Chapter 12: Shitshow

Cypress, California

May 14, 1999

The spring performances of the Cypress High School Orchestra were scheduled for three consecutive nights: May 14, 15, and 16, which were a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night, respectively. In past years, since Mary Kingsley took over the project, they had always been well-attended shows, usually selling out the 300-seat school auditorium for each performance at five dollars per ticket. The scalping of those tickets, however, had never been a problem until Mary’s very famous son was added to the billing. Nor had there ever been a mob trying to camp out in front of the school to purchase them from the administration office the moment they went on sale. The Cypress Police Department had to be called in to dismiss the campers from the area and then had to be called again when the tickets actually went on sale to help control the mob of more than two thousand people who were trying to get their greasy little hands on one.

Once it became common knowledge in Cypress that Jake Kingsley would be performing with the orchestra, the word spread up and down the state and then throughout the nation thanks to the boys and girls of the entertainment press. These articles reported that Jake had employed the orchestra to provide backing for two of the songs on his upcoming CD and that he would be performing those two songs live with the kids to round out the show. People came from hundreds, even thousands of miles away to try to score one of the tickets so they could witness the new Jake Kingsley material before it was released and to see the famous singer performing live. The price of these tickets had been increased to ten dollars apiece for this particular show (though every member of the orchestra, including Jake and Mary, were given two tickets free for the show of their choice), and they sold out completely within one hour of being offered. Many of the out-of-towners who showed up attempted to purchase the entire inventory of tickets but the school principal, acting on the advice of Jake and Pauline, had set a limit of four tickets to any one person.

Two days after the mass purchase—this was two weeks before the actual first performance—the Cypress community in general and those with children attending Cypress High in particular became outraged when it was learned that less than thirty of the tickets had actually been sold to students at the school and that more than two hundred of the tickets were being offered for sale on eBay or other such websites for anywhere from three hundred to a thousand dollars apiece. And they were getting bids!

The principle and the school board came very close to simply canceling the shows. A little consultation with Pauline and Mary, however, managed to turn the potential shitshow into an advantage. Since it was obvious there was considerable demand for the performance, they should be good little capitalists and take advantage of it. All of the previous tickets were declared null and void due to the scalping. The original purchasers were invited to return the physical tickets to the administration office in person and they would receive a full refund of the ticket price. This pissed off a great many out-of-town folks something mighty but the people of Cypress all applauded the move and supported it fully—even those who had managed to get their hands on the tickets.

And then the venue was changed. Instead of performing in the high school auditorium which had a capacity of three hundred, they would rent out the Cypress Community Center auditorium, which was capable of seating 1200 for such a performance. The ticket prices were increased to fifteen dollars apiece in order to cover the cost of venue rental. And, most importantly, the first one thousand tickets for each night would only be sold to someone who could present a Cypress High School student identification card. The next two hundred would only be sold to someone who could present a valid identification with an address in Cypress County. And no one would be admitted to the venue itself without being accompanied by someone who either had the school ID or the Cypress County ID.

There were those out-of-towners who protested this plan quite vehemently. There were a few who declared these rules unconstitutional and threatened legal action against the school, the school district, and the incorporated entity known as Cypress. On the advice of the Cypress city manager, who got his advice from Pauline Kingsley, attorney-at-law (she was a big city lawyer so he figured she knew what she was talking about), the school, the district, and the city all dismissed this threat. By the time any such lawsuit could be filed and presented, the freaking shows would already be history. Is anyone really going to keep pursuing such a lawsuit when the subject of it was already over and done? They thought not.

Jake, Laura, and Caydee flew in from Oregon on Wednesday, May 12, so he could do a few dress rehearsals at the community center with the orchestra prior to the performances. He was loath to do this since they only had thirteen more days of studio time and a whole lot of mixing and mastering still left to do, but he had promised to play with the orchestra and his professionalism demanded that he give the best possible presentation. And so, they rehearsed, or, mostly the orchestra did. Jake only stepped in for the last two numbers and he did not play the guitar at all, leaving that duty to Jimmy Q, who had proven himself worthy of the assignment. Jake only sang.

