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Back for more, eh? Masochists, every last one of you. Something funny happened while I was eating dinner...you ever have one of those moments when you think that the TV knows you're watching, and tells an inside joke just for you? I'm eating a sandwich, watching the Republican National Convention (and I thought that YOU were all masochists for reading all of this), and J.C. Watts, a black Republican congressman from Oklahoma is giving a speech, and the CNN cameras are focusing on the crowd. Only thing is, the only people they're showing are blacks and young women. Only 2% of the convention attendees are black, but according to CNN it looks like a Baptist church in there. How fucking stupid do they think we are? Anyway, the joke was this--as they continued in their search for young women, they found one to focus on for about 10 whole seconds. It was Rachel from MTV's "The Real World", looking like someone had just forced her to spend a whole day listening to Puck yell at her. Those Republicans, they sure know how to party down.

Where were we? Oh yeah, Wednesday, August 7th. The day after I learned "Kill The Guy With The Ball". This morning was the first morning that I awoke with pain in my hands. It was like the pain would switch from finger to finger every 20 minutes. You have to realize, this was going to be about the 14th out of 17 days that I was going to play my bass for more than three hours, and since this day consisted of both a Jewish and a BFD rehearsal, if I wanted to run the Vai stuff I was looking at probably an eight hour day of playing. I probably should have rested, but my obsessiveness got the better of me, and before you knew it, I'd played with the Jewish guys for four hours, Keneally for two, and I practiced for almost two. I would have killed myself if I felt that in any way my lack of effort would have led to me fucking something up in the presence of Steve Vai, and besides--the audition was only three days away. I remedied the situation in part by not answering e-mail, since the typing was not making things any better...which, by the way, is a nice excuse for me in case you were one of those folks who didn't receive the usual timely reply from yours truly.

Thursday I awoke with my wrists stiff. I got my obsessive-compulsive side under control and vowed to only practice the audition tunes, and not the whole new record (which by now I probably could play with my dick). Instead, I would drive to the beach and listen to the whole thing on my Walkman while I rollerbladed and tried to chase some of the anxiety from my body and mind. Another unfortunate side effect of this whole process has been my physical fitness...I haven't been to the gym in a few weeks, and have probably gained some weight over the last month to be sure. This would probably explain the extraordinary amount of wind-sucking I did while on blades, humming the bass parts to "The Fire Garden Suite" in my head all the while. After soaking my hands in the gorgeous hot tub we have here at my luxurious apartment complex in beautiful downtown North Hollywood, it was off to The Dragonfly for a gig with the Jewish guys. I don't think I'd ever been playing on stage and had other songs pop into my head during a show, but it happened that night; I think the intruding tunes might have been by Steve Vai or something. Anyway, when I got home that night, the always sexpot roomie Joanne had a karmic delight in store for me.

She works at the Hamburger Hamlet in downtown Hollywood, so you know that she's pretty damn good at making conversation. She goes on to tell me that a woman and a man sit down at a table in her station. The man breaks out some notepad with MI (Musician's Institute) letterhead on it, which causes Joanne to ask if the man (it was Roy Ashen, I believe) knows of Mike Keneally. Yes, he says, of course he does. It wasn't too long before my name comes up, at which point the woman asks, "You know Bryan Beller?" "Yes...he's my roommate," replies the sexy one. "That's funny...he's auditioning for my client this weekend." The woman was Steve Vai's manager, Ruta Sepetes, or however the fuck you spell her name. Ruta went on and on to tell Joanne that, all over town, people had been telling her to hire me. Someone who worked in a drycleaners in Santa Monica, this guy, that guy...what was I like, she wanted to know. Obviously Joanne told her only the good stuff, thank God, or I wouldn't have even bothered to show up for the audition. Then both Joanne and Ruta noticed a large oil painting on the wall next to their table, and it was signed in big letters, "Bryan", spelled just like me. Stuff like that makes me think good thoughts.

Friday was the day that it seemed that everyone in the world knew about this audition that I was going to have the next day. E-mail was flying in that I couldn't answer, my phone was ringing off of the hook with people who had thought that the audition had already occurred...everyone was wishing me well, and I can't say anything even close to worthy enough to show my gratitude for these people. I woke up, took a shower, and had the practice session of my life...I played everything just about perfectly. The audition tunes hummed with confidence. "Kill The Guy With The Ball" was becoming easy. For the first time, I felt like I was truly ready for this thing. I hit the beach to rollerblade and ate up the bike path, filled with massive, pumping adrenaline, knowing that the fucking audition was finally less than 24 hours away...it was pure exhilaration in the sun.

