Crazy Enough (34 page)

“Which video did you see?”

“The one where you're singing and you get in a fight with some guy and steal his cell phone . . . awesome!” The other people waiting for their chance started looking at me as another girl came up.

“Storm!
Awesome
. . . thank you for coming. Here, just fill this out and we'll get you set up. Do you have a headshot?”

“No, sorry.”

“That's cool. Just head over here, we'll take a Polaroid, and you'll be good to go.”

It became quickly apparent to me and the people around me that I was the only one, in my immediate pack of hopefuls, who had been
asked by the casting people to come. People started looking at me, whispering. I started to feel a bit resented, and a little feared.

The dreaded line was, suddenly, awesome.

Everyone there wanted it. There was a desperate vibe growing, as the line snaked inside and we got closer to the stage. I felt a prickle of nerves myself. I didn't
need
this. I just wanted to see how far it would go. No way were they going to put me on television . . . this whole day is just future stage banter. But curiosity had me by the glands and I needed to see this goofy day to its absolute end. I was so convinced that I was going to get the “Thank you
so much
for coming, you
rock
. Buh-bye,” that I just decided to enjoy the spectacle, sing my songs, shake hands with the nice Hollywood people, then go get a killer breakfast at my favorite spot in the U district. When it was finally my turn, I was more excited about the eggs Florentine I was going to order than this potential TV gig.

“Hi, there. Fuck me, that's bright,” I said into the television lights.

“Storm Large! Thank you for coming,” said a man's voice behind the glare. “How's it goin'?”

“Fine. 'Cept my burning corneas, all is well.” Chuckles from behind the lights. I was hungry and tired, but brightly caffeinated. I felt my giant inner ham rise and begin to stretch its legs.

I got this
.

Even though I won't get on television, these fuckers will love me before I'm done.

“What are you going to sing for us?” said a woman's voice.

“A couple of originals, if that's cool.”

“Very cool,” said the man. “Everyone turn off your cell phones, I don't want Storm to kick my ass.”

“That's not what you said last night.” Cheap, but more laughter.

I sang “Ladylike” and “I Want You to Die, a Love Song,” much to their delight and applause. They started asking me questions about music, my band, my life, drug use, my boyfriend, and family. I smart-assed and smack-talked half of the interview, but as I relaxed a bit more and genuinely talked with them, a strange thing happened. I started to think I was going to get this audition, get on this show, and holy shit, then what?

The woman conducting most of the interview was a beautiful, slender brunette. She was pretty intense and focused when talking to me, friendly, but most likely with clear instructions to find specific personality and musical types for the show.

When my camera/stage time was done, she stepped outside with me and we talked some more, alone.

“So, you don't do drugs anymore, at all?” she asked with some gravity. “There will be a drug test at the next level.”

“I drink a bit and, on rare occasions, I smoke a little pot.”

“Stop smoking pot right now, and you'll pass the drug test in a couple months. What about pills, antidepressants, antianxiety?”

“No psych drugs . . . my mom . . . I uh . . .”
Shit.

“Your mom?”

Shit shit shit. Don't lie.

“My mom passed away last year, she was on all kinds of medicine my whole life. I hate that shit. No, I love life, I'm all good upstairs.”

“What was she medicated
for
exactly?”

Shit. “Everything and nothing. I think she was just unhappy, but she was diagnosed with every mental illness you've ever heard of and a few that don't even exist. Long story. It was all bullshit to keep her on expensive dope. I don't believe in that stuff. At all. Is that a problem? My mom?”

“I don't think so, but we have to know this stuff for obvious
reasons. Listen, it was really great to meet you. You're awesome. We'll be in touch, okay?”

Did I just get a television gig?

Right before I got on
Rock Star,
I was staying in a hotel in Santa Monica with all the wannabe contestants; there were about fifty of us. While in the hotel, we got the promised drug test (passed . . . phew!), gave interviews, and were intermittently brought into a conference room to sing for producers and the supergroup, who consisted of Tommy Lee from Motley Cru, Gilby Clark from Guns N' Roses, and Jason Newstead from Metallica. It was a weird week.

Besides all the auditioning and showboating, we all had to be psychoanalyzed, and, like any job interview, had to give references for them to check. James was my reference number one, and he called me at the hotel to tell me that the TV people had called him and asked all sorts of questions about me. Did I have a drug problem? Was I under any psychiatric care? Was I a stable sort of person?

James is my best friend and one of the kindest and smartest men on the planet. And he is a sneaky bastard. Sometimes when we're on tour, he has a tendency to tell people I used to be a man. Especially if a guy asks him what I'm like and should he talk to me, does he have a shot, and whatnot. My good friend James then beams and says, “Oh yeah, she's great. She's healing up so well you can barely see the scars anymore, and she's on a way better cocktail of hormones, so the crazy outbursts have stopped, for the most part.” If the poor pigeon believes him that far, James will usually go farther to explain, that my name was really Jake Large and that I used to be in a punk band called
SHIM, but that I was so much nicer as a woman, and very nearly passable, save for my gigantic manhands.

