Chapter 14: Suggestions

The Campus, San Luis Obispo County, California

June 11, 2001

On the first Monday of Grace and Chastity Best’s summer visit to their Aunt Laura and Uncle Jake’s home, the two girls got up early and joined the Kingsleys and Celia for their trip to The Campus to start their workday. This was not just so the girls could check the place out and watch the two bands in action making music—although both were eager to do so—it was primarily a business meeting for Grace. She was being paid good money by KVA Records to come up with an album cover design for Never Say Never and she was going to present the work she had done so far to them. Chase, like with the rest of the trip, was just along for the ride. She would not be in the meeting between Intemperance and Grace, but would instead be in the rehearsal studio watching Celia and her band doing their workups (she was very much looking forward to the experience). After the meeting, Grace would find her way over to join her sister and then they planned to watch the progress of Intemperance in the recording studio. In case they did not want to stay all day long after this, the girls had followed behind Jake’s Navigator in Laura’s minivan, Chase (who was the less-experienced yet superior driver of the two) behind the wheel.

Both girls were more than a little nervous about meeting Matt Tisdale. His reputation was notorious and many aspects of said notoriety had been confirmed by the two of them listening in on casual conversation about the guitarist between Aunt Laura and Celia. It was plain that neither of them cared for Tisdale, with Celia being particularly hostile and vicious of speech whenever his name was brought up. Enough anecdotes had been passed to the two to generate said nervousness.

Grace shared their fear with Uncle Jake before they left the home for the drive. “He’s ... uh ... not going to try to ... you know ... hit on us or anything, is he?” she asked him.

“He is absolutely not going to try to hit on either of you,” Jake assured them. “He may use a lot of vulgar, misogynistic language, may undress you with his eyes a bit, may offend you on several levels in other ways, but he will not hit on you.”

“How come?” Grace asked, chewing her lip a little. “Because we’re too young?”

Jake laughed out loud. “You’re funny, Gracie,” he told her. “No, not because you’re too young. He won’t do it because I have informed Matt that you two, like Meghan, are absolutely off limits to him. Even if you found yourself attracted to him, even if you wanted to get it on with him, he is under strict instructions not to act upon it in any way, shape, or form. You are the inside of a Mormon temple to him. Off limits now and forever.”

“You told him all this?” Chase asked, amazed.

“I told him all this,” Jake confirmed.

“And he will do what you say?” she asked next.

“He will do what I say,” Jake confirmed. “At least he will if he wants this Intemperance project to fly. I do not need to put Intemp back together to continue living my life as I live it now. I’m having fun doing it, but I don’t have to. Neither does Nerdly or Coop or Charlie. Matt is the only one who absolutely needs this project to succeed. I’ve drawn a few lines in the sand for him. The two of you and Meghan are three of those lines.”

“Oh...” said Chase, “well ... thanks, Uncle Jake.”

The meeting was scheduled for the first part of the workday. While Celia and Laura went over to the rehearsal building to get their own day started, Jake led his two nieces into the main building. Matt and the rest of the band were still upstairs in the kitchen area. Jake took the two girls on a tour of the downstairs studios, skipping the unequipped one because Jim the paramedic was likely still asleep in there (he usually rolled out of bed around 10:00 AM or so these days, usually hungover from the previous night’s drinking). They were quite impressed with the recording equipment and the recording rooms. Both were introduced to the two sound techs they had hired from nearby Cal Poly. Both of the techs were shy and nerdy (though awesome sound techs) and had trouble even speaking to the girls.

Just as the tour was wrapping up the Nerdlys came in to start their day. Nerdly and Sharon barely acknowledged the girls and immediately started bitching about how the scheduled meeting was taking precious time away from recording duties.

“It’s not going to take that long,” Jake told them. “Besides, aren’t you curious to see what Gracie here has come up with? I’m dying to see her work myself.”

“Well,” Nerdly allowed, “I am looking forward to seeing the initial artwork, but still, the schedule! You know how long it takes to get the sound checks done every morning. We’ll scarcely have time to be productive before lunch.”

“We’ll get by, Nerdly,” Jake promised. “Maybe we can just do an abbreviated soundcheck today? Only worry about the instruments we’re actually going to be laying down tracks for?”

