Chapter 8: Blurring the Line

July 26, 1996

Oceano, California

Jake and Gordon Paladay—aka Bigg G—sat in the loungers out on Jake’s deck on the cliff, watching as the sun sank lower and lower toward the horizon. They had just smoked a joint of some pretty good Humboldt greenbud, passing it back and forth until it was gone, and were sipping from icy cold bottles of Lighthouse Ale from the Lighthouse Brewing Company in Coos Bay. A cooler next to Jake’s lounger contained ice and four more unopened bottles. Both men were dressed in shorts and simple t-shirts. They were feeling quite mellow, particularly Jake. It was Friday at last and this was his first indulgence of intoxicating substances in more than a week now.

“I really dig your place, brother,” G told him with obvious sincerity. “I can see now why you go to all the trouble of flying back and forth all the time.”

“It’s worth it,” Jake said. “Worth every penny I spend on fuel and maintenance, every dollar I spent on this land and this house, and worth every minute I lose from my life making the commute.”

“Fuck yeah,” G said. “I get it now. You got this big-ass crib sitting on this cliff over the ocean. There ain’t no fuckin’ smog here, no fuckin’ neighbors putting their nose in your business, and you go to sleep at night in a place that ain’t fuckin’ LA.”

“To ain’t fuckin’ LA,” Jake said, raising his beer bottle for a toast.

“Ain’t fuckin’ LA,” Gordon said, clinking his own bottle against it.

This was G’s first visit to Casa Kingsley. He had read an article in the LA Times this morning in which the noise complaints from a small but vocal number of San Luis Obispo County residents about Jake’s new plane had been detailed and sensationalized and then cross referenced with complaints on the same subject from various Coos County residents. G had called Jake’s cell phone to check in with him and give him a little good-natured shit about disturbing the peace. After receiving said ration of shit, Jake had invited him to fly up with him after he finished TSF rehearsal for the week to check out the plane and the house. With nothing else to do, G had agreed and met Jake at Whiteman at 4:30. The two of them had the house to themselves. Elsa had weekends off and Jake had flown her to LA this morning so she could use Laura’s car to drive to Orange County and visit her family. Laura, along with Celia and the rest of the band, were now in England, playing the first dates of the European tour. Neesh was in San Francisco attending a two-week orientation course for her new position as a junior lawyer for the firm of Brannon, Smith, and Harlow, an upper-end group that specialized in securities, equities, and derivatives. Jake had given him the grand tour of the house and then made them a couple of ribeye steaks on the grill for dinner. After cleaning up, they made their way out to the deck to watch the sunset. The hot tub remained closed and latched shut, however, since there were no women present and it was therefore forbidden under the rules of being a guy that they get into it under such circumstances.

“How goes your next album?” Jake asked him. “Getting any work done?”

“Still in the composition phase,” G told him. “I got six tunes I’ve been working up on the piano so far, but I haven’t got together with my homies yet to start taking them to the next level.” He shrugged. “I’m not really in much of a hurry. Still getting lots of airplay from the last album and still selling enough copies to keep me in beer money.”

“That’s pretty much the boat I’m in,” Jake said. “I’ve only got a few basic tunes strummed out so far and I’m not even sure I’m happy with them. Most of my time is being taken up with trying to get my set together for the TSF. It’s coming up soon.”

“How’s that going for you?” G asked.

“It’s kind of a two steps forward and one step back kind of thing,” Jake said. “Every time we start to make some progress, something happens to throw a cock-block at us. We were able to nail down Natalie as our violinist—remember her?”

“The Russian bitch that home-wrecked Celia’s pilot?”

“That’s her,” he confirmed. “It was kind of a stroke of luck, really. She moved to Texas to be with him and married him there after both of their divorces were final. She had told us when she made the move that she might be agreeable to doing some studio sessions in the future but would not go out on tour. So, I told Pauline to give her a call and see if she might help us out for the TSF. Pauline couldn’t get ahold of her though. Her number was no longer in service. And so, I was starting to think about maybe asking my mom if she would step up.”

Gordon chuckled at this. “That would’ve been something,” he said. “Your momma steppin’ up on the stage and playing with you at a heavy metal festival.”

“Hey,” Jake said. “I think she could’ve pulled it off. My mom knows how to rock when she has to. Besides, none of my tunes with violin in them are really hard rockers anyway.”

