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"In this world of men, I'm the little boy."
---Mike Keneally

This little boy drove away from Steve Vai's house pretty darned happy with himself. I had done everything in my power to secure for myself not only the Steve Vai gig, but the financial security that goes along with it, and the company of Keneally all the while. Here was my read on the situation--Phil was obviously very good, seemingly good enough to do the gig, and I'm sure that he and Mangini sounded great together, but I was just as good if not better, aside from the fact that I don't play with a pick. To me, it seemed that Steve was genuinely undecided...a true toss-up to be decided on intangibles that I had no control over. I did my best. Now it was time to get fucking loaded.

To my horror, when I came down out of the hills into Hollywood, traffic was at a standstill as far as the eye can see. The traffic lights were out. Fire trucks were weaving in and out of bumper to bumper traffic...it was total and complete chaos. I could barely sit still, let alone sit in a damned traffic jam...it took 20 minutes longer than usual to get home to my completely powerless apartment. All of the traffic lights, all of the building lights, everything...power was down all over the city. The scene on the streets was nothing short of surreal, and sitting in a dark apartment with nothing working except for the telephone didn't exactly help matters. And then it hit me...what if the bars wouldn't be open?? Where would I get an Absolut Screwdriver? AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!

Fortunately for me, Steve must have had massive power generators at his studio, or else my audition would have beed cut dreadfully short. Also fortunately for me, I got power back in less than an hour, which was a lot quicker than some of the seven other states whose grids went down as well. I got together with Joe Travers and another good friend of mine, Lisa Valentine (whose very presence lends itself to just the sort of debauchery I needed to occur this night), and we went out and absolutely got ourselves hammersmashed, with me and Joe leading the way. Some nice English fellows and fellowettes sat with us, sexual innuendoes were flying all over the place, a very sweet woman who I've been seeing showed up (I'd been monk-like in my work ethic during the weeks leading up to the audition, and it showed in my behavior that evening), and we all just got shitfaced beyond recognition. It was truly out of my hands now.

Sunday was a largely uneventful day...I ate well (not an unusual occurance lately), and mostly just relaxed. As the late hours approached, me and Joanne ended up sitting at the kitchen table, as we often do, just talking ourselves blue in the face about anything and everything. This night was an extra-special marathon session, however...I didn't want to go to sleep until really late, since that would make Monday, the day of the moment of truth, as short as possible. So she stayed up with me as we discussed such topics as my lack of large-scale failures in my career up until this point, her family issues and her dear old late grandmother, the sexual particulars and peculiarities of our recent and not-so-recent sexual partners...OK, that was the best part, I admit. I didn't go to bed until 4:00 AM.

And I still woke up at 8:00 Monday morning, August 12th. Goddammit. With those fucking songs still in my head. I laid in my bed, trying to calm myself, but really just feeling like I was going over the big drop of a rollercoaster every couple of minutes or so. I dozed off and on until the phone rang at 11:00 AM...clutching my hands tight, I answered the phone. It was Keith Winston from Rivera amplifiers, saying this: "Hey man, just wanted to congratulate you on the good news!!" "What good news?!" I barked at him. "Well, Suzanne [Forrest, president of Immune Records] just told me that you got the gig!" I politely informed him that I knew nothing as of yet, unless Keneally found out somehow and called Suzanne before me, an unlikely scenario to say the least. I called Keneally and put it to him, "Do you know something I don't?!" His answer was no...Suzanne must have gotten mixed up somehow. Christ. I got up and got ready to do my Monday CD delivery job.

Just what I needed...five hours in a car to do nothing but think about a phone call that I may or may not have already received. This was definitely the hardest part of the entire experience...all day I just felt ill, really really sick to my stomach. I had wanted to wait until 3:00 PM to call Steve's office to at least appear professional, but I saw a pay phone in Santa Monica and just said "fuck it" and called Ruta. She told me that she hadn't yet spoken to Steve about it and knew nothing, but that Steve himself would call me and that she would let him know that I called. I felt kind of dumb for doing that afterwards, but I was feeling so nauseous that I didn't care. At 3:45 I checked my machine, and still there was no message. This was really getting maddening. I drove home.

At 4:30, when I got home, sure enough, there was a message from Steve on my machine, saying nothing of substance but asking me to call him at home. You'd think that if the news was good, maybe he'd indicate it somehow...but I blocked that out of my mind, swallowed hard, and called him. No answer--a machine. Fucking Christ. I left a message and went to lay down on the couch, watching the first night of the Republican National Convention, sweating out of sheer stress.

The phone rang at 5:50. I closed my eyes...it was my father. "Well?" he asked timidly. I snapped at him. "I don't know yet...don't call me again until I call you!" He apologized and hung up. I'd had enough of waiting. Calling Steve Vai back after I'd already left a message was hardly polite, but neither was this fucking insane waiting. I called him back, and he answered...told me he was busy at that very moment but could he get back to me in a couple of minutes. I (at least in my mind) reluctantly agreed.

At 6:15 PM, the phone rang. I lit maybe the 20th cigarette I'd smoked that day and picked up the receiver. It was Steve. This is what he said:

"I just want to tell you that I never thought that it was going to be like this...I really thought that one guy was going to be way better than the other. But that turned out not to be the case. You both have your pros and cons...but I listened to the tape, and I really liked the other guy's sound better...he got a really good distorted sound with his pick...and he and Mike locked in a little better...[here Steve said some nice things about my playing...I'm not going to list areas that he may or may not have thought I was superior in out of respect for Phil]...but I think I'm going to give this other guy a shot at the gig."

Wham.