The looks on the Nerdlys’ faces suggested that Jake had just uttered an unforgivable blasphemy.

“Or not,” he amended. “Why don’t we go upstairs and introduce the girls to the rest of the band.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Sharon said, raising her brows a bit. “I mean ... Matt’s in there, and your nieces are young, attractive girls.”

“Don’t worry about Matt,” Jake said. “I’ve already had a talk with him about it.”

“And you think that will work?” Nerdly asked.

“I am certain it will work,” Jake assured them. The girls put their nervous faces back on, however.

The five of them went up the staircase and into the kitchen/dining room. As was often the case, Matt, Coop, and Kim Kowalski were eating the previous night’s leftover pizza for breakfast, grabbing slices out of boxes that had sat on the counter all night. Charlie was eating a salad. The kitchen and the living areas were reasonably clean, however, meaning the bandmembers for the two bands were reasonably following The Campus’ Rule Number One.

“Hey, everyone,” Jake said as he led the girls over to the table. “These are my nieces. This is Chase and this is Grace. Gracie is the one that will be doing our album cover for us. We’re going to go over what she’s come up with before we get started on the sessions today. Grace, Chase, meet Coop our drummer, Charlie our bass player—don’t shake hands with him because he’s germophobic—and, of course, Matt Tisdale, guitarist and lyricist—don’t shake hands with him because he is undoubtedly diseased.”

“What the fuck, bro?” Matt asked, seemingly offended although Jake could tell he was actually amused.

Jake chuckled. “And this beautiful blonde over here that Matt does not deserve in the least is Kim Kowalski.”

“We don’t have that kind of relationship,” Matt said, now undressing the girls with his eyes—both were hot and innocent looking, the younger one a blonde spinner, the older one a tall redhead with big tits—but kept his thoughts about them to himself. “We just like to fuck each other and she stays with me most nights.”

“That sounds like marriage to me,” Chase said, looking at all of the tattoos on Matt and Coop with amazement. She had never seen so many in the flesh before.

Matt scoffed at her. “You got a lot to learn about life and shit, little girl,” he told her.

Grace, who was usually too shy to even speak to a new acquaintance until she got to know them better, was staring at Kim. “Haven’t ... uh ... haven’t I seen you in a movie before?” she asked her.

Kim smiled at her and gave a little laugh. “Maybe,” she said. “I’ve been in a few. Nothing recent though.”

“Oh wow,” Chase said, taking a closer look at Kim. “A movie star. You do look familiar. Where have I seen you?” And then everyone could see the realization clearing her circuits. “Holy shit! You’re Mary Ann Cummings!”

“Oh my God!” Grace said, blushing furiously as it cleared her circuits as well.

Jake was actually kind of surprised that teen girls from Pocatello, Idaho were familiar with Mary Ann Cummings’ body of work. “You’ve ... uh ... seen some of her movies?” he asked the girls.

Now it was Chase who was blushing. “Well ... uh ... yeah,” she said. “Dad has a stash of porno movies on VHS tapes in the back of his closet. Me and Gracie found them a few years ago while we were snooping and ... well ... you know ... we were curious and watched them. One was Mississippi Yearning. Another was To Fill A Mockingbird.”

“Those are two of her hottest flicks,” Matt said with a grin. “Especially the brother-sister scene in Fill and the lesbo threesome in Mississippi. Did you two play with yourselves while you were watching it?”

“Matt,” Jake said warningly.

“Hey, I’m just asking,” he protested. “Two hot sisters watching Kim’s movie and playing with themselves on the fuckin’ couch during the raunch scenes? Don’t tell me you don’t think that shit is hot, Jake.”

“These are my nieces, Matt,” Jake said. “We discussed this, remember?”

“I’m not hitting on them,” Matt said. “I’m just asking a simple question relevant to the fucking topic at hand.”

“No,” Chase said firmly. “We did not do that.” Grace nodded in agreement. Neither of them had even considered doing what Matt suggested and were grossed out by the very thought of it now that it was brought up. Neither, however, mentioned that they had immediately felt the need to take a nap and take a bath respectively after each session of movie watching.

“Well ... that shit’s too bad,” Matt said, disappointed.