“True,” G said. He had listened to all of Jake’s solo albums and did, in fact, particularly appreciate the cuts with Mary Kingsley playing her fiddle.

“But before I could even think of a way to ask her, Natalie just up and calls Pauline out of the blue. She tells her that her husband just got a gig flying for United Express out of John Wayne and they’ve moved back to So-Cal and was there maybe any studio sessions she could do? And, just like that, violinist problem solved. She’s not quite as good as Eric or my mom, but she’s pretty damn close and she’s already familiar with a good portion of my tunes.”

G nodded appreciatively. “I like it when shit just works its way out like that.”

“Yeah, me too,” Jake agreed. “And then, just after Nat joined the team, I found a keyboardist I liked. Ron Sailor.”

“I’ve heard that name before,” G said. “I’m not sure where, but I’ve heard it.”

“He used to play with Tubular back in the late eighties,” Jake said. “After they broke up, he mostly did session work and the occasional live gig as a support player. He’s worked with Bob Seger, Neil Diamond, Stevie Nicks, and Joe Satriani. Impressive resume, right? He auditioned for me and fuckin’ nailed it. The dude is amazing on the instrument. He can play the synthesizer and the piano and he agreed to work for the basic session wages that I pay.”

“Sounds like you scored,” G said.

“Sounded like it,” Jake said. “As it turned out though, I should have talked to Bob and Neil and Stevie and Joe before I brought him onboard. He only lasted a week and a half and then I had to fire him.”

“What happened?”

“He’s a fuckin’ alky. And I mean a hard-core alky. He missed two sessions completely and was drunk at all the others. And even if I didn’t have a rule against that sort of shit, his skill on his instrument decreases proportionately with his intake.”

Gordon shook his head sadly. “That’s a damn shame,” he said. “Far be it from me to judge someone for their drinking—I’m pretty much a functional alcoholic myself—but to let it fuck up your livelihood? I just don’t get that shit.”

“Me either,” Jake said. “And I’m a man who spent a good portion of 1990 and early ‘91 drunk and wallowing in self-pity.”

“The South Island Blur,” G said. He was one of the few people on Earth who realized that Jake’s most popular solo tune was not about partying in the tropics, as was commonly believed.

“Fuckin’ A,” Jake said. “So, anyway, I still need to find a keyboard player who can lay down the piano and the synthesizer tracks, or one of each. And the TSF just keeps getting closer and closer. Hopefully, Pauline will have some auditions for me this week.”

“You know something, homey,” Gordon said, “I’m a little disappointed in you.”

“Why is that?”

“Why the fuck didn’t you ask me to lay down the keyboards for you?”

“You?” Jake asked, surprised.

“Me,” he confirmed, grinning slyly. “Is it the color of my skin or something?”

“What?”

“Don’t want no darkie playin’ on your stage and making the rest of y’all look bad?”

Jake looked at him and then shook his head in amusement. “Yeah, that’s exactly what it was,” he said.

They shared a laugh. “Seriously though, homey,” G said. “Why didn’t you ask? You know I play a mean piano and you know I do all the synthesizer tracks on my cuts.”

“I guess it never occurred to me,” Jake said. “Are you offering?”

“Fuckin’ A, I’m offering. I owe you big for all the work you’ve done with me on Step and Signed and my tour. Least I can do is help you out with the TSF. Besides, I ain’t got much going on these days. Neesh is gonna be working sixty-hour weeks for a while so I need something to occupy my days.”

“Well ... all right then,” Jake said. “Why don’t we give it a shot?”

“Let’s do it,” G said. “Monday morning, nine o’clock, KVA Records?”

“That’s where we’ll be. How much money you want for this gig?”

“Not a dime,” G said. “I’m just helpin’ a brother out.”

“Bullshit,” Jake said. “I’ll at least pay you the same as I pay the other musicians—fifty an hour for the rehearsals and your cut of a hundred grand for the TSF itself.”

“If it makes you feel better to do that, I won’t argue about it.”

“It would make me feel better,” Jake confirmed. “And what about doing some of your material? We should probably at least do Step and Signed, right?”

