AUGUST, LA COUNTY: Part Three

Hey everyone!

I don't know if you've been following the interweaving threads,  but if you haven't read August, LA County Parts 1 and 2, you might want to only because you might be lost if you don't.

I don't want to get too terribly into details about why, from my late teens through early twenties, I missed out on the things that normal young women do: normal college life, normal relationships, normal career pursuing. Mine wouldn't have been normal actually, because I was going to either NYU or Manhattan School of Music or USC. But instead, I developed bad eating disorders, bad depression, bad relationships. Blah, blah, blah. You can read or see either of my one woman shows, The One or StandUpera (which I MAY be performing again in early 2016! Stay tuned!) to hear all about the tragedy and hilarity of my story. But I do want to say that during this time, instead of going to school to become a movie and Broadway star, I did different things: I performed in a burlesque cabaret called Le Cirque Rouge in Minneapolis as a regular, sometimes four times a week. I toured the country and Europe as a songwriter, and with my band. I wrote plays, one of which, called "My Life as a Phone Psychic, which I wrote before I eeeeever worked as a phone psychic but just did tarot readings for people, won some awards and which I then turned into a novel and it was by pursuing publication of that novel that I met Mark Husson and started working at 12listen.com- as a phone psychic. :) How's that for psychic?! I self-released albums and directed short films and eventually moved to Los Angeles to pursue the big dream. Oh! And before that I was with this crazy German, going to weddings in castles and being full of drama- more about that soon enough.

So, while here in Los Angeles, I've had the usual run around stories of people trying to "help" me with my career. I will soon be blogging other parts of that one woman show again, The One, and will include some vignettes that share those stories.

When I very first moved here, I met a guy named... uh... let's just call him Tiger. That wasn't his real name, of course. But in reality, he is a nice enough guy. As Tom Waits once said to him, "A lotta guys are nice guys. I wanna know what I'm dealing with here." Well, he was nice. He is nice. I mean, as nice as any human who works in the entertainment industry for 40 years can be. Which is that weird combination of jaded and ever-hopeful. (Have you ever seen the Robert Altman movie "The Player," starring Tim Robbins? Like that guy only older.) I met this fellow at a networking party happy hour in Beverly Hills. If you're already rolling your eyes, go for it. The thing is, business has to happen. And if you're new to town, you gotta meet people. And I always like to be open minded about people and opportunities as much as possible.

So this guy, Tiger, he and his friend were chatting with me and my friend and he found out I was a singer. He agreed to listen to my demo and potentially offer career counseling- he had been a manager for some VERY famous acts- and of course, I hoped, more. And by more, I mean, representing me as a manager and getting me signed to a record deal as the next Annie Lennox.

To be fair:

At this time, I had starting wrecking my voice, vocally. It was after I had been bulimic a long time and was in rock bands screaming in clubs with bad sound. I was singing way too low and relying on very bad vocal habits to get me through a performance.

That is to say,

later, when I started rebuilding my voice by using opera technique and remembered how BEAUTIFUL my Broadway/ opera/ big ballad a la Celine Dion voice is, well, it would have been a WAY better time to meet Tiger as a PROFESSIONAL SINGER. And I met him when I was still in my 20s. I hate to say it, because I don't want it to be real for me, but each passing year after the age of, oh, say, 21, people are suspect as to why they haven't heard of you yet.

Unless you look like Susan Boyle and are a virgin (and she IS a wonderful singer!). Unless you have a story. I mean, hell, I gotta story now, but the story then was tragic but without the turnaround.

Anyway, so there I was, spending time with Tiger. He introduced me to a backup singer to the stars. He brought me to fancy Hollywood places like the Polo Lounge (okay, that's Beverly Hills) where we mingled with stars (like Keanu Reeves. I don't know how it is possible, but he is actually even MORE beautiful in person.) Eventually, he told me he wanted to discuss my career and I said "GREAT!" He said he would "send a car Friday night at 8."

The minute he said THAT, I started to worry. Why didn't he say, come into my office and bring your guitar? Let's meet Friday at 3 at a recording studio and play with some musicians? I mean, I was still hopeful enough to look for the best but I had now been in a band for a while and knew a LOT about how men operate. (Me and six boys in a tour van on and off for a few years. Yeah. I learned some stuff.)