“Does your mother know that your father has a stash of porno movies?” asked Kim. “Do they, perhaps, watch them together after the two of you have gone to bed?”

“We don’t know,” Chase said. “We try not to speculate too much about things like that, if you know what I mean.”

“Understandable I suppose,” Kim said. And then an idea occurred to her. “Jake told us that the two of you are college students who live in the dorms?”

“Yeah,” Chase said. “Gracie goes to U of I. She’ll be a junior in September. I’ll be a freshman at Idaho State in September. Uncle Jake and Aunt Laura are paying for everything for both of us. We both will be dorm rats for the whole ride.”

“Very interesting,” Kim said with a smile. “Perhaps I could interest you in the family discount for my website.”

“Mary Ann Cummings dot-com?” Chase asked, her eyes wide.

“You’ve heard of it then?” Kim said.

“Are you kidding?” Chase told her. “It’s fucking infamous. They say it’s the best porn in the freaking world.”

“Kim,” Jake said, exasperated, “their parents are already afraid of the corruption they will encounter staying with us in California. Please do not actually corrupt them and fulfill the prophecy.”

“This is not corruption,” Kim said, “this is business.” She turned back to Grace and Chase. “The family discount is free access to the site and everything on it. Thousands of hours of the best video porn that exists in the world today. We’re talking genuine amateur lesbian porn, genuine amateur couples porn, genuine amateur gay porn, and hundreds upon hundreds of commercially produced high-quality, plot driven regular twenty to forty minute porn vignettes—with a strong emphasis on lesbian oriented scenes as that is a favorite of my primary demographic of eighteen to fifty-five year old heterosexual males, although most of that demo under the age of thirty can’t afford the thirty-eight dollars a month membership fee.”

“This is not corrupting?” Jake asked her, shaking his head in exasperation.

Kim did not answer him. “I’ll give you your own user names and passwords that will get you into everything,” she told the girls. “And I will encourage you to share those names and passwords with your fellow college students who live in the dorms.”

“Whoa,” Matt said, alarm in his voice. “How is giving the shit away to two entire college campuses supposed to make you money?”

“It’s very simple,” Kim said. “I will have my IT team fix it so that Grace’s and Chase’s usernames and passwords will only work from computers with an IP address associated with their respective campuses. Anyone trying to log in from somewhere else will be denied. That way, they’ll get addicted to my site and then, when they move on from the dorms and start living in the real world, they’ll be willing to pay for what I offer. In addition, they’ll pass the word onto off-campus acquaintances about how good the porn is on the site. Those people will then pony up that thirty-eight bucks a month for access.”

Matt considered this for a moment and then nodded his head. “It is a pretty fucking addictive site,” he allowed. “Good thinking, Kim.”

She tapped the side of her head with a finger. “I’ve got a few brain cells going on up here,” she said.

“Uhhh, well, yeah,” Chase said with clearly feigned nonchalance. “I would be willing to help you out with this project. You know ... to help you make money and all.”

“Me too,” said Grace, who had heard tales and seen brief clips of the amateur lesbian porn available at Kim’s website. She definitely wanted in on this. “Anything for a friend of Uncle Jake and Aunt Laura.”

Jake shook his head. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered, wondering if their parents were even going to recognize them by the time they got home.

After the introductions were complete (and after both girls ate a slice of the leftover pizza), it was time to go to work. Chase left them and made the hike over to the rehearsal building to hang out with Celia and her band. One of the roaming security guys, having been contacted by the security supervisor who had been contacted by Jake, met her there to let her in. The members of Intemperance, Sharon, and Grace all went downstairs to where the conference room was. Grace had her laptop case with her. She opened it up and pulled out the device, which she powered up and then hooked into the projector at the head of the table.

“I put together a PowerPoint of the work I’ve done so far,” she said nervously to the assembled crowd.

“What the fuck’s a PowerPoint?” Coop asked.

“Remember the overhead projectors with the slides in high school?” Jake asked him.

“Yeah,” Coop said. He had been stoned through all of high school but did have vague recollections of some of the things that had happened there.

“It’s the modern version of that,” Jake told him.

“Oh ... I get it,” Coop said, nodding wisely.

“Remember those old reel to reel movie projectors they used to have back in school?” asked Kim.