Gordon was shaking his head. “I don’t think we should do any of my shit,” he said. “It’s your show, not mine. In fact, I don’t think you should even introduce me. No sense distracting their attention away from you. I’ll just come out with a hat and a pair of sunglasses on and play my part and let everyone wonder who that nigger on the keyboards is. It’ll be fun.”

“You sure about this?” Jake asked.

“As sure as scoring with a groupie,” G said.

“That’s pretty sure,” Jake said.

“Yep.”

They watched the sun disappear over the horizon and the first few stars come out. They then picked up the cooler and the empty bottles and headed back to the house. After throwing away what needed to be thrown away and then stowing everything else, they each opened a fresh beer and headed for the entertainment room.

“Hey,” Gordon suddenly said, “remember that talk box I gave you?”

“Of course,” Jake said. “I have it in my composition room.”

“Did you ever figure out how to make music with it?”

“Hell yeah,” Jake said. “You were right when you said it adds a whole separate layer to making notes, but I took it up to Oregon with me when we were recording the last albums and played around with it quite a lot in one of the empty iso rooms when I wasn’t needed on a track in progress. I got to be pretty good with it, actually—not quite Frampton level or anything, but I can do solos and riffs that don’t sound like somebody strangling a chicken.”

“No shit?”

“No shit,” Jake confirmed. “I might even find a way to lay down a track or two with it on my next album.”

“Bust it out, homey,” Gordon said. “Let me hear you play it.”

“Uh ... sure, okay,” Jake said. “Just help me carry the shit in here.”

They went to the composition room and hauled the amplifier, the speaker, the talk box, the microphone stand, the various cords and cables, and Jake’s sunburst Les Paul guitar back to the entertainment room. This took about ten minutes to accomplish. Hooking everything up took another ten. G then sat down on the couch across from Jake, near the speaker, and Jake sat down in a chair. He quickly tuned the guitar by ear and then set it up for moderate distortion. He played out a few riffs and a brief solo in order to get into the groove of playing. He then stepped down on the talk box pedal.

“All right,” he told G. “Here goes.”

He put the plastic tube in his mouth and then began to play some simple riffs on the Les Paul. The vibration of the strings was converted to an analog signal by the dual Humbucker pickups on the guitar and then shipped to the amplifier by the guitar cord, where it was distorted and amplified and then sent to the talk box, which was a basic isolation box with a plastic tube coming out of it. The sound traveled through the air inside that plastic tube and was emitted in Jake’s mouth, where he could use his lips, tongue, and jaw to further shape it in a variety of ways. From Jake’s mouth, it went into the microphone and came out the speaker.

He kept his lips, tongue, and jaw in a neutral position at first, so the notes he played came out sounding mostly normal, with just a bit of an echo effect. He played a brief solo and then the riff for Ozzie’s I Don’t Know. From there, he started to use his lips and tongue a bit, transitioning into the main riff for the Eagles’ Those Shoes, followed by the blues stomp from Rocky Mountain Way. He pulled these off pretty well, improving with each repetition he made.

“I like that shit, homey,” G told him enthusiastically. “It’s like Joe Walsh is in the fuckin’ room with us.”

“I don’t know about that,” Jake said modestly (and truthfully), “but I have definitely picked up the basics of the device.”

“Do some Frampton,” Gordon ordered. “That’s the gold standard there—and don’t even try to tell me you haven’t been playing around with Frampton’s shit.”

Jake chuckled. He had actually been about to make that claim. “All right,” he said. “Just don’t expect too much.”

He ran through his Peter Frampton repertoire, starting with Show Me the Way and then moving into the extended talk-box solo from Do You Feel Like We Do? Though he did not have quite the same output dynamic as Frampton had because of differing distortion levels, he was able to duplicate the talking guitar effect reasonably well. From there, he played some other examples of talk box tunes that he had taught himself: Nazareth’s Hair of the Dog, Pink Floyd’s Pigs (Three Different Ones), Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer, and Steely Dan’s Haitian Divorce. Finally, he silenced the guitar and removed his mouth from the tube, breathing heavily.

“That was badass!” Gordon declared.

“I guess,” Jake said, taking a deep breath and holding it for a moment. “I always forget to breathe as much as I should when I use this thing. It’s like walking uphill.”

“You have got to find a way to use that thing at the TSF.”

