Chapter 21: The Master and the Misconception

Los Angeles, California

February 19, 2000

It was Saturday morning. Jake and Laura woke up just before 8:00 AM in the master suite of their Granada Hills house. The couple and Steph Zool had not gone home after the previous day’s rehearsal and had overnighted in their alternate residence (as Jake and Laura both liked to call it) instead. The reason for their stay was that today was moving day. The road crew hired to put together the Jake Kingsley New Millennium Tour (even though the new millennia would not actually begin for another ten months—by which point the tour would be over) had assembled the stage, lighting, and sound equipment in the warehouse that Celia had rehearsed her tour in and it was time to move all of the band’s equipment over there so they could begin rehearsing in earnest on Monday.

Though the band still had a long ways to go before they would be capable of stepping onto that stage and pulling off a two-and-a-half-hour set, Jake was confident they would get there. They were making good progress. There were a lot of distinct and sometimes conflicting personalities in the bunch he had assembled, but they were working together when they played, bonding in the way that musicians had to bond in order to play well together. Jake was so confident in their progress that he had told the suits at National they would be ready for the first show on Friday, April 7^th. Taking him at his word, the suits were now in the process of booking venues, the plan to start in LA and work their way east across the southwest and south during the spring months. They were already putting out advertisements for the shows and tickets would go on sale for the first dates next week.

Per their usual routine, Laura showered first while Jake shaved and took care of his other morning essentials. While she combed out and blow dried her hair, Jake, after giving her a few caresses as she sat there looking quite appealing dressed in only a pair of black panties, took his own shower. They emerged together into the main living area of the house. Jake made some coffee and then started working on breakfast. Stephanie came rolling out of the guest room as he was scrambling a mixture of eggs, kielbasa, bell peppers, and mushrooms. She was freshly showered and ready to start her day. She went immediately to the coffee pot and poured herself a cup.

“How’d you sleep?” Laura asked her.

“Not bad,” she said. “The bed is nice and comfy. I did miss hearing the ocean though.”

“Yeah,” Laura agreed. “That’s one of the downfalls of staying the night here. No ocean sounds.”

“There was some kind of rhythmic sound coming from the direction of that master suite for a while there though,” the guitarist said slyly. “Went on for quite some time.”

“Sorry,” Laura said, blushing. “Sometimes I can get a little loud. I can’t help it.”

“Nothing to apologize for,” Steph said with a laugh. She gave Jake a friendly punch in the shoulder. “It sounds like you’re a good man, Jake.”

“I try to be,” Jake told her.

They ate breakfast and then the ladies cleaned up the kitchen. At 9:35, they piled their overnight bags into Laura’s Lexus. Rain was forecast for later in the day so they did not want to put their things in the back of Jake’s truck. As they made the drive to the studio, Jake had the radio tuned to KPAD, one of the local alternative rock stations. They heard the first Brainwash release from the new CD played as they drove.

KPAD was a corporate station and they had followed Jake’s instructions for promotion of the new Brainwash track to the letter. The first release was one of Steph’s songs. It was called How Did This Happen? It was a solid tune with both acoustic and electric guitars playing and asked a simple question of the listener: How did the world get to be so fucked up? So far, audiences were responding well to the tune. It had only been out for two weeks—and the Brainwash III CD had only gone on sale five days earlier—but already it had broken into the Top 100. The hard rock stations, the progressive rock stations, and the pop stations were all playing it multiple times during the day, always introducing it as the latest from Brainwash before spinning it. They did not have figures on the CD sales yet, but indications were that it was doing quite well for the first week, particularly in the New England region.

“Thanks for letting me perform the song during your show,” Steph told Jake, not for the first time. The plan was to have it be the first song after the encore break.

“Are you kidding?” Jake asked. “It’s you that is doing me a favor. By the time we hit the road that tune is going to be at its peak of popularity. When word passes that you’re going to perform it, the market value of those tickets is going to go up.”

“Are you going to have the Nerdlys make an MP3 of it?” asked Laura.

“Goddamn right,” Jake said. “We’ll throw it out onto the Napster once the CD has peaked. That’ll serve to squeeze off one more good hit.”

