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"Doesn't it suck sometimes being an adult?"

--Margaret Saadi, manager for Wayne Kramer

I always said that it would take something worth writing about for me to return to the Life Of Bryan. For better or for worse, that something occurred over the past five weeks.

Had things worked out as planned, I would not be sitting here writing to you. Instead I would be in the midst of the only day off of the Wayne Kramer "Live Like A Motherfucker" American tour, sitting in a rented minivan as I traveled from Hoboken, NJ to Youngstown, OH. But if there's anything the story you're about to read has taught me, it's the increasingly undeniable fact that not even the next ten minutes of your life are guaranteed to turn out the way you expect. Indeed, the hallowed words of Moosenet CEO Scott Chatfield ring truer and truer: Everything in the world is tentative. Never more so than in this case.

As much as I would love to tell you that this is the beginning of the ultimate return of the LOB, it's not. The e-mail moratorium must remain strictly in effect. Balancing my responsibilities to SWR, Mike Keneally, and my own career as a professional musician leave little time for the original purpose of this column, which was to encourage unlimited interaction between me and the readers. I would never be able to keep up with the level of e-mail I was receiving during the salad days of "Vai or Die", or even "The Stairmaster Epiphany". But as with those defining stories, I feel the need to somehow get this down on record, perhaps as much for my own catharsis as anything else. So hopefully you'll be able to learn from this as much as I have, and that will be reward enough for poring through this unapologetically long return to literary days gone by. Steel yourselves for life outside the Keneally bubble in this, the Thirtieth Act of The Life Of Bryan: Sick Like A Motherfucker.

It all started in the second week of December with a simple phone call. Wayne Kramer's manager, Margaret Saadi, left a message on my answering machine saying that Wayne was interested in using me as the bassist for his upcoming American tour, which was to take place in January. A bit of history: Back in May of 1998, BFD played several LA gigs with Wayne Kramer at The Mint, a venue with a reputation for good eclectic music. I humbly submit that we played rather well, and the admiration was mutual as Wayne's band pounded out song after song of raw, hard-rocking trio music that landed somewhere between rock, funk and punk. Lending to the communal spirit was the identity of Wayne's bassist: Doug Lunn, the original Mike Keneally bass player. So when I heard that Wayne wanted to use me, my thoughts were twofold. First, why not Doug Lunn? Second, would SWR let me go on the road again?

When I returned Margaret's phone call, she told me that Doug was previously engaged with Mark Isham, a major-label jazz artist who had scheduled some conflicting Baked Potato gigs that were to be professionally recorded. Wayne was apparently impressed enough from seeing me at The Mint to think of me as a replacement for the tour, and even though the money wasn't great and the tour was only nine dates, would I be interested? I replied that I could probably deal with getting less than the usual $5,000 a week I got with Keneally (hehehe), but that I would need to check with SWR to see if I could get the days off. I honestly expected to get a "no" on this one, seeing as I just returned from a total eleven-week absence.

And if SWR had said no, I would not have gone. I returned from WNHTH 2.0 to find SWR in a new, vastly improved building. My situation there had inexplicably sweetened as well; I had a new office, a new computer, and a new, more satisfying set of responsibilities. I thought to myself, maybe if I left more often they'd give me a company car as well. But wouldn't leaving for another tour so soon be a slap in the face to all of this generosity? Not in the enlightened eyes of SWR CEO Daryl Jamison, who approved the idea with the mind that my experience as a professional musician brought essential value to my employment, while perhaps also realizing that I would only be missing eight business days as a result of this tour. It's worth noting that my association with Daryl has been approaching levels of father-son closeness in recent weeks, and that it pained me to ask him for yet another favor. He not only relieved my guilt, but made me feel good about it. I could only wish this kind of rapport on all employee-employer relationships.

With approval in hand, I called Margaret back and accepted her offer. She then told me that she wanted to give Doug Lunn one last day to see if he could reschedule his conflicting gig, because he really wanted to do the tour and felt terrible about not being able to say yes. The irony of replacing Doug in yet another gig fell heavily on me as the day passed and he was still unable to reshuffle his schedule.

The next conversation was with Wayne himself as he invited me over to his house for a no-drums rehearsal. At this point I knew very little about Wayne Kramer the artist. I did know that back in the early 70's he'd been in a band called the MC5, and that they'd recorded a song called "Kick Out The Jams", but that was about it (some of you would be startled to learn of the gaps in my knowledge of rock history). I arrived at his West Hollywood apartment to find Wayne a balding man of 50, with a round, world-weary face that somehow simultaneously belied both boyish innocence and seething, mature, purposeful subversion. We sat in his bedroom, drinking coffee and sharing road stories as he taught me several of the songs off of his latest studio release, "Citizen Wayne". I noticed that the label was Epitaph records, home of Southern California punkers The Offspring, not to mention the most successful independent label in modern history with scads of street credibility. The songs were simple and raw, just as I'd remembered. Fun to play. Easy to learn. Before we were done I'd nailed seven tunes, and both Wayne and I were happy as clams. On my way out he invited me to his upcoming gig at the ultra-hip L.A. club Spaceland on December 17th. I said I'd be there.

It was around then that Rich Lewis, who'd heard of my good fortune, e-mailed me a message saying that Wayne was his "favorite ex-con ;-)". When I replied that I had no idea what he was talking about, he sent me the following quote from Vintage Guitar's 12/98 issue:

"After the band's [MC5] dissolution in '72, Kramer turned to drugs and alcohol, habits that culminated in a cocaine trafficking bust for which he served 26 months in federal prison."

26 months? That, my friends, is hard time. I went to Wayne's gig with a better appreciation of where he was coming from. This was someone who had really been around.

The gig at Spaceland was an invaluable learning experience. I'd been listening to the CD's extensively and got an object lesson in what the gig was really like from Kramer's seasoned rhythm section of Doug Lunn and drummer Ric Parnell, an industry veteran best known for having portrayed Mick Shrimpton in the legendary heavy metal parody Spinal Tap. Afterwards I exchanged a brief hello with each party. Doug was friendly as always, gracious and polite to a fault. Other than being tall and English I didn't know much of Ric, so we spoke only momentarily. Wayne and I arranged another bedroom rehearsal before I left, as well as some tentative full-band rehearsal dates. I walked out feeling confident that I could do the gig, but also a tad guilty about replacing Doug, who seemed to be having the time of his life during the show.

