Chapter 17A: Balance of Power

The back of the stretch limousine was filled with a thick, pungent could of marijuana smoke, a cloud so dense the passengers could barely see from one end to the other. All five members of Intemperance were back there as well as Janice Boxer, their publicity manager, and Steve Crow, the man identified as the producer of The Thrill Of Doing Business album and all the songs featured on it. There were two fat joints going around, the band members smoking them with enthusiasm, the two management types trying everything in their power to stop them.

"This really isn't proper," cried Janice, who had never smoked marijuana in her life (although she was suddenly starting to feel a little dizzy and thirsty). "We're on our way to the Grammy party! One of the most prestigious, exclusive black tie events in Hollywood!"

"We're dressed in black ties, aren't we?" asked Jake, who took the remainder of the first joint from Coop and inserted it into a sterling silver roach clip. He put it to his lips, inhaled deeply, and then deliberately blew the majority of the smoke out into the confined space after holding it in less than five seconds.

"We're all going to be reeking of this stuff," said Crow. "They're going to think I was smoking it too."

"You say that like anyone gives a monkey's cock who you are," said Matt.

"I'm the producer of Crossing The Line," Crow said angrily. Obviously this was a sore spot with him. "I'm just as much nominated for Record of the Year as you guys are."

"Yeah," said Matt. "You are. And that just goes to show how much of a fuckin' farce this whole Grammy Award concept is."

Janice and Crow both gasped as if his words constituted a blasphemy, which, to them, it did.

"A farce?" Janice said. "How can you say such a thing? The Grammy Award is the most coveted, most sacred of all musical honors!"

"It's nothing but a bunch of shit," Matt insisted. "It's a big promotional gambit put on, run, and voted on by you record industry assholes. The artists who make the songs have no input into it at all, nor do the fans who buy the music."

"Matt speaks truly," said Bill, who was sipping from his second cognac and 7-up (with two cherries and an olive). "If the award nomination and selection process was a true reflection of the popularity of an artist's music with the American public, Thrill, the album, would have been nominated for Album of the Year. After all, it was the third best selling LP of 1984, wasn't it?"

"You would think you would be grateful for being nominated for anything at all," Janice admonished. "Crossing The Line is up for Song of the Year and Record of the Year. Those are the top awards! The top!"

"And there's no way in hell we're going to win them," Jake said. "You do know that, don't you?"

"I'll admit that the ballots will probably favor either Tina Turner or La Diferencia," she said. "But Jake stands a good chance of taking the Best Rock Vocal Performance. A very good chance."

"Over Bruce Springsteen?" Jake asked. "Mr. Patriotism himself? I don't think so."

"All this shit has already been decided anyway," said Matt. "The fuckin' ceremony is still a week away and you people have already picked which ass-sucking bands you're going to promote the next cycle, haven't you?"

"You guys are so frustrating!" Crow suddenly yelled. "Why are you so negative about everything that has anything to do with our industry? Why do you think everything is a conspiracy?"

"The track record of your industry merits the suspicion that everything is a conspiracy," said Bill.

"Yeah," agreed Coop righteously. "It's the way the fuckin' world works, man!"

"Goddamn right," said Darren, who had just shot up with a healthy dose of heroin thirty minutes before and had no idea what anyone was even talking about.

"That is just ridiculous," said Crow. "We stand just as good a chance as Tina Turner or those improbably successful Mexicans of taking that award."

"They're Venezuelan," said Bill.

"A beaner is a beaner!" Crow yelled. "I don't even know why they were nominated! They're not an American band. Why are they in an American awards show?"

"Because an American record label recorded their album," said Jake. "Jesus, don't you even know how your own business works?"

"And what's up with this 'we' shit?" asked Matt. "Why the fuck are you included in the nomination for Record of the Year with us? What the hell did you do?"

"I produced the record!" Crow cried.

