that they were more painful to me than helpful ... my fingers were consistently out of shape, and it seemed all I could do was stumble over myself. About a year ago, I got a phone call from the Torpedoes drummer. I hadn't talked to him in almost two years ... he said he was putting together a new band and did I want to join. I told him I couldn't play anymore. He said sure I could. I said I'd think about it. A few weeks later I met IceDog, Angel, Selva, Mojo, Casanova, and Wamba at what was to become our rehearsal studio. That first day I sat on the floor, playing Shroeder-style on my synth, because I didn't have a keyboard stand and the organ was still in storage. We sounded horrible, six strangers in a room, getting to know each other in life as well as in music. Strangely though, I left that first night with a smile on my face. Something felt right. Our first gig was in January, and our eighth gig was saturday afternoon. We're almost like a family now, albeit highly disfunctional, but a family nonetheless. But back to saturday ... our eighth gig. I woke up hungover, which was my own damned fault (as if it would have been someone else's fault?), having downed four tequila shots and a few beers with Fritz the night before. It was 9am, and as I saw my horrid expression in the bathroom mirror, all I could think was "Oh shit, you need to shave." Thirty minutes later and babyfaced, I left for the studio. At 10 we loaded up the truck, and by 10:30 we were on our way to Santa Monica. We backed the truck in at the corner of 4th and Pico, right behind the festival stage, and the roadies went to work. The next four hours consisted of sitting around, "backstage," "in the dressing room," whatever ya wanna call it, drinking mineral water on plush couches and waiting for our performance to begin. My stomach was killing me, half nerves, half hangover, half leftover lobster risotto. I stretched out on an incredibly comfortable couch in the dressing room, sipping a mineral water, trying to will myself and my body to normalcy. IceDog walked in with a group of people... "Hey Chuck, howya feelin?" "Shouldn't have eaten that lobster last night." "Well, rest up. Anyway, I'd like to introduce you to some people." I sat up. "This is Patrick, our new promoter. (nod) This is Jen, the festival coordinator. (a dizzy smile). And this is Terri (a delicate handshake in addition to aforementioned dizzy smile)" Of course it was Terri that caught my eye and made me sit up very straight. Terri Nunn. A vision in a white top and olive green skirt. She looked so down-to-earth, the girl-next-door, so to speak. She quite captivated me. When I finally made it back outside, there was another band soundchecking. The musicians were onstage, but Terri was out front, in the audience, singing .... so beautifully. I don't even know what the song was, and she wasn't putting that much effort into it either, but the tone was incredible. Something in the voice sounded _so_ familiar. It was then that I turned to Casanova and said ... "That's not _Berlin_, is it?" "I think it is," he replied. And then it hit me. Terri Nunn. Lead singer for Berlin, the voice behind that "Take My Breath Away" song that I couldn't get out of my head for the past few days. Oh yeah. Great. And I was lying on a couch with stomach cramps when they introduced me to her. Stomach cramps. I wandered off to the first aid booth in search of relief. I explained my situation to the paramedics. "Well, technically, we're not allowed to give you medication, but if you step behind the table I'll just open this drawer and look the other way..." So I did, and they did, and I grabbed a bunch of Rolaids (tm), said thanks, and headed back to the stage. I chomped four Rolaids (tm) and felt a bit better, but still quite queasy. Berlin was done soundchecking and I chatted with Mitch, their keyboard player, for a bit. The festival was filling up, lots of people arriving, and we just hung out in our little backstage area, guarded on two sides by bulky looking security personnel, looking quite ready to kick the shit out of any festival attendees who would dare to enter our little private universe. At 2 we started setting up on the stage. The roadies did most of the work. All I could do was sit back and try to look useful. I failed miserably. I retreated once more to the dressing room and started to change into my onstage attire. IceDog came in and announced that we wouldn't be doing a final soundcheck ... we didn't want to give any of the already-present audience a chance to disperse from the previous act, an LA Fitness promo show. "Don'tcha wanna make sure the microphones work?" I asked. "Do _you_ wanna go up and check them?" To which I just shrugged. I wasn't singing lead. For once, I was just a musician. Microphones didn't matter to me on this show. I gave him a mock middle-finger. He smiled. I closed my eyes and tried to will my stomach to stop churning. Ten minutes later, we were on the stage. I checked power and volume on both the organ and synth, and gave the "thumbs-up" to the sound booth, a good 200 feet away across the festival grounds. At least 1000 people were milling around the immediate stage area. Ten times that amount were within earshot. IceDog called me over to the drums. "Chuck ... kick - fucking - ass today." To which I just nodded and gave him a high-five. I felt like I was gonna puke. Thirty seconds later, we went on. Thirty minutes later, we went off. I have no detailed recollections of the performance. It was an instant blur, so-to-speak. All I know is that when I came off stage, my stomach felt just fine. But my entire body ached, and all I wanted to do was lie down. So I did, once again on the couch of the dressing room, holding court as a swarm of people came in and out telling me how wonderful we were, talking about booking us in such exotic locales as Portland and Kansas City. My eyelids were heavy. My body was spent. When it was time to leave, I could hardly move. I managed to get myself back to my old apartment in Venice (I would have fallen asleep behind the wheel had I tried to get home to Malibu), where I crashed heavy on the couch, sleeping for a good two hours. Yesterday morning I woke up and it seemed every muscle in my body was screaming. Angel called and invited me over, so I headed up the coast to her place and we sat and talked for a while. "First off, I just have to say, you gave your best performance yesterday." "Huh? What did I do?" "The way you were jumping up and down, all around, so animated ... where did you get all that energy?" "Oh, probably from the same place that would have allowed me to walk straight today." Honestly, I didn't remember much of the show, but if I was jumping up and down, all around like a maniac, my body pains, and post-show exhaustion, would make perfect sense. And so it did. I'd love to see a videotape of this show. We went outside and I met Angel's pets. She has a pig and five chickens. The pig didn't want to be disturbed from eating, so we followed the chickens into their coop and one of them squatted and laid an egg. Angel picked it up and gave it to me. "Look, it's still warm!" "Yeah, and kinda slimy too," I said, turning the bloody ovoid mess in my fingers. "Oh, don't worry about that. Here, I'll rinse it off for you, and you can cook it for breakfast tomorrow." So I went home with a single brown egg, tossed it in the refrigerator, and headed to Granita for a delicious dinner of soft-shell crab and NY steak, topped off with sangria ice for dessert. Back home, in bed, I couldn't fall asleep. So many thoughts racing through my head, and I couldn't get a grip on any of them. It was almost like a minor panic attack, but I couldn't discern the source. I finally went down to the couch and dozed off in front of the tv. Driving into work this morning, Angel called again with post gig news -- we need fifty more cd's for radio stations, we have four more huge outdoor festivals about to be booked, and a tv show to tape at Paramount Studios in Hollywood. As an afterthought, she added, "oh, and don't forget we're shooting that video tonight at 7." Last night's mind-racing panic symptoms came back to me ... except this time I caught all the thoughts racing through my head. Why is everything happening so fast? Why did the gig have to be so good? I really don't think I'm ready for this. I'm too old for this kind of life. Do I really want this band to take off? Aren't I just fine with the way my life is now? What about my job if we have to start touring? Do I really wanna be a rock star? This Big Dream of mine is threatening to bite me back in a huge way, and I don't know if I really want it anymore. I feel too old. It's scaring the shit out of me.
In the forum: 24 july 1999: : didn't write 24 july 1998: pregigging : She said she wanted to talk to me, a lot, when she was done filming. I said I'd probably be asleep. She smiled in response to that, and her eyes moved down the hall to my bedroom door.
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