The next week was all about work as I labored to complete the album I was doing for Dream Theater singer James LaBrie in the midst of learning the 18 songs required for the Kramer tour. I found myself enjoying the simplicity and power of Wayne's material more and more with each passing day, especially in the face of the progressive forms on the LaBrie album. So it was with a good amount of giddiness that I received Margaret Saadi's next phone call, in which she asked if I could do a warm-up gig with Wayne in L.A. on the 2nd of January. Absolutely, I told her. The only catch was that the possibility of a full-band rehearsal before Christmas was looking slim due to Ric's and Wayne's schedules. Seeing as that the bedroom rehearsals had went so well, Wayne didn't think it to be a problem to just rehearse the day of the show and just go with it. Again, I said fine and set out to have the material absolutely nailed for the gig.

Christmas week passed into New Year's. I fell ill and rested in bed, taking solace in knowing that if I was sick over Christmas that, most likely, I wouldn't be sick on tour in January. By January 1st, I knew the Kramer tunes backwards and forwards, and I was ready for both the gig and the tour.

If you've read this far without falling asleep, consider yourself a victor, because that was all background. The story really starts here, on the night of January 1st, 1999.

Another phone call from the hyper-efficient Margaret Saadi, this time with more startling news. A European tour, scheduled for all of February. England, Germany, Spain, France...you name it. Every country in the book. Again, not great money. Was I interested? The same thoughts raced through my head--SWR, Keneally, money--but this was Europe we were talking about. I'd missed it with Z, and I'd missed it with Vai, and I'd never been with Keneally. I didn't know why Doug wasn't being asked, but I didn't much care. I desperately wanted to go and told Margaret that I'd try to get my ducks in a row as soon as possible, because she wanted an answer before we left for the American tour five days later. "Oh yeah, one more thing," she informed me, "the rehearsal tomorrow afternoon has been canceled--Ric can't make it. We'll have a long soundcheck and that will be it." Yikes. I gulped and said fine.

In my eyes, the situation with SWR was headed towards intractable conflict. On the one hand, I came out to L.A. to be a professional musician for hire, and turning down an opportunity such as this was at direct odds with that goal. If I wanted to expand my network outside the Zappa/Keneally bubble, this was the perfect way to do it. But SWR had been beyond great to me, and I did enjoy my job, and they had given me the opportunity to work myself out of the crushing debt I accrued after leaving Z, and how much more did I expect them to take before they dismissed me? After consulting with LOB Executive Producer Robert Beller, I decided to ask Daryl Jamison out for a "business dinner". He agreed and it was set for Monday night, January 4th.

My strategy was to lay out a plan in which I could serve as a true "roving ambassador" for SWR so that every time a tour came up it wouldn't be a crisis about me missing work. Part of that strategy included the carrot of SWR involvement with the upcoming Vai/Keneally Summer '99 tour (however tentative that tour was), and so naturally my next move was to contact Keneally. This didn't quite go as planned.

I e-mailed MK the rough sketch of my proposal, along with a request for all relevant Vai information as pertaining to the tour. Keneally said he unfortunately knew nothing more about Vai, but that he had planned to do some local work in February, and was extremely jazzed about the new material he'd been writing and wanted to get it played as soon as possible. After insisting that he thought I should do the Kramer European tour, he asked gingerly if I would be terribly offended if he had my college friend and Duran Duran bassist Wes Wehmiller do the "interim work" in my absence.

Whoa. A taste of my own medicine? Karmic payback for Doug Lunn? I didn't know. It didn't really matter. Nature abhors a vacuum, and I was apparently creating one by being out of town for all of February. After making sure that I hadn't offended MK in some way (he assured me that I hadn't; most likely I was just paranoid), I resolved to get back to him after my dinner with Daryl, because everything hinged on that anyway. And besides, I had to get to the Kramer gig for which we hadn't yet rehearsed as a band.

That Kramer gig had been written up in no less hip a publication than the LA Weekly, the leading underground Los Angeles paper and the West Coast's answer to New York's Village Voice. Pick Of The Week, they said. The article was fawning, deferential in a manner rarely seen from the too-hip-for-you Weekly (mind you, Keneally can't even get a sniff from these guys). And this gig was booked only last week. Who is this guy Wayne Kramer, and how did he attain such towering street cred? I asked MK before I got off the phone with him, and the history lesson I received may well benefit you as much as it did me. [Disclaimer: If I have any of these details wrong--a good possibility--I apologize, and please feel free to correct me if you know better.]

The reason why publications like the LA Weekly "will never be able to get enough of Wayne Kramer," Keneally stated glibly (and perhaps with the tiniest hint of a fuck-the-music-press sneer) is because "he has ties to real '60s radicals and revolutionaries." Kramer and his band, the MC5, founded a scene in Detroit along with Iggy Pop and The Stooges that became the forerunner of punk rock. These guys even pre-dated The New York Dolls, for Christ's sakes. But more importantly, the MC5 were known as the "house band" for the radical White Panther party, whose leader, John Sinclair, promised a platform of revolution, drugs, and "fucking in the streets". These guys had real guns and carried out real revolutionary activities. In an era when America considered The Rolling Stones the most "dangerous" rock band around, the MC5 were out on the lunatic fringe. All this notwithstanding, their single "Kick Out The Jams" had been picked by the record bosses of the day as the Next Big Hit until they realized that the word "motherfucker" was all over it. The record was pulled by the label and the MC5 went down in rock history as one of the few bands--and perhaps the first ever--to tell a record company to go shove it up their asses. An underground legend was born.