The conversation continued into some other interesting topics, including one that surprised me. It seems that he is almost embarrassed by his music around people that are capable of playing it correctly. He mentioned that I might even be bored by parts of it. Let me tell you something...the overwhelming majority of Steve's material is more interesting than 99% of the shit floating around in the musical universe, and I would probably never have been bored trying to pull off parts of "The Fire Garden Suite", that's for sure. He also said that he thought I was capable of learning most of his material in two days if necessary...I replied that it could happen if need be. He assured me that he made this decision free of influence from other band members. And he also assured me that Phil had in fact nailed everything, and that we had cancelled each other out. In essence, he was saying that either of us could have done the gig. But as I said, it was left up to the intangibles, and mine were the wrong ones. I was audibly shaken while on the phone with him...this stunned him. I explained to him that there was a lot riding on it, that I needed the gig and the money, that I wanted it desperately, and that the fact that Keneally was going made it very difficult for us...all things that might not have been the most professional thing on the world to do, but I just couldn't help it. He ended by saying that he'd had bands implode on the road in mid-tour before, and that you never know what might happen. My reply was silent. We said goodbye, and I placed the receiver back onto the telephone.

I had never really thought that I wouldn't get it. I'd never failed on a scale of this magnitude before. I wasn't beating myself up...I knew that I did the best that I could and he saw the best of my ability, but something I didn't mention in the previous parts was the fact that I had given up on some other opportunities, albeit less prestigious but revenue-producing nonetheless. I risked it all on this and had come up craps, on a 50/50 shot. Now I had some phone calls to make.

First to my father...I told him that I didn't get it and that was it, and said that I'd talk to him another time.

Then to Keneally...the answer is no, I said. His reply, "You're kidding! Really?!" Really. "Fuck!!" I couldn't talk to him, so I just said "OK, I'm gonna go." and hung up.

Then to Joe Travers. This conversation lasted a bit longer, as I found him to be, for some reason, the guy I needed to talk to about this. He knew what it was like; he'd been there before and I hadn't. Still, the conversation lasted less than a minute. I really didn't want to talk to anyone.

By 8:00, I was ready to annihilate myself with vodka. I got off of the couch, having heard enough of Colin Powell talk about how with hard work you can get anything you want, and headed for the Studio City Bar And Grill, and from there I only remember that it was this girl's birthday. August 12. I wished that this date would make me think of something else, but that probably wouldn't be able to happen for at least a little bit. Somehow I got home (kids, please don't try this at home) and I remember calling Joe Travers, at which point I just exploded with emotion, rage, fear...all of the really cool emotions came to the forefront and had their moment. Thankfully, he listened to me for over 45 minutes go on and on about God knows what. That was the last thing I remembered.

The next thing I knew, it was today. I don't remember getting to the couch, let alone passing out with the TV on and the remote control in my hand, but that's exactly what I did, at least according to Joanne, who turned everything off for me. My clothes were still on. And I had the worst fucking hangover I'd had in at least 8 years. But I felt better. You know why? Because AT LEAST THE WHOLE THING WAS FUCKING OVER AND DONE WITH. The worst part of Monday wasn't the phone call from Steve, it was waiting for it. I felt relieved, if not good.

So that's really about it...today, Tuesday, August 13, was mainly spent calling people who've supported me through this whole thing, and trying to figure out my next move. Before I go into the end of this thing, I want to make a couple of things clear. First of all, I want everyone to back away from the whole "Steve Vai is an asshole for not hiring you" shit. I don't want to hear that, because it's not true. It's his music, he pays the bills, and he has a right to his own musical vision. Second of all, this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me in my life. And you know what that means? It means that up until this point I'd been riding a hot streak that was overdue to eventually cool off a bit. It means that I've been blessed with more opportunity than some more deserving musicians will ever get in their lives. It means that things have been pretty damned good in my life, and there are far worse things that can happen than this, so don't let my melodramatic tome make you think that I'm about to jump off of a bridge--I'm not. And third of all, if you're going to send me a message, make me laugh.

Again, I can't say enough about all of the e-mail support I've gotten over the last few weeks..obviously now I'll have some more time to get back to you. My hands do feel better now. Maybe vodka is a cure for that sort of thing. Any thanks I can give are woefully inadequate, but thanks anyway. And, by the way, give yourself a fucking medal if you read all of this in one sitting.

So, that brings us to the final matter...how will this affect my relationship with Mike Keneally? Initially it was very hard for me to talk to him about all of this. If there's only one thing that I can fault him for, it is the fact that he took my destiny out of my own hands, something which I left Z to gain. But I am not bitter. Intensely, agonizingly disappointed, but not bitter towards Mike. He was truly, truly stunned by the fact that I didn't get the gig, and really didn't think this could happen, I get the feeling. He did everything in his power to help me get to the point where I could have a fair shot at it. And now that it's turned out this way, he's doing everything in his power to help me afford to be able to be as committed to Beer For Dolphins as I truly want to be. For all of this I couldn't possibly thank him enough, but at the same time I have to find a way to support myself, and fast. It's not going to be easy, but I have a feeling that somehow it will all work out fine. As he likes to say, we'll just cross that bridge when we come to it.

Allow me this short thank you list, if you please: My parents, Joe, Stephanie, Miss Inga, Oakleaf, Brad Dahl, Cami Slotkin (she of the "Mike, Dyke and the Kikes" phrase coinage), Joanne, Wes, Lisa Valentine, the CEO, and, of course, Mike...in addition to everyone else who has listened to me go postally neurotic on them for the last couple of weeks.

So, I know that the Petbox has just come out...in the next Act I'll discuss what I REALLY think about some of the tunes that got cut from the U.S. version of "Music For Pets", as well as something hopefully a lot more lighthearted than all of this claptrap. Until then, do something fun, like watch Bob Dole's acceptance speech. Thank you, God bless you, and God bless The United States Of America..........................................B.B.