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Something new is in the air at The Life Of Bryan, Inc....it's a feeling of renewal, a feeling that we're on the right track again, a feeling that we're headed in the right direction. A feeling that our dreams can become realities, and that anything is possible. Yes, something new and exciting is happening. What could it be, you ask? Is it Bob Dole's Buffalo-Bills-style defeat just a few short weeks away (it does kind of sound like a political ad up there, doesn't it)? No...has Phil's left hand had an unfortunate encounter with a chainsaw? Unfortunately, no...but it's almost as good. I, Bryan Beller, the guy who used to get stomach pains whenever my credit card balance went over $500., went to CompUsa, got myself some store credit (boy, if they only knew...), and walked out of there with a brand fucking new Compaq Presario 4112 PC. OK, I didn't walk out with it. I had it delivered. As Bob Dole would say, whatever. And hopefully you all received my mass mailing about my new e-mail address, bassboy69@earthlink.net (although I wouldn't put it past Prodigy to fuck that up just as miserably as they've been fucking up my e-mail in the past). But that's just one of the things I feel the need to go on and on and on about. Other topics open for discussion include a new type of epiphany, playing out the string of the last few local Keneally gigs before he's off to Thailand with Mr. Vai, and a great Frank Briggs story, all of which I plan to go on and on and on about. Some things never change.

First of all, let me get this right out in the open: moratorium on the jokes, OK? Huh, you ask? Let me explain...when I mentioned in the climactic paragraph of that emotionally overwrought last Act (something about an audition...I'm having trouble remembering what it was about) to "make me laugh", I was just trying to pre-empt some of the more fatalistic responses that might have come my way. You know, I didn't want to read anything like, "hey man, I know how you feel...I got my penis caught in the blender last week and it really sucked". Actually that would've made me crack up, but you know what I mean. Just make me laugh. Little did I know that those three innocent-sounding words would open the floodgates to the largest influx of bad jokes that my e-mailbox has ever been unfortunate enough to witness. Now don't get me wrong, the responses from the last Act have been among the most gratifying and supportive that I've ever received, and don't think that I don't appreciate every single one. It would be an understatement to say that I didn't need the "hang in there, I think you're great"-type stuff to replenish my huge and malnourished ego. But some of those jokes...man, they really hurt. So, easy on the comedy, OK? I guess I should mention the best and worst (gulp), so here goes: Michael Harrison made me laugh the hardest with some interesting observations on the Republican National Convention that deserve mentioning...

Did you catch the "Newt" movie prior to his pre prime time speech? I can see him in the editing room... "Yeah I look good there, now insert that one with me and the black kid, now me and the teacher, now me with my caring-listening face"... "Where's that god damn freedom song, what in the hell are we paying you for?"

I swear to god that I saw a person on the convention floor carrying a large sign that read: "TAX MEAT". I think that person was being led out of the building when the PBS camera caught their image.

And, best of all...

I loved the moment when they struck up the "Rocky" song and everybody in the entourage but Dole came out from behind a cheesy curtain. Dole paused at the open curtain, waved, and then a security guy closed the curtain right in Dole's face. The PBS camera held the shot of the curtain and the security guy, and you knew that BobDole was standing on the other side thinking "that didn't work right","how the hell long is BobDole going to have to stand here behind this stupid curtain?"

Worst attempt at humor was a cinch--Joe D'Andrea, with a knock-knock joke too putrid to even consider printing here. He even made me respond again for each new line, as in the first e-mail was just "knock knock!", and my next one was "who's there?", ad nauseum. The most pathetic thing was that I actually went along with it. And just when you thought that I could sink no lower.