"You mean you threatened and tried to intimidate us throughout the entire process," said Jake. "Is that what producing is? And if you'll recall, you originally rejected that song in favor of some of that crap your ass-kissing songwriters came up with."

"Irregardless," said Crow. "I am producer of the record and just as entitled to the award as you are, maybe even more so."

"Regardless," Bill said.

"What?" asked Crow.

"Irregardless isn't a word. The way you use it means the same thing as 'regardless'. I hope you didn't insert that into your acceptance speech."

"Irregardless is too a word!" Crow said. "I hope you don't think you can..."

"There's the ballroom," Janice interrupted. "We're almost there."

"Shit," said Matt. "We'd better finish these roaches quick."

"Right," said Jake.

He and Matt each took a final hit and then blew out the smoke, adding a fresh layer of haze to the compartment. They then removed the smoldering remains of the roaches from the clips and popped them into their mouths, swallowing them.

"That's disgusting!" said Janice.

"Hey," said Matt, "there's no sense wasting even a fragment of good bud. Remember that and you'll go far in life."

The limo slid into the circular entryway to the Hollywood Grand Ballroom where the pre-Grammy party for 1985 was being held. This was an invitation-only event and, since the majority of the nominees were to be in attendance, a large contingent of the press corps was camped out in front to film the arriving stars. As the limo came to a stop more than a hundred video and still cameras were aimed at it. Camera lights blared brightly, lighting them up like they were on stage. Reporters doing live shots spoke into their microphones, speculating on who this latest arrival might be.

"Now remember," said Janice. "There will be reporters and camerapersons inside as well as out here. This is a very high profile event. No shenanigans like you pulled at the movie premier."

"Of course not," Jake promised.

"We've matured since then," said Matt.

The driver opened the back door of the limo and a large cloud of smoke, plainly visible in the light, went billowing out. Matt was the first person to exit the vehicle. He gave a nod to the gathered media and then turned to head up the red carpet towards the entrance. As he took his first step he belched and a large plume of marijuana smoke, formed in his stomach after he'd swallowed the still burning roach, ejected forcibly from his mouth.

"Oops," he said, grinning. "Excuse me."

Janice buried her head in her hands and wondered just how bad this one was going to be.

John Denver, who would be the host of this year's Grammy Awards, was also the host of the pre-Grammy party. He stood in the reception area of the main ballroom, dressed in a perfectly fitted tuxedo, his signature wire-rim glasses perched upon his face. A gaggle of reporters and cameramen flanked him. The band was led directly to him for the formal introduction and welcome. They all shook his hand as he greeted them by name. He wrinkled his nose a little as he caught a good whiff of the odor they were exuding.

"It smells like you boys have been engaging in a little Rocky Mountain high of your own this evening," he said lightly.

"Fuckin' A," said Matt. "Some good shit too. You wanna burn one with us?"

"Hell yeah!" said Coop. "That'd be a trip, wouldn't it? Gettin' stoned with John Denver?"

"Uh... some other time, perhaps," Denver said. "I've heard a few selections from your album. I'm not much of a fan of hard rock music but I must say, Jake, you play an impressive acoustic guitar."

"Thanks," Jake said. "You're not too bad at it yourself. My mom and dad listen to your music all the time."

"I see," he said slowly. "Well, welcome to..."

"Hey," said Coop. "Tell us some stories from Vietnam, dude."

"Vietnam?" Denver said.

"Yeah, when you used to be a sniper. Who would've thought that someone as candy-ass as you used to pick off gooks back in the jungle."

"Well, actually..." started Denver.

"You and Mr. Rogers used to be in the same squad, didn't you?" asked Darren. "Which one of you had more kills?"

"You fuckin' idiots," said Matt. "He wasn't really a sniper in Vietnam. That's just one of those urban legend things." He looked at Denver. "Uh... isn't it?"

"I was never a sniper in Vietnam," Denver assured them.

"No shit?" asked Coop, disappointed.

"No shit," Denver said.

