The tech guys were waiting to see how this turned out before they moved the floodlights. George looked from Gogo to Nomad and then back again, and he lowered his head and said, “Nobody wants to shut it down.”
Still the tech guys waited. Gogo drank about half the water. Then he recapped it with a flourish, victor of this particular battle. “Okay,” he announced, and the tech guys started working again.
Nomad caught Berke’s gaze. Her eyes were slightly narrowed. She was asking him, Do you believe we have to put up with this shit? He didn’t want to, anymore than she did, but they needed this. Even though the show would run too late to put anybody in the audience at Common Grounds, it and the Saturday afternoon rerun would bring people into The Curtain Club for their Saturday night gig in Dallas.
“Do you want to talk about the video?” Gogo asked them. “Or do you want to talk about your tour?”
“The tour,” Nomad said, after a quick questioning glance at the others.
“Fine with me. That video’s going to be about as popular around here as a cactus sandwich covered with turd sauce. But that’s just my opinion. Okay, I want you all standing in front of the flag.”
The band was in place (like mannequins in a store window advertising a small and hollow version of patriotism, Nomad thought), the floodlights were on, the camcorders lit up, the countdown done, and Felix Gogo got on the right track by mentioning their gig at the Curtain Club in Dallas’ Deep Ellum. Doors at eight-thirty, other gators on the bill the Naugahydes, the Critters, and Gina Fayne and the Mudstaynes. Gogo asked Mike about the tattoos, and Mike said they were a history of his life. Gogo asked Ariel how long she’d been a musician, and she said she couldn’t remember not hearing some kind of music and wanting to write down what she heard. Gogo asked Terry what his favorite song was that The Five had done, and Terry said it was a tough question but he probably had two favorites that were very different from each other and displayed their range: the slithery ‘This Song Is A Snake’ and the hard-edged ‘Desperate Ain’t Pretty’, which they sometimes did as an encore. Gogo was a fly, landing here and there, long enough to start an itch, quick enough to slip a swatter.
Then Gogo looked directly at Nomad and asked, “You guys have been together three years, right? So how come you don’t have a record deal?”
It sounded so sincere and sincerely interested, but Nomad knew they were having a big dick contest, after all, and Gogo had just pulled Nomad’s jeans down to show the shrivelled little member that hung there.
In his allotted time, Nomad could not explain that Don Kee Records in Nashville had gone belly-up a month before their first CD was supposed to be distributed. He could not explain that their slick A&R rep with Electric Fusion Records in Los Angeles had been caught screwing the money-man’s wife in a hot tub, and thus not only was Slick kicked, but every band Slick had picked was kicked. Nomad could not explain, in this happy moment, that the music business was a devastated landscape and that the sale of CDs fell every year and bands were fighting to survive on gigs that at best put a hundred dollars in the pot to be divided, but then again Gogo already knew this, and what was truth to working gators in the industry could sound like sour grapes to the paying audience. Anyway, Nomad decided, desperate ain’t pretty.
He pulled up an easy smile. It was probably one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do because it felt so hideously, rottenly false, and he said, “We’re working on it,” which he’d heard many others say when they were sliding down the tubes.
“Well, good luck with that,” said Gogo. He looked at Terry again. “Where you going after Dallas?”
“We’ll be at the Spinhouse in El Paso on Friday night, the 25th. After that, we’re at—”
“So I guess your fans can find you on the web, right?” Gogo interrupted.
“Uh…yeah. And we’ve got a MySpace page.”
“Good enough. I want to give you a great big Gogo thanks for being here tonight, and I know you guys are heading for great things.” He grinned into Benjy’s lens. “And speaking of great, my friends, let’s take a look at these great Weekend Special Deals. Felix Gogo Toyota makes it eeeeeasy to walk in, drive out any day of the week. Comin’ at you right now.” He pointed his finger into the lens and made his eyes pop and he pursed his lips as if trying to kiss the customer—or, at least, the customer’s wallet.
“And out,” said Hector.
The camcorder lights were switched off. Gogo mopped his face with his handkerchief again. “We’re done,” he said to no one in particular. “We’ll edit it this afternoon. Check it out tonight, see what you think.”
“We’re working tonight,” Nomad reminded him.
“Catch the rerun, then. Whatever. Fuck it.”
The tech guys were unplugging. Ariel, Berke and Mike had already gone out as soon as the cams had darkened. Gogo left the room, followed by George, Terry and Nomad. Outside, in the parking lot, the air was only a few degrees cooler than the stifling room but at least there was the stale breath of a breeze. Gogo got on his cellphone and stood next to the Land Cruiser; the interview was finished, the favor to Roger Chester done, and what more was there?
“Thanks,” George said as he went around to get in the Scumbucket, but Gogo stuck a finger in his free ear and concentrated on his conversation.
“I haven’t had so much fun,” Berke told Ariel as they climbed into their seats, “since the last time I puked on my boots.”
“You’re makin’ me hungry,” Mike said. “Anybody want a hamburger? We passed a McD’s up the road.”
Nomad was about to get in when Gogo closed his cell and said, “Hey! You! Nomad, come here a minute!”
Nomad’s first impulse was to show him he really could be a middle finger, and a double middle finger at that, but he walked the few paces to where Gogo stood next to the Land Cruiser. The black cowboy hat was cocked to one side. Gogo watched him warily, animal to animal.
“The promo stuff I got from Roger says you wrote that song,” Gogo said. “You and the girl.”
“The song for the video?”
“Yeah. The anti-American anti-war shit.”
Here we go, Nomad thought. He steeled himself for an argument. “I don’t think it’s anti-American.”
Gogo looked at the ground and pushed rubble around with the toe of a Nike. “You don’t? You think it says something worthwhile? Something noble? You trying to make some kind of political statement?”
“It’s a song,” Nomad answered.
“Let me tell you.” Gogo stared into Nomad’s eyes, and there was something about his expression that was at the same time both angry and weirdly fatherly. “I’ve seen bands come and go. Seen the bigshots and the blowhards pass through by the dozens. And they were all talented in some way, yeah, but talent’s no big thing. Shit, talent’s a piss-poor third to ambition, and ambition is second to personality. So I’m going to give you some free advice, huh? Don’t get into political shit. Don’t stir up anybody’s water. You’re an entertainer, that’s what you do. I interviewed The Rock a couple of years ago. Remember when he was a wrestler? His motto was ‘Know Your Role’. That’s what I’m saying to you. Know your role, and you might get somewhere.”
“Where would that be?” Nomad asked.
“Not in the crapper, which is where ninety-nine percent of you people end up. Listen, you’ve got a good voice and a good presence. I like you. I’m just saying, the reason blacks rule music these days is because their songs are about fun and sex. The guys sing about getting bling and finding fresh pussy, and the girls sing about getting bling and cutting the nuts off the guys who screwed them over, huh?” Gogo waited for that point to sink in. “White musicians are singing about angst and the cruel world and how nothing’s any damned good. What’s the fun in that? Who’s going to dance to that beat, huh? Now you want to be fucking political. I’m telling you, don’t go that way.”