“The TSF?” Jake said, shaking his head. “No way. We’re already pressed for time to work the set up. There’s no way I could work in a completely new tune.”

“I’m not saying you need to come up with an entirely new tune,” G said. “I’m saying that you can find a way to adapt the box into one of your existing tunes that you plan to play anyway. Extend the solo or the bridge or maybe even both on one of the less popular cuts and make it into something new. That’s what Frampton did with Feel, isn’t it?”

“Uh ... yeah, that is my understanding.”

“And the live version of Feel is now Frampton’s most popular track, isn’t it?”

“It’s certainly up there,” Jake had to admit. “Are you suggesting that I could pull something off like Frampton did? Take one of my more marginal tunes and turn it into something new by adding in some talk box.”

“Fuckin’ A,” Gordon said. “You could be this generation’s Peter fucking Frampton.”

“I am nowhere near as skilled with the instrument as Frampton or Walsh or even Sambora. I’m not sure I could pull it off.”

“You may not be as skilled as them, but you’re no slouch either. I think you can do this shit, Jake.”

Jake thought about it for a few seconds. The idea seemed to gain appeal the more thinking he did. “Maybe,” he said at last. “But if I do this, you need to step up as well.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want a keyboard solo of some kind in the tune as well. And I want to introduce you to the crowd at that point in the show.”

“Introduce me as Bigg G?” he asked. “I don’t really want to go there.”

“I’ll introduce you as Gordon Paladay,” Jake countered. “Just a brief little blast out, like Frampton did for Bob Mayo on the live version of Feel. I’ll even imitate the style: ‘Gordon Paladay on the keyboards, Gordon Paladay’. Cue the audience applause in honor of you. I then transition into the guitar solo and the talk box solo.”

Gordon nodded his head as he thought this over. “Okay,” he said. “I can get into that. Most of the people in your audience won’t even know that my real name is Gordon Paladay. The media people will pick up on it though. The secret won’t be secret for long.”

“No, but will the knowledge that you played keyboards for me at the TSF hurt either of our reputations? It’s already known by your target demographic and mine that we collaborate on our music. I think it would do nothing but give me some added street cred and you some added musical cred.”

A few more nods from Gordon. “You do have a point there, homey,” he said.

“Why don’t we take a look at the set list I put together and see where we can do this thing?” Jake suggested.

“Bust it out,” Gordon said.

There was a three-and-a-half-week break between the last date of Matt Tisdale’s European tour in Odesa, Ukraine and the first date of the Asian tour in Seoul, South Korea. This was how long it would take for the equipment to travel by ship from the port of Odesa, through the Suez Canal, arrive at the port of Incheon, and then be trucked from there to Seoul to await the arrival of the crew to set everything up. The plan had been for the band and crew to enjoy their tour break at a resort on the Greek island of Mykonos in the Aegean Sea, and, in fact, most of the band and crew were still going to do just that. But Jim Ramos, Matt’s tour paramedic, whose job it was to stay by Matt’s side at all times during the trip, would not get to see the resort this time around. Instead, he was flying back to Los Angeles with Matt so that Matt could spend the break sorting through his IRS and state franchise tax board troubles.

“Was I right about the Ukrainian gash, or what?” Matt asked as they cruised high above Belarus about an hour after lifting off from Kiev. They were en route to London, as the Ukrainian International Airlines currently did not have any planes capable of reaching the United States nonstop. That was okay with Jim. He did not really wish to fly any further with UIA than he had to.

“It was some pretty good gash,” Jim said honestly. Though the Ukrainian groupies that he had bedded since arriving in the country eight days ago were not into shaving or even trimming things down below, they had all been extremely beautiful and enthusiastic sex partners. It had been an experience to remember in a trip full of such things.

“It’s gonna be kind of hard to go back to regular gash now,” Matt said sadly. He then shrugged. “Oh well. Life goes on, right?”

“Right,” Jim agreed, taking a sip from his gin and tonic.

Matt lit up a cigarette—smoking was still allowed on UIA flights—and puffed on it thoughtfully for a moment while sipping out of his own Jack and coke. “I’m sorry about you having to miss out on that fuckin’ Greek island,” he said. “It sounded like a good place to let your schlong out on the beach and kick back for a few.”

“It’s no big,” Jim told him. “It’ll be nice to spend a little time at home.”