Not without a price, however. Drugs overtook the entire band and they spiraled apart. Wayne was busted and sent up the river for 26 months while punk rock became a household word (in later interviews he would make light of not wanting to be associated with the word "punk" while still in jail, for obvious reasons). Two former band members eventually died early deaths. After prison Wayne lived in the Lower East Side of Manhattan for several years before finally kicking the habit and rejoining the music scene as a solo artist on Epitaph Records. The liner notes to the first solo release of his comeback, The Hard Stuff (Epitaph, 1995), were written by none other than Henry Rollins, who cited Kramer as a boyhood idol. Ladies and gentlemen, that is how you gain street credibility for life in this business. I thanked Keneally for the history lesson and headed off to Gabah, a club so hip that I'd been living in Los Angeles for five years and I'd never even heard of it.

Gabah stood inconspicuously amidst the other rundown buildings in its bleak East Hollywood neighborhood. It used to be called The Anti-Club, but whatever it was called, it wasn't the kind of place you'd want to be standing outside alone at night. The folks from the club and the opening band pulled up as I did, each wearing outfits I'd only seen before in magazines. Silver, glittery jackets. Bell-bottomed pants of unknown, shiny fabrics. Make-up straight out of Blade Runner. I was wearing blue jeans. They felt...square. It was at this moment that I learned of the two vastly different L.A. in-crowds. The first was one with which I was very familiar: The upscale Hollywood scene. The Zappas, Beverly D'Angelo, The Black Crowes, Pamela Anderson Lee, Michael Stipe, Gene Simmons--I'd rubbed shoulders (or at least been in the same room) with them all. But this second scene was different. This was the remnant of the L.A. punk scene of the late '70s and early '80s. X, Darby Crash, The Decline of Western Civilization Part One (a must-rent if you don't know what I'm talking about). There was still an element of danger to this crowd, money having neither reached nor affected these people in any way.

Margaret Saadi arrived in a tight hipster shirt, smart bell-bottomed blue pants and a pair of lifted shoes to die for. She's thin, with a L.A. woman's body and long black hair flowing past her unusually prominent cheekbones. A second-generation Lebanese-American of 30, she proceeded to hang with the hipsters and do the manager thing for Wayne without seeming unnatural in either capacity. Brother Kramer showed up minutes later--and looked terrible. I'd heard from Margaret that he'd been sick, but I didn't expect the wheezing, the coughing, the pale face. But hey, the show must go on, right? Keneally had done plenty of shows while at less than 100%. We set up our gear and got ready for our soundcheck/rehearsal.

Drummer Ric Parnell was MIA. This was bad. Cocky as I can be, I did want to play at least one song with the full band before doing a gig of all new material for the first time. But I was left with little choice. Seventy-five minutes after our pre-designated soundcheck time, Wayne and I settled for running a few tunes I already knew. Hacking and coughing, barely able to sing, he declared the rehearsal over about fifteen minutes later. That was when Ric came bounding in--he'd been coming from Big Bear and went the wrong way on I-15 (towards Las Vegas) before correcting course and landing himself in some deadly traffic. Oh well. No soundcheck, no rehearsal, no nothing. The first downbeat of the show would be the very first time we'd played together as a band.

It was 9:30 PM. Set time was scheduled for 11:00, so I decided to stay at the club rather than go home and come back. The opening band was a tribute to The Dead Boys, a Los Angeles punk band that--you guessed it--I'd never heard of. The hipsters teemed into the club, some not so flamboyantly dressed, some outrageously so. Thankfully there was a pool table in the back of the room, and I clung to it as if it were a life raft in the midst of shark-infested ocean waters. Former Janet Robin (and Wayne Kramer) drummer Brock Averi was also there to keep me company. (A humorous aside--those who know and like him refer to Brock as "Rock Bravery". I love the fact that you can do that with his name.)

So how did the gig go? After two more hours of waiting, it went spectacularly. Odd as it was for Ric and I to have exchanged barely more than twenty words before the gig, we locked in as a rhythm section within seconds of the first tune. Wayne was admittedly sick, but kicked out the jams nevertheless in a most commanding fashion. I fooled the hipsters into thinking that I belonged up there. The music was fun to play, and after it was all over, I realized that I didn't make a single mistake. I couldn't remember the last time I'd played a flawless show for anyone. Afterwards, LOB legends Thomas Nordegg, Cami Slotkin, and dress-maker Kim Salt (remember her?) complimented the show in glowing terms. When I told them that we hadn't so much as played a note together as a band, they nearly fainted. Margaret was happy, Wayne seemed pleased, and even the stoic, tall, English, salt-and-pepper-goateed Ric Parnell loosened up with me.

Suddenly it all dawned on me: This tour was going to be amazing! Backline support at every show (translation: no gear to haul from city to city), good press, large crowds--especially in Europe, where Keneally insisted that they absolutely adored anything associated with genuine American revolutionary activity--and most importantly, new connections in the business. Confirming Europe went from a secondary priority to Issue #1 immediately. And it meant that my dinner with the SWR brass was of prime concern.

Daryl Jamison met me on Monday night, January 4th, at Clancy's Crab Shack in Glendale for what was to be my first true "business dinner". Life at SWR had been insane, but nothing if not invigorating as we were working our asses off to try and get a slew of new products ready by the late January deadline of NAMM. We sucked down drinks (screwdrivers for me, thank you) and popcorn shrimp while discussing product strategy and such for about twenty minutes before I laid it on him. Europe with Kramer, summer tour with Keneally/Vai (the first he'd heard of it), everything. It felt like I was asking my father for permission to go run and join the circus--for the fourth time. His reaction was one of calm understanding, even something bordering omniscience. "This is a part of your life," he said. "It's a part of what makes you you." I spoke from the heart, telling him that I truly did value my job and felt terribly guilty about having to say yet again that I'd be leaving for such a long time. "I just wish there was a way for it not to be so awkward," I said.

"Awkward?" he replied. "It stopped being that way for me the last time you asked me. You're like my son, Bryan. Now's the time to do these things, to go on tour and travel and everything that goes along with it. If you were 45 years old, maybe I'd wonder where you were coming from. But you're not. You're 28. Do it, then come back and work your ass off for me. Besides, with any luck, the whole thing will fall through and you'll be back before you know it."

