How to Kill a Rock Star (13 page)

“Sleep with the guy, fine,” she said. “But don’t fal in
love
with him. Geesh. I certainly hope you’ve been putting a cap over that been-there-done-that dick of his.” Vera and I were watching Bananafish do their soundcheck at a smal club in Brooklyn cal ed Warsaw, where, with Terry North’s help, I had booked the band a gig opening for a popular space-rock band from Scotland.

The Warsaw was actual y the Polish National Home, but when there were no Polkas to draw a crowd, rock bands played there. The show that night was sold out.

“I’ve never felt like this before,” I told Vera. “Not even with Adam.”

Vera cocked her head. “Don’t get me wrong; I like Paul.

As a person
. But I can’t fathom any girl thinking he’s boyfriend material. He’s a rock star, for Pete’s sake.”

“I think you need more than ten fans to be a rock star.”

“That’s not what I mean. It’s the attitude. Asking Paul not to fool around is like asking the Pope not to pray.”

“People change,” I said wistful y. “Don’t you think people can change?”

We both looked over at Paul. He was in the process of trying to hock up a lugie and spit it on Angelo, prompting Vera to put on a piteous smile that told me she loved me, but also told me she thought I was being naïve. “Do
you
think people can change?”

I nodded, refusing to consider the possibility that any of us are doomed to die the same sorry people we sometimes become.

Paul began an impromptu rendering of the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven,” and Vera put her arm through mine.

“Remember when I said I applied to Columbia? Wel , I not only applied, I got in. I start in January.” I was trying to listen to the song but Vera was ruining it.

She was ruining everything.

“If the band isn’t signed by Christmas,” she went on, squeezing my elbow, “Michael understands it’s over. I hope you can, too.”

I should have congratulated Vera. I should have said something nice to her. I could tel this is what she wanted from me. But al I did was take my arm away.

In the background, Paul was singing about a raging sea.

Soft and only
.

Lost and lonely
.

When Paul finished the song, he walked over to Michael and they started writing up the night’s set list. They looked like comrades. Brothers in arms. Potential energy waiting to be set in motion.

“They’l be signed by Christmas,” I said.

September 26, 2000

After news of my burgeoning relationship with Eliza got out, Angelo made a joke about how my new girlfriend was liable to be the Yoko Ono of Bananafish. I swear I almost bashed him over the head with my guitar case when he said it.

Holy Hel , Yoko gets a bad rap. John loved that woman. And we should never ever blame a guy for love.

But Michael’s reaction hit me the hardest. Sunday night, during practice, his face was like a goddamn rubber band about to snap and final y, after he barked at me for accidental y unplugging his amp, I told him we needed to go somewhere and talk.

I steered him down the street and into a pool hal , and once we both had beers in our hands I told him that until he set me straight, I would be assuming he didn’t approve of me as an acceptable suitor for his sister, and he goes, “If I were you and you were me, would you want me dating YOUR sister?” While I tried to work through the linguistics of that question, Michael turned his attention to some crazy cab driver who burst through the door yel ing about an emergency outside.

The guy seemed upset, but this is New York. Hardly anyone looked over, so the cabbie went around asking random people if they were veterinarians. He asked Michael first. Then he asked a woman in a short black skirt.

Outside, horns were beeping like crazy. I leaned back to look out the window. The cabbie had left his car in the middle How to Kil _internals.rev 2/22/08 5:00 PM Page 107

of the street and traffic was stopped dead.

I asked the guy what happened and he told me he hit a pigeon. The bird was apparently in pretty bad shape, but not dead yet. When the guy started walking away I stopped him.

I wanted to know why he didn’t wonder if I was a vet. Trust me, I look more like a vet than the chick in the black skirt. But he never answered me because a cop came in and took him back to his car.

“Listen, it’s a free country,” Michael said.

I cracked a peanut out of its shel and set it aside, then strategical y positioned mine and Michael’s bottles as a sort of goal line and flicked the peanut around, playing finger hockey.

Michael said, “I know I can’t tel you or Eliza what to do, but she’s been through a lot in the last year and I don’t want her to have to go through it again. I don’t want her to get hurt.”