The rehearsals went well and it was now the night of the first performance. Jake and Laura arrived with Mary and Tom while Caydee was spending the evening with Stan and Cindy. The wardrobe for the performers was black slacks for the boys, black skirts for the girls, and white dress shirts for both. Jake and Mary, who were both counted as performers, where dressed as such. Tom was wearing a suit and tie and looked quite snazzy in it. Laura was wearing a forest green skirt with a bright yellow blouse and open toed high heels. She had painted her toenails and fingernails bright red for the occasion and had left her hair down. She wore no makeup except for lip gloss, mostly because she was naturally pretty and did not need any, but also because she did not know how to even apply it. Cosmetology skills were not something her Mormon mother had instilled in her when she was growing up.

Mary and Jake entered the community center through the back door at 6:00 PM, one hour before the show was to start and thirty minutes before ticket holders would be allowed inside. Out in the front, the parking lot was already full and spilling over into other nearby lots and side streets. Three television news vans—one from Heritage and two from Sacramento—were lined up on the curb outside the main entrance. Several hundred people were already waiting in a line that stretched into the adjacent park. Camera crews and reporters from the news trucks were filming and interviewing some of those in the line.

“Why are they lining up so early?” Laura enquired of her father-in-law. “The seats are all assigned.”

“Beats the hell out of me,” Tom replied.

They walked over and joined the line. Soon, other people filtered in behind them. None of the media people recognized that Jake Kingsley’s wife had joined the crowd—or at least none of them approached her.

Inside the backstage area, the performers arrived one by one. Everyone was present and accounted for by 6:10. The chairs and the music stands and Mary’s podium were already set up from the rehearsals, as were the two stage microphones that would capture and amplify the sound of the performance. It was a rudimentary setup but that was all they really needed for a small venue such as this one. Mary supervised the tuning of the instruments ritual and then Jake led them through a sound check, playing with the ancient speaker system and tweaking it the best he could for the conditions.

“It’s a good thing that Bill and Sharon aren’t here to listen to this system,” Jake told his mother after achieving the best sound he could hope to. “They would have forbid us to perform.”

Mary nodded her head in agreement. Nerdly had advanced the idea that they put digital microphones on every instrument and connect them wirelessly to a custom soundboard and then run the take through a set of new speakers that KVA would donate to the community center. His heart had been in the right place but the entire setup would have cost around sixty thousand dollars and would have required several days to set up. “It will sound good the way it is,” she said. “Thank you for dialing us in.”

The last act of the sound check was Jake dialing in his own microphone. He had brought one from his personal collection, a Shure Beta 58A which had cost $150 when he’d purchased it several years before. It was not wireless like Celia’s and Matt’s concert microphones, but that was good because they were not set up for wireless anything in this venue. He wired it into one of the spare performance amps he had brought from the KVA rehearsal studio and adjusted the sound so that it would mix well with the instrument sound coming from the venue speakers—not so loud that he would overwhelm the kids, but not so soft that they would overwhelm him. He placed the amp at the front of the stage, facing the audience but far enough away from the orchestra positions that his microphone would not pick up bleed-over and generate feedback. He then ran through a quick series of vocal exercises to make a final volume check and then clicked off the mic and placed it back in the stand. During his part of the performance, when the mic was live, he would remove it from the stand and step forward with it, putting more distance between himself and the orchestra.

“All right,” Jake declared. “I think we’re ready to do this.”

Everyone left the stage and retreated to the backstage area, out of sight. It was not a very large area so the conditions were somewhat cramped. Everyone found seats somewhere and began the game of waiting. Most of the kids were visibly nervous, having never played in front of so many people before. Jake did his best to soothe their nerves.