A deal was struck in which new parameters were set. My occasional absence from work was built in as a given. He then attempted to pick up the check, which I refused to let him do. I have to admit that Daryl calling me his "son" was a little eerie, because the more I get to know him, the more he reminds me of my own father. If anyone were to qualify as an LOB Executive Producer West, Daryl Jamison would be the man for the job.

January 5th, the day before we left for the tour, contained three important phone calls. The first was from Margaret Saadi, telling me that Wayne was "really happy" with the gig on Saturday night and that there would be no rehearsal for the tour because he was still sick, and besides, I obviously knew what I was doing (hehehe). She also told me that she had press lined up for every single city we were headed for. My head spun as she rattled off the list of papers that were slated to run articles on us, some of them front page jobs. The Boston Globe, Cleveland's Scene, The Village Voice, etc. The second phone call was to Keneally, confirming my February absence. He told me that due to his rapidly expanding schedule (detailed on the front of the Keneally page as of 1/11/98), he may not get to do anything until March anyway, but that it could go either way. With the seminal image of The Stairmaster Epiphany dancing in my head (see the original Act for details), I gulped down a mixed emotion and said my temporary goodbye to the man who'd made my connection with Wayne Kramer possible.

It was the third phone call, however, that proved to have the most lasting effect. The Supreme Literary Confidant Martha C. Lawrence rang me up late that night, and it had been some time since our last conversation. It's no secret that I've been forced to put my unpublished manuscript eleven is a magic number on hold in light of the recent musical activity, and that along with some other more personal factors has led to more infrequent communication with Miss Lawrence. She's coming out with a new book, Aquarius Descending, and she wanted some travel tips for her upcoming promotional tour. I don't know if I helped her any, but she helped me immensely as, near the end of the call, she wished for me to be surrounded by a forcefield of good, loving vibes for the duration of my trip. Without becoming too grandiose, let me just say that the beacon of light Miss Lawrence is capable of giving off at times is so bright, so brilliant, that while it can feel better than anything imaginable, it can also be difficult to stand in for too long without noticing something in yourself that ought not be illuminated so clearly. I lived the previous sentence in a millisecond, first by blushing, then by thanking her, and finally by stuttering my way off the phone.

I had planned it all out perfectly. Now it was God's turn to laugh.

Day One: Wednesday, January 6

At around 10:30 AM I was sitting in the brightly lit living room of Margaret Saadi's West Hollywood apartment, waiting for the Super Shuttle to take us to the airport and passing the time by flipping through Wayne Kramer's press kit. It was awesome. Glowing features from not only the LA Weekly, but New York's Time Out as well, and good review after good review of "Citizen Wayne" from papers across the country. Hell, even People gave him a thumbs up. I think that was the last good thing I remember about the trip.

Wayne staggered in with Margaret, who'd just picked him up. He looked even worse than he did on Saturday night. I couldn't believe he was about to fly across the country. Then Ric showed up with a hacking cough to rival Wayne's and then some. Suddenly I felt a scratchiness in my throat. No, couldn't be, I thought. Must be psychosomatic. In my head. We piled into the Super Shuttle and left for what the locals call L-A-X.

Now Epitaph may be a large independent label, but that didn't mean that they gave Wayne a huge budget to tour on. Quite the contrary, in fact. We would be flying on Tower Air. These were not the friendly skies, folks. Tower Air was a low-rent, low-cost airline with old planes, hostile ticketers and not even a hint of the term "customer service". They flew one flight a day from Los Angeles to JFK Airport in NYC, and that flight was always packed because it's the cheapest ticket around. If flying Virgin Airways was like shopping in a designer label store, and flying Continental Airlines was like shopping at K-Mart, then flying Tower was like shopping at an outdoor flea market with raw sewage running in the streets. And the clientele was no better. This is going to sound racist, but the truth is the truth--I have never been surrounded by more non-English-speaking, rude, pushy, smelly, classless people than when I was waiting in line to get our bags checked. That went for the Tower employees as well as the customers. Meanwhile, the scratch in my throat was becoming more pronounced by the minute.

After enduring a 90-minute delay at the gate, we were then allowed to board a bus--a fucking bus!--that would take us to the actual terminal our flight was leaving from. Let me just tell you how that smelled. Then there would be another 45-minute delay as we sat on the plane, waiting to take off. By the time we hit the air, the total delay approached three hours. At least there was going to be a good movie on this flight: "Armageddon". But even that didn't work out; the audio signal was static and nothing more for everyone sitting in our section of the plane.

Two hours into the flight, my nose began running like a faucet. Ric and Wayne sat beside me, coughing away as if they were in a contest to see who could be loudest. The three of us must have looked like the sorriest group of people ever to fly Tower Air, which would have been saying something. Margaret could only rub Wayne's head and wish for him to get well, and soon.

After enduring what had to have been the longest runway taxi of any airplane in history (over 15 minutes--they must have made us land in Connecticut), we finally exited the plane at around 11:00 PM EST. Our bags zoomed quickly off of the carousel and we carted our luggage over to our awaiting ride--a white stretch limo! Aside from the limo driver angrily snorting at me when I tried to help him load the luggage into the trunk, things were looking up. We relaxed in style, thinking that the worst was probably behind us.

We first dropped Wayne off at his friend Frank's place on the Lower East Side. The limo driver got out, brought the necessary bags up, and then drove the rest of us to the Continental Hotel, a small but serviceable joint only five blocks from the site of our first venue, The Knitting Factory. Ric and I brought the bags in while Margaret paid the surly driver in full. By now I was in the throes of a full-blown cold, but I blocked it out of my mind since I was about to get a full night's sleep, and besides, it wasn't anywhere near as bad as what Ric and Wayne were dealing with. When Margaret came inside, I looked down at the pile of luggage on the floor. My main suitcase wasn't there. I asked Margaret if the limo driver was gone. She said yes. I ran outside. She was right. I ran back inside to double check. It still wasn't there. This was the bag with all my clothes in it, including every good piece of stage clothes I owned (not much, admittedly, but it was all I had). It also contained my entire supply of bass strings and tools. OK, Margaret said calmly, we'll call Lincoln Limousine and get the driver to come back.