Michael loves his sister. He worries a lot about her. This I know. But the thing is, sometimes people can have so much love between them, they end up treating each other like retards.

“I’m not going to hurt her,” I said.

I aimed and shot the peanut-puck through the middle of the bottles. It bounced off the wal behind the bar and landed mere inches away from its point of departure.

This is where Michael started lecturing me about how Eliza wasn’t like most girls I know. He said she wasn’t Avril or Beth or Amanda, “or any of the random floozies who fol ow you around like flies on shit.”

First of al , I know this. Second, I didn’t need Michael reminding me of my numerous lapses of judgment.

“I’m in love with her,” I announced at double speed, hoping that saying it quickly might lessen the weight of its impact.

He looked at me with doom in his eyes and goes, “Jesus Christ, Paul.”

I said, “I mean it. Like deep crazy soul love.”
10Michael almost choked. “Deep WHAT?”

I laid it al out for him: Eliza believes in me, she moves me, and she’s moved BY me. She makes me happy, she makes me sad, she makes me try harder, she makes me laugh, and she makes me feel like I can fly. Isn’t that the goddamn definition of love?

I was trying to appeal to Michael’s romantic side but al he said was, “This is a joke, right?”

I cracked open another peanut and sulked. “Thanks a lot,” I said. “That’s real nice. See if I ever spil my guts to you again.” Michael apologized and said it was just that he’d never heard me use the word love unless it was in reference to a song. Again, not the vote of confidence I was looking for.

To help my argument, I pointed out how much I’ve changed since I met Eliza: I’m down to half a pack of cigarettes a day, I haven’t smoked pot in weeks, and my pancreatic cancer has miraculously gone into remission.

Michael started shaking his head. Nothing seemed to be sinking in. That’s when I knew there was something else going on. Something he wasn’t tel ing me. He seemed more on edge than I’d ever seen him. And when I asked him to give it to me straight, he told me Vera got into Columbia.

This means barring a record deal fal ing from the sky in the next two months, I’l be looking for a new guitarist come December.

Michael said he was sorry at least ten times. He sounded devastated.

“Things are progressing with Stone,” I told him. “There’s plenty of time for a deal to come together.” I think I said that because I needed to believe it just as much as Michael did.

Then I told Michael I had to go because Eliza was making dinner, and he said, “My sister’s cooking? Jesus, she must be in love.”

Outside, Michael and I walked down the middle of the
street looking for the pigeon. We found it near the curb, al dis-combobulated. There was no blood on it anywhere, but it wasn’t moving so I bent down and poked at it with my finger.

Michael told me not to touch it. He said it probably had germs galore, but I kept poking at it anyway to make sure it couldn’t be saved.

Nothing. Nada. It was dead as a goddamn doornail.

Over.

November 12, 2000

Sorry it’s been so long. I’ve had a crazy month and a half.

Let me back up to where I think I left off.

Jack Stone. Jack Stone. Jack Stone. Try saying that fast about ten times.

Not long after my first meeting with Jack, back in September, a chivalrous courtship began. It was nothing like being preyed upon by Winkle. Au contraire, my dear diary, it was polite and respectful and made me feel more like one of Vesta’s sacred virgins than some cheap Eighth Avenue whore.

But it was crunch time. Time was running out for Michael and as a result, he, Eliza, and I began doing some serious Bananafish campaigning. Eliza got the
Village Voice
to do a smal article on me, she got
Time Out
to feature the band, and after the three of us made a zil ion cal s to the local public radio station, she got us booked on one of their most popular music shows—something even Feldman hadn’t been able to do. Michael and I did an hour-long acoustic set on the air, and since then Rings of Saturn has been standing room only on Thursday nights.

Jack Stone was extra impressed with our growing fan base and promised that if I signed with him, Bananafish would become the biggest fish in his little Underdog pond. Here’s what Jack said to me and Feldman, more or less verbatim, at our last meeting, in Feldman’s office: “You need to understand the way we work. We don’t sign
an artist simply because we think he or she can make us a lot of money. We sign them because we like their music. As with anything, there are pros and cons to this. Because we like the music, we trust you, which means we give you complete creative control.”