That night, at the BFD gig, the "good luck, Bryan!"'s were reaching a fever pitch...it almost seemed like a stupid "Go Bryan go!" rally at this dingy Universal City club we were in. As a matter of fact, the thing I started to get sick of hearing was, "Good luck, man...I know you're gonna get it!!" It was like approaching a basketball player before the NBA Finals and saying, "Hey...you gonna score 50 or 60 tonight? I know you're gonna do it!! How much you gonna score??" The topper was Keneally announcing from the stage the news of my impending date with the Flex-able one himself (like everyone in there didn't know already, but whatever). It was the first time I even allowed myself to think about this, but...what are all of these people going to think if I fuck up? If I don't get it? If I'm not good enough? I really didn't think that any of those things were true or going to happen, so I was just happy to go home that night. By the way, Joe Travers played drums with us that night, and Beer For Dolphins showed just what it's capable of on a nightly basis, given the chance to play. We were pretty frightening. And while I was up there I realized...no matter how it all turned out, BFD would be taking a somewhat lengthy hiatus, and that made me a bit wistful. I went to bed that night with guess who's music in my head...Keneally's.

But I woke up on the morning of Saturday, August 10, with Steve Vai's music in my head. My hands felt surprisingly OK. I didn't really need to, but I did it just for good measure...I ran the audition down twice, and made exactly one mistake, and a barely perceptible one at that. Since the audition was at 3:00 PM, the late morning and early afternoon went about as slow as you'd think it would...like a Yugo in 3rd gear trying to get up a mountain...or a hill, for that matter. As I was about to leave, I flicked on MTV (for spiritual guidance??), and guess what? The TV knew that I was watching again. This time, it was an 80's flashback, and the video playing when I turned it on was "Rock This Town" by the Stray Cats. What's so special about that, you say? That song was the song that made me want to start playing electric bass when I was 13. You see, since playing "Rock This Town" on an acoustic bass ripped my hands to shreds, I had decided that, wimpy as it may be, I'd had enough of that action. It brought me right back to the beginning. I sincerely hope (as you do as well, I'm sure) that that's as spiritually moving as MTV will ever be for me. At 1:45 PM, I left for Steve's house.

I stopped on the way to eat at a bar nearby (no, I didn't get loaded-- that's so I can smoke while I eat, something I'd been doing a lot more of and, in the County of Los Angeles, something you can only do in bars, not restaurants). I had been told (by a little birdie, of course) that Phil was due to audition at 12:00 PM, and that Keneally would not be there but that Mike Mangini would. So it wasn't a complete surprise to me that, as I was buzzed in to Steve's studio, I saw Phil walking out of it. He sure was surprised...enough to drop his gig bag. It was truly awkward. As I entered the studio itself, Steve and Mike Mangini were eating. We exchanged hellos and I went in the rehearsal room to set up. One of my initial concerns was that I knew that Steve preferred an aggressive bass sound, and liked guys who play with a pick, which I didn't. But my fears were allayed by the monstrous Ampeg rig in the corner of the room...an old, dusty, gigantic Ampeg head plugged straight into an Ampeg 8x10 cabinet. I plugged in, turned it on, and out came the sound of someone slamming a pick against a p-bass. Or, at least that's what it sounded like compared to my usual rig's sound. I was not nervous, and very, very ready.

As we were setting up, I informed Steve that I knew his entire new album. His reply? "That's good, because I don't." It seemed that none of those tunes would be on the agenda for the day. I was frustrated for about a millisecond, and then asked him what he wanted to do first. It turned out to be a jam, and it went VERY WELL. Mike Mangini was, as billed, very into Bozzio, with an astoundingly large drumset, seemingly thousands of cymbals, and chops to match. He could definitely play, and the two of us felt each other out for a little bit, and then settled into a nice groove while Steve absolutely ripped the room in half. It was at this point that I noticed something about Steve...what some people might call "posing" and the like, he just does naturally--it's an honest extension of himself and his musical voice. I don't think he was doing it just for my benefit, do you? Anyway, he sounded, well, like Steve Vai, and it was pretty awe-inspiring to see it in person.