But the guy at the hotel's front counter was changing the terms on her. First it was this much, then it was more. Then it couldn't be credit card and cash, it had to be all cash, which she didn't have. Then when she went across the street to get more cash, she was told upon her return that she needed even more for a telephone deposit. Meanwhile the surly limo driver was probably already back in Brooklyn. To her credit, she never lost her cool, but Margaret's patience was tried to the fullest as she desperately tried to settle with the hotel so that she could then deal with the issue of my missing bag. Man, I don't miss tour managing one fucking bit.

Lincoln Limousine was most unhelpful. First the broken-English-speaking dispatcher insisted that we check with Wayne's friend Frank to see if the bag mistakenly ended up there. It didn't. Then Margaret had to haggle with the guy to call his surly employee and get him to pull over and check his limo to see if the bag was still in there. This took over ten minutes to accomplish. No luck. The front seat was empty, the back seat was empty, the trunk was empty. That left only one possibility--the snarling driver who wouldn't let me help him with getting the bags into the limo had left my suitcase out on the sidewalk next to the Tower Air terminal as we left JFK Airport for New York City. We'd done a bag count on the way out of the baggage claim and we knew for certain that we weren't missing anything then. The dispatcher refused to believe that such a thing could occur--after all, Lincoln Limousine was known worldwide for their excellence in dealing with customers--and would not send a driver to check the terminal for us. After trying in vain to reach Tower Air's JFK baggage desk--they weren't even open past 5:00--we accepted the only offer we could: a "discounted" round-trip ride to JFK and back to check the terminal ourselves. Our only hope was that a security officer had spotted the bag sitting on the sidewalk and brought it back to Tower Air's lost luggage pile, wherever that was. Margaret and I would go. It was 1:30 AM when they finally came for us.

The sickness was overtaking me with every passing hour I wasn't asleep. I was doing my best not to get upset, because Margaret felt bad enough as it was and it wasn't really anyone's fault except the limo driver's. When we finally reached the Tower Air terminal at JFK, it looked nothing like it had just three hours ago--that is, like a Middle Eastern bazaar gone haywire. It was completely deserted. Margaret and I tore through the empty terminal until we came upon an old uniformed man sleeping in a chair next to a pile of luggage. I took a look down and fell to my knees in joyous relief upon spotting my bag underneath some other unfortunate soul's green duffel. Margaret had no choice but to hit the floor with me as I screamed and yanked her down on top of me in a celebratory embrace. A lady came running out of a hidden office, looking just a bit frightened and holding a clipboard. "Can you sign for this here, please?" she asked nervously. I gladly did and then cradled the bag in my arms as we exited the terminal.

During the ride back, I found it reassuring to see Margaret become even more calm during our moment of crisis. She was the total package: Type-A personality, but without the frenzied edge. I felt safer knowing she would be handling the tour, and considering how the day had gone, the worst was now hopefully behind us at last. After arriving back in Manhattan, I got something to eat at a 24-hour deli and finally coughed myself to sleep at around 4:30 AM.


Day Two: Thursday, January 7

I awoke at 2:30 PM with a film in my mouth that felt like glue and tasted like...well, you don't want to know what it tasted like. A hacking cough and a crusty nose later, I was officially in the grips of a nasty flu.

At least this time I'd been prepared for such an illness. I proceed to pound every over-the-counter medication in my bag, from Alka-Seltzer Cold and Cough to Halls Zinc Defense to plain old Extra Strength Tylenol. There were these Vitamin C tablets as big as hackysacks which I forced down my throat as well. Ric shared his drugs with me, I shared mine with him, and by 4:30 PM we'd gathered enough strength to get ourselves and our gear down into a taxi for soundcheck at The Knitting Factory.

It could have been worse. I could have been Margaret that day. (In order to fully enjoy the following segment, please refer to your map of the New York City Metropolitan area.) She was scheduled to take a taxi to Newark, NJ to pick up our rental van, then drive back into midtown Manhattan to pick up a bass cabinet and a guitar amp from S.I.R., then head over to Brooklyn to help with transporting the opening band's drumset (which they were going to let Ric destroy that night), and then finally go back into downtown Manhattan to meet us at 5:00 PM for soundcheck. Ha. It didn't happen. Margaret ran super late, I ended up having to coordinate the arrival of the drumset, and poor Wayne was left to sit up in the dressing room for three hours, still wrapped in his winter jacket and three additional layers. His condition did not seem to be improving.

Ric and I were forced to endure the sight of The Knitting Factory staff cart in mounds of good imported beer, chips and salsa, fruit, assorted juices and even hot coffee, all the while knowing that we didn't have it in us to even think about consuming any of it. As 5:00 turned to 6:00, and then 7:00, I found myself making repeated trips to the bathroom due to false vomit alarms arriving every ten minutes or so. Ric sat still in a corner. Wayne was sleeping on his side against the back wall.

The amazing Margaret Saadi finally arrived just past 7:00, still showing no signs of being run down, or even harried by her eight hours of commuting hell. We'd already sacrificed our soundcheck time to the opening band, so it wasn't until 8:00 PM that we were able to get our stuff on stage and run the only thing that Wayne felt we needed to go over--a cover of Hanson's "MMMMBop" (I was beginning to think that maybe he was a glutton for punishment or something). Our long-awaited soundcheck lasted less than five minutes as Wayne waved the proceedings to a halt. "I'm fine," he croaked. Ric and I stashed our stuff and set off for our hotel to rest up for the show. We assumed that Wayne would be resting somewhere as well.

It wasn't until 9:30, as I lay in my hotel bed, that I began to think that it was all worth it. My whole family was coming, some old Keneally friends would be there, and it was going to be a completely different scene than before, with totally different music and fans and possible musical connections. Whenever I find myself feeling down on the road, whether it be due to sickness, or lack of sleep, or just plain rootlessness, the thought of a new performance in a new venue always brings me around. That's why you're there, for those 75 minutes of music in a room full of people who want to hear it. That's why you lose sleep, eat shitty food, fly Third World Airlines, load gear, get sick and not care. For the music. And the music was coming to save me in less than ninety minutes.