But the most important thing to come of the whole Vai audition nightmare was a revelation that was reinforced many times over the course of the last few weeks. I felt so miserable the day after the audition (maybe it had something to do with the gallon of vodka I drank, I don't know) that I wasn't sure what could possibly pick me up. Then I noticed something...after seven straight hours in Joanne's room banging out all three parts of Act 16 on her Packard Bell computer, I looked at the screen, and felt better. Not just better, downright good. Close to elated. Sure, I was susceptible to pendulum-sized mood swings at that point, but the fact remained that something really turned me around. It was at that moment (call it the "hangover epiphany") that I realized that I needed to seriously consider writing as a professional option.

Ever since I was very, very young, I'd loved writing. Unfortunately, it's pretty hard to write well when you've just finished smoking your sixth bowl of the day (which was very often the case back in my teens at around 3:30 PM), so I never did much of it in high school, and people don't go to Berklee College Of Music to become writers, if you know what I mean (and if you don't, well, let's just say that University Of Miami football players probably had to contend with tougher English courses than us Berklee-ites). But lately, as you've all been witness to, I've had a spiritual rebirth in the writing department, and the weight that was lifted off of my back at the moment I was done with Act 16 meant something, and I wasn't about to ignore it.

I realized that I wanted to write a book.

You'd think that the whole romantic notion of me staking my immediate future on a 50/50 chance at getting some gig and not succeeding might temper me a bit in the financially-adventurous-profession department, but you should all know better. So I figured that I needed two things; first, a professional opinion on whether or not I have the "writing chops" (musician lingo dies hard) to even entertain the notion of "me, the writer". Second, if step #1 is successful, I would need a new computer. Fuck!! We're right back where we started now. I'll need to do better than this in any future book, I think. Maybe we should just "go chronological" now before I write a book tonight.

For all of you that didn't know, The Moosenet CEO's lovely wife turned fort--er, I mean thirty-nine a couple of weeks ago, and there was a gonna be a ragin' Chatfield-style party to celebrate the occasion. It was the perfect time for me to escape the bad vibes of LA proper (all of this talk about spirituality and vibes should tip you off...the sign on the road is about to read "from God"), and after a 4 hour and 45 minute trip that should have taken 90 minutes, I was ready to party down, dude.

So everyone's drinking, eating, playing water volleyball in the pool of King Chatfield's court, but some people were tired of the sun and in the computer room, which the CEO usually leaves open so people can browse the web at the speed of Chatfield. I'm in there with Guido (of Moosenet's Interactive Underwear page...which you all need to see to believe) and a tall, slender woman named Martha Lawrence. Guido is talking to her about a book idea he had, and she's talking to him like she really knows what she's talking about, and her long, dark, straight hair bobbed up and down with each pearl of wisdom she dispensed. Wait a minute...isn't this the same Martha Lawrence who was at Scott Chatfield's 40th bash, when I passed out from eating too much guacamole? Wasn't she introduced to me as an "award-winning" author? Or was that a heartburn-induced dream? I'm sitting down, looking at her, and looking at the computer, which was queued up to Moosenet. This wasn't a sign from God, it was a sledgehammer across my face.

Much like an aspiring musician would approach some famous session cat with a demo tape, I approached her and sheepishly asked if she would accept a printout of Act 16 (you'd think I'd give her something shorter than ten pages, but noooooo...) and e-mail me with her professional opinion on my unorthodox "style", or something. She knew what I did for a living and my supposed "position" in the music biz, and much talk about trying to help people who are talented enough to deserve help was made, blah blah blah. Small talk aside, I could tell that she was cool enough to give me a straight answer.

The answer came only hours later, though I wasn't yet home to read it. Far be it from me to praise myself on this here page, but I can tell you that I got the answer that I hoped to get, and it made me feel like I was back in music school again, taking those tiny little steps that might eventually amount to something. To make a way-too-long-already story short, we've maintained contact since then, and at this point, I wouldn't hesitate to use the word friend. Oh yeah...buy her book, "Murder In Scorpio". I read it (my first fiction book in at least seven years) and loved it. It's a murder mystery; one of the themes is the heroine's belief that "there are no coincidences". Lately, those have been words to live by.