“We got this, people,” he told him. “You’ve all rehearsed the shit out of this set and you have it down. We’re going to kick some serious ass out there tonight.”

“Jake is right,” Mary told her kids. “Even if he is a bit profane in how he expresses himself.”

“Sorry, Mom,” Jake told her. “But I’m sure these kids have heard that word before. Anyway, I just want you to know that all of that nervousness will end once you step out and start playing, once you start doing what you’ve rehearsed for so long and realize you’re not fu ... uh ... screwing it up. And when you hear how that crowd responds to you, when you hear that applause ... that’s one of the best feelings in the world. Right up there with getting ... uh ... with ... getting ... you know ... some of those good things that happen in life.”

They all nodded, most of them believing his words, most also picking up with what he had almost said: Right up there with getting laid.

At 6:30, the doors were opened and a group of parental volunteers and school officials began to allow the crowd to trickle in and take their seats. This took a while since every ticket had to be examined and matched with a student ID or a driver’s license with a Cypress County address. Most of the parents and kids were nicely dressed for the occasion. Well over half of the adults carried video cameras in. Jake was not all that worried that there would be unauthorized copies of the performance floating around in the world. At this point in technological history, it was still quite a process to upload a video onto the internet and distribute it far and wide. There was not yet a dedicated non-pornographic oriented distribution website to host such videos even if one was uploaded. It would have to go to a bulletin board somewhere where large numbers of people probably would not even be able to find it. Also, video compression was not widely available so the files tended to be huge. And most of the country was still on dialup internet service so uploading such a file—even if it was only the last two songs—would literally take hours for the average person. And even if someone did go through all the trouble, the sound quality would likely be pretty shitty since the sound would be collected by using a crappy microphone that would pick up all kinds of crowd noise and conversation.

The show was supposed to start at 7:00 PM, but the seats were only about two thirds full at that time and there was still a large line outside waiting to get in. It was just past 7:15 when everyone but a few stragglers finally made it inside and found their seats. Most were looking through the little programs that had been made by the school’s printing department.

At 7:20, Mary declared that it was time.

“Let’s do this thing,” Jake said encouragingly. “Time to kick some serious ass.”

The kids all smiled at him and began to move toward the stage door. Mary gave them a nod and they filed out onto the stage, one by one, walking to their chairs. The crowd began to applaud as they took the stage. They all sat down in their spots and picked up their instruments, which had been sitting in front of the respective chairs. Once they were all seated, the technician in the rear turned down the house lights and turned up the stage lights. More applause sounded.

“Are you ready, Jake?” his mother asked him.

“I’m ready,” he replied, taking a deep breath. He held his hand out to her, palm up. She smiled at him and slapped her palm down on his. They grasped hands in camaraderie. “Let’s kick some ass.”

He walked out onto stage and the applause immediately tripled in volume. He looked at the kids in their chairs and nodded to them, as if he were just seeing them for the first time in weeks or even months. He then turned and faced the audience, of which he could only see the first two rows because of the lighting. But he waved at them and let his eyes go from place to place, as if he was seeing them all, as if he was meeting each set of eyeballs personally. The applause ramped up a little more. He walked to his microphone stand and flipped the switch, making it live. “Hello out there, Cypress, California!” he said.

The applause increased even more and Jake basked in the sound of it, in the feel of it. It really was good to perform, one of the best feelings in the world. “My name is Jake Kingsley,” he told the crowd. “And I want to welcome you all to the spring performance of the Cypress High School Orchestra. Our theme tonight is going to be rock and roll. Can you dig it?”

They could dig it. They cheered and cheered for another minute before finally starting to quiet down.