10:00 PM. Ric and I are just about to leave our hotel room when the phone rings. (The following is as close to accurate as I can remember.)

Me: "Hello?"

Margaret Saadi: "Hello, Bryan?"

Me: "Yeah, Margaret, it's me. What's going on?"

MS: "Well, I'm here in the emergency room with Wayne."

Me: "WHAT?!"

MS (in a voice so calm it resembled Zen): "I'm here at Mother Cabrini's Hospital in the emergency room with Wayne because after soundcheck Wayne came up to me and said that he couldn't breathe. He's really sick. It could be pneumonia--"

Me: "Oh my God--"

MS: "--and I've been trying to call The Knitting Factory for the last hour and a half but no one over there will answer the phone."

Me: "Holy shit, you mean that they don't even know? I mean, are we going on tonight?"

MS: "No, there's not going to be a show tonight. Do you think you could go over to The Knitting Factory and find the manager and tell him that we aren't playing?"

Me? Tell The Knitting Factory that we're not playing? Oh my fucking God...

I looked at the clock. It was just after ten. Set time was scheduled for eleven. I rushed off of the phone and left with Ric to inform the venue of the bad news. I could only hope they wouldn't flog me.

10:15 PM. We arrive at the club. Instantly I'm surrounded by people I know. Mom, Dad, brother Lawrence, old family friends I haven't seen in ten years, Keneally/Vai superfans Colin and Heather LaMastro with entourage in tow, even more that I can't remember. I tell them the bad news and speak grimly of my coming mission in between phlegm-ridden coughs. They stare at me blankly, as if to say, "what do you mean you're not playing tonight?" With no time to explain, I tell them I'll be back and search out the manager of the club. Eventually Ric and I are led down two flight of stairs and into a small office. The manager is a thick-Afroed man named Chuck.

Chuck: "What's going on?"

Me: "Well, Wayne got sick after soundcheck--I mean, he's been sick, but after soundcheck he had to be rushed to the hospital because he said he couldn't breathe. Our tour manager has been trying to call you--"

Chuck: "Yeah, these phones are tough at night. So, what are you saying?"

Me: "Uh, I don't think we're going on tonight."

Chuck: "You don't think you're going on, or you're not going on? I need to know, because if you're not going on I have to make an announcement, and give refunds, and lower the cost at the door--which I'll do, but I need to know for sure."

Me [gulp]: "We're not going on."

Word spread through the club like wildfire. The gathering audience was already quite large, and now they were all very worried that Wayne was seriously ill. At one point during the next few minutes I found myself talking to Chuck in the middle of a crowd about Wayne's condition, and instantly I was peppered with questions by concerned fans about how bad it was. Ric had already gone somewhere to try and relax, Margaret was still at the hospital with Wayne, and now Wayne's last-minute fill-in bass player was going to be the official spokesman for Brother Kramer in his former stomping grounds? I got away as quickly as I could and retreated to the safety of my family's table downstairs in the bar area. I spent the next two hours with a drink in one hand and a snot-filled cocktail napkin in the other, trying to make sense of it all with my parents.

12:30 AM. Still no sign of Margaret, but somehow she'd gotten through to the club's voicemail and filled it with apologies for what had happened. The venue's music room was closing for the night, and Ric and I needed to get our gear plus Wayne's gear and the rented gear from S.I.R. back to our hotel, and we didn't even have a car. The club was kind enough to arrange for the bass cabinet to be picked up by S.I.R. the following day, but because I didn't know if we would be continuing with the tour, Wayne's rented Mesa/Boogie head and guitar needed to be taken care of. It looked like a taxicab was our only option. Thank God for Colin LaMastro, who had a pickup truck with him. He and his friends helped Ric and I (who were now sick to the point of weakness) get everything loaded and back to our hotel amidst bitter winter conditions. 45 minutes later it was done, and even though we should have gone straight to bed, the situation was so stressful and absurd that the lot of us engaged in an ill-advised night of debauchery, the details of which are far too sordid to lay out in this here column. It was well after 3:00 AM when I finally passed out.

Day Three: Friday, January 8

Ric and I awoke at 11:30 AM with barely the strength to hoist ourselves into the bathroom, where we both spent the better part of our morning. The room was littered with party garbage and wadded-up tissues. Check-out time was 1:00 PM, and we didn't know where we were going.

The phone rang at noon. It was Margaret. Wayne had just been released from the hospital and was resting at a friend's place, but the prognosis said it all--a "severe bronchial infection" bordering on pneumonia. The doctor's orders were clear and unforgiving. Six to eight weeks with absolutely no performing, and especially no singing. The American tour was over. Europe was canceled indefinitely. She was coming to pick us up at 1:00. She was running out of money. The tour had not grossed a single dollar. An S.O.S. call had been put in to Epitaph Records for some emergency funds, but no one answered and she was forced to leave a message. Talk about your worst case scenarios.

Ric and I stumbled down into the lobby, doped up on sleep-inducing decongestants and aching from nothing in particular. Just before Margaret arrived, we took a peek outside to see what the weather was like, and we should have known better. Snow. Heavy snow. Heavy snow with whistling winds. It was at this point that I began to realize what I wanted more than anything else. I wanted my Mommy and Daddy. I wanted Casa Beller. It was only 30 miles away from the city, right? Ric and I could stay there and watch football and recuperate while Margaret tried to find a way to get us back to Los Angeles in one piece.

Margaret eventually came for us, and for the first time I could see on her face the stress of the past three days. She looked like she hadn't slept in way too long, but not for a second did it show in her demeanor. Trudging in the snow like a good soldier, she never let us see her despair. All she did was pay for the hotel, help us get our gear and luggage into the minivan, and quietly utter the line at the beginning of this Act. Being an adult does suck sometimes, yes indeed, Miss Margaret. Truth be told, I was starting to hero worship her something fierce.

We laid out the battle plan together. [NYC maps again, everyone.] First stop was Wayne's friend's place in the Lower East Side so that Margaret could check on her poor, infection-riddled artist. Then it was off to Midtown and S.I.R. to return the rental gear. After that, all we had to do was make it down to the Holland Tunnel and into New Jersey, where Casa Beller awaited with open arms, a mere 30 miles away.

