Chapter 37

My girls all came up to me wondering exactly what I was going to say. As usual, I said that I didn’t know yet, I’d planned to wing it.

The cameraman was getting instructions through his earpiece and I got Claire and Kalista on either side me. He backed up a bit and gave me a 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1.

The reporter handed me her mike, and I said, straight into the TV camera in front of me, “Ladies and Gentlemen, and kids of all ages, from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Welcome to the Columbus Mall, in beautiful Columbus, Ohio.”

There was a tremendous swell of noise.

“Charles, Claire and Kallie have an announcement to make. A while back Claire and I performed a number to the music ‘Marry You,’ by Bruno Mars. That music inspired me to ask my dance partner, Claire McArthur to marry me ... and she said ‘Yes.’”

There was a large group gasp to that announcement, even from Claire, Kalista and the Moms. Claire stepped forward to show off her ring. The cameraman did a quick close-up of it then got back into his three-shot. The crowd went bat-shit noisy.

“We have recently finished making plans for the ceremony. Oh, yes – we’re only 14, but Ohio state law, and our Mom’s, have given their consent to us getting married at 16. We hope that you give your consent as well. Is it all right with you if we get married?”

“ALL RIGHT,” Our Mall finning crowd of people said. I hoped everyone watching was doing the same.

“Our plans include being married at Ohio Stadium, October 15^th, 2015. We still have an International Tour to perform. Following our Wedding - On New Year’s Eve, we’ll start the open-ended ‘Absotively-Posilutely Tour’ somewhere here in Columbus and will go all around the United States, taking as long as the people will watch us. If your city wants to be on this Tour and you have a performance license or its equivalent, go to our website and email us the particulars. Kalista here will be the Maid of Honor at our wedding. Charles, Claire and Kallie love all of you very much, thanking you for attending the concerts so far, and buying our posters.”

I added a dramatic pause, as that information rippled through the crowd of people.

“Oh, one more thing! I need to tell you how - YOU can be at our wedding - Sarah, please?”

She walked up brimming with confidence, and said directly into the camera, “Starting this upcoming Labor Day, 2013, with everyone who buys a complete set of our 20 posters, we’ll include a Golden Ticket inside that’ll give you entry into the stadium. All of the important information will be on the ticket. The stadium record is currently 108,610 people! We have got 2,000 extra tickets, so you all can be part of breaking that record. Remember, the only way to get a Golden Ticket is to buy a complete set of our 20 posters.”

“Remember, this doesn’t start until Labor Day this year. We only have 110,000 tickets, and when they’re gone ... they’re gone! See you all at Ohio Stadium, on Thursday, October 15^th, 2015, for the Wedding of my daughter Claire McArthur, to Charles Newman,” she said, giving Claire a hug and walked off.

I got the microphone back and said, “Thank You Columbus, Thank You Jimmy Bradshaw from the Bradshaw Family Cotillion, and Thank You Michael Bublé - Goodbye.”

I handed the microphone back to the young lady who was apparently taken by the breadth of our announcement. She got it together and did something of a ‘Stand-Up’ to wrap things up.

Collectively, our group left the Mall and we traveled home.

After we got home, I put on a suit and got in the spa. Claire got in, providing me with my pillows, then Kalista and Annie. Sarah got there after doing something on the computer.

It had been quiet in the car, and was now, just as quiet.

Mom broke the silence.

“Charles, just when I think you have outdone yourself, you do it again. You had that crowd eating out of your hand. That reporter might have a crush on you now.”

“Go figure,” said a smiling Sarah.

That caused some giggles all around me.

“The way you dovetailed asking for cities to be included on the tour was a stroke of pure genius. We don’t have to call anyone ... they’ll email us,” Annie said.

“That’s what I checked on before I got in?” Sarah mentioned. “We already have close to six dozen requests for inclusion on the AP Tour.”

“We won’t have nearly the overhead costs Michael has, so maybe we can only charge 40 bucks a head per person, to get butts in the chairs.”

“We also have had a few requests by celebrities to perform at the show ... er, wedding?” Sarah said.

“Like who?” I asked, amazed at this news.

“Helen Reddy, Brandy, Jewel, The Freshman Fifteen, and Jack Jones.”

“Holy Shit,” Kalista said, again causing us all to laugh out loud, equally generating a number of snorts from my mom.

After we all got out and changed into fresh clothes, we all sat down, this time I had Kalista in my lap, who was giggling as we cuddled. I looked over at Claire, who had pre-approved me doing this, and saw a wondrous smile appearing on her face.

“Sarah?”

“Yes, Charles?”

“Don’t they normally serve beer at college football game concessions?”

“I believe they’re just starting up this season, selling beer at NCAA Football events, Loverboy,” Sarah replied.

“MOTHER!”