“Yeah!” Matt said with a nostalgic smile. “The fuckin’ nerds were the only ones who knew how to run those fuckin’ things! Even the fuckin’ teachers didn’t know how to run them.”

“Dude,” said Coop, “some of those flicks they had us watch were way cool. Did you ever see the one called Paddle to the Sea? It’s about this little wooden boat with some feather Indian’s head sticking out of it that some fuckin’ kid puts in a river somewhere and you get to see it go on this long, fucked up journey. It goes over Niagara Falls and shit, goes through some fuckin’ lakes, almost gets run over by ships, and then ends up in the ocean at the end.”

“Yeah,” said Jake with a nostalgic smile of his own. “I remember that one. It was a classic.”

“Me too,” said Matt. “One of the times we watched it I was frying on shrooms! Cool shit!”

“I always felt bad when the little boat got caught in all the pollution,” said Kim.

“It almost got burned up in that forest fire too,” Jake said.

“Can you imagine the microbes that boat would have picked up on the journey?” Charlie asked with a shudder. “All those hands touching it, all those protozoans and shit that live in the water? It was a fuckin’ deathtrap to anyone who picked it up.”

Everyone looked at him for a moment, even Grace, who had no idea what any of them were talking about as Paddle to the Sea had been retired as a school assigned AV demonstration of the Earth’s water cycle and replaced by more modern and scientific lessons by the time she was learning about the subject.

“What?” Charlie asked.

“Nothing,” Jake said. “We were just pondering those microbes and protozoa and shit is all.”

“Yeah, we’re pondering that shit,” said Matt with a roll of the eyes. He was working with Charlie fairly well but still didn’t like him and still thought he was the weirdest, creepiest motherfucker on the face of the Earth. Jeffery fuckin’ Dahmer would think Charlie was a fucking freak.

“How about we let Grace start her presentation?” Jake suggested.

“Yeah, how about we do that shit,” Matt agreed.

“Lay it out for us, Grace,” Charlie said.

“Uh ... okay, I’ll get started,” she said, her eyes cast down. She had shed a little of her extreme shyness after taking Public Speaking her previous semester of college (the most terrifying class she had ever participated in to this point in her life) but she was still quite intimidated by her audience of six.

She had no actual title page of her presentation. Instead, it was the basic layout of the album cover with Never Say Never in a semi-hemispherical large print across the top and the band name—Intemperance—in horizontal, smaller print across the bottom. The print was in bright red across a white background currently, but she explained that both the print and the background could be easily changed to any color desired. This layout left a large area of blank canvas upon which to work her magic.

“Now, as Uncle Jake requested when he originally discussed the project with me,” Grace explained, “I’ve done up graphics of all of your respective instruments in high-realism CGI.”

“High-realism CGI?” asked Coop. “What’s that shit mean?”

“Well ... you’ve heard of CGI, right?” asked Grace.

“Yeah, like on Jurassic Park and the Matrix and Toy Story, right?”

“Right,” Grace said. “Those were live action CGI—computer generated imagery—and some of the pioneers of the use of it as a film technique. What I’m talking about, however, is still frame CGI. That is basically a single image that is created using CGI technology. In this case, I have taken the pictures that Uncle Jake gave me of all of your instruments and re-drew them all using CGI with the intention of making them look as close to actual photographs as possible.”

“Why not just use the actual pictures if you’re going for a photographic look?” asked Jake.

Gracie smiled, her nervousness seemingly dissipating as she got into her field of expertise. “Let me show you what I’ve come up with and I think you’ll understand,” she told him.

She clicked her little remote device and an image of Matt’s iconic black Stratocaster appeared on the screen. At a single glance, Jake and everyone else understood why she hadn’t just used the photographs the image had been based on. Grace’s artificial picture of the Strat was superior to the original photo. In the original, the guitar had been leaning against a wall. In the CGI version, the guitar was the only thing in the shot so it could be turned or placed in whatever orientation Grace wanted to place it. In addition, the Strat was much shinier and pristine in the CGI version. The actual Strat itself had chips and scuffmarks and a multitude of other imperfections it had acquired during its lifetime of travel and use. The CGI Strat looked brand new.