“I guess,” Matt said. “I really do feel bad about dragging your ass along with me. After all, I won’t need you when I’m in LA and have access to American fucking healthcare. It’s just these flights out of the third world and back to America that make me nervous.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Jim told him. “This is my job, what you pay me all that money for. And, like I said, I’d rather be home for a few weeks than sitting on an island with my schlong out.”

Matt looked at him pointedly. “You can’t possibly be serious about that.”

“Dead serious,” Jim said. “There will be other tour breaks, right? They’re setting us up in Rio for the break between Asia and South America. And then we get to go to Vegas for the TSF in the middle of it. That’s all shit I never got to do as a private paramedic. Believe me, Matt. I will never be one to complain about having to do my job. Especially not when I’m working for you.”

“All right then,” Matt said, taking another drag. “I guess I’ll keep you around a little while longer.”

They flew on for a bit, long enough for the two of them to finish their drinks and order two more. While they were waiting for them to arrive, Jim looked over at Matt once again. “I know it’s none of my business,” he said, “and feel free to tell me that, but how much tax trouble are you in?”

“That’s what I’m going home to find out,” Matt said sourly. “It will be significant, I’m afraid. According to the tax lawyer I hired, I should probably just bend over and start slabbing on the lube right now so at least when they stick it in, it won’t hurt as much.”

“Your lawyer said that?” Jim asked.

“I’m paraphrasing a bit,” he replied, “but that’s the general gist of the situation. I haven’t paid any state or federal taxes on my solo income since I started getting it.”

“None at all?” Jim asked, astounded.

“That fuckin’ scumbag accountant I had doing my taxes told me I didn’t have to,” he said. “And then the motherfucker skipped off to South America with another sixteen million of my dollars when the shit hit the fan.”

“That’s fucked up,” Jim said, unable to think of anything else.

“That’s a good way of putting it,” Matt said. “I’ll tell you one thing, if I ever catch up with that motherfucker down there ... or anywhere ... his ass is fuckin’ lunchmeat. And I mean that shit literally. I will kill him where he stands and then grind him up and turn him into hamburger and feed him to the fuckin’ dogs in the dog pound.”

Jim felt a little chill as he heard this. He had no trouble envisioning Matt Tisdale doing exactly what he just said to someone who had wronged him in this manner.

Matt dozed off a few minutes after finishing his drink. Jim watched the scenery passing by outside his first-class window (on UIA, first-class meant you got free drinks, got to sit up front, board first and exit first, and your seat was slightly bigger than the common person’s seat). He still enjoyed looking at places he had never been before. They landed on time at Heathrow and then spent the two-hour layover in the British Airways first-class lounge drinking Jack and cokes and gin and tonics, respectively. Finally, it was time to board one of the new 777 aircraft for the long flight to Los Angeles.

“Now this is fuckin’ class,” Matt said as they were directed to their seats. He had chosen British Airways specifically for the first-class arrangements.

“That ain’t no shit,” Jim said, impressed. Their seats were next to each other at the very front of the aircraft. They both had twenty-inch television screens and the seats were plush, separated from each other, had dedicated armrests, and were capable of fully reclining into the supine position. It was like sitting in a recliner in front of the TV at home.

Matt took the aisle seat—he had no interest in looking out the window in flight—and tried it out for a few minutes while other passengers streamed by on their way to their own seats. Some recognized him and a few greeted him, but no one asked for his autograph. Apparently, there was some taboo against doing that on a boarding aircraft.

When the boarding was pretty much complete but the door to the plane was still open, Matt suddenly stood up and got the attention of one of the British flight attendants.

“Can I help you with something, Mr. Tisdale?” she asked politely, her English accent quite strong and aristocratic sounding.

“Yeah,” Matt said. “Where’s the pisser? I gotta offload.”

She directed him to the facilities. While he was in there, the flight attendant took a moment to check out Jim. “Are you one of Mr. Tisdale’s band members?” she asked.

“No,” Jim said. “I’m his paramedic.”

“His paramedic?”

“It’s a long story,” he said.

She smiled at him. “Maybe you’d like to tell it to me sometime?”

“How’s that?” he asked, confused.

“Or any other story of your travels,” she said, a saucy smile on her face. “I have a three-day layover in Los Angeles. Perhaps we could get together during that.”