"What about Mr. Rogers though?" asked Darren. "He was a sniper wasn't he?"

Denver thought this over for a second and then nodded. "Yes," he said. "Mr. Rogers was one of the best."

"Uh... why don't we mingle for a bit?" asked Janice, who was blushing bright red. "Thank you, Mr. Denver. It was lovely meeting you." With that, she whisked her musicians away and they quickly found the nearest bar.

For the next two hours, they mingled, sometimes together, sometimes separately. Janice tried to keep track of them — and thus keep them in line — but this task was made difficult by a sudden but insistent interest she developed in the appetizer table. She spent her first twenty minutes piling plateful after plateful of salami, cheese, crackers, and stuffed mushrooms onto the china and devouring them.

Jake talked to several musicians and other celebrities who had either been nominated for Grammy awards or were slated to be guests at the ceremony show. Weird Al Yankovich — who struck Jake as decidedly un-weird in person — discussed politics with him for almost twenty minutes. He held a five-minute conversation with Lionel Richie on the subject of the dress Sheila E. was wearing. He found himself next to B.B. King at one point and they talked for more than half an hour about the Les Paul guitar and the best means of reproducing sound through an amplifier with it.

After B.B excused himself and headed off towards the men's room, Jake lit a cigarette and headed for the bar to get himself another drink. Halfway across the room he was intercepted by a tall, heavily made-up brunette. He recognized her as Audrey Williams, a reporter for the Hollywood Reporter news show. Her cameraman and sound technician trailed behind her, shooting and recording.

"Jake? How are you doing?" she asked, stepping neatly in front of him and blocking his path.

"Just fine," he said, trying to step around her. She didn't allow it. She simply moved to keep her body in front of him.

"How about a brief word about the upcoming awards?" she asked.

He suppressed a sigh. He really hated dealing with reporters of any kind and these gossip show reporters were the worst. "Sure," he said. "What do you want to know?"

"There are many people who say that an act such as yours — you know, with the way you rampantly advocate immoral sexuality and drug use — should be banned from participation in the awards. What do you think about that?"

He shrugged. "I think some people worry too much about stuff like that. Obviously two million people liked our album enough to buy it."

"So you think you stand a chance to walk away with one of the coveted gramophones on February 26?" she asked. "You've been nominated for three but you've got some pretty stiff competition."

"I don't know," he said. "You tell me. What do you think our chances are?"

This threw her off stride. She was not used to people asking her questions.

"Well, if there's nothing else," Jake said when she failed to answer him, "the call of the spirits is beckoning to me."

"The call of the spirits?" she said, her brow wrinkling in confusion.

"The bar," he clarified, holding up his empty glass to her.

"Oh... I get it," she said and then gave a dutiful giggle. "Actually, there is one more thing."

Of course there was, Jake thought. There's always one more thing with these people. "And what might that be?"

"It's about the lawsuit that National Records filed against you and your band," she said.

Jake sighed, completely unsurprised. The plan that the dispute between Intemperance and their record label would remain secret had turned out to be quite naïve. As soon as it was realized that the band had not entered the recording studio on the date that National publicists said they were going to, the reporters began flocking around, demanding to know why. The pat answer — that the band was unhappy with a few of their songs and we're taking the time to rework them — satisfied the enquirers for less than a week. At that point an investigative reporter for the American Watcher tabloid got wind of the lawsuit somehow (probably from a court clerk, Pauline speculated, they were notorious for blabbing information to reporters for money). Once alerted to the possibility that National was suing its most profitable band it took the reporter less than a day to dig up the actual filing paperwork which was, of course, a matter of public record. They broke the story the first week of February with a copy of the lawsuit reproduced within their pages. Fortunately they had been unable to get their hands on the actual transcript of the hearings that had taken place since both parties had agreed to keep them sealed.

