in FYI, Humor, Relationships

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Dear Black-Rimmed Spectacles Guy,

You know we’ve been seeing each other for quite some time, and it’s been great, really, but after several years of being a loyal customer, I have decided to leave you.

Don’t get me wrong, you’re almost always there when I need you, especially lately when I’ve stayed fairly close to the I-80 corridor between San Francisco and my home. You only leave me when I go places like the beach, the lake, work, and that insignificant area between say, Fresno and Los Angeles. I don’t begrudge your disdain of travel.

It’s not that you are a bit extravagant for me, but there was that period when your gift of a new Treo handheld cost me over $2100.00 in “networking” fees because the phone apparently needed to call you every 5 seconds… in all fairness, you did agree that was asking too much and forgave that debt, but only when I raised my voice. I’m sorry about that, by the way.

And it’s not just that we disagree politically, but you do spend an awful lot of money in contributions to Republicans, and very little to Democrats. I commend you on your contributions to Domestic Violence causes, it shows your compassion for women and kids, but I have trouble with the duplicity of making contributions to a war machine, and the kids that are now orphaned because of it.

I guess my major problem is your clingy need for exclusive committment. Seriously, it’s fanatical. I don’t mind the 2 year contract so much, I mean, you need some stability in your life, I get that. What bothers me is that even when we’re together you have to have ALL of my attention. You gave me this really cool phone that you promised me would connect to my laptop with bluetooth, so I could not only synchronize my address books, but would also allow me to connect to the internet if ever I found myself in an area without a wireless router around. You lied to me. The reality is that you blocked the cool features built into the phone, so that I would have to buy extra equipment (that didn’t work) and because you want me to spend even more money on your network, you have blocked the phone’s ability to connect to the internet, and insist that I use the phone’s tiny screen to try and access my email, or a web site.

You also don’t want me chatting with anyone over bluetooth, or sending files, or sharing music, or any of the other technologically advanced things that I know my phone is itching to do. You’re one jealous selfish bitch, you know?

I’m really sorry to tell you that I recently started seeing someone else, you know who. That’s right, that hot little number who always dresses in my favorite color, orange. He gave me this phone yesterday that is quite slick. I brought it home, and I didn’t even feel guilty when I got it turned on and it immediately struck up a conversation with my laptop. It’s not perfect, I have to send my contacts individually until my friends over at Apple get iSync updated, but it does in fact let me get online.

I’m afraid it won’t do any good to beg, because the decision has been made. I’m even getting the rest of my family to break up with you because I’m certain their love affair with you has grown cold, as well.

I wish you luck, and hope you will find it in your uniformed heart to forgive me eventually. It just wasn’t meant to be.

By the way, if you, or anyone you’ve shared this letter with needs my new phone number, drop me a note and I’ll give it to you.

in Band, Music

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I was pleasantly surprised when I first opened the door leading into the rehearsal studio. I was the first to arrive and could take in the quiet and bask in the heady smell of the polished wood floor. Delious and Jeff soon arrived with Jerimy Koeltzow and Doug Urie from Oklahoma. I was noodling around on the piano while they got settled in.

We sort of spontaneously struck up a Vince Gill song, “Go Rest High on that Mountain.” A beautifully haunting melody with traditional bluegrass-style harmonies. As we hit the chorus, Stephen Parker entered and joined in with his high tenor part. Matthew Hayes arrived adding a perfect third below my lead. Jerimy rounded out the bass, and Doug struggled to find his way in before stopping altogether, foretelling some issues we would have later in the studio. Doug was absolutely unable to find a harmony part. He could sing lead, he had a decent voice, but when it came to singing a different part, he was lost.

When the song was over, we realized that Delious and Jeff were staring openly at us. There was a moment of awkward silence before Delious spoke up and said, “Magic.”

in Links, Web Design

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No, it’s not a dish at that scary restaurant across the street… it’s this weeks “Featured Site.”

I’m actually quite pleased that Bianca signed up this week. I’ve been reading her blog for the past couple of weeks and think we could be friends for many reasons:

• She is an animal lover.
• She shares my hatred of Wal-Mart
• She is a fellow insomniac
• and she is as addicted to Forensics shows as I am.

I am willing to overlook the fact that she does not like Sonic… one of my favorite fast food places on the planet. Really, if there’s a fast food meal better than the foot long cheese coney, tater tots, and a 5-gallon bucket of Cherry Limeaid, I haven’t found it yet. Too bad the closest Sonic to us is like 40 miles away… and in a town no one really needs to pass through.

Anyway, give her a click and say hi. I think you’ll enjoy her site. She lives in Tulsa, OK. And you know, UMB and I will be in Tulsa next week… Maybe we should look her up and meet for a drink. What do you say, Bianca?

in Thoughts

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So yeah, I’ve been working on the next installment of the story.

It’s hard to figure out exactly how structure the story, because there were several events happening at once, so you’ll have to pardon me while I work it out. Don’t worry, the story will continue, I just want to develop the proper story line.

I’m also plagued by additional problems, not the least of which is a dreadful memory of the exact order of events. I didn’t realize that I had blocked most of these memories, because they really were some of the best and worst times of my life. I feel a bit like I’m pulling off an old bandaid and staring at a gaping wound underneath.

Gross.

Coming soon, Part IV.

in Band, Music, Relationships

6 Comments »

I’ve never been good at meeting people in bars. Some of you might find that surprising, because I am not a quiet or shy person. However, if you put me in a room with bouncing music, colored lights, liquor, and shirtless hunks, I find that it’s quite difficult to approach anyone and have any hope of them finding me remotely interesting without the ability to converse. I mention this as a preface to how I came to be in the company of Shane one Friday night.