I know what you're thinking. When the hell am I going to talk about music? Last Act we got to read about auditioning with Steve Vai, and now all this claptrap about book writing? This is part of The Mike Keneally Page, is it not? Well...what the fuck is going on?? Settle down, Beavis, and I'll tell you.

The last weekend of August contained what were to be the last full-band Keneally shows before Vai rehearsals started, and the winner of this week's "pick a BFD drummer out of the hat" contest was Frank Briggs, whose friend Mike Terrana played drums and booked gigs for Tony MacAlpine, the noted guitar shredasourus (actually, Mike Terrana used to play drums for Yngwie Malmsteen until that night that they got into a fistfight on stage during a show. Now there's a big fucking surprise.). Both Friday, 8/30 in San Diego, and Saturday, 8/31 in LA, we'd be opening up for The Tony MacAlpine Band. Why am I constantly surrounded by guitar heroes? Anyway, at Brick By Brick in San Diego, we're supposed to go on at 10:00 PM, the second of four bands. You know how those multi-band events go...always a half-hour behind schedule, at least. Well, this time everything was right on schedule, and the band before us finished at 9:40 on the dot. Only problem was, Frank Briggs was nowhere to be found. Now any of you who remember the BFD tour story remember "where's Frank", but never did we have this...20 minutes to show time and neither Frank nor his drums were anywhere in sight. Me and Mike set up and tried to ignore the fact that this was even happening.

But by 10:00, it was pretty hard to ignore how empty the stage looked without a drumset, or a drummer to go with it. Pulling my "road manager" hat out of retirement, I started scouring the club and outlying areas in search of Mr. Briggs. In just a couple of minutes, I noticed his late-model maroon Chevy Astro Van lying dormant in the parking lot. Upon further inspection, I saw drums inside. And as I walked up to it and peered in the window, I could see Frank, stretched out on the back seat, sawing huge fucking logs of deep sleep. For a second I just looked and thought about how funny this was, then I totally panicked and banged on the window, yelling "Frank...what are you doing? We're on RIGHT NOW!!" Frank pulled himself up and, once awake, cursed like a sailor about how the stage manager of the club had given him some misinformation about our set time. Unbelievably, even though we went on late and had our set cut, Frank awoke in time to play a hell of a show. He wasn't tired afterwards, I can tell you that.

Thankfully, Mike wasn't tired afterwards either, because he needed to have his ass across town by 11:30 so that he could play his second gig of the night. I actually didn't know of this fact until the night of, but Mr. Keneally's keyboard services had been retained by The Steely Damned, San Diego's very own tribute to you know who. So immediately after we stopped playing at Brick By Brick, a group of us loaded out all of the gear in a fashion that could only be described as psychotic, and convoyed unsuccessfully over to the other venue. For those of you who are wondering, an unsuccessful convoy is when the lead car gets too far ahead and the trailing cars all get lost. I was in one of the trailing cars. Fortunately, Brad Dahl and his wife were in Chatfield's car, and they got there safe and sound. Which reminds me...

I can't believe that I forgot to tell you this...Brad Dahl and his wife actually flew into town for the weekend to see both Keneally shows. And I've been so wrapped up in my own melodramatic bullshit that I haven't even mentioned the fact that his addition to the land of Moosenet, "The Poison Pentium", is genius. Hopefully he won't forget where he came from when he gets his own syndicated radio talk show...

Brad: "Hello, poison radio, you're on the air."

Caller: "Yeah, uh, my boyfriend, he don't feel too good and all...he just watched Pete Sampras throw up through his nose on TV and it made him choke on his burrito...what should I do?"

Brad: "Change the channel. Next lobotomy victim, we go to Escondido, CA...hello, poison radio, you're on the air...."