“I can manipulate the image any way you want me to,” Grace told them. “I can put the imperfections back in if you want me to, I can put it under any kind of lighting you want me to, I could put it in a guitar case if you want me to, I can even put your hands on it, Matt, if you want me too, tattoos and all.”

“That’s pretty fuckin’ cool,” Matt said, nodding appreciatively.

“I agree,” Jake said. “Do you have the other instruments?”

“I do,” she said. She clicked her remote and Jake’s sunburst Les Paul appeared. Like with Matt’s guitar, the photo of Jake’s had been taken with it leaning against a wall in his composition room at the Nottingham Drive house back when he had still lived there. The CGI version was just the guitar, looking shiny and clean, light gleaming off its body. It looked just like a photograph, not a computer generated image.

“Nice,” Jake said, smiling as he looked at the image of his original Les Paul he had played during his club days and during the tours that followed the band’s assumption of control of such decisions after the renegotiation of their contract with National Records. He hadn’t played the instrument in years now—the last time had been the final show Intemperance had done on April Fool’s Day in Atlanta before being told of Darren’s death—but it still hung in a place of honor in the entertainment room of the Oceano house, on one side of his Jimmy Page Harmony Sovereign H-1260 while his Les Paul Les Paul took up the other side.

“As with Matt’s Strat,” Grace said, “I can place the guitar in any arrangement you wish. The image is in three dimensions, unlike in the original shot, so I can even turn it sideways and it will have depth to it.”

“This is really amazing, Gracie,” Jake said, quite impressed so far.

“Thank you,” she said shyly. She then clicked her remote again. A CGI image of Charlie’s Brogan bass guitar appeared. Jake had not had a photo of only the guitar to give to her, just one where Charlie was holding it up on the stage during the European tour they had done. That did not matter to Grace, however. The CGI version was just the guitar, the parts where Charlie’s arm and hands had been obscuring the shot removed and replaced. And it would be just as easy to put those hands and arm back in if they so desired.

The next image was Coop’s drum set, standing alone, the Intemperance name and logo on the front of both bass drums, the cymbals all shiny and reflective. After that was Nerdly’s grand piano that had been given to him by the nice folks at Steinway specifically for touring. That piano now sat in Nerdly’s formal living room and was only played by Kelvin when he was honing his own skills. As with the other instruments, the piano was shiny and perfect in the CGI version.

After they finished discussing the piano shot, Grace moved on to the next part of her presentation. “Now, Uncle Jake told me that the idea of the cover art was to have these photos of the instruments interspersed around the cover in random places but in photographic quality, like what I just showed you. For the other images on the cover, he wanted graphic arts representation but not of photographic quality.”

“What other images?” asked Matt, who had told Jake back in the beginning of the project that he did not give a rat’s ass what the cover looked like and did not want to be bothered with stupid shit like art, but who now seemed somewhat interested in the topic.

“Images that represent the life and times of the band Intemperance,” Jake said. “The good, the bad, and the ugly.”

“The ugly too?” asked Coop.

“The ugly too,” Jake confirmed. “We’re notorious and we know it. Why not give our fans a little glimpse into our lives back then?”

“I guess,” Charlie said doubtfully. “There won’t be anything about me and that fuckin’ tranny faggot, will there?”

“Uh ... no,” Jake said. “I told Gracie an unabridged and uncensored version of our exploits back in the day—shocked her a little I think, but I felt it necessary for her to know the real Intemperance—but I mentioned nothing about that.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Charlie said. “I wouldn’t want people thinking I suck dicks or anything.”

“You do suck dicks!” Matt barked at him.

“Not anymore,” Charlie protested. “That was just a weird fucking phase I went through. I told you all that.”

“A fuckin’ phase that ended last week after that fuckin’ beaner construction dude moved onto a new job!” Matt countered. “A fuckin’ phase you’ve been through twice since we started rehearsing.”

“Those were mistakes!” Charlie barked back. “I know I’m totally heterosexual now! I like pussy! That’s all I like!”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Matt said, disgusted.

Grace was now staring at the two of them, wide-eyed.

“Uh ... it could be we’re getting a little off-topic here,” Jake said appeasingly. “I assure you, Charlie, Grace has produced no images of you sucking dicks or engaging in any other form of homosexual activity, right Gracie?”

“Right,” she said softly. “No dicks in the images. I promise.”

“And you won’t add any in now that you know?” Charlie asked.

“I won’t,” she said. “I promise.”

“Hope to die and stick a needle in your eye?” asked Jake.

“Absolutely,” she said.

“There. Are you happy, Charlie?” Jake asked.

“I guess,” he said, still doubtful.

“She’ll pinky swear with you if you want,” Jake said, “won’t you, Gracie?”

“Oh ... sure,” she said, holding out her right pinky.

Charlie shook his head. “No way,” he said. “She spends all day typing on keyboards and touching a mouse. Do you have any idea how many microbes live on computer keyboards and mice? I’ll take her word for it.”

“All right then,” Jake said. “How about we look at some of the images she’s come up with then?”

“Okay,” Charlie said.

Matt was shaking his head. “Fuckin’ freakshow,” he muttered in disgust.

Grace clicked her remote and the first image appeared. It was not a graphic arts image, not at this point in its evolution, but a scan of a pencil sketch Grace had done on a piece of standard printer paper. Though it was only a pencil sketch, it was quite clear that Grace was a talented artist. The image gave the illusion of three dimensions. It was the top of an attractive female butt crack with a straw just clearing the valley and moving onto the high plains of the lower back. The user end of the straw was not visible, nor was any actual powder-like material, implying that the depraved act it represented had just been completed.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Matt said, nodding in approval but also a little surprised. “You told your niece about that shit, brother?”

“Well ... she had already heard about it pretty much all of her life,” Jake said, “just like most of the rest of the free world. All I did was confirm for her that the incident did, in fact, take place at one point in our career and she has pinky-sworn with me to keep that information to herself.”

Matt looked over at Grace. “Did he tell you that I was the motherfucker who came up with the idea in the first place?” he asked her. “All he did was come out of the room where he was railing his own gash and participate in my fuckin’ idea after me and this lesbo slut did it first.”

“Uh ... kind of,” Grace said softly, unable to meet Matt’s eyes. “He did tell me that it was your idea and that you did it first. He did not say anything about ... you know ... what he had been doing before that or what he did after that or about any lesbians.”

“I told her need-to-know things only,” Jake said, blushing now.

Matt chuckled. “He didn’t tell you about how he came out of the room wearing only a fuckin’ dripping wet rubber on his schlong?”

Grace was blushing furiously now. “No, he didn’t tell me that.”

“She didn’t need to know that part,” Jake said firmly. “I did tell her about our times with groupies but I kind of stuck to PG-13 details in light of the fact that she is my niece and somewhat of a Mormon.”

“Mormon, huh?” Matt said, nodding appreciatively. He opened his mouth to say something further—probably something along the lines of how he had never had him no Mormon gash before (although he had in every tour he’d been on when it passed through Salt Lake City)—but Jake cut him off.

“My niece, Matt,” Jake said firmly. “You yourself pointed that out a few moments ago. Keep that in mind at all times.”

“Right,” Matt grunted. He then brightened again. “Anyway, I dig the image, Grace. You’re pretty fuckin’ talented at this art shit. And that ass crack definitely belongs on the album cover.”

“I agree,” said Jake.

“Hell yeah!” said Coop with a smile. “I was there when that shit happened and I saw it with my own two eyes but I wasn’t able to blast a rail off of her. Some other snatch was sucking my dick at the time while this other bitch was fingering her.”

“I wasn’t there at all,” Charlie said. “It was before I was with the band. I wouldn’t have done it if I had been there. There must have been an indescribable amount of E. coli migrated over from her anus all up in that rail.” He shuddered at the thought.

“That never stopped you from sticking your fuckin’ schlong up into E-fucking-coli central with some fuckin’ dick smoker though, did it?” asked Matt.

“I don’t do that anymore,” Charlie said. “Not even with women. And when I did I always wore two condoms and took a shower immediately after.”

“Guys,” Jake said, “we’re embarrassing Gracie here with all this talk about ass-fucking and groupies. We’re even making Sharon blush.”

“I’ve heard all of this before,” Mrs. Nerdly said. She was indeed blushing. “Bill and I share everything with each other and he’s told me about all the things the five of you did back then. I’ve just never heard it described in this amount of detail before.”