“When are you going to release I Am High?” Steph asked. Jake had shared with her his plan to put the high-quality MP3 of the song he had performed at the Tsunami Sound Festival on Napster to increase interest in the tour.

“Probably around the middle of March,” he said. “The Song is still pretty popular and I don’t want it to have to compete with High. By then, Song should be falling off the charts and people will likely be starting to get sick of it from all the saturation airplay. That’s when High will sweep in. I’ve already instructed National not to promote anything else until High has started getting airplay.”

“What did they have to say about that?” Steph asked.

“They weren’t very happy, of course,” Jake said. “They don’t think that High is going to get much airplay because it’s a live recording of a deep cut from my first album and it’s twelve and a half minutes long. They think the program directors will reject it on length alone because they could play three, maybe even four tunes in the time that it will take just to play High.”

“And you disagree with that?” she asked. She was quite fascinated by how Jake’s mind worked when it came to the business and promotion aspects of music.

“I do,” he said. “I’m sure they won’t play it ten times a day like they do Song or Happen or Winter Frost, but the hard rocks and the prog rocks will at least air it a few times each day, probably right before the commercial breaks. The DJs will fuckin’ love it. It’ll give them twelve minutes to go take a shit or grab a bonghit or maybe a blowjob. And once it’s heard a few times, people will start calling in to request it. That’s what convinces program directors to play it more.”

Steph was very familiar with the live version of High. They had been rehearsing it for the past week since it was planned to be the second to last tune of the main set—talk box solos and all—just before the closing piece Ocean View and the encores. In order to prep the musicians, all had been given copies of the MP3 and instructed to listen to it frequently. Even though Steph would not be onstage for that particular part of the show, she still listened to it a lot because she enjoyed it. It really was a compelling and moving piece with some masterful guitar work by Jake. And the Nerdlys had done an outstanding job of mixing the digital tracks recorded at the TSF and turning them into a quality production.

“You really do know your shit, Jake,” she told him.

“Like a wise man once told me,” Jake said, “it’s my business to know my business.”

“That’s deep,” she said, nodding thoughtfully.

“Isn’t it?” Jake asked.

They arrived at the studio at 9:50 AM. Unsurprisingly, Doug was already there. So was Kevin Wu. Tif, Lucky, and James were still among the missing. This was not surprising either. They had been told to be there at 10:00 AM. Though they were all coming from separate departure points in their own vehicles, they would all three show up at 10:00 AM and not a minute earlier or later. Jake, after working so many years with Ted Duncan, was okay with this habit.

He parked the car and the three of them got out and entered the studio. Wu and Doug were sitting in the reception area, drinking coffee and talking about Elián González, the six-year-old Cuban child who was in the news the last few weeks because his father in Cuba was trying to get him returned home but his Cuban relatives in Miami did not want to send him back there. Wu was of the opinion that he should be sent home immediately but Doug thought he should be kept in the US. The gist of Doug’s argument seemed to be religious based, as Cuba was a Godless communist country and Elián would undoubtedly be raised to be an atheist. Jake, Laura, and Steph refused to share their opinions on the matter, though Jake, as a father, pretty much fell on Wu’s side of the argument.

At 9:59:35, the door opened and James and Lucky came in. Ten seconds later, Tif followed behind them. She was dressed in a pair of tight jeans, boots, and a half shirt with a sweater covering it, but still open enough for her midriff to show. Her hair was no longer blonde. As of the last weekend, it had magically become a rich auburn color.

“Hey, everyone!” she chirped brightly.

“Hey, Tif,” Jake replied. “Ready to perform some manual labor?”

Her brow furrowed in confusion. “Is that a new song?” she asked. “I’m not familiar with that one. It’s not one of your Intemperance songs, is it?”

“Uh ... no, it’s not a song at all,” Jake said.

“Didn’t you say we were going to move all the equipment today?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “I did say that and that’s what we’re going to do. Manual labor is the act of physically performing that necessary task.”

She thought this over for a moment, as if she were pondering Einstein’s famous equation. She then nodded. “I get it,” she finally said.

“Good to hear,” Jake told her.

James chuckled a little at the exchange, shook his head in amusement, and then walked over to Kevin Wu, a smile on his face. “Wassup, Massa?” he asked, holding out his hand for a shake.