The snow brought the roads to a standstill. What should have taken a total of 90 minutes took a staggering four hours. At least Margaret got the cell phone call she'd been waiting for; Epitaph would indeed be coming to the rescue when this was all over, so we could in fact afford airplane flights back to LA. But we wouldn't be going anywhere in this weather, that was for sure.

Somewhere near Exit 140 on the Garden State Parkway, Margaret finally gave way. Her head was nodding down at every stop in the stop-and-go traffic, and at long last she asked for assistance in driving. It suddenly occurred to me that not once had she complained, bitched, or even so much as questioned her job duties in this gargantuan misadventure. All she ever wanted to do was take care of us and do the best job possible for Wayne, and having been dealt the worst possible poker hand in the history of the Wild West, she still managed to get us out of the saloon without being shot. I drove us home as she slumped down in her seat, probably sleeping for the first time in over two days.

But she wasn't done. Once we got home, Ric and I talked politics with The Executive Producer while she sprung back to life. She booked our flights, got herself a hotel room in New York, returned the rental van, canceled all of our hotel reservations and even arranged for a limousine to take us back to JFK Airport on Sunday morning. It would be Lincoln Limousine again, for they had redeemed themselves in the eyes of Margaret for having taken us back to JFK to get my bag. The only catch was that our flight--Tower Air's only Los Angeles flight of the day--left JFK at 8:00 AM. The limo would be picking us up at 5:00 AM on Sunday morning. Wow.

Day Four: Saturday, January 9

Mom and Dad treat Ric and I like kings. They get us bagels for breakfast. They get us old-fashioned Italian food for dinner. They're the best. Ric agrees. We spend the day eating, sleeping and watching the right football teams win (that would be the Atlanta Falcons and the Denver Broncos--have a nice off-season, Jimmy Johnson and Steve Young).

I made a lot of phone calls that day, but two deserve specific mention. First I called Daryl Jamison, who was more than surprised to hear that his joke of a wish had come true. He did have the heart to say he was sorry for the conditions upon which I'd be returning to work so soon, and I thanked him sincerely for his thoughts. Then I called Martha Lawrence. "Hey Martha," I whimpered, "what happened to those good, loving vibes you promised me?" After assuring me that she really didn't cast a spell on me, we laughed about the insanity of it all, and I said with a good deal of certainty that her tour would probably go better than mine had.

Then I went to sleep. My alarm was set for 4:30 AM.

Day Five: Sunday, January 10

I was beginning to wonder if this cold was ever going to end. My nose was starting to feel like stucco.

But whatever. We were going home today. Soon it would all be over.

Ric and I both managed to be ready by 5:00 AM. Surely the sight of a white stretch limo would be a welcome one. Only problem was, by ten after five it still hadn't showed. I decided to put in a call to our favorite car service.

Dispatcher [in Arabic accent]: "Lincoln Limousine!"

Me: "Yes, this is Bryan Beller in Westfield, New Jersey, you have a white stretch coming to pick us up this morning? They were supposed to be here at five."

D: "Hold please...[three minutes pass]...yes, he is on Route 22. He will take 509. Should be ten minutes."

Me: "Thank you."

The limo was supposed to pick up Margaret and Wayne in the city on the way to JFK, so being late wasn't a good thing. But Route 22 was right near Westfield, especially where it hits 509, so ten minutes sounded like a reasonable estimate. I pretended to be Margaret and refused to panic. Until 5:40 AM, when they still hadn't arrived. I called them again.

Dispatcher: "Lincoln Limousine!"

Me: "Yes, this is the customer in Westfield. We have to make a stop in Manhattan and make an 8:00 plane at JFK, and your driver still isn't here. Can you tell me exactly where he is?"

D: "Hold please. I will get the driver on the phone." (At this point you might want to get out a map of New Jersey for maximum enjoyment.) "Ahmed! [The dispatcher is talking to the driver.] [unintelligible Arabic] Westfield [unintelligible Arabic] 509 [more Arabic] Clinton. Sir, our driver is now at Exit 17 on Route 22. Clinton."

(Clinton, NJ, for those of you who don't know, is closer to Pennsylvania than it is New York City.)

Me [most un-Margaret-like]: "Clinton? That's forty-five minutes away from Westfield! Your driver is forty-five miles out of the way! He needs to turn around!"

D [with a pitched voice]: "Hold please...[one minute passes]...AHMED! [angry Arabic cursing] CLINTON [more Arabic cursing] ROUTE 22 EAST!"

Me: "Hello?!"

D: "Can you give me directions from this way?"

After giving him complicated street directions that I knew damn well he didn't understand, I woke my father up and we began tearing through the yellow pages, trying to find a car service that could take Ric and I and all our gear (a regular-sized car would not do) to JFK on a Sunday morning at 5:45 AM on ten minutes notice. We called fifteen different places and struck out on all of them. The trip from Westfield to JFK took at least an hour. We were in serious danger of missing the flight. The plane tickets were non-refundable, as were all tickets on Third World Air. At 6:00 AM, I gave Lincoln Limousine one last shot at redemption.

Dispatcher: "Lincoln Limousine!"

Me: "This is the Westfield customer. Where is your driver?"

D: "Hold please...[one minute passes]...Ahmed! [Arabic] Route 22 [more Arabic] Westfield? [another minute passes] Sir, he is on Route 202. Washington Valley Road."

Me: "Route 202?"

Even I didn't know where that was. I pulled out a Somerset County New Jersey street map and located the junction of 202 and Washington Valley Road. The driver had indeed turned around on 22 and was headed in the right direction until he inexplicably turned onto Route 202 North. He was now headed towards points unknown.

Me: "Your driver just made another wrong turn! Tell him to turn around and go south on 202, and then go east on Route 22. WE ARE GOING TO MISS OUR FLIGHT BECAUSE OF YOU!"

D: "AHHHMMEEEEEDD!!"

I hung up. These guys were useless. My father was still poring over the yellow pages, telling me to call another number. First I called Margaret and told her of our misfortune; she and Wayne would have to get to JFK on their own. I assured her that we'd make the flight no matter what, even though I had no idea how we were going to get there. Then I called the number my father gave me.