Jim looked her up and down for a few moments, taking her in. She really was quite attractive. Brunette hair, brown eyes, a feminine, curvy body. A woman who would have been quite out of his league before he was on the payroll of Matt Tisdale. And now she was propositioning him just minutes after meeting him for the first time. “I think I would like that,” he said with a smile of his own.

“Lovely,” she said. “They’re putting us up in the Hilton at the airport. Two to a room. Maybe you have someplace a little more ... oh ... private?”

“Uh ... actually, I’m going to be staying at Matt’s place in Orange County. You see, I gave up my apartment when we went out on tour.”

“Will Mr. Tisdale mind if you have a guest over?” she asked.

“You know, I don’t think he will.”

Matt did not have a problem with this. In fact, he was quite proud of his medic. “The English stewardess, huh? And she just came out and asked for it?”

“That’s how it went down,” Jim told him.

“Out of fuckin’ sight,” he said, impressed. “She’s definitely doable. Hell yeah! Bring her on over. I was going to have a talk with you about how you can’t fuck Kim the first night we’re home, but now I don’t have to.”

“Only the first night?” Jim asked.

“Yeah. I’m sure she’ll want my schlong on that first night, and I’ll want her snatch. But after that, all of LA is open to me. And while this foreign gash we’ve been getting is pretty good—particularly the Ukrainian gash—there’s still a lot to be said for good old, Grade A rated American gash. Am I right?”

“You are right,” Jim had to agree.

They took off on time and headed northwest out over the ocean, taking the great-circle route up over Greenland and northern Canada. Matt and Jim both had two more drinks after reaching cruising altitude and then reclined their chairs and went to sleep. They awoke for a bit just before the aircraft crossed the east coast of Labrador. They ate their dinners—both had seen the movie Airplane and went with the steak dinner instead of the fish—had another few drinks, and then went right back to sleep. They did not wake up again until the plane began to descend into the landing pattern for LAX.

After clearing the customs checkpoint, they met the English stewardess—her name was Holly as it turned out—in front of the terminal. She was now dressed in a pair of tight jeans and a low-cut blouse that showed off an impressive amount of cleavage. She rolled her wheeled travel bag with her. They climbed into the limo that Matt had arranged for and started heading for the western outskirts of San Juan Capistrano. All of them were quite jetlagged, though Holly was probably more used to it. They had left London at 4:10 PM Greenwich Time, flown for more than eleven hours, and it was now 7:45 PM Pacific Time, but their bodies were telling them it was early in the morning, right around sunrise. Fortunately, Matt had a great remedy for this. He poured everyone a healthy shot of Jack Daniels and they put them in their stomachs.

Holly was quite impressed with Matt’s mansion on the beach. She was also quite impressed to meet Mary Ann Cummings, declaring that she had seen every one of her films and owned multiple videotapes from her production company.

“Which is your favorite?” Kim asked her.

“I have to say that To Fill a Mockingbird is the one that gets me the hottest and that I’ve watched the most.”

“Ahhh yes,” Kim said. “People do seem to like the whole brother and sister aspect of that film. What about my production tapes?”

“The Amateur Lesbians series,” Holly said without hesitation. “I own every volume.”

“Interesting,” Kim said with a knowing smile. “The subject interests you?”

“It does,” Holly agreed.

“Ever had a chance to try it yourself?”

“Not yet,” Holly said. “But if the opportunity ever came up...”

“Maybe that will happen,” Kim suggested.

They ate dinner—even though it felt to the recent travelers that they should be eating breakfast—and had a few more drinks. Matt then declared that he needed to get his dick wet and that Holly and Jim should make themselves at home. He led Kim to the bedroom. Jim and Holly soon retired to the guest bedroom and became better acquainted—intimately acquainted you might say—themselves.

Holly stayed the night. The next day, shortly after lunch, Jim and Matt sat in easy chairs and watched enthusiastically as Kim and Holly stripped down and had a lengthy and hot session of lesbian sex on the couch. After about forty-five minutes or so, Matt declared that it was time for the guys to get in on the action as well. He stood and started stripping off his clothes. Jim hesitated for a moment, feeling a little awkward—should they maybe ask permission first? he wondered—but then he got over it. He started pulling off his own clothes.