“Hey, James,” Wu replied softly, blushing a bit. He made an attempt to return James’ handshake but was not quite down with the technique of shaking with a black man. It got awkward fast, causing James and Lucky to chuckle some more.

“You need to work on that a little more, Massa,” Lucky told him. “Have Brother Jake teach you. He’s got some soul in him.”

“Uh ... yeah, I’ll do that,” Wu said. He was not quite sure what to think about the nickname that had been laid on him by the rhythm section (and that the other bandmembers, even Jake and Laura, were now starting to call him as well). It had started the day Tif had first been introduced to the band and Kevin, while stumbling through his brief basic biography when he introduced himself to her, told her that he was working on his Master’s Degree. And Tif then asked him if, once he was done with said degree and had the resulting official piece of paper in hand, people would call him “Master”. James and Lucky thought this idea extraordinarily amusing and that was all it took. By the end of that day they were calling him Massa and had been calling him that ever since.

“All right,” Jake said to everyone. “The truck is going to be here at eleven. How about we get to work and have everything ready for them?”

“Let’s do the motherfucker,” James said.

“Yeah,” Lucky said. “My shit’s gonna take the longest.”

They trooped into the studio and went to work. Jake turned on some music. They put the guitars, saxophones, and violins back into their cases. They tore down the drum set and put everything but the bass drum into boxes. They disassembled the keyboard set and stored that into two separate cases. They then unwired all the microphones, the amplifiers, the sound board, the speakers, the effects pedals, and everything else that was wired to something and stowed the cords in more boxes. The soundboard and the speakers would be staying. Everything else had to go.

They worked up a pretty good sweat but had everything ready for transport by 10:45. They took a break, everyone hitting the water cooler to parch their thirst.

“Now, remember, y’all,” Jake warned them. “Starting on Monday morning, we’ll have the Nerdlys to deal with. Be prepared to spend most of that day dialing in the sound. The Nerdlys are annoying as fuck when it comes to sound, but nobody is allowed to kill them until after the final dress rehearsal. We down with it?”

“Are they really that bad?” asked Doug.

“No, they’re really that good,” Jake told him.

The rental truck showed up at 10:55. It was crewed by two men who would be part of the road crew for the tour. Jake had never worked with either of them before but they seemed to be typical roadies—which was to say they had long hair, powerful arms, not the best hygiene, and a few missing teeth from methamphetamine use. They were polite, however, and seemed genuinely excited to be hired on for the New Millennium Tour. They expertly loaded and secured all of the equipment in the back of the truck in less than fifteen minutes.

“We’ll see you at the warehouse,” Jake told them as they climbed into the cab.

“Sounds good,” the driver told him, lighting a cigarette.

Jake turned to his band. “All right,” he told them. “It’s about a ten-minute drive. Everyone follow me. If anyone gets separated, just call me on the cellphone and I’ll talk you in.” He looked at Tif for a moment, thought about trying to talk her in, and then looked at his wife. “Hon, maybe you might want to ride with Tif? You know, since you’ve been to the warehouse and all?”

She picked up what he was laying down. “Yeah, sounds good, sweetie,” she said. “You mind if I ride with you, Tif?”

“Sure!” she chirped. “That’ll be totally cool!”

Everyone got in their respective vehicles. Jake led the way as they drove to the other side of Santa Clarita, to the industrial part of the city. Nobody got lost along the way and they all parked in the front of the large warehouse building. The rental truck was already there and parked in the loading dock, the roadies already halfway done moving the equipment inside. Everyone piled out of their cars and gathered in front of the main entrance. There was an unarmed, uniformed security guard sitting behind a small podium under an awning. He was young and moderately overweight.

“Hey,” Jake greeted. “We’re the band.”

“Hi,” the guard said nervously. “It’s ... uh ... nice to meet you all.”

“I’m Jake Kingsley,” Jake told him. “This is Laura, Kevin, Tif, Doug, Lucky, and James. What’s your name?”

“I’m Steven,” he said. “I’ll be one of the day shift guards Saturday through Tuesday.”

“Nice to meet you Steven,” Jake said. “We appreciate you keeping our shit safe. What’s the procedure here? Do you need to see ID, do we sign in, or what?”