Not only that, but I didn't want to mislead the guy. I didn't want him to think I was "like that." I didn't want to insinuate more than I was comfortable with.

BUT I also didn't want to be projecting on to him. And I thought I might be! I thought I might be projecting all my big bad wolf man fears onto him, fears I had well learned through a few other sticky situations (pun intended. Ew!) and through the years I did massage and had some weird clients AND through a few very controlling and manipulative and emotionally (and sometimes more) abusive boyfriends. (Learnin' a lot about me now, aren't ya?)

So, I decided to go ahead and just see.

The car picked me up and he was smoking away. I hate cigarette smoke. Like with a passion. Like I am kind of hardcore about not being around cigarettes unless you're my neighbor lady who reminds me of my grandma and smokes while she is watering the plants. But otherwise? ew. No.

Anyway. We arrived at what was at that time THE restaurant on the Sunset Strip, and they showed us to a table in the middle of the restaurant where everyone could see us.

I guess one upshot of this was that I was pretty enough to be considered a trophy wife.

Oh that is such an anti-feminist thought! Eeek! Don't tell Jane Mag, but also, please don't think of me like Ann Coulter. It's just a weird thought I have left over from the years I was an ugly duckling. If only that little girl could see she really was a swan after all

blah blah blah

back to the story. 

So we sat down to dinner and the conversation was not at all about my music, my singing, or my career. It was about wine, and LA, and stories from his life. A very handsome man passed by, smiled at me, and then stopped.

"Tiger!" [sic]

He invited us to join him and some of his clients in the lounge for drinks after dinner. After he left, Tiger looked at me apologetically. He was sorry, but this particular man was an attorney- actually, according to Tiger, he was one of the biggest in town (who knows, maybe that was true.) and we should really stop by and have drinks, just one, just to be social.

I was relieved, and intrigued. See, the attorney was closer to my age and very handsome. Me likey-d what me saw-y-ed. I realized there was no possibility there, of course, because the Minnesota Mind of Erin would never go on a date with the friend of another guy who was trying to date me, and now it was VERY clear that that's exactly what Tiger was trying to do. He wasn't trying to help me with my career, but he also wasn't trying to only get laid, either. He was asking me about children, and driving up to Napa, and etc. All that LA stuff. Did I like wines? How about spas in Palm Springs?

Sigh. The answer would have been, yes, but with a man who I was attracted to- perhaps one a little more age appropriate (sorry, I know that's a touchy subject for people, but I have ALWAYS imagined myself with someone fairly close to my age. Ask me when I'm 50, if I'm not married to my man, then I may be a cougar. But until then, I like relative closeness in age. And this is partially because at this point I had already dated primarily older men, guys around ten years older than me, anyway. And I didn't want that. And Tiger was my Dad's age, or maybe a year older.)

We finished dinner and went to the lounge where the attorney introduced us to everyone at the table. They were there for someone's birthday and my friend Tiger told everyone not only that I was a singer, but that I had been trained as an opera singer and I would LOVE to sing happy birthday. So, I did. I sang it a l'opera. :)

And the lounge went quiet while I sang.

I silenced one of the hottest bars in Hollywood.

And then it erupted in applause.

No one is used to having someone sing "Happy Birthday" in Italian loud enough to cut through the house music on the Sunset Strip, I guess.

A woman- no- nay- not a woman- an ethereal fairy tale looking queen- rose from the end of the table.

"My dear," she said, "That was marvelous. Come sit next to me."

I did. She was gorgeous. Blonde, buxom, plastic surgeried, but beautiful. I guessed her age around 38 although later her friend told me she was 52. She introduced herself as the widow of so and so, (a famous comedian.) She asked when Tiger and I would be getting married.

"Oh, no, no," I said, "I don't really want to get married."

She smiled.

"My dear," she said, "That is because you don't know what marriage can do for you. But with cheekbones like that? And I'd guess you're closer to 30 than 20? You should start thinking about it, fast. Tell you what. Why don't you come over to my house for a nightcap and I will show you what marriage has done for me."