Dispatcher [in heavy Jersey accent]: "Van service."

Me: "Hello? You're open? Where are you?"

D: "We're in Rahway, pal. You called us, remember?"

Me: "How soon can you get a van toWestfield for a trip to JFK?"

D: "Ten minutes."

Me: "Really? That's great! Let me give you directions--"

D: "You're in Westfield, right?"

Me: "Yeah."

D: "Just give me the address. I do this for a living, you know."

Their rate for the ride was exorbitant and they only took cash, but we were fucked and they knew it. My father handed me a wad of twenties and kissed me goodbye. Thankfully the Rahway Van Service kicked enough ass to get us to JFK by 7:15 AM. Now all we had to do was negotiate Tower Air's baggage check-in and find Wayne and Margaret. The latter was easier than the former.

It wasn't too difficult to find Wayne. His face was as white as a sheet. I hadn't seen him since the soundcheck at The Knitting Factory, and it was hard for me to imagine that he could actually look worse than he had that night, but he did. His cough was a deadly rumble, its source deeper than I wanted to know about. He shuffled over to me and Ric and begged our forgiveness for being forced to cancel the tour. We assured him that the primary concern was for his health, and that he had nothing to apologize for. Man, everybody in this organization was a class act. It was such a shame that we never got to have any real fun together.

The four of us were practically the last group to buy our tickets. We waited on line until just past 7:30. The intercom was announcing the final boarding call for our flight even before we had all our baggage checked. Then baggage security held us all up for ten precious minutes while several of our bags were searched. Margaret pleaded with the security officers to let us pass, but they would not. Eventually they let us all go except for Margaret, but she had all the boarding passes anyway so we ended up just standing there waiting for her. A transit cop was looking down on the whole pathetic scene, shaking his head and making eyes at us. "You know," he chirped as we ran past him, "if you guys keep dickin' around, you're gonna miss your flight." It was all I could do not to ram my hand down his throat and yank his intestines out through his mouth.

Now they were announcing the "last" final boarding call for our flight. We jogged up lamely to another security counter, where a Tower Air employee was shouting, "Anyone for Los Angeles?!" "YES!" we yelled back, and we were shoved to the front of the line. The rest of the passengers instantly hated us, but none more so than the Jamaican security lady standing by the metal detectors.

"I am secuuuurity here at this terminal, and you caaaan't get byyyy withaut my approoooval. So stop yer runnin' and slooooow down." It was like a comedy sketch right out of In Living Color. I was literally waiting for her to break out with "how many joooobs you got? Whaaat? Only threeee jobs? Me got seventeeeen jobs!"

Well, we just made it. We were the absolute last people on before the door closed. "To the bitter end," I said to Margaret as we took our seats. "To the bitter end." We smiled at one another for the first time that morning. Then the four of us fell asleep.

It wasn't until the Super Shuttle made its way out of LAX and back towards West Hollywood that I allowed myself to begin mourning the loss of this incredible opportunity. The tour would eventually be rescheduled for both America and Europe, but there was a good chance that Doug Lunn would be available for those dates, and if he were to be chosen to do the makeup dates, then rightly so. He'd been Wayne's bassist for the past couple of years and was the bassist on the album we were supposed to have toured behind, "Live Like A Motherfucker". And he sounded fantastic on it. Besides, if the dates were rescheduled for the summer and I was asked to do them, they would probably conflict with the upcoming Keneally/Vai activity anyway. [At the time of this writing, all of these issues were still left unresolved]. Either way I couldn't see myself going anywhere for the next couple of months. As we drove up La Cienega Boulevard, the mountains that ringed the Los Angeles basin began to resemble walls.

Margaret made a joke about the press release and how it should be worded. The phrase "Sick Like A Motherfucker" was tossed about (and eventually used). Ric and Wayne called their wives on Margaret's cell phone so they could be picked up at her apartment. I must say that if there was anything positive to come of all this, it was the chance to get to play and learn Wayne's music, as well as the chance to get to know both Ric and Wayne personally. Two finer, more professional souls would be hard to find in this town. It just goes to show you that it takes a special kind of person to last twenty years in this business.

But if you haven't figured it out by now, the heroine of this sorry tale is Margaret Saadi. Wayne and Margaret literally lost their shirts trying to pull this thing off, and when Wayne went down for the count, Margaret and her own personal fortune was the only thing keeping us from being consumed by the mean, cold streets of New York. Not once did she even raise her voice throughout everything you just read. Maybe the most telling thing about her was that she never caught our collective sickness. Somehow, in a defiance of logic indicative of her nature, she was immune to it all. Margaret Saadi, welcome to the Life Of Bryan Hall of Fame.

After she dropped me off back in my North Hollywood apartment, my lament turned colossal. I couldn't even move, I was so depressed. After having put a brave face on the entire affair--perhaps as much for my sanity as everyone else's--I let my guard down and started to feel really fucking sorry for myself. And then after that I got mad. Mad at the fates for having teased me with the chance to expand my musical circle beyond the world of Zappa/Vai/Keneally, only to have that chance suddenly yanked away from me just as Lucy would do with her football to Charlie Brown. A shuddering sneeze punctuated the sentiment. Why did this all happen, anyway?

The answer is, I don't know. If I did, maybe I wouldn't have needed to write this. All I know is that, at this point in my life, I am no more ready to predict the next hour of my being than I am ready to call Lincoln Limousine for a ride to the grocery store.

Tuesday, January 12

OK. I'm not sick anymore, and I've had some time to think. Some time to sort it all out. And you know what? Life is like this. It just doesn't go up or down. It goes up and down, sometimes all at once. The more energy you put into it, the more likely it is to take jagged stabs in either direction. The way I've got my life set up, I figure I'm not through with the jagged stabs just yet. Not by a long shot.

Take today for example. I heard something this afternoon that just might change my life. But it's far to early to discuss it because, you know, it's pretty tentative.

Just like everything in life that hasn't already occurred.

Alive and well,
The Bassboy Number Sixty-Nine