We'll all the rue the day I met him. Anyway, you're probably wondering how all of this Vai stuff is affecting me and Mike's relationship, right? Not to worry. I went and bought this little voodoo doll, and I've got plenty of pins. Seriously, everything's cool, no need to worry. He's been trying really hard to help me get some work, and I've been trying really hard not to make him feel too guilty about abandoning me like he's about to do. I mean...oh, where's that damn doll, anyway?

So on to Saturday night, August 31. This gig was like The Life Of Bryan convention. Scott Chatfield and Martha Lawrence actually came up to LA for the show. Brad Dahl and his wife were again in attendance. The Raging Honkies AND Tony MacAlpine were going on after us. The promoter from Bourbon Square (remember that place?) was handling the show, and she brought all of the bartendresses and Swan with her (if you'll recall, Swan was the nice, quiet man who assisted me in pummeling some drunk drummer way back in Act 5). Cami Slotkin (the "Mike, The Dyke and The Kikes" girl) made an appearance. Blues Saraceno was wandering around with the most gorgeous woman in the club, which incidentally, was packed to the gills. Toss Panos showed up after having been kind enough to lend his presence to an AIDS benefit down the street which had kept him there for the entire day (Toss, on his long day: "Man, I know it was for a good cause and everything, but...I had to watch men french kiss each other for fucking 12 hours. I'm pissed!!"). Ras Daveed and Providence (otherwise known as either "the Jewish guys" or the "kikes", depending on whether or not you're talking to Cami) were drawing plenty of stares from the mostly musician/GIT crowd. I personally invited Gary Hoey (just what I need, another fucking guitar hero) and his wife, since he might be touring soon, and I figured that after brazenly approaching Martha with these mindless scribblings, I was capable of just about any type of schmoozing. It was, as they say in LA, a "scene".

We went on to play a really strong set, one of the strongest we'd ever done, in the best venue we'd ever played in this here city. All of the hard work we'd put in at tiny holes like Bourbon Square and The Blue Saloon was paying off for us in front of a crowd of about 250 people, and I'd be lying if I didn't say that I was just a little bit wistful as we drew nearer to the end of the set. In what may or may not have been an effort to please me, Keneally decided that we should cover "I'm So Tired", a Beatles tune off of The White Album. It's one of my favorite songs in the world...I'd always wanted to do it. Keneally went up there and sang the shit out of it, with me warbling along on backing vocals for a laugh or two. "'Cause Of Breakfast" rocked the club out of its collective minds. I could go on and on, but you get the point...I'm not real excited about not doing this for even six weeks, let alone six months. Did I say something about trying really hard not to make Mike feel too guilty? Goddammit...where did I put those pins?!

Anyway, the funniest thing about this night (at least according to those who witnessed me in this mode) was watching me run around the club like some 50's party hostess on crack trying to talk to everyone there that I knew personally. After a while it started to feel like a track meet. Eventually I completed the networking marathon and put together a travelling party of me, Martha, Scott Chatfield, Keneally, and JoAnn Ekblad (another wonderful person without whom I could've easily gone insane this month) and we all went to Cantor's Deli and had a hysterical time. There was a debate on just who wrote that famous book at the turn of the century about child labor and workers getting abused by large companies...anyone remember the name of the book and author? If you do, we could have used you at the table that night, as all of us self-considered "smart people" sat around and cursed ourselves endlessly for not being able to come up with the answer. What a bunch of hungry, happy geeks we were at that moment.

This just has to stop now. Thee are some other things I wanted to talk about, but we're nearing the 20,000-byte mark I believe, and if you haven't felt that feeling of renewal, that "morning in The Life Of Bryan again" feeling by now, you never will. I know that I promised a special "Music For Pets" Act, but it'll have to wait until next time. Don't worry...I'll be writing it in a matter of hours, not weeks, and it will also include my adventure into the world of "adult contemporary" music (read: fuzak from hell), as well as a final "kiss my ass" to the little online service that couldn't--Prodigy. Until then, this is bassboy69@earthlink.net, wishing Dick Morris a happy retirement at home with his wife....................................B.B.