“Since they’ll be running their regular concessions when we have our Wedding event, will they be selling beer, or can we request they not?” I questioned.

“Do we want to keep the event ‘dry’ Charles? That could cause people to just try to sneak their own in,” Sarah reasoned.

“Annie, what do you think about this?” I asked.

“We could let them sell it, and ask for a piece of the action, thus causing them to raise their prices for at least that one event?” Annie responded.

“I like that, it could stop some people from getting it, thus reducing the potential for trouble. We could tack on an additional dollar per each and have that money go straight to charity, with C-Cask matching the amount, dollar for dollar. It would have the advantage of a tax break along with the ‘feel good’ nature of giving to charity.”

Sarah got up and said, “I’ll mention that to them, but they don’t have to let us do that Charles?”

“I know, but sell it as helping Kids, Sweet-Lips; include Big Brothers, Big Sisters and Boys and Girls Clubs of America, include the Blind Children’s Center for good measure if you’d like,” I said, looking at my laptop at the list of the most underfunded children-based National Charities.

Sarah made the call and after about fifteen minutes on the phone, she hung up, turned around and said, “They went for it, Loverboy – you sure know how to push a person’s buttons, don’t you?”

Kalista, still in my lap asked me, “I have heard that expression before, but what does it mean, Charles?”

“Tinkerbell, it means that someone is deliberately trying to trigger a specific emotional response from you, like, if I had a curfew of ten pm, and I tried to convince my mother who set the curfew, to let me stay out until eleven pm. We argue, and she finally submits, but now I try to push her to go to midnight, because now I know how to create an emotional response in her. Instead of the term ‘you push my buttons’ you could also say ‘you get on my nerves.’ Either works.”

“Thank you Peter Pan I think I have overstayed my welcome on your lap – Tiger Lily is giving me the evil eye?” K said with a beautiful grin.

“Yeah, kiddo – me too? Kiss goodbye?”

“Always – Loverboy.” We gave each other a rather mediocre kiss, so we wouldn’t feel the Wrath of Claire.

As Kalista got off, Claire climbed on and gave me a whopper of a kiss, as if to re-exert her influence.

Sarah asked, “Claire, do I get a turn on his lap, too?”

That caused Mom to start snorting a great deal, which always gets the rest of the ladies giggling or laughing themselves.

“What about me, Charles?” Annie said, “I am always being left out of the reindeer games you three play. I want a turn, too.”

The rest of our ‘Vacation’ sailed by, practicing our newer numbers to polish them up, so they were better. We were quite inundated with places requesting more information regarding the AP Tour.

Annie, Sarah and I put together a fact sheet with minimum room size, dance floor size, sound system requirements and other kinds of details.

We created a graduated fee system as follows:

There would be a $7,500 minimum,
put against the official count.
499 people or less
= a fee per person of $80
500 to 999 people
= a fee per person of $60
1000 and more
= a fee per person of $50

They need to have or get a License to Perform Music from BMI and/or ASCAP or its equivalent.

Putting those requirements in place, slowed down requests. We would confirm back to those places that we selected no less than one year in advance of the January 1^st starting date.

As I thought, Annie and Sarah were handling things like the sharp ladies I know they are.

We packed up all of our stuff and waited for the car coming to get us and take us to the airport. Sarah had her boys already there taking up the dance floor.

About 45 minutes later a stretch hummer arrived and Michael himself showed up to greet us. His driver loaded all of our stuff and we all got in and took the ride to The Port Columbus International Airport, where we went to a building at the airport and pulled up to a small jet. Our driver met up with some fellows who took all of our stuff and stowed it. Each of us, even Mom and Sarah, had a backpack we brought on board. Michael told me that this was a 1983 Bombardier/Challenger model 600 that can fly close to 3,500 miles on a single fill-up of gas.

Of our group, the only ones who’d ever been on a plane before were Annie and Sarah. The rest of us were just a little excited over all of this - I realized it would quickly become old hat to us. There was a pilot and co-pilot. Michael told us it could hold up to nineteen passengers, but we were flying with just seven; our five, Michael and a porter to help us along the way. It was fully stocked with food and drink.

The pilot made an announcement,

“Welcome to Flight Bublé, everyone. We want everyone to be happy and comfortable. During takeoff and landing we request you stay seated with your seat belt firmly fastened. After we reach cruising speed, I’ll announce that you may move around. Not to worry you, but there is something that the FAA requires that I tell you. The seats you are sitting on can be used as a floatation device if we had to make a water landing. We have a full set of parachutes on board if something happens that requires them.”

“A very special welcome to Charles, Claire, and the Sparkling Kalista.”

I looked over and saw Kalista smiling over at Claire and me.

