When I was a kid I sought too much refugebin music. If I were sad I would find a sad song to feel better about it to. Somehow I thought that befriending and dating musicians would change that.
I have three friends with records coming out now. Hidden in the songs are memories of what we were up to last year together when the songs were written. It just makes me sad to think about that golden age we had. I'm older now. They're not around much. And I have songs to fill in the memories I've lost to alcohol.
In a way it's as if we broke up. If I ran into them now it would be exciting and awkward. But I would probably walk away feeling like I had completely lost them.
The reason I can tell that I am at the worst party ever right now is because all these assholes work together and they insists that there's nothing more interesting in the world than the customers they deal with.
One little gem I forgot to mention from yesterday's daytime nightlife meeting:
We were hoping for a sellout crowd on the first night because it will also be the record release party for three bands. In order to do this we will want to sell advanced tickets, which is something most of us normally don't do but it seemed like a good idea.
The night club asshole goes, "We could do it, but when you sell advanced tickets you don't have control over your door and...you know..."
"You know what?"
"Well, then anybody could get in."
The singer of the band below strikes a pose of mock horror, "You mean fat people could get in?"
There are plenty of people out there whom I have drunkenly contacted over the years (Harold Bloom) who haven taken a few 5:30 AM emails out of context and will never talk to me again. Tonight I had a daytime nightlife meeting at an old club that is undergoing renovations. They want to start a new, street-level rock club with an artist-driven focus and the ability to record any band that plays there.
Daytime nightlife meetings are always hilarious because the queens are all unshaven. You know that tribal/high school mentality you have at work where you get a few minutes to make fun of whathisface's new haircut? We only get to do that at meetings. This week my rival DJ showed up with a freshly-dyed pompadour which prompted speculation: Is he going grey? Is he doing a rockabilly party?
We all sat on the upstairs balcony of my least-favorite semi-large venue. They had big ideas. Dim people with big ideas tend to be representing lots of different people with bigger ideas and answering to smaller people with single-item budgets. If we record the party can we sell it online to underage fans in streaming video? If we make it 21+ can we sell your DJ set to anyone else online for $1.99? We have struck a deal with Best Buy to feature (y)our records!
Anyway, I was the only grown-man at the meeting without makeup on. I got dinner at Angelika Kitchen because they are BYOB and dropped by the L.E.S. on my way home. Conrad doesn't do Wednesdays anymore, but his fishing partner Seth was at The Johnson's.
I had this yearning inside me on the walk home to do something else. I thought that if I gave it all up today I would like to do something like our manager does. If I get another job today it has to be something meaningful. I basically would have to be Col. Tom Parker to some band that I believed in 100%.
It turns out that my favorite band is me and my all time favorite record is the one my egotistical-ass hasn't finished yet. So I went through old emails to chase down leads I had long forgotten. This includes the nicest rejection letter I've ever received:
Dear Brendan,
Thank you for sending me Mercutio and my apologies for being so slow to respond. This is really well written and clever, but I fear you may just be too smart for me. The fiction I sell tends toward the Jodi Picoult, Lifetime original and this is much more literary and esoteric. You might try Alex Glass at Trident or Julie Barer at her own shop. It might also help to frame your cover letter around some more popular literature. Are there any historical novels out now that you like and think might draw the same audience? (The last historical novel I read was The Birth of Venus so probably not the best comparison.)
Anyway, do let me know if I can be of guidance. This definitely has a shot but you want to be with someone that feels confident in their ability to place it. And put me on the list for your Romeo and Juliet production please.
All best,
Some Girl
Some Girl Literary Agency Fuck You, LLC 55 East Gofuckyourselfth Street, Suite 4E New York, NY 10065
Which actually woulda been fine if I hadn't emailed her back last December:
Can I tell you something honestly?
I was HAMMERED when I got this. I had just DJ'd two different bars and didn't have time to eat and somehow I thought tequilla might be nutritious. When I woke up in the morning I had a producer friend from London staying with me. He said (Harry Potter accent), "How'd you sleep?"
I said, "Fine, but I had the weirdest fucking dream. I got, like, the most honest rejection letter ever."
"What did it say?"
"I can't remember really but she talked the way I make agents talk on my stupid website, all 'Blah blah blah, too smart for me. I sell lifetime original bullshit.'"
"That's hilarious," keep in mind this is in a west london accent. "You have a complete fantasy land in your head that protects you from rejection."
"That or I'm going fucking crazy."