She rose, then, almost hovering above her chair.

She clapped her hands.

"Everyone, we're all going to my house for a drink!"

The table erupted in cheers

We crammed into a few town cars that wound their way up the Hollywood Hills. Her house was incredible- the pool was built to look like a naturally occurring laguna. She showed me her Picassos, her Modiglianis. I have to admit, I was incredibly impressed.

"You see, dear, you see marriage as something permanent," she said. "But it isn't. It's a business."

I wasn't against what she was saying, nor did I disagree. I had studied love and romance and marriage and Eleanor of Aquitane. I knew that marrying for love was a very new phenomenon. I knew that more marriages ended up as business deals far more than was even intended.

But I wasn't interested in marriage as a business. I wasn't interested in using my looks, fading or not, (by the way: they were not fading, not by half! If I take after the women on my mother's side of the family, and I believe I do, I haven't even started! They were ALL downright GORGEOUS in their 40s and 50s!) as currency, as bait.

I had already learned from my previous relationship- and not by intention but by accident- marry for money, you earn every penny. I had learned that in EVERY marriage- you earn every penny. So in my mind, I already knew I was going to take care of myself, with or without a partner. I was already done with the illusion that a MAN was going to come save me from my life. That just wasn't what I wanted. Ironically, what I wanted was a CAREER to come save me from my life, and at this moment, I have a man AND a career that are intertwined, but no one needs saving and no one is a victim and no one is a savior.

You know, whoever you are, however your life works out, that's your life. I think it's great as long as it works for you, or even if it doesn't. It's not for me to say what should be the case for everyone. I'm not steeped in dogma (I think.) I'm just reflecting on what has happened in my life and what I would like and what works for me.

So, meanwhile, the cute attorney? He was really interested. Me, too. We spent the night talking about art, about music, about literature. He was so my kinda guy. Neither of us drank much, but then we DID go skinny dipping in the laguna pool. This was making poor Tiger fume. And I don't blame him. He was watching me go for a younger man, potentially a more successful man. Tiger should have been going for my goddess hostess trying to teach me how to marry. That was only a 5-10 year age difference. But her boyfriend came over after work- her 24 year old bartending boyfriend. Ah.

Finally, Tiger had had enough. As I was putting my clothes back on (it was a whole gang of skinny dippers, not just me and the lawyer boy! It was me, lawyer boy, a hair stylist, his boyfriend, and another girl.) he informed me that "we needed to talk" and he used that TONE very LOUDLY in front of EVERYONE to let them all know that ERIN WOULD BE UNAVAILABLE FOR LATE NIGHT TACOS or CHICKEN AND WAFFLES or WHATEVER THEY WERE PLANNING ON DOING.

We walked into the kitchen. I followed him like a high school kid in trouble with her Dad. Yeah. It was weird.

Then he turned around and stuck his tongue in my mouth. Just like that. It was like a middle school dance kiss. Only with the taste of cigarettes. Which made everything even weirder.

Then he asked when I would make time for "us." I apologized. He said he had called the car and it was waiting and he would take me home. We were silent on the ride home, but as he dropped me off he said, "I'll call you tomorrow, okay kiddo?"

He did call the next day and asked about us. Would I like to take his Porsche up to wine country?

I did potentially a really dumb thing. I told him that I wasn't romantically interested or attracted to him. I told him I had honestly thought he was interested in my career as a singer and was trying to help me, and that I liked him "as a friend" (again, how high school) but that was it.

He was very honest with me. He told me I needed the right song, the right music, the right hair, the right look, the right fans, the right team. And he wished me luck.

A couple years later I consulted with him about my album, poet's lovely daughter. He told me the album was indie and cool, but had nothing to do with me as a singer. He told me I should focus on being more like Celine Dion. He was right. I didn't listen, but he was right.

A couple years after that, I heard from the friend he had been with the night we all met. That friend told me that Tiger had gotten married and was very happy.

I was very happy for him.

I never saw the attorney again. Or if I have, I never recognized him...

Strangely, my partner has a law degree... Could it be? No.... Really?

Haha just kidding. My guy is Italian. This guy was definitely not that. But I hope he's happy!