“Uh ... no, that’s not necessary Mr. Kingsley,” Steven told him.

“Call me Jake.”

“Uh ... right, Jake. You see, Mr. Dover already gave us pictures of you all and has you on the all-access list. Mr. and Mrs. Archer are on there as well. That means you can all come and go as you please, at any hour of the day or night. Just show up and we’ll let you in.”

“Oh, cool,” Jake said. “Is Dover here? I was told he was going to meet us.” Ryan Dover was the man who had been hired to be head of tour security. Jake had never met him before but knew of his reputation. He was British, a former patrol officer with the Metropolitan Police in London back in the early eighties, and had worked with bands such as Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, and Queen before moving to Los Angeles and working with several popular American bands on multiple tours. He was one of the most experienced tour security heads in the business. KVA and National Records were paying him one hundred thousand dollars US to take charge of security on the New Millennium Tour (and to do all of the other, unwritten things that heads of security on rock tours were responsible for).

“He is inside,” Steven said. “He got here a couple of hours ago. Mr. Gavin is here too.” Stuart Gavin was the road manager that had been assigned to the tour. Jake had never met him either, but had talked to him on the phone a few times. Since he was employed by National Records, and thus fell under the National Records management umbrella, Jake did not know how much he was being paid to run the show, but he did know that he was also quite experienced at the job. Jake was assured that Gavin had all the right connections across the US, Canada, and Europe and ran a tight ship. Of course, it went without saying that he would be an ass-sucking National Records mole, but that was just part of the deal. As long as the man understood that Jake was ultimately in charge (Jake had insisted that the touring contract state in writing that he, Jake, had absolute veto power over any decision made by the road manager) and did his job well, that was all Jake cared about.

They went inside the warehouse, passing through a small reception area and then into the cavernous space beyond. Since it was Saturday, the only roadies currently working were the ones unloading the truck and the place had an abandoned feel to it. Still, it was impressive to take it in. The video screens that would sit on either side of the stage had not been installed yet, but the stage itself was fully built. It stood six feet above the back of the warehouse. Scaffolding with lights mounted sat above it, though all the lights were currently dark while the house lights in the ceiling were turned on. The sound board sat forty feet in front of the stage, connected by an umbilical of wiring. It too was dark and quiet and looked abandoned. Two men, one dressed in a three-piece suit, the other in jeans and a pullover sweater, were up on the stage, watching as the two roadies carried things in and set them down.

“That’s our stage,” Jake told his crew.

“You’re stayin’ basic on the setup?” asked James. “No lasers or pyro or any of that shit?”

“That’s right,” Jake said. “My philosophy is that people come to see us perform, not to be distracted by a bunch of lasers and explosions and trippy-ass psychedelic shit up on the screens. Besides, that extraneous crap is expensive. Cuts into the profits by a huge margin from several different angles.”

“Makes sense,” James said with a nod.

“This is soooo totally cool,” Tif said in awe. “Can we go look at it?”

“Yeah, sure,” Jake said. “Let’s go meet the head guys.”

The band walked up to the stage. The two men noticed them approaching and came forward to the edge. The man in the jeans was cleanly bald and had a scowl on his face. The man in the suit had a thick head of hair that could only be a toupee and an ass-sucking grin on his face. Jake did not have any trouble figuring out which was the security chief and which was the road manager.

“Welcome,” said the suit. “I’m glad you were all able to come in and check out the place. I’m Stuart Gavin. I’ll be the road manager. Most people just call me Stu.”

“How you doing, Stu?” Jake said, giving him a nod.

“I’m eager to get the show on the road,” Stu said. “This is Ryan Dover. He’ll be the security chief for the tour.”

“Nice to meet you, Ryan,” Jake said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“As have I you,” Ryan said, his cockney accent quite thick. “Thanks for getting me the gig.”

“Thanks for taking it,” Jake said. He then introduced his bandmates to the two men. Greetings were exchanged but no handshakes because the band was still standing on the floor with their toes six feet below the stage and their heads—except for Jake’s—below the edge level.

“Come on up and take a look around,” Stu invited.