“All right,” Jake told them. “Thank you for that most warm welcome. It feels really good to be up on stage again. It’s been a while for me. As I’m sure you’ve heard by this point, I’m going to be doing a couple of numbers with the orchestra tonight.” Another round of applause erupted, causing Jake to have to wait again until it died down. “Thank you, thank you. That will be later in the show, however. For the moment, I’m just out here to play MC and get things started here. First of all, let me introduce the orchestra. They are sixteen of the finest musicians that I have ever had the privilege of playing with. Let’s hear it for them!”

The crowd cheered the orchestra, though not as loudly or as long as they had cheered Jake. When they quieted down, Jake continued. “And now, I’d like to introduce the conductor for tonight’s performance. This is a lady who I’ve known pretty much my entire life.” There was a chuckle from the crowd. They all knew that Mary Kingsley was the conductor and that she was Jake’s mother. “This lady was the person who taught me the basics of how to play and read music when I was just a little one. She taught me about keys and scales and notes and shi ... uh stuff like that. She was the lady who recognized that I had a bit of a good musical voice and encouraged me to embrace it, to develop it, who arranged for me to have professional voice lessons so I could be classically trained in how to use it. I don’t think that even she knew the monster she was creating, but I can say that I would not be where I am today if not for her teaching and encouragement.

“This is a lady who holds a master’s degree in music. This is a lady who played violin for more than thirty years with the Heritage Philharmonic Symphony just down the hill from here. This is a lady who played violin on my first two solo albums as well as on Celia Valdez’s first two solo albums. If you’ve ever heard my song Insignificance or Celia’s songs Why? or Done With You, that’s her playing the violin on those cuts and I’m here to tell you, she is badass with that fiddle!”

Another round of applause, this one louder as they absorbed her resume. Jake could sense a minor sense of scandal radiating from a few people at his use of the word badass, but he ignored it. “She doesn’t play the fiddle too much anymore, but she’s taken on a new project since she and her husband retired and they moved to Cypress. She’s decided to use her vast musical talent and natural teaching ability to conduct the Cypress High School Orchestra. So now, without any further ado, I’m going to let her do what she does best. Ladies and gentlemen of Cypress, California, I give you the woman I proudly call ‘Mom’. I give you Mary ... uh ... Kingsley!”

Jake fought back a wince as he realized how close he had come to saying, ‘Mary fucking Kingsley’. That probably would have gotten the next two performances cancelled, maybe even this one as well. He had to remind himself this was not a typical rock concert.

Mary came out onto the stage, moving demurely, giving only a brief nod to the crowd as a proper maestro should. Jake turned off his microphone and then stepped up to her and gave her a hug. As they embraced she spoke into his ear. “Please do not say ‘badass’ in here again.”

Jake chuckled and released the hug. He then trotted offstage to let his mother do her work.

She walked up to the podium and pulled her conductor’s baton from a slot. She held it in her right hand, checked to make sure her score was on the proper page, and then turned and faced the audience. “Welcome to the show, everyone,” she said, her words being picked up by the stage mics and then transmitted through the speakers. “As Jake said, our theme for this concert is rock and roll music played by the orchestra. We will start the performance tonight with one of my favorite songs from the genre: Sweet Caroline, by Neil Diamond.”

Applause rippled over them—a quieter, more polite applause than Jake had received. Mary turned and faced her kids, making eye contact with each and every one to make sure they were ready. All silently (but nervously) expressed that they were. She gave a four count with the baton and they began to play.

Jake watched from backstage, sipping out of a bottle of water and enjoying the show. The kids played flawlessly through the instrumental versions of Sweet Caroline, America, and Kentucky Woman. They then moved onto a few songs by the Rolling Stones, playing Wild Horses, Under My Thumb, and Start Me Up. From there, they went with the Beatles to round out this part of the show. They did All You Need is Love, Ticket to Ride, and then finished up with Hey Jude. The audience seemed to enjoy the show. They applauded enthusiastically after each song. During Hey Jude they even spontaneously began to sing the na-na-na-na’s aloud during the extended outro. When they finally brought the song to a close, the kids and his mother received a standing ovation.