I met him about three months before all of these auditions at what was the BEST club I had ever been in. The Connection in Nashville was at the time, the biggest gay club in the United States.* He was flat out gorgeous. He vaguely resembled a young Val Kilmer. You know how there always seems to be a guy in a crowd that everyone knows, and either admires or hates because he’s popular. That was Shane. He had his own entourage that would congregate around him. He’d make this easy because he would always stand in the same spot near the entrance to the dance floor.

I desperately wanted to be a part of this group. I was new in town, newly out, and I desperately needed some gay friends. I made it my mission to be his friend. It took several weeks of dancing near him and getting to the point where he would at least smile in my direction. If I noticed that he was heading toward the outside patio, I would make sure to move past him and get out there first, so I could at least hear his conversation, if not find the opportunity to talk to him. Ok, on reflection, it seems that I was sort of stalking him. Get over it.

Eventually, we became bar friends** and I looked forward to spending Saturday nights watching the best drag shows and dancing in a great club, and hanging out with Shane. I was working at the radio station and often scored tickets to concerts and other events. I invited Shane to one, I don’t remember which*** and we migrated into being actual friends.

I of course had a mad crush on Shane, but it was pretty clear early on that there was no chance of any relationship. I was just happy to have a great friend, and someone to take my mind off of Toby.

So it was a random Friday night and Shane and I had gone to dinner and decided to stop by the radio station to see my friend Scooter who was doing his weekly retro show on WRVW. On the way upstairs to the studio, I noticed my voice mail indicator on my desk was blinking.

I hit the speaker phone button and the following message came booming out into the spooky quiet of a normally busy office after hours:

Jeff: Hey Jester, Jeff here. Delious and I have made our final decisions on the project. Please meet us next Saturday morning at the studio. We knew immediately that we wanted you. You’re in. Congratulations! Call me if you have any questions.

Unfortunately, I don’t remember much else that happened immediately after I hung up the phone, mostly because Shane almost knocked me unconcious hugging me, jumping up and down and screaming at the top of his (our) lungs. We danced around the room and screamed some more, and jumped up and down again… then ran upstairs to tell Scooter.

* There is no coincidence that Nashville is also home to the Baptist National Headquarters, and also the most adult bookstores per capita of any other city in the US.
**Similar to the Sidewalk Sale from the Even Though post, the Bar Friend is as far as I know unique to the gay community, you can have meaningful conversations, talk to each other for years, even exchange gifts, but you never see them outside of the bar… sometimes you don’t even know their last names, yet you count them as a “close friend.” I guess all that dancing and sweating together must afford you some familiarty. Maybe this happens at the gym?
*** It really sucks getting old.

in Band, Music

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I left the hotel right after I finished performing. If you’ve ever been in an audition situation, whether for acting, singing, or that special trick you can do with ping pong balls and a unicycle,* you can generally tell from the expressions on your judge’s faces how well received you were. It was impossible to tell how I did. The other auditioners who were in audience clapped politely, but Delious showed absolutely no expression either way.

I knew I had done pretty well, at least, I knew that I didn’t hit any sour notes, didn’t fuck up the guitar part, and didn’t forget any lyrics. That’s about as good as you can get, right?

I can’t recall how many days went by before I heard anything from Delious, or Jeff, his assistant. It was long enough that i had pretty much forgotten that the audition had happened, and was quite surprised when the message appeared on my work voice mail:

Jeff: Hey Jester, this is Jeff [Can'tRememberHisLastName] with Trijon Productions. I’m calling because we’ve reviewed all the tapes from the auditions and we were extremely impressed with your performance. We’d like to have you come back for a call back audition. We are only inviting 25 guys back, and would appreciate a call back to hold your spot. Thanks!

Of course I called immediately, and agreed to the time and place.

There were guys from Dallas, Oklahoma, Los Angeles, and Nashville at the callbacks. We were paired up and moved around into different groups like chess pieces. There was a lot of a cappella singing, I was asked to play the guitar and piano for some of the groups. Strangely, no one else was able to play.

I hit it off with a couple of the guys that were there, and tried to work my way into their groups when possible, Jerimy Koeltzow from Oklahoma, and Matthew Hayes, originally from Chicago, but now living in Nashville. I recognized Matt as the powerhouse singer who brought on the Rick Astley moment from the auditions. Matt and I could harmonize so well, it was though we had been singing together all our lives.

The day was pretty uneventful, there were long periods of time where we weren’t doing anything and other groups were singing for Delious and Jeff. They spent a long time whispering back and forth and changing the members in and out. There were more video cameras, and a few more people just hanging around that didn’t seem to have anything to do with the audition process.

Throughout the process, I noticed that one auditioner seemed to be favored by Delious. His name was Stephen Parker, and he was rarely out of sight of Delious. He auditioned and performed with groups like everyone else, but he seemed to have access to Delious that no other participants had.

After a fairly long day, I offered to take Jerimy out to dinner as it was his first trip to Nashville. He invited along his friend, Doug Urie, who was also from the Oklahoma auditions. I invited Matt to come along, but he bowed out.

I took them on a driving tour of the city, including 2nd Avenue, West End, Music Row and we grabbed dinner. Conversation was easy, as we grew up essentially in the same place. Oklahoma City is not so far from Joplin, or Kansas City. What I found most amazing was their complete naivety regarding the music business. They knew nothing of contracts, record deals, the role of managers, producers, record companies. I gave them the quickest American Music Business 101 course I could manage in a short evening.

We parted ways that evening with the intention of keeping in touch, regardless of the outcome of the auditions.

* Please send photos.