The next thing he called was "Juice", the up-tempo shuffle. We nailed this one into the ground, I mean just murdered it. Me and Mike were swinging hard. I threw in a couple of little personal touches that made Steve notice and smile. "Very nice, very nice," he kept saying. Next was "The Animal", the song that really scared me the most. For the second time, Steve opened up the solo section; for the second time, me and Mike churned out a solid groove; for the second time in a row, it was just absolutely nailed shut. My thumb felt good, and the parts I were nervous about felt just fine. Then Steve wanted to jam again, and we did, this time on a slower, more pensive-type feel, and it was cool, but not magic, as me and Mangini showed the first signs of not completely locking. Fortunately for me, at around 3:45 PM, power went out. Ten seconds later it came back up again, with a distinct whirring noise to go with it. "What the fuck was that?", Steve worriedly exclaimed, and once he was assured by a studio staffer that everything didn't explode, we went on to something else. Now Steve wanted us to play in 13/16, and he detailed the way he wanted it phrased. Me never having heard the Frank Zappa song "13" (for which Joe Travers chastised me endlessly for afterwards), I dove in and hit my head on the diving board. I really couldn't get comfortable with it, and although I could play in 13/16, I never did anything really special, and even worse, when the kind Mr. Mangini started to fuck around with it a bit, I got lost...twice. Believe it or not, I couldn't wait to play "Kill The Guy With The Ball".

But first we did the signature Vai tune "Answers". He changed the form around a bit, and both me and Mangini took turns trashing it, which brought about smiles from little Stevie. Essentially, he knew I knew the parts...it's not that hard a tune. At this point he asked me if I played with a pick, and I had to admit that I didn't (for Steve's personal amusement, I mimed shooting myself in the head after I said it). Then another jam, this one a ballad. Again, me and Mangini struggled a bit to really lock in to each other at first, but eventually we settled into a nice little pocket. Steve just ripped, calling out keys, effortlessly doing these impossible things. I'm glad that I'm not a guitarist. Finally, it was time...Steve tuned his six- string down to D as we got set to launch into the nightmare tune, "Kill The Guy...". It has something like a 64-bar drum intro, and the first thing that I noticed was that Mike Mangini was playing the EXACT SAME PART that Dean Castronova played on the record. Do you have any idea how many hits there are in this tune? Steve surely noticed this, and now Mike had the gig. I was prepared to do the same, searching for the same results, and off we went. There's a part about two minutes in that's the hardest part of the song, and it has to do with accents. For some reason I felt supremely confident while playing this bear, and as the part approached I looked at Steve, and he looked at me, and we gazed into each other's eyes as the hits flew past, and both of us smiled. It was my single favorite moment of the audition. Essentially, I played it about perfectly, and more "very nice"'s were forthcoming from Steve afterwards. That was the end of the audition.

Steve shook my hand, said I sounded great, and threw his hands in the air as he said the following: "I really don't know what I'm going to do about this, I've got a lot of decisions to make. Do you think that I could get back to you sometime this week?" My reply was friendly, yet a little terse: "Do you think that you could give me a day? I hate to pressure you, but...it looks like I'm pressuring you," I chuckled. I really couldn't bear to wait very long, and he sensed it. "How about Monday?" I said that that would be fine. Steve immediately took off, and I began to pack up. I wasn't really ready for what happened next.

Phil walked in. If I'd have used my head, I would have realized that Mangini was probably Phil's ride around LA, and that he was probably there for all of my audition, but my mind was on other things. I was at the very least glad that I didn't know he was still there while I was playing. The conversation was cordial but stilted...we discussed their old band that I went to go see in Boston, and they very vaguely remembered me. Phil asked me how it went, and I blurted out, "Well, aside from going home and practicing my 13's, I think it came out alright." I asked him if he knew "Kill The Guy With The Ball", and he said yes. The only other thing I remember me saying of any substance was this: "I don't like auditions. I prefer to avoid them whenever possible." I wasn't lying. Mercifully this conversation didn't last that long, and after we stammered out "good luck"'s to each other, I left.

Part 3?? I'm gonna make you read a Part 3?? Hey, you can scroll if you want, but you'll miss all of the good stuff...like sex talk with Joanne, nights of drunken revelry, fire trucks, and the answer to THE BIG QUESTION...who's better looking, George Stephanopolous or Ralph Reed??...............B.B.