#as a kid I remember those Danny pops were impossible to get! always out of stock...

[deep-spacediver577]

[jessicajonesrp]

Round up at the Raft

Somehow, miraculously, Trish actually managed to stay quiet for the majority of the trip to the Raft. Probably because she knew that Jessica, in her pregnant, stressed out, and very sober state, could not handle much more to trigger her temper, and would likely respond to any irritations from Trish by simply jumping out of the car and hitching a cab the rest of the way.

 

Jessica would have thought that would be a plus, Trish’s lack of chattering, but instead, it just gave her own thoughts more time to run rampant until she felt that her skin was riddled with adrenaline that she couldn’t bleed out. She bounced her legs jaggedly from the passenger seat, and by the time they did make it to the outskirts of the East River, just off Roosevelt Island. She had been given the approximate coordinates of the location that the Raft would be made accessible to her for her visit to Phillip, and as Trish drew closer to their destination, Jessica texted back and forth with the doctor, sent ahead of her a couple of hours before, to confirm that he had arrived with the vaccinations and that all staff and prisoners had been appropriately protected against Kilgrave. She had arranged a code word ahead of time for him to use if he had any contact with Kilgrave, and when the word was not used, she could be somewhat assured that everything, so far, was going as hoped.

 

If the doctor could be trusted. And if the vaccines had all worked. If, if, if.

 

Jessica had little nervousness about seeing Phillip again, at least, that she was able to admit to herself. It would be difficult to see the impact that prison life and isolation had on her little brother, but his choices were his own, and he was lucky that he still had any kind of life at all. She hoped that he would remember that and choose to be cooperative, or at least that she would still recognize at least some pieces of the brother she loved in what the Raft was shaping him into now. But that was beyond her control and beside the point.

 

It was the expectation of Kilgrave popping up that jarred her, mentally and emotionally. It didn’t matter how much protection they had put in place for people or how high the chances that they would succeed, Jessica still felt strong dread and responsibility to think of all the people he had harmed already and all those he may still. Even though she was no longer vulnerable to Kilgrave’s commands, nor was Trish, Luke, or the others most important to her, it didn’t mean they couldn’t be harmed by someone who was, or that her PTSD had received that memo.

 

Everything on the river’s shoreline was as had been described to her- a huge garbage scow at the water’s surface, covering up the facility underneath, and although she could not see the cameras or guards, Jessica knew they were there, outside easy surface view. She scanned their surroundings, every muscle drawn taut, and checked the time. Fifteen minutes until the Raft would come to surface, twenty-five until it would submerge. Trish had driven too damn fast for someone who talked about Jessica’s reckless driving skills.

 

She sent Luke a quick text to let him know she and Trish had arrived, distantly aware that Trish was doing the same for Luke. When a warm hand touched her shoulder, Jessica jumped, her head almost hitting the roof of the car, and barely stopped herself from taking a swing at Trish. Trish, used to this, ducked back just out of her reach and removed her hand.

 

“I know you hate pep talks, so, hard as it is, I’ll refrain, even though this is absolutely the perfect time and place for one. Notice and appreciate my self control.”

 

She smiled, her tone playful, but she was obviously assessing Jessica, seeking to reassure in her own sneaky, totally denying it fashion. Jessica shrugged, abruptly shoving open the car’s door.

 

“Whatever, I don’t do appreciation. That falls under etiquette, and that’s just a waste of time. I’m going to go ahead to the shoreline and wait. Don’t come with me.”

 

“You still have time before you can go in,” Trish started, but ignoring her, Jessica continued forward. She noticed and was irritated that Trish also got out of the car and followed her, but didn’t comment on it. It wasn’t like the guards would let her in, she hadn’t been approved for that. If she wanted to stand there and have Jessica not talk to her, well, she would get bored faster than Jessica would, for sure.

 

From the distance, Jessica could hear the smooth, nearly purring engine of an expensive-sounding car, coming closer. She tensed, stopping in her tracks, and resisted the urge to turn around or look over her shoulder. It was probably Danny, coming to accompany them after all, or one of his many employees. Maybe it was even a guard of the Raft, coming in for duty.