“A special note for those of you who have never been on a plane before. To make this flight through a commercial carrier you would have to go from Columbus to Atlanta, Georgia where you would deplane and wait at least 90 minutes, if not longer. At that point, you’d get on a different plane for the rest of the trip to Houston for a total trip of almost six hours; We’ll do all of that in just under three hours, so sit back and relax.”

Michael’s version of ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ started up as we taxied. Michael said, “It’s good to be me.” We all laughed.

“Michael, I always liked Tony Bennet’s version better,” I said, with Claire slapping me on the chest; we were in the air and the song changed to ‘Come Fly with Me,’ again the Michael Bublé version. I just smiled as I listened thinking, of a routine to it, as we took off.

The time passed quickly as we’d gotten up and milled about a little. I was impressed with how quiet it was. The bathroom was a little different, but that too will become old hat. As I was walking by Sarah, she pulled me over and said, loud enough for Mom to hear, “Want to become a member of the Mile-High Club dear? You’d be my third!”

Mom laughed and slapped her hand, saying, “Keep your voice down Sarah - That’s something I don’t want to have to explain to Kalista.” That caused Sarah and Annie to laugh, as I moved to sit by Kalista for a while.

The moment I sat down by her, she grabbed my hand and said, “Isn’t this exciting Charles, we’re on a plane! That’s so cool.”

“Yes, it is, Princess - Are you OK?” I asked.

“I am fine, Charles, but I have to go pee. Where is it?” she asked.

I pointed her there, saying, “Just read the instructions, Princess ... it’s a little different then a regular bathroom.”

“Thank you Charles. You are always so nice to me. I sure wish I had met you first, then we would be getting married, and Claire would be my Maid of Honor,” she said as she left to find the head.

Stunned, I decided it served no purpose to tell Claire of that conversation, so I walked back up to her. Michael motioned for me to sit down.

“Charles, I saw your announcement last week. I guess everybody did, didn’t they?”

“I understand we got a national Nielsen rating of 2.3, so just under 3 million people saw our announcement,” I replied.

“How’s your call for cities to contact you going?” Michael asked.

“Within the first 30 minutes after our announcement, we got over 70 requests, so Annie, Sarah and I sat down and made a list of our requirements and rates to charge and sent that off to the world, so to speak?”

“Since then?” Michael inquired.

“That slowed things down a little, but we still already have over 350 requests so far, from all over the United States. After we have about 600 or so, I thought I would use a Eulerian circuit to determined who and what order to use, to go to the places we have.”

Michael had a confused look on his face.

“Michael, how does a walking postal worker determine the quickest way to walk his route without walking back and forth on the same street over and over?”

“I don’t know Charles? I never really thought about it before,” Michael replied.

“The post office uses a form of Euler (Pronounced Oy-ler) mapping, so the Postal worker travels the most efficient path to get his or her job done, it appears your concert mapper uses a form of Euler circuitry to make the Tour leg as efficient as possible.”

“I can only get smarter hanging around you, Charles, but I think your ladies need you more than I do,” Michael said.

I excused myself, got up and went back to Claire who apparently had been getting antsy waiting for me, so I sat down and we kissed for a while. She crawled up on my lap making it easier to kiss her just as our pilot announced, “Everyone please return to any seat and buckle up please. We’ll be on the ground in less than fifteen minutes.”

We got on the ground and deplaned. Michael asked Sarah if we had hotel reservations anywhere yet?

“Michael - I have got us booked for our entire time in Texas, but thanks for asking?” Sarah said.

“You ... interested in singing at all on this leg of the Tour?” Michael asked.

“I don’t know, Michael - maybe in a couple of weeks or so?” Sarah responded.

“OK, I’ll wait to hear from you,” Michael said. “Can we take you guys anywhere?”

Sarah replied, “Michael, we have rented an SUV, and we’ll be getting on our own to San Antonio, Dallas and Oklahoma City, where we’ll need you to get us to Santa Fe, where we’ll rent a vehicle until we’re through in Albuquerque, where we’ll need you again to get us to Phoenix. We’re set for a while.”

Chuckling, Michael responded, “It certainly would seem so, Sarah. Just let us know when you guys need us to fly the friendly skies, OK?”

“We do need a ride to the Hertz Rental office, please?” I said to Michael who seemed fixated on Sarah at the moment.

“Michael, did you hear me?” I repeated myself.

His gaze was broken and he said, “Sure guys.”

(43 cities
61 performances
155 days Tour Leg)

Thirty minutes later, we were in a Suburban, heading to our,

1st City
Houston, TX
Two Nights
Hyatt Regency

We had two rooms with two doubles, as we have been getting used to. We hadn’t eaten in a bit so after checking out our rooms, we all went down to the Shula Restaurant, a very nice looking place owned by the legendary Miami Dolphins Football Coach, Don Shula. We had a quite filling lunch. We had gained an hour, so we decided to have a recovery nap of sorts.