“Thank you,” Mary said politely to the crowd. “And now, for the final two numbers of the performance tonight, I would like to invite my son Jake back out to provide some vocals for us.”

Another extended round of applause erupted as Jake stepped back out onto the stage. He walked back to his microphone and plucked it out of the stand, turning it on in the same motion. He stepped forward a few steps and then looked out over the audience. “Let’s hear it one more time for Mary Kingsley and the very talented members of the Cypress High School Orchestra!” he shouted. “Give it up for them!”

They gave it up for them, cheering loudly and enthusiastically.

“All right!” Jake said when the applause died down. “As Mom said, I’m going to sing a few numbers with the orchestra now to round out the show. These are songs that have never been heard before, both of which will appear on my next CD, which we will be done recording next week and should hopefully be on the radio by the first week of July or so.

“There is a little story involved in how I ended up playing with these kids for these songs. You see, last Christmas, when my mom and dad were visiting me and my wife Laura and our daughter Caydee at our house down in Oceano, California, Mom was telling me about the kids in this orchestra and how well they played. It just so happened at the time that I was struggling with putting together the two tunes we’re now about to play. They were missing something that I just could not put my finger on. And then I envisioned how having a complete orchestra playing the secondary melodies on the tune would sound and I had this crazy idea. Enlist my mom’s orchestra to play those secondary melodies for me. I talked it over with her and she thought it was something they could pull off. And then she talked it over with the principal and the school board and they thought it was something they could get behind. And so, we gave it a shot, and it did indeed sound good and was everything I was hoping for. The songs are now recorded—back in March the kids laid down their part in a recording studio in Sacramento over two weekends—and are in the process of being mixed onto the final recording now. Part of the deal, however, was that I come here to Cypress and take part in the spring concert series, so ... here we are.”

Another round of applause rippled over them.

“This first song is called Any Given Sunday,” Jake told everyone. “It’s a song about the simple things in life. Just sitting at home on a Sunday and enjoying the day with the one you love. Are you ready, Mom?”

“I’m ready,” Mary said with a nod.

“All right,” Jake said. “Let’s do this then.”

Mary looked at the kids and made sure they were all ready. Once satisfied that they were, she started her four-count. Once she reached four, the kids began to play. Jimmy Q strummed out the primary melody on his guitar while the rest of the orchestra played the secondary. Monica on the piano picked out the fills and Bart the drummer tapped out the rhythm with perfection. They went through two reps of the intro and Jake slowly worked his way to the front of the stage. As the third rep started, he began to sing, keeping perfectly in time with the tempo the orchestra and his mother conducting them was setting. His singing voice was as strong and pleasant to the ear as it had always been, perhaps even more so since he had been using it frequently these past few months. The audience listened in rapt attention, most genuinely enjoying the performance, even the parents, most of whom were a little too old to be Intemperance fans but had enjoyed some of Jake’s more mellow solo tunes when they heard them on the radio.

Mary led the orchestra through the two verses and then into the bridge section. Elisa, the best of the violinists, then did a twenty second solo that was a shorter version of the one Natalie had composed for the actual recording. She nailed it quite well and they transitioned into the extended outro, where Jake sang out repetitions of the chorus hook and title, “any given Sunday here with you—hoo” until the final outro, in which Jake and Jimmy Q stopped contributing and the heart of the orchestra took over, playing the thirty second piece that Mary had composed (and which had been recorded as played for the CD).

She brought them to a halt after an impressive finale and then turned to face the audience again. The crowd erupted into their loudest applause of the night, once again giving a standing ovation. Though it was small crowd, the sensation was no less enjoyable than what Jake had felt after his first song at the Tsunami Sound Festival. He felt the endorphin rush surging through his body, warming his soul, and he smiled. “Thank you!” he told the audience humbly. “It sounds like you kind of liked that one.”