“Did you tell them I had a dick, James?”

“Of course I did. But I had to lie about some other stuff.”

“Ooh. What did you have to lie about?”

“I told them you were a sweet and nonviolent person.”

“I am a sweet nonviolent person,” I pouted.

“Well, I didn't tell them about the guy you choked offstage.”

“What guy I choked offstage? I never, wait a minute,
that
guy? That guy totally had it coming. And I didn't choke him, I threw him off the stage by a belt that happened to be around his neck.”

“Ohhh.”

“Remember? I was spanking him with a belt and he kept trying to grab my ass, so I finally looped the belt around his neck and threw him off the stage like a dog. “

“Uh-huh.”

“Dude, fuck that guy. I'd do it again, too. What's so fucking funny?”

“I meant the other guy you choked off stage.” James was openly laughing. My brain sizzled.

“What other guy?” So many nights on the same stage with so many degenerate fans inviting themselves into my physical space, how can I remember everyone?

“You mean the
girl
? That dumb drunk bitch who tried to grab the microphone out of my hand? I didn't choke her either. I just kinda waterboarded her. I mean, she was choking on the water, and didn't she get arrested for embezzling or something later? She was an ass.”

Laughing harder, “No, no, no! The guy you straight up grabbed by the throat and choked.”

“Bull
shit,
James!”

“Yes, you did. He was the one who wanted you to sing ‘Happy Birthday' to him.”

Oh, yeah.

It was a tradition at Dante's, that if someone had a birthday, and asked really nicely, I would haul him or her up on stage and spank them with a belt (for boys, girls got the hand) and then everyone would sing. It became so popular that, after Hurricane Katrina, we raised a few thousand dollars and several hundred welts by setting up a spanking booth at our shows and sending the money to Mercy Corps.

It had been a few years of the spanking thing that I had to dig around in my brain for ones that went awry. “Ohhh, the
birthday
guy?” I remembered a smallish man sneaking on stage and hugging me from behind without warning. Totally inappropriate. Anybody who has been to my shows knows that you don't. Fucking. Touch me. Or interrupt me. Or make sudden moves, loud noises, or be weird.

“I remember him. He startled me. It was self-defense.”

“Right.”

I had to go to a hotel room to meet with the doctor to get my results, when I got the news.

“So, doc, am I crazy?”
Pleasesaynopleasesaynopleasesayno.

He chuckled and tapped his pen on the clipboard with my personality profile and mental state detailed and illustrated, all laid out on a graph.

“I wouldn't say that, but, you are . . . interesting.”

Shit. He can tell I have totally thought about killing people, that I hear voices and my pedigree is purebred bonkers.
“Interesting?”

“Well, you're a fairly typical artist. Sensitive, highly sexual, a little narcissistic, but the weird thing is . . . um . . . how do I put this?”

SHIT!

“You're a man.”

“I'm a . . . ?”

“Your brain, the way you make decisions, deal with challenges, it is masculine. You have a manly brain.”

I tucked my giant man hands under my thighs, so that he wouldn't comment on those as well, “So, wait, am I gay?”

“Oh, I don't know, that's not what this means; it's just an interesting slant to your personality. It has nothing to do with sexual preference.”

“So I could be a gay
man
?”

“Sure,” he chuckled. “Do you have any other questions?”

I didn't. Even though he had called me a dude, I was actually relieved to have a doctor, even a Hollywood shrink, say I was not crazy. That alone was worth the price of admission. I didn't need to go on the show. I was plenty happy.

My next interview was in the vast penthouse suite with the CBS and television bigwigs.

“We really want you on the show, but we just don't want any . . . um . . . surprises. Do you know what I'm talking about?” asked one of the executives.

“We understand you've done some . . .
modeling,
” said another.

Oh. That. Yeah
. “I've done fetish modeling. Some nudes, but I promise, nothing gynecological.” The female producer chuckled, the men did not.

“What's a gag ball?” one of the men asked abruptly.

I explained what a gag ball was, what a gag ball did, and that there were no sex tapes out there of me. It was unlikely that anyone
I had ever slept with would have been able to afford any decent equipment for such a thing, or have the brains to set anything like that up.

Biting my lip, I didn't shoot my mouth off about why they were giving me any crap at all about some pictures of my boobs. Wasn't I auditioning to be on a TV show with Tommy Lee, a man as famous for his awesome drumming as he was for his awesome cock, displayed in all its majesty in his home-made porn?

Acting the lady, I told them I had modeled for a dildo company, but my face and tattoos were obscured and again, only boobs, no baby box shots. I did not tell them that, though the dildo company loved me, I was a bit much for them as well. The photographer told me, “Storm, you are so beautiful, your skin, your body, your mouth; the thing is, you kinda make our dicks look small.”

It was the story of my life.