 

But she heard Trish’s gasp as the car drew closer, and the other woman’s quickening footsteps as she caught up to Jessica and grabbed hold of her arm. Jessica had to turn then, but even before she saw the figure emerging from the vehicle that had just parked beside theirs, she already knew from the shaky, cold sense of dread spiking through her just who it was that had arrived.

 

“Jessica Jones, we meet again. With sustained effort and perseverance on my part, of course.”

 

Jessica held herself rigidly, noticing with absolute horror that there were three children sitting in the back of the vehicle that Kilgrave had arrived in, all between the ages of approximately five and eight years old. Even more sickening was the fact that all of the children were clearly biracial- just as her own child would be. It was a cruel, evil move, and an obviously intentional reminder of just what Kilgrave was willing to do to Jessica’s own child, if it suited his purpose or goals.

 

“Kilgrave,” she spat out, the word twisted and sharp on her tongue. “What did you do, put a hidden camera in every building in the city? I knew you’d end up here somehow. Fucking knew it.”

 

“No, I simply had bugs implanted in all of the cars under Danny Rand’s ownership that I could get people to get hold of,” he shrugged, unruffled by Jessica’s tone. “Anything to reach you. You should know by now the effort I’m willing to go to, to find you. Doesn’t that prove to you how much I love you? What is it that a man has to do for that to get through?”

 

“No, it proves that you’re a psychotic, sociopathic stalker who doesn’t know how to take no for an answer,” Jessica snapped, not yet taking a step towards him. “And that you’re selfish enough to care more about what you want than anyone else’s life or happiness.”

 

Her eyes remained on the children, who as of yet were sitting seemingly calmly in the car. She could not see from her distance if any of them had been harmed, but she knew from her own experience just how terrified and out of control they must feel.

 

 

“Persistent and devoted would be how I would describe it, but you always did have a sharp tongue. Making everything sound so ugly,” Kilgrave shook his head, making a face of displeased disagreement. “I’d say we can agree to disagree, but I suppose you rather enjoy being contrary. That’s my Jessica.”

 

“I’m not your anything,” Jessica snapped, taking a step towards him, every muscle tensed for confrontation, fists balled at her side. “I’m nothing to you but your victim, and I refuse to be anymore. Let those kids go. This isn’t about them, Kilgrave.”

 

To Trish, she ground out in an undertone, “Trish, go to the car. Right now.”

 

Trish licked her lips, but stood her ground. Kilgrave, to Jessica’s dismay, turned his gaze towards her.

 

“Patsy,” Kilgrave inclined his head towards Trish, obvious disgust in his voice. “Let me ask you, Patsy, how is it that a woman with absolutely no useful abilities or skills manages to escape my efforts to dispose of her on multiple occasions? Is it sheer luck, or do you have some sort of innate self-preservation talent that saves you when your friends cannot? I truly do want to know, now.”

 

It was a command- the first directed at Trish, or at anyone who had been vaccinated, since the doses had been doled out. Jessica nearly held her breath, waiting to see what would happen, her fear choking her throat when Trish opened her mouth to respond.

 

But rather than respond to his question, Trish closed her mouth, shook her head, and smirked.

 

“Too bad for you, Kevin. I don’t feel like talking to you, so it looks like for one of the very first times in your life, you aren’t going to get what you want.”

 

For the first time that Jessica could remember doing so of her own free will, she smiled, right there in Kilgrave’s presence. It was impossible not to when the man’s jaw had nearly dropped to his chest.

 

“That wasn’t an option, Patsy!” he barked, blinking furiously in an effort to regroup himself. “I asked you a question. How is it that you keep escaping death?”

 

“She gave you an answer, didn’t you hear her?” Jessica put in, smirking. “She said it’s none of your fucking business, and no one’s in control of her tongue but her. Including you.”

 

“What she said,” Trish agreed, nodding. “With slightly less profanity. But she got it right all the same.”