We were performing two consecutive nights at the George R. Brown Convention Center, taking up two contiguous halls, so we could have about 10,000 fans at the event. After the nap, we took an easy five-minute car trip to find our place. After a bit of trouble finding the best lot to park in, we saw Michael and his Orchestra setting up to practice. They were just getting ready to play something, so we sat down and heard them play a song being added to the set called ‘Surrender,’ a Mambo.

Claire pulled me up and said, “We’re here, so let’s practice?” We tricked out a nice routine. There was only an acoustic guitar accompanying Michael for the first 30 seconds, then a keyboard sounding like an accordion joined in. It was a nice number I hadn’t heard in a while. There are a couple of moments when the guitarist stops, and we can do some spins, and when it was over, we ended with something of a flamenco step, which made Kalista giggle.

Michael turned to us and said, “Very nice kids, isn’t that what you call a Mambo?”

“Michael is just as trainable as you are, Charles?” Claire said, setting everyone off on a laugh rant, including Michael.

“Get out of here guys, find something to do other than dance?” Michael advised.

So we went back to the room, when I had an idea.

I got up and addressed Annie and Sarah. “Ladies, since you are always working so hard for me and my girls, why don’t you let Charles, Claire and the Sparkling Kalista give you ladies a massage?”

“Charles, are you that hard up for something to do, that you want to give your old mother a massage?” Annie said.

“Sure why not?” I said. “You too are always looking out for us, so why can’t we pamper you lovely ladies? And you are not ‘old’, just ‘seasoned’ a little.”

“I get it now, you want to see us naked, don’t you Charles?” Sarah said, causing everyone to giggle and Mom to snort, as well as slap Sarah for saying it.

“No, I don’t - the three of us just want to pay you back for all of the stuff you do for us. You handled the big boys at Ohio Stadium, saving us over $100,000 in the process. Come on, you two ... get in your suits? Claire and K, you too?” I said.

They all left to change, the Moms to their room and my girls to the bathroom. I quickly changed into my suit while the place was empty. My girls came back first, looking very hot. I gave them each a kiss and a slap on the butt as the Moms came back in also looking very nice. I had put a towel down on the bed and told Annie to lie on her tummy please.

“OK, Mom - do you want me, or Claire and K to ‘do you?’” I asked, it being the most loaded question of the day. Or maybe of the last few months?

I heard this sultry voice say, “I want my son to ‘do me.’ You can massage me too?”

I looked over to Sarah, who was trying to hold in a laugh.

“OK, Mrs. Newman- arms by your side.”

I started on her feet, quickly getting her giggling. Her butt looked uber nice as I was trying to focus on her feet and ankle. I felt a couple of knots in her upper leg as I made my way towards her butt. I leaned over and asked quietly, “Can I rub your upper butt muscle? It’s OK if you don’t or are too embarrassed. I have been wanting to touch your butt for the longest time, you little tease you,” I growled at her.

I laid down the gauntlet, as I rubbed my hands together in anticipation of an answer. She motioned me to get back down to where I was and she said, “Yes, you can touch my butt. Just remember, I am your mother ... not your lover.”

I leaned really close and whispered, “Not yet.” She smiled at me.

I got up and had the girls come over to show and explain what I was doing.

“Girls, there are three gluteal muscles in and around the butt. Mrs. Newman has agreed to let me show you how to rub and release these three muscles. Sitting for long periods of time, like on a plane, can lead to the gluteal muscles, atrophying. Remember that word Kalista? That atrophy can lead to lower back pain and, in women, severe menstrual cycles including mood swings. We all know about mood swings; don’t we mother?”

“Yeah, get on with it, Charles,” mom said snorting into her pillow.

“Here is the gluteal maximus, the largest of the three. Watch what happens when I press and rub towards her head.”

I put both of my hands on her left cheek and pushed up, causing a great big moan from her... “God Charles, that was really good!”

“Please explain for the girls, Annie?”

“Before he did that, I felt a tenseness in my butt, but it seems to have released, or let go.”

“Thank you Mrs. Newman. Here is the gluteal medius, mostly covered by the maximus, but it’s possible to get to from above the subject.”

I moved and reached over mom’s head to get my hands on her g. medius, and I proceeded to push on it towards her foot, again eliciting a moan from mom, who this time said, “Charles, that felt soooo good.” Claire and Kalista both giggled at that.

“Lastly, there is the gluteal minimus, which is called into action when you are standing on one limb, such as in your Developés or your spot spins.”

I moved my hand and pushed lightly on this muscle and this time Mom didn’t respond with a sound that I could hear.

“Girls, when you ‘do your mom,’ remember these muscles, all right?”

They both responded, as I went back to Mom starting on the other foot, working my way up, then doing the three muscles again.