As soon as it became public knowledge that a lawsuit had been filed, the reporters and paparazzi began hounding the band almost as badly as they'd done during the peak of the Jake and Mindy relationship. National cried foul before negotiations for the new contract could even get properly started. Now that the word was out about the dispute, they said, there was no point in negotiating anything since one of the key terms of the agreement had been violated. Frowley told Pauline they were back to square one — either the band honor their existing contract immediately or they would go forth and sue the band for breach of contract. Pauline got them back to the table by pointing out that the media discovering the lawsuit was not the fault of either her or the band, that just because they knew there was a lawsuit didn't mean they knew the band and the label were renegotiating, and, most important, that if they did go back to square one there was still the significant possibility of a future California Supreme Court ruling in the band's favor. This argument didn't sway Frowley, who had been against renegotiation from the start and still was, but it did sway Casting, the National Records CEO who feared such a precedent-setting Supreme Court ruling the same way medieval Europeans used to fear the black plague. A press conference, attended by Jake, Matt, and Pauline as well as himself, was held, and it was announced that, yes, there were some disagreements about new material that would be recorded for the next Intemperance album, and yes, these disagreements had led to the filing of a lawsuit when the band did not present enough acceptable material by their contractual deadline, but that both parties were working hard to settle these disagreements so the lawsuit could be dropped and the band could get back into the studio.

"That should hold them for a little while," Casting said after the press conference. "But there had better not be any leaks about the negotiations we're having. If they get confirmation we're doing that, the whole deal is off and we'll take our chances with Rosie and The Supremes."

And so far, no word had leaked. The gossip press enquired almost daily as to what exactly was going on between the warring factions but they were given nothing but vague answers and reassurances that reconciliation was "progressing". There were rumors of a contract renegotiation — that was pretty much inevitable under the circumstances — but both parties emphatically denied this when they were asked. Even Coop and Darren, both potential weak links in the secrecy agreement, managed to keep this to themselves, mostly because both were back on the heroin and spent most of their time shut up in one of their condos instead of going out to get drunk in the clubs where a wily reporter posing as a groupie might be able to loosen their lips.

Jake himself hardly thought of it as a lie when he denied that a contract renegotiation was in the works because to him it seemed the entire thing was a farce anyway, a huge exercise in frustration that would probably end up leading nowhere. Twice a week Pauline, himself, Matt, and Bill would meet with Casting, Doolittle, Crow, and Frowley for eight hours and toss terms of an agreement back and forth. This had been going on for almost a month now and so far the two parties had not agreed to a single thing. Neither side had even progressed to bargaining in good faith yet. Pauline would demand that the band's royalty rate be increased from ten percent to thirty percent. National would call this ridiculous and offer to increase the rate to eleven percent. Pauline would demand the band's royalties be based on full retail album price plus two dollars. National would say that since they were willing to increase the royalty rate to eleven percent the band should accept the wholesale album price as the base. National would demand that any new contract signed be extended to eight more contract periods and Pauline would say that they would only accept a single album and tour contract only. They would argue and bicker about these points all day long and get nowhere at all and at the next meeting they would do more of the same.

"Why?" Jake had asked Pauline after the last session of negative progress only two days before. "Why are both of you making such ridiculous offers? You know they're not going to accept thirty percent royalties. They know we're not going to accept wholesale album rate. So why the hell are either one of you even making those offers? We've done nothing but waste everyone's time."

"It's the way the game is played, Jake," Pauline told him, her eyes with large bags beneath them, her skin color unnaturally pale from the constant fatigue she was forcing upon herself. "Have patience. Eventually we'll get around to tossing some real figures onto the table. That's when the fun really begins."

"How long?" Jake asked. "Jesus, look at what you're doing to yourself. You never get any sleep, you're flying back and forth twice a week to go to these worthless meetings, and you're probably pissing your bosses off something awful."

"That ain't no shit," she said. "They are definitely not happy with me lately."