 

Kilgrave took a step back, as though Trish’s lack of response to his order was somehow a threat to him, an endangerment. Truthfully, it was, although he could not know to the extent. The vaccines worked- Jessica now had seen the proof for herself, and her heart beat faster now not with fear, but with excitement.

 

They were going to get him. They were going to end this, finally. They just had to get through the next few minutes first.

 

“How did you- this is you!” he sputtered, jabbing a finger in Jessica’s direction. “You infected her somehow. Always you, messing things up, making things harder! Why can’t you ever just let things be!”

 

“Because I have a mind and will of my own, and it isn’t your fucking place to steal it,” Jessica snapped back. “Now get down on the ground, on your stomach, hands behind your back, unless you want me to break your neck. Again. And if you have any other little soldiers in hiding, call them off.”

 

But Kilgrave didn’t respond. When Jessica sprung forward, grabbing him and far from gently throwing him down and into a restraint on the ground herself, she heard Trish gasp, sucking in a breath. Kilgrave, unresisting beneath her, laughed softly to himself.

 

“I have to say, Jessie, this brings back fond memories. I always did like you on top.”

 

“Shut the fuck up!” she snarled, giving him a vicious shake.

 

She drew back her fist to punch him, hard enough to knock him unconscious, but Trish’s sharp calling of her name caused her to look up, then follow her pointing finger to the children, still seated in the car Kilgrave had driven up in. Only now, each of them held a knife to their tiny throats, digging in just enough that Jessica saw small beads of blood come to the surface of their skin.

 

Clearly, they had been holding the knives in their laps, just waiting for Kilgrave to be harmed or restrained. What the fuck was she supposed to do now?

 

Kilgrave laughed, understanding even as Jessica forced his face into the dirt what was happening.

 

“Try it, Jessie, go ahead and kill me. What’s three more deaths, when you can take down big bad me? It’s worth it, isn’t it? Just a few more deaths on your conscience, so what if they happen to be little kids?”

 

Jessica froze, stricken with indecision for several seconds. Then, making a decision, she released Kilgrave, throwing him off and away from her. When the children did not further harm themselves, watching solemnly, fear and pain stark in their wide eyes, and Kilgrave, chuckling, started to get to his feet, Jessica blocked out the words he was saying. Instead she took one long jump, landing somewhat gracelessly next to the children in the car, and tugged open the back door. She pried the knives out of each child’s hand, despite their screams and protesting efforts to regain them, and easily broke the knives into pieces before flinging them hard into the East River. As the children pushed past her out of the car, rushing towards the water’s edge in an effort to retrieve the pieces of knife that were already washing past their ability to find, Jessica grabbed one of them by the wrist, hesitating with a guilty grimace.

 

“Sorry, kid, I have to.”

 

She hit him, with just enough restraint that she prayed it wouldn’t’ cause permanent head injuries, but enough that the child went unconscious. She lay him down gently and snagged a second child. Trish, seeing what her intentions were, used what Jessica assumed to be some of the ninja skills Danny had been teaching her to restrain Kilgrave, even as Jessica rendered the second and last child unconscious and therefore safe from self harm. Coming back to Kilgrave, Jessica shook her head.

 

“You don’t know me. You never did, you never will. And you will never touch me or anyone else again.”

 

Kilgrave flinched, knowing what was coming even before she knocked him out in one blow. She had considered making it a killing one, but at the last second, although she couldn’t explain to herself why, she drew it back, just enough to save his life. Trish, still holding his now limp body gingerly and with disgust, looked up at Jessica, eyes serious.

 

“Jess, there’s less than two minutes left of the Raft being above surface, we have to get him in there, fast!”

 

Jessica had barely registered the Raft rising above the water, able to be accessed. She certainly hadn’t been keeping track of time. She would have been impressed by Trish’s ability to track time while simultaneously battling a psychopath, but there were more important matters at hand.

 

“Then give him to me,” she ground out, already mentally accepting her inability to see Phillip. “I’ve got this.”

 

She snatched him from Trish, jumping from where she stood the forty feet or so distance to the Raft’s surