Wanna Sing With Me?

Here's how you get into the Bonus Round Choir: Show up.

There. You're in.

Anyone who comes to my October 27th gig at the Metropolitan Room who loves to sing, I'll be concluding the program with Lazarus Come Out and My Rising Up, both of which feature simple call-and-response back-up. 

I have been so preoccupied with the CD, I forgot I have to sell tickets to this thing.

I've neglected my big gig! The official 60th Birthday and Album Release Party. 

Oh, damn. I need to write up an official looking press release or something.

If you read this blog, please tell yer friends about it.

Selling tickets is hard!

Tales from the Bonus Round (playlist)

You don't have Spotify or iTunes? No problem. Now you can listen to the entire album on YouTube by clicking on this playlist.

Tales From the Bonus Round: A Reader Responds.

By Bonus Round Reader, BRBN

In response to AIDS in NY: The First Five Years

I hope that this work of being an inside reporter
is as useful to the planet as it is altruistic.
the awareness factor is important;
but the dumbing down of the youth
is perhaps the more scary proposition.

in my 57 years I myself have contracted many of the
nuisance STD - the ones that don't outright kill you but shorten your happiness factor.
and I paid attention and knew how and where and why.
When in fact - what did I care at that time? I was getting some -
I was plain lucky.

One evening after a month long small time courtship with a gal from the Police Station Radio Room
where I had been dispatching my way thru College -
the two of us turned out to have the same 3 day weekend off.
I invited her to go with me to NYC for a long weekend getaway for some fun and shows and food
and a room and some casual hotness to see how well all things went together.

on the way into town while crossing over from Hackensack /
she yells "take a right!"
I did it - made a sneaky exit that stuck me on a dark street in Harlem.
At a particularly freaky corner I saw a building with a hole in the wall.
It looked to me like a scene from the nightly news
in Viet Nam except more citified like Beirut looks nowadays.

Before I could comment i noticed that my companion was
no longer in the car but running towards this hole in the wall.
The light changed and I was forced to circle -
I liked her but I was a bit scared to go in after her.

I didn't have to -
she was out in less than a minute
with a bloody sleeve and fresh vomit on her silk shirt.

She jumped back into my car slowly and said,
"I got three bags - 1 for you and 2 for me. This will make our weekend fun all the easier."
I turned the car around as she wrecked the front seat with more puking
and asked why she thought that this was a good idea.

There were no good answers -
and I brought her to her mom's house,
and then to a local clinic - her mom said it was
a five year old problem already and she was done;
but that this was where to take her.

Imagine how many people she was
with and had shared needles with?
Narrow escapes.

Seriously she never spoke to me again at work
and I never told her or anyone else of her problem
except that she had been hurt on the street in NYC.
The Captain said, "We know why you were both there -"
I passed a drug screen and kept my job - this was
her 15th offense but strings pulled by her uncle had kept her there.

She disappeared and I felt awful.
but the last I heard was that she had OD'd -
a better fate than the AIDS she was carrying -
for me as well. Sounds evil no?

at the time it was more of a gay issue than today
mainly because denial threatens all sentient beings.
I learned early that it's not a gay issue.

I hope you don't mind but I forward these blogs to almost all of my friends and family -
we all have or know people who need the info and/or inspiration.

Also some non-governmental truth.

TALES FROM THE BONUS ROUND: The Sad Story of Cabaret Boy

TALES FROM THE BONUS ROUND: The Sad Story of Cabaret Boy
(The Story of the Birth of The Last Session & The Rebirth of Steve)
LOS ANGELES
JUNE 1996*

*(Edit: I accidentally wrote 2013 earlier. Fixed now to 1996)

13 pounds up
(Almost a stone)
He stood naked and dry
Looking down at the number

Sure, the 10 pound mark
Was when he made the big announcement
That he would live
But these next three pounds
They came so fast
Evidence was piling up

Dare he actually believe it?
Is Songwriter Guy actually going to live?
He'd been telling everyone he would
But he ALWAYS told everyone he would
Never, in his diary did he ever say
"Well, I'm dying now"
He never even thought that way

He had learned to be a patient

Learned to use every strong moment
To accomplish something
Learned to use every weak moment
By giving himself permission
To sleep
Perchance, even, to dream

Dream that the songs that saved his life
Might actually make it to Broadway!
A place he didn't know much about
Songwriter Boy was more rock and roll
Than theater, but
Jim had been teaching him

And back at the Songwriter Academy
A few years earlier
When he was in charge of programs
He had organized a seminar on writing musicals
With the Lehman Engel Workshop

And now he had The Last Session
But were they cheering for the musical?
Or were they cheering for the
AIDS Guy singing the
Last Songs Of His Life?

He thought back to an incident
Back at the Academy
Just a couple years earlier
When a TV producer named Sandy Sprung
Married With Children!
Hired him to musical direct
A "one and only" dream
That her friend
Cabaret Boy had:
Cabaret Boy was dying of AIDS

To, just one time,
Once before he dies
Sing and perform his own cabaret act
At the Manhattan club in Silver Lake

Cabaret Boy had never sung anywhere before
Except in his own living room
But he had every Liza album
Every Judy record

So, Sandy and Songwriter Guy
Helped Cabaret Boy
Choose the songs
Eating Pollo Loco in his living room

The day of the big show
Cabaret Boy got deathly ill
"Would you go on for me?"
Cabaret Boy begged

How could he say no?

The night of the big show
Our hero sang the songs
And
In the back of the room
Covered in a blanket
Looking like a monk
Shaking like a leaf
Sat Cabaret Boy watching

Watching someone else sing his show

And now, Songwriter Guy turned AIDS Boy turned
Lazarus Child had his own dream

The Songs The Saved His Life
The musical called The Last Session
On Broadway

The difference, though, is WANTS someone else singing his show
He wants the whole world
Singing His Show

But he had one little hurdle to overcome

How the hell do you get a show to Broadway?

And how the hell do you do it while being
Hooked up to a feeding bag?

TALES FROM THE BONUS ROUND: THE SCALES Pt. 2

TALES FROM THE BONUS ROUND: THE SCALES Pt. 2
Recounting the birth of The Last Session and the Rebirth of Steve

Los Angeles

June 1996

Read previous entry here.

Four days to showtime

The Saturday morning reading

One shot

His ears were still plugged up
He needed sound equipment
He needed a keyboard

They had one shot

David Robyn, his rocker friend,
Pledged mics, amp and speakers
His friend, Alan O'Day,
Drove over the hill with things
Alan O'Day -- Undercover Angel
Angie Baby, Rock and Roll Heaven

Alan O'Day
Who died of cancer last week

While AIDS-boy lives on

Steve Wilde and Marjorie Graue
(Buddy and Vicki)
Rehearsed songs
Between feedings from Louie
He peed a lot

Yve Evans

(Trysha)

Will drive in from the desert

Suddenly, Saturday morning
The theater is packed
The audience waiting

No keyboard
They've got one shot

Who knows if he'll live long enough
To get a second?

Yve says she'll go buy one
And return it the next day
The show must go on
She's on the way out the door
With a credit card

What he didn't know was that
Today was Gay Pride Parade day
The keyboard was late
Because Terence couldn't get thru the parade

The irony was not lost
On the gay dying songwriter
He was losing his shot

10 AM

No music stores are even open

His stomach was hurting
The bandage on his arm throbbed
From the port leading to his heart

Defeated by his own people

Then, as if from out of the blue
The keyboard arrives

Everyone scrambles
It works

The show starts
One shot

In his diary, the Songwriter notes
That he had almost no memory
Of this crucial performance
Apart from being scared
And then releasing himself
Into the emotions of the material
Because he couldn't hear it
His ears were more plugged than ever

But he remembered the hugs
The tears
The pledges of support

The next day he was too weak
To function
He stayed in bed
He let Louie feed him
He peed a lot

And then, the next day,

JUNE 10, 1996

He announces on his blog

That he has gained 10 pounds
After three years of diarrhea

Three years of not processing food
And narcotics to stop the flow

Three years of life slipping away
He had gained 10 pounds
(3/4 of a stone)

He was afraid to announce
That he just might possibly live
But he couldn't be sure

Not yet
He still felt terrible
But now he had graduated
To Thai curry chicken

No more BRAT diet

Next, they met with Gary and Linda
"What do you want to do with this show?"

He answered naively,

"I want to go to New York and

Be on Broadway!"

Gary and Linda looked at him
Looked at the skeleton
Sitting in front of them 

And thought,

"Is he even gonna make it
To the end of the week?"

No one knew.

Tales From the Bonus Round: The Scales, pt. 1

Tales From the Bonus Round: The Scales, pt. 1

Los Angeles.

May and June of 1996.

(Read the previous TFtBR entry here.)

The change happened so quickly
In May, he was picturing his death
Fantasizing about his memorial service
Thinking about his friends
Pictured them having a laugh over him

And in June, he was staring at a miracle
In the dial of a bathroom scale

In May, he was calling his best girlfriends
And crying on their shoulders
Trying not to use his diary as a platform
For whining and complaining

He was constant pain
His sick body wasting away

In June, more than the scales had been tipped.

His "feed bag" became Louie
Louie, who tipped over when walking
Louie, who hummed so loud
That Jim had to sleep
In the loft
On the floor

And since this was in the days before
He had a proper camera
And bandwidth
The only picture of Louie that survives
Was drawn by a reader named Karl

He and Jim spend their days mailing out flyers

Sending faxes
Contacting anyone they knew
Does anyone want to produce a new musical
About AIDS?
Time was running out

They watched the Tony Awards together
They saw Jonathan Larson get his posthumously
Died before opening night
Jim, in tears, yelling,
THAT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU

Then, a friend refers them to Irene

Who produces theater for the disabled
She told them of a theater on Melrose
A theater behind a neon sign shop
The Zephyr

Gary and Linda

It just so happened that the Zephyr
Had a Saturday morning play reading series
And somebody dropped out

Could they be ready in four days?

His ears were now plugged up
Something new on the attack
But he would not be deterred
Four days?

No problem.

NEXT: The Day The Gay Pride Parade Almost Did Him In.

TALES FROM THE BONUS ROUND: Portland Oregon 1996

First time a big ocean liner

Sailed up the Wilhammette and docked
In Portland Oregon

They lifted the bridge

Helicopters flew over

Flood lights

Afternoon and evening tv news

On board that ship was a dying man
Taking the last cruise of his life
A cruise to Alaska

He had already celebrated the “last birthday” of his life

The previous October

This was now May

He was also desperate to not die
So he made a decision that he would fight

The diarrhea that was draining the life from his

stick thin body

He drank a narcotic syrup to slow down his system
Anti-diarrhea pills on top of that

And he raided every food buffet possible

Even if he could just gain a pound

He a Stephen King character
A ghoul face poking from inside a hoodie

The image you avert your eyes away from

Wasting away
A barely-walking skeleton

He had already held off his death
For the past year
By writing and singing music
Of brutal honesty

Rage, courage, and hope

Written with nothing left to lose

It had worked

The music had had measurable effects
So, he had come back from the brink before

Now, he needed to play the songs for someone
He needed them to be heard

They had had such a magical effect on him
He thought someone else might need them
Maybe they could also heal the world!

But nobody knew him
He was not famous

As he pulled into Portland

He remembered that it was supposed to be a hipster town
There was a singer/songwriter vibe
If he could just find someone

To listen to his songs
Maybe an open mic

After the entry into Portland

With the news copters overhead

Boats saluting with sprays of water

The ship docked downtown
Right at the end of a
Small maze of streets

With bars

He went looking for something

The Ghoul was frail

He walked the narrow, cobbled streets

He said, “I am going to find someone

Who will let me sing”

But it was locked up tight
Bars aren’t open at 10 AM

Then a sign
A blackboard on the street
“Open mic. 9pm”

That won’t work

The ship will have left by 9 pm

The door was propped open. Lights off.

Black interior. The harsh sunlight from the doorway lit

Two guys sitting around

Holding guitars

On break from
Cleaning the floors

Chairs piled in the corner

They’re friendly

“I have these songs.” says Skeletor.

“What do you play?” they ask.

“Piano.”

“No piano here, man.”

“I can sing a cappella.”

Skeletor won’t let them out of this

They listen.

Singing: “I heard of a group
With someone like me
Who felt the way I feel...”

Two weeks later, after the cruise,

After all the buffets, the medicine
Enough calories to feed a small nation
He hit the scales

Lost: Another pound.

That’s when he knew it really was over.

It scared him, but he accepted it.

And when he accepted it
An unexpected comfort and peace
Came over him.