“Okay,” Jake said. He put his hands on the edge of the stage and boosted himself up until he could plant his butt on it. He then held out his hand to Laura, giving her a little boost up as well. Doug performed the same maneuver and then helped Tif up. Jake held out his hand to help Steph up but she ignored it and jumped up on her own. Lucky and James mounted the stage and then Lucky had to help Massa up because he was unfamiliar with the maneuver and did not quite have the upper arm strength to pull it off.

They looked around at the stage itself—all of their equipment was now sitting in a heap and the roadies were now done bringing things in—and then took a little tour of the backstage area, which was bigger and more compartmentalized. They then went back to the main stage and Jake and Doug examined the speakers that were stacked on either side. They were top-of-the-line Marshalls, just as specified by the Nerdlys.

“Crow says we’re booking for a first date on April 7 at the Forum,” Stu said.

“That’s the plan,” Jake said. “Have you got the whole crew hired?”

“About eighty percent,” Stu said. “We got all the monkeys and techies we’re gonna need, but I’m still working on filling out the grunt positions. The engineers, techs, and camera operators for the video projection are being subcontracted out, but they should be online by next week. How goes the rehearsals?”

“We’re dialing it in,” Jake said. “I have our set list pretty much figured out, now we just need to go through a million reps to drive it home.”

“You’re not doing any Intemperance material?” Ryan asked.

“No,” Jake said simply. “Just my solo tunes, one cover that’s kind of special to me and Laura, and one Brainwash tune that Steph is going to sing.”

“That’s a pity,” Ryan said. “I really like what you did with Intemperance.”

“Yeah,” Jake said with a sigh, “that’s in the past though.”

The road manager and the security chief left a few minutes later, telling Jake and the others that they would see them on Monday morning. After they left, everyone went back to work, this time unpacking all of the equipment. They set everything in the approximate position it would be for the performances, assembled the drum set and the keyboard, laid down the wiring but did not connect anything, and then stacked all the boxes, cases, and crates in the backstage area.

Once they were done, Jake made a phone call on his cell phone and ordered two extra-large pizzas—one combination and one chicken garlic—from a nearby independent place he had done business with in the past. They made great pizza and when they said extra-large, they were not fucking around. Once assured the food was on its way, he went out to the Lexus and grabbed a large ice chest from the trunk and carried it inside. He hefted it up from the floor and Lucky grabbed it from him, setting it down in front of the keyboard. Jake climbed back up and then opened the chest. It was full of ice-cold bottles of IPA and ale from a San Luis Obispo microbrewery. Everyone grabbed a bottle except Jake. He had to fly home in a bit—they really missed Caydee and did not want to spend another night away from her just so Jake could have a beer or two—so he grabbed one of the bottles of black iced tea he had put in there just for this occasion.

They talked of non-music related things, all of them falling into their natural patterns. Lucky and James joked a lot. Tif had to have many of their jokes explained to her. Doug talked about his children and the challenges of raising teenagers in this day and age. Jake told a few tales of Caydee and her antics, with several contributions from Laura. Steph threw in a few anecdotes about her son, who was living primarily with her ex-partner in Providence but was going to come for a visit before the tour started. Kevin Wu—aka Massa—mostly just followed the conversation around with his eyes and contributed virtually nothing to it. He was painfully shy and reserved and tended to kind of fade into the background in a group setting. His eyes did frequently linger on Tif, however. She was very pleasant to look at but he had trouble speaking to her without becoming tongue-tied. Yes, she was dumber than a rock, but he was very intimidated by women, particularly beautiful ones. He had similar trouble talking to Laura.

The pizzas arrived and they tore into them. After everyone had eaten their fill, Jake told the two guards that they were welcome to the leftovers and then they all walked back out to the parking lot. The rain that had been forecast was now falling, though it was only a moderate drizzle.

“No problem flying home in this shit?” asked James.

“No problem at all,” Jake said. “Most of this storm is to the south. It’s probably dry and only partly cloudy in SLO. And there’s not much wind. Piece of cake.”

“Good,” Lucky said. “Don’t want you getting your ass killed right before we ready to hit the fuckin’ road.”

“Goddamn right,” agreed James. “Our asses don’t get paid if you smash your shit into a fuckin’ mountain and expire.”