"Pauline, you're going to get fired," he said. "I don't want that on my conscience. I appreciate everything you're doing for us but you're destroying your career."

"I'm not doing it entirely out of the kindness of my heart, little brother," she said. "Did you forget that? If this thing works out the way I'm hoping, I won't need that career anymore anyway."

"But you're burning your bridge behind you," he told her.

"Sometimes that's the only thing you can do," she said. "Don't worry about me or my job. We started this thing and we'll see it through, one way or another."

And off she'd flown, to go put in another seventy hours in her corporate law office and do another twenty or so of research on her own on the subject of entertainment contract law.

"I have nothing new to add about the lawsuit filed against us," Jake told Audrey Williams now, his voice a little testier than it usually was when dealing with these types. "We're working to resolve the issue and making progress on it."

"So there will be another Intemperance album this year?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "There will."

"That's good to know," she said and then abruptly changed gears. "Have you seen Handle With Caution yet?"

She was the first reporter to ask him this question. Handle With Caution was the critically acclaimed film, just released the previous week, starring Mindy Snow as an abused wife trying to break free of the relationship. Jake had actually been hoping that the media, with its attention span similar to that of your average houseplant, might have actually forgotten that he used to date Mindy Snow. No such luck apparently.

"No," he said. "I've been rather busy lately and I haven't had a chance to take in any movies."

"Were you hurt that you weren't invited to the premier?" she asked. "After all, you and the star of the film used to be in an intimate relationship and Mindy herself has said that her experience with you helped her prepare for the role. Don't you think you were owed an invitation?"

"No, I wasn't hurt at all," Jake said. "Have you seen the movie?"

Again, asking her a question served to throw her off stride. "Uh... well... no, actually, I haven't." She recovered quicker this time. "What about the news that Mindy and John Carlisle are now engaged? Any comments on that?"

"None at all," he said. "I wish them nothing but the best. Now, if you'll excuse me, the bar is calling."

Before she could formulate another annoying, intrusive question, he quickly sidestepped around her and made his escape. He did not make it to the bar, however. Before he could get there, Darren waved him over to a corner of the room where he and Coop were talking to two other musicians. Jake went over to them.

"Dude," Darren said, "you remember Mike and Charlie, don't you?"

"Of course," Jake said, shaking their hands. Mike Landry and Charlie Meyer were the lead singer and bass player for Birmingham, the southern rock group who had opened for them on the The Thrill Of Doing Business tour. "How you guys doing?"

"Not bad," said Mike, who was sipping out of what appeared to be mineral water.

"Hangin' in here," said Charlie.

"Congratulations on your nomination," Jake said. Birmingham had been nominated for the Best New Artist award. The fact that their album had barely gone gold was, to Jake, further proof of the heavy-handed involvement of the record companies in the whole Grammy process. True, their single, Texas Hold-em, had done pretty well, parking itself at number one for a single week and selling well over a million copies but it had done nowhere near as well as the other nominees in the bunch. National had simply pulled the strings they had to pull to get one of their acts into the show, the same thing they had done with Intemperance.

"Thanks," said Charlie, who was smoking a cigarette in an inexpert manner and sipping from a fruity looking drink. "I really hope we win it."

"Me too," said Mike. "You think we have a chance?"

Jake knew they didn't have a chance in hell of taking that Grammy. "Well," he said, "the competition is pretty stiff for that award. You got Cyndi Lauper, Sheila E., The Judds, even that MTV weirdo Corey Hart, all going up against you for it. They all sold quite a few albums." A lot more than you did, he did not add.

The dejection in their faces was a little more than he'd expected.

"What's the big deal?" he asked. "It's just a stupid award that doesn't really mean anything. At least that's my take on all of this."

"They have to win the award if they wanna do another album," Darren said.

"How's that?" asked Jake.

"National said we didn't sell enough of our first album," Charlie explained. "They said they made a small profit from us but they don't anticipate a second album doing the same unless we pull in one of the Grammy awards."