Rough-draft fictional character, a music producer…one of my many (when I can find time for it) characters in play right now, though a common story for all of them is hard to come by, I like this guy quite a bit…part of my problem is developing a character and not getting attached to them to the point where I cringe to destroy him or her, destroy being my idea of turning them into a monster of some sort. Anyways, the board has been weak the past few days in terms of new material, so here’s a peek at one of my hobbies and hopefully what I’m able to do full time once I retire…the conversation here is between the producer (italics) and a musician in the group ‘Dip’:
– I don’t think you get it — I absolutely do, and Dip is closing down shop for a while – Forever — Dip is closing down shop forever-LOOK, in the meantime what I’m going to be up to – … — Intense international marketing negotiations, curing AIDS and checking the newspaper twice a day wherever I am to make sure you’re still alive – I said a while back about that, talking to me like that — … -Right? — What am I on right now? Oh shit, LOOK AT THAT! I’m so late for something, I might as well shoot myself in the face right now – Later — …
Forever, FOREVER HE SAID!!! Stupid people, all the time-everywhere, it’s all about how they came in and did things ‘their way’, but who really cares about all that? You practiced and got smart enough to learn about teamwork, then just played and played, like it’s supposed to be when help is skulking around hoping it’s the one place out of a hundred in six months, and it is because of something they’ve got down, or most of the way down, whatever the stage of their development, people at the venue are dancing even though they seem like they really don’t want to, which has nothing to do with the words being sung, but the emphasis put behind it, how there’s a perfect match between the inaudible vocals BECAUSE it connects to a much more talented tandem of players than singers, all with instruments up there, carving out a piece.
Forever is a word I could never ENJOY hearing in a situation like this, but knowing about how musicians think is a comfort, knowing about how they spend their money likewise, a reason for hope with one caveat, knowing how they LIVE! Especially the ones so talented they can tell everyone around them to drop dead for months without consequence one to trouble them – of course – this isn’t applicable across the board, and even though it’s been a GOOD decade or two for me in this regard, rarely can a man sporting a harem of women and piles of cash all around keep from becoming something worse with idle time, amidst all those supplicants in costume, servicing the power-driven creature inside, building its host up with adrenaline to the brain, which immediately gets to kicking reality’s ass steady over a long period of time, science be damned, it works itself out rather quickly most times, to a disastrous or merely humbling end of some kind, flip a coin as far as that goes. Truth is though, the human performer/demigod has evolved quite a bit over the past few decades, some now with the ability to get depressed, dangerously stoned, walk right up to the edge of the cliff, dance around for a while, then return all full of religion and a stack of songs they want to get to work on right away.
All part of the “process”, a phenomenon I intend to remain disconnected from completely, so that I’m never “needed” by these people on the Other Side, a scary place for professionals like myself reliant on a clear head, conscious and a terrifying army of white blood cells to make a living. The artists do their thing, I must do mine, and while it’s tempting to police my clients from time to time, your militant bi-polar meal ticket is prone to acts of cannibalism in the face of authority. Cocaine seems to be a bad thing for these specific cases to get their heads into on any kind of a regular basis, same for smack, malt liquor, horny-no-condom-fun and driving…but this first bad boy is the worst thing to happen to my business since time in memorial, though some of my closest acquaintances insist that it’s also the best thing in some ways, “especially when they’re still feeling young and lucky about the ‘chance’ to make it, you’ve got those ones by the throat before the ink dries and they’re living a dream inside a box with microphones for 38 straight hours…that stuff will focus their individual bullshit into one consistent stream that you can manage through the glass when the tape is rolling”, everyone agreeing with this description of its benefits in turning up a hit now and then from an act that would otherwise sit and fester, something the virtuosos themselves understand full well when piles show up out of nowhere in between “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING? DO IT LIKE YOU DID BEFORE!” – harvesting the crops I suppose, for some outfits I’m aware of it can turn last night’s garbage into a flawless diamond the size of your fist, and they’re goddamned good at it, mining it out of the ground with drill bits taking to the brain like paper does to rock. I’m out of that rat race for good, having dedicated my life fully to the tradition Ahab made famous, hunting down leviathan outgunned, understanding that I’m twice as smart as that monster, grit in endless supply for however long it takes, tolerance for ego like it was near beer out of THE keg my client is most proud of up till now, something allows me to tune out most of what people are saying, a special skill I attribute to having been blessed by genes attributed mostly to a NORTH Russian/Finish ancestry who’d managed to turn ‘buy for one, sell for two’ into DNA centuries prior to my arrival. An aunt I’d met as a child had more than a couple stories of what happened to her parents and their people over time, with the banditry for days, stories bouncing about every second all different from one another until the day when debate proved worthless, it was the Czar, everyone was to die, all who loved the place as much as they loved themselves were woefully unprepared for what was to come. There’s no philosophy behind any of it, just random pieces of hand-me down history in pieces strung together by imagination. For right now and perhaps always, my people are a ‘fleeing people’ as opposed to a ‘starving-to-death people’, and rest assured I’ve ditched my share of dangerously twisted acts along the way, never looking back. More…It’s actually my niche these days in the biz to transition acts from FOREVER to JAPAN, with a permanent office in Osaka and ‘connections’ to high rise decadence in Tokyo for multiple days if necessary, to make people realize they’d be HAPPY if they did business with us, as we did indeed have the acts they needed in the worst way, ready for 20 shows in 25 days on the island to go with enormous amounts of material-enormous amounts of material-being signed, while radio takes care of the rest. More… Suckers aplenty in that area of the game, but naturally I’ve long since handed that portion of it off to subordinates who I love and trust and compensate generously and go to bat for when the law is broken, as it will be now and then, meaning at the worst that my man has to work outside this country altogether from now on, or perhaps he’s got to be rented out to the mob for a period of time before police, associates and hoople-heads all finally come to agreement about – something explodes somewhere you’d never imagine, somewhere else, then again to the point where the already stretched-thin squad of investigators they had run amok of my business up to that point, suddenly there’s room to negotiate a settlement as an even greater criminal threat has emerged, FINALLY making it acceptable to conduct business in a civilized manner after a generous fine is paid and perhaps an associate agrees to stay out of Japan forever.
That’s as dark as it gets, in fact, by now I’m almost inclined to consider the whole of it nothing more than a clash of civilizations overcome for the sake of our mutual happiness and fondness for camaraderie and fun and MONEY and respect, all had with relative ease once my proxies were up to snuff, a surveillance contract signed and paid for, scheduled meetings I can conduct from wherever I am, bullet points produced by my assistant and sent along with a transcription to the security company, response back with archive references I’d listen to by myself always, therefore making myself the one true arbiter of karma when it came to the lives of many, though also steadfast in my intent on keeping all this up in the air in the minds of my people, with furious action on my behalf taken so rarely that most of the people I employ would assume the opposite and denounce the efforts of scandal worshiping cutthroats intent on taking me on and/or corrupting as many good people as they can before the whole scene is over with…my enemies of course would like to see me dead or diminished by scandal, treacherous aims of that sort demand a vigilant response and ALL of the information that can be safely acquired…making sure auditors are bought, that the districts we operate in each have a building or two donated, scholarships, new firefighting equipment, and music performed in English all year round, played on the radio, albums sold at a ridiculous pace, with scenes in public resembling the Beatles arriving in the United States for an act that couldn’t sell a ticket above Kentucky in 13 years.
Suddenly I realize it’s time to put the recorder down, otherwise lose consciousness prior to arriving at the RV still 4 miles up the road at least. -CLICK- Get intel on what this guy’s drug consumption looks like and at the worst schedule follow-up for 6-7 days, give priority until a jacket is in hand and evaluated. -CLICK- Reminder to write something about that hack I’ve been listening to just now saying Vernon Forrest WON that fight with Ike Quartey the other night, call it proof that someone has a LOT riding on Forrest, someone being perhaps someThing, like with a stock price several levels above screaming downward consistently for better than the standard 15% growth year to year, causing reality to once again become an inconvenience only for the suckers who believed in such witchcraft, this oblivious nonsense about a boxing match being something within the grasp of your average NON-PROFESSIONAL Boxing commentator, that low-life boxing fan out there with a gambling addiction ruining their life and the lives of everyone around them, that’s who I AM, a foolish boxing fan…the sport is simply complex to the point where my primitive faculties-untrained faculties are incapable of understanding what is REALLY going on in that ring. -CLICK-