1) I got a really encouraging email from Zadie Smith's agent but I don't really know what to send her. I'm reminded of the time I realized I was on a one night stand with my future wife. I haven't finished the novel yet and it's turned into something that it wasn't in the beginning and she wants the first three chapters. [What the fuck am I talking about??]
2) What is the industry buzz on WICKED? I feel embarassed to tell people that MERCUTIO is like Lolita and Wicked's stepchild. Also, I'm actually [University] educated New England white trash, so when I say wicked it's usually in reference to how wicked drunk that wicked ugly girl must have been to go near my wicked drunk bruthah'.
ALSO. Bring your book sluts to my new thursday party. [Note: this agent represents two morons who have books out about their fabulous lives bartending in the Hamptons. I, apparently, elected to make this a conversation piece.] Here's the pictures. I'm the bartender who looks like Kenyon educated New England white trash:
[For some reason I sent a promising literary agent a link to one of my parties on a nightlife party website. I, also, would like to know what the fuck I was thinking. Jesus Christ. Why did I bring my married brother into this?]
Today I was sitting at Gorilla Coffee after Julia left and I stayed to finish Huck Finn.
Tom's most well now, and got his bullet around his neck on a watch-guard for a watch, and is always seeing what time it is, and so there ain't nothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I'd 'a' knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn't 'a' tackled it, and ain't a-going to no more.
I should have mentioned it in LA when I learned this: it is somehow easier to beatmatch in 130 than 120 bpm. Weird, huh? I hope there's a metaphor in there for me later.
Take the rest of the summer off. Seriously. You'll never have this kind of chance again and if you do: it will only be pathetic that you take it. Can you imagine being 27 and still sitting around your apartment all morning, wondering if you should go to a coffee shop? Seriously.
Leave Mercutio alone until September. Then maybe, I don't know, maybe turn it into a screenplay and then turn that screenplay back into a novel. Whatever you're doing now isn't working and you need to just move away from it.
Write your next novel about a loser who only works a couple of nights a week and doesn't know what to do with all his free time. You were made for more than this.
It's been a good year, but mostly for other people. If you want to sit around and drink coffee for the rest of the summer: go ahead.
The lesson you're learning now is how to grow up, somewhat. You know how to write stories but it will take some growing up for you to learn how to make these stories into a novel. Good luck with that.
A million years ago I was DJ'ing in Chicago. I was fresh out of school with lots of ideas about what was cool and acceptable. Every night after work I would meet up with Cousin Martha from Kentucky after she closed her used clothing boutique. We would drink. We would talk about bands. We would trade clothes.
Among the rules for being cool in Chicago were the following: only yuppies have to dress up to go out.
Idiots in Lincoln Park had to go home after work, shower, change into whatever those people wear. The rest of us just existed. We weren't cool. We weren't trying. We weren't accessorizing. We just were. This was also in Chicago where the cool bars are all three million years old with old man bartenders. There are no magazines trolling the streets to find the latest styles.
Then this morning I got up and walked to the coffee shop in a wifebeater. I got a call from a friend to meet up at Mccarren pool. The sunday pool shows are really fun because you see everyone from nightlife in the day. There's lots of kids in shorts and girls wearing breasts.
But somewhat accidentally I found myself thinking, "Should I go home first? Am I dressed enough?"
Tonight at the afterhours bullshit someone asked me when I would make another record. Of course I love hearing my songs in places and I love smiling when I hear my remixes played as if the original record doesn't matter.
But I feel bad.
Art and commerce are subjects for dissertations.** I would love to say that I don't care about it anymore, but strangely I do. I've spent lots of other people's money and enjoyed it, but that was my first shot. It would take years of marketing to get the kind of airplay that most are looking for. I don't care about these things enough to worry.
Unfortunately that means that I lose faith. My favorite part of music in the last ten years is that it has gotten greater in so many ways without every gaining a cent.
When we were kids we would follow bands religiously. The second they came out with a record: we bought it. Sometimes the seven-inch would come out in four colors and we bought them. Each for $4.
We went to shows just to prove how many times we had listened to said record. I still have some records in colors that I won't play.
There's a keyboard on my desk and it knows the secrets to songs I will never think of. I envy that keyboard.
**Each thesis espouses the following sentiment: great art never sells so we should all support crap. James Joyce is brilliant and we're morons for being the grandchildren of the people who didn't sell their Model-T's to fund him. The seventh chapter is the argument against any artist who had the misfortune of being believed in.