I whistled at the prospect and Feldman gave me a gothic look of scorn.

Jack added, with a quick nod to Feldman, that what he couldn’t offer Bananafish was a big advance, a glitzy advertising campaign, and al the promotional brouhaha—yes, he actual y said brouhaha. The deal was: keep the costs low and the aim simple. The music’s the priority. We make it, Underdog distributes it. That’s about it. Although Jack did say Underdog has relationships with a lot of the col ege stations, as wel as a few music publications and the best independent record stores in the country. There would be some initial press, but they couldn’t promise much more than that, not that they wouldn’t try.

He said what it al came down to, real y, was where I saw myself in the big picture. I assured Jack I have a very realistic idea of where I might fit into the big picture. I don’t expect to play footbal stadiums with a laser light show behind me. I just want to be able to quit my day job, keep Michael in the band, buy my girlfriend some sexy lingerie once in a while, and maybe support a family someday.

Note to self: Discuss the possibility of kids with Eliza.

I felt Feldman’s dissatisfaction. Apparently Jack felt it too.

He tried to offer my manager some consolation. He said that unlike the major labels, Underdog actual y pays its artists for every unit sold. Then he went on to elaborate on major-label accounting, claiming that since the dawn of the recording industry, the big companies have managed to come up with incredibly ingenious ways of bookkeeping, ensuring that they always get the lion’s share of the profits.

“We don’t shel out hundreds of thousands of dol ars on
11extraneous costs,” Jack said, “so we don’t have to screw you.” Feldman informed Jack that he didn’t need a lesson in Music Biz 101. That’s when Jack asked Feldman if he was against me making a deal with Underdog. Feldman admitted that in the last few months there had been major-label interest and, as my manager, he had to consider what was best for my career.

Jack turned to me and said, “Is that what you want, major-label support?”

I told him the money would be nice. But like I explained to Jack, I don’t know why the majors want me. I don’t have many songs under five minutes, I never play anything the same way twice, and Michael and I are known to indulge in epic-long guitar drones on stage. You put al that together and you’re not looking at major-label material, at least not in this decade.

Before Jack left, he pul ed me aside and told me that I should get myself a lawyer, someone with an objective opinion on contracts and careers.

Feldman didn’t even get up when Jack left. Then he roared at me from behind his desk. “You most certainly ARE major-label material!” He was pounding on the sides of his chair but the cushy leather on the armrests muted the sound. He wanted to know why I would say a thing like that to Jack, and I told him it was because I like Jack and he said if I like Jack so much I should fuck him, not sign with him. He kept saying, “Your potential is endless. Blah, blah.”

He was having one of his Brian Epstein moments.

Like I told Feldman, I appreciate the faith he has in me, and I owe him a hel of a lot, but I suspect his expectations for my career, and maybe his own, might be a little high. I mean holy Hel , even if he is the twenty-first-century’s answer to Brian Epstein, no one can recreate the Beatles. That was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. And sure, it was talent, but it was also timing.

No band wil ever be bigger than Jesus again.

Feldman accused me of underestimating myself, but that’s
not real y the problem. I just happen to comprehend the low standards of the majority of the music-buying public, and I don’t care how condescending that sounds, it’s true. They always go for the shiny gimmicks. Always.

Al of a sudden Feldman was smiling like a freak. He got up and stood real y close to my face like he was going to kiss me. Then he hands me this huge stack of papers and goes, “I didn’t want to say anything in front of Stone, but as far as I’m concerned, Underdog was nothing more than a stepping stone for this.” I asked him what it was and he goes, “Your ticket outta Liverpool, kid.” The document was so heavy I had to sit down and rest it on my lap.

Feldman asked me if I knew Jack Stone used to work for my favorite record exec—old caterpil ar eyebrows. I did not.

Apparently the two didn’t part on good terms and now everything’s a fucking contest.

“No kidding,” Feldman said. “When Winkle got wind that Underdog was after you, he cal ed me in a panic. This morning he sent over that bible you’re holding.” Feldman pointed to the advance. The number had doubled to seven hundred grand. It stopped my heart for a second.