“That is a very touching concern,” Jake told them.

They both laughed. “Idn’t it?” James asked.

“All jokes aside,” Doug broke in with all seriousness, “I will say a prayer for you to be safe on your journey,”

“Thanks, Doug,” Jake said, quite sincerely. He did not believe for a moment that Doug’s prayer would be the least bit useful to his cause, but he really did appreciate the sentiment.

Everyone headed to their respective vehicles and got quickly inside to get out of the rain. Everyone except Tif. She trotted over to Kevin’s car and approached his driver’s side window just as he started the engine. Startled, feeling the blush on his face, he rolled down the window.

“Uh ... hey,” he stammered. “What’s up?”

“Let me get in your car for a minute,” she said.

“Uh...”

She did not wait for an answer. Instead, she trotted around to the passenger side and pulled on the door handle. It was locked. He simply stared at her, wondering what this was about. Had she seen him looking at her breasts and wanted to yell at him? Was she going to tell him to keep his sleazy eyeballs off of her body or she would twist his balls off? His automatic reaction was to feel guilty, to feel that she was disgusted with him and wanted to tell him about it.

“Open the door!” she barked at him. “I’m getting all wet out here.”

“Uh ... right,” he said, reaching over and pushing the passenger unlock button on his armrest. The lock clicked open. She opened the door and sat down in his passenger seat, closing the door behind her. He caught a whiff of her odor. It was the smell of a days’ worth of muggy feminine sweat and musty rain-dampened hair and clothes. It was perhaps the most exciting thing he had ever smelled in his life.

“Thanks,” Tif told him.

“Uh ... what’s going on?” he asked, bracing himself for her to start yelling at him.

“Just wait until everyone is gone,” she told him. “And then I want you to come back inside the warehouse with me.”

“Back ... back inside?” he asked, confused. “Uh ... what for?”

“I need you to help me with something,” she told him.

“What ... what do you mean?”

“I’ll tell you inside,” she said. “It’s very important though.”

“Uh ... well ... okay,” he said, wondering what she could possibly need his help with. He had not said more than ten words to her since he had met her. And, though he certainly enjoyed looking at her—and had even masturbated to her image the last four times he had performed the act—she had not so much as given him the time of day, had hardly even seemed to realize he existed. And, in his mind, that was the way the world worked when it came to band geeks like himself and hot singers like her.

Everyone else left the parking lot, their cars driving out one by one and disappearing. Tif waited another five minutes or so and then opened the door. “All right,” she said. “Let’s go inside.”

“Uh ... okay,” Kevin said, stepping out and closing the door, too perplexed to even remember to turn the engine off, let alone take his keys out of the ignition.

They trotted through the rain to the main entrance. Steven the security guard was sitting at his podium, munching on his share of the leftover pizza. He looked at them questioningly. “Did you forget something?” he asked.

“No,” Tif told him, “but ... like, we’re allowed in here anytime we want, right?”

“Right,” he said slowly. “You two are both on the all-access list, which means we will let you in whenever you show up, but...”

“Massa and I just want to check on something in the equipment area before we leave,” Tif said.

“Massa?” Steven asked.

Tif smiled. “That’s what we call Kevin here,” she said. “It’s because he’s almost a master. Isn’t that totally cool?”

“Uh ... yeah, sure,” Steven said, clearly not getting the connection.

“Anyway, we’ll just be a few minutes,” Tif told. “Be a sweetie and let us in.”

“Sure,” he said, picking up a set of keys from the desk. He took a long look at her tits and then walked them over and unlocked the main door. “The place is all yours.”

“Thanks,” Tif said with a smile.

She led Kevin through the reception office, closed that door behind them, and then across the floor of the warehouse until they reached the stage itself. Tif jumped up onto the stage with ease. Kevin tried to follow her but still lacked the upper arm strength for the maneuver so Tif had to give him a hand. Though he was embarrassed by his lack of masculinity in her presence, he thrilled at the touch of her hand against his. It was a soft hand, very feminine, and, when she pulled him all the way up, his body contacted hers for the briefest of moments, his right elbow coming momentarily into contact with her left breast. He memorized the sensation for later pondering when hand met phallus.