The applause rippled over them again and then the audience slowly quieted and resumed their seats. “All right,” Jake told them once they were settled. “This next piece is about leaving a bad relationship behind, be it with a person or an evil entity such as a record company. It’s called I Got Away From You.” He turned to look at Mary. “You ready, Mom?”

“We’re ready,” Mary replied.

“All right,” Jake said. “Let’s fuh ... uh ... let’s do it then!”

Mary gave him a harsh look at what he had almost said and he had to remind himself again that this was not a typical rock concert. She then turned to the orchestra and gave the four count. On four, they kicked into gear with Monica on the piano and Jimmy Q setting the primary melody while Bart on the drums set the beat, which was a bit more up tempo than Sunday had been. The crowd immediately got into it, even before the rest of the orchestra chimed in with the secondary. Again, Jake let them go through two reps before he started singing. He then belted out the lyrics authoritatively, with emotion in his voice, making the listeners feel how glad he was to get away from that bad relationship. Soon, the audience was clapping along with the beat.

Away had two verses then a bridge and then it transitioned back to a third verse. In the studio version there was a guitar solo played by Jake himself, but that was not included in this version, nor was the main melody played out on a distorted electric instead of an acoustic. Instead, after the final verse, they transitioned into another extended outro in which the orchestral instruments dominated and Jake sang out various versions of the hook line over and over. Finally, they wrapped it up with a finale of strings and one last extended vocalization from Jake.

Mary brought them to a halt and the applause rolled over them once again. Another standing ovation was given. Jake and the kids all stood as one, acknowledging it with smiles on their faces.

“Thank you!” Jake told them. “I’m glad you enjoyed the show. Let’s hear it one more time for Mary Kingsley and the Cypress High School Orchestra!”

They heard it one more time. And then another after that when Mary told the crowd to give it up for their special guest, Jake Kingsley. They then lined up across the stage, Jake on one end, Mary on the other, and linked arms. Monica, the viola player, was linked with Jake and she blushed furiously as she felt his actual arm around her, as she felt her arm around him. They all took a bow and then another. They then filed off the stage, Jake and Mary the last two to go, both of them waving to the crowd as they exited, stage left.

The audience began calling for an encore, demanding one. Jake and Mary looked at each other. They had nothing planned or rehearsed for an encore. “I suppose we should have anticipated this,” Jake said slowly.

“I suppose we should have,” Mary said. “Is there anything we can do?”

“Like what?”

“Maybe we go out and do Sweet Caroline again, only this time you sing the lyrics.”

“No way,” Jake said, shuddering at the thought of actually singing that song in a public setting. Talk about a cock-block. “I haven’t rehearsed that and I would probably screw it up.”

“You didn’t screw it up when we all did it in the studio while we were bonding with Laura,” Mary countered. “Remember?”

“Yeah,” he said, uncomfortable. “I remember. That’s not the same situation though. Besides, that’s copyrighted material. I’m sure they’ll look the other way when it’s just a high school orchestra playing it, even if you are making money from the performance, but if I were to step up there and sing it without permission and without compensating them for use of the tune, they would come after me and you both. No, we can’t do anything like that.”

“How about you go out there by yourself and sing one of your songs, Jake?” suggested Jimmy Q, who had been listening in (and who was a bit scandalized to learn that Jake had once sang Sweet Caroline).

“I don’t have my guitar here,” Jake said, shaking his head.

“You could use mine,” Jimmy Q suggested. “It’s already in tune, as you just heard. It’s a good guitar. A Fender.”

Jake shook his head again. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s a good idea, but the guitar is not wired. It has to be picked up by the overhead mics but I would need to sing into the vocal mic. There’s no way to pull that off without a major adjustment of the sound.”

“Well ... poop,” Mary said with a pout. “I guess we’ll just have to disappoint them then.”

“Sorry, Mom,” he said.

“What about tomorrow night though?” she asked. “And Sunday night? Do you think you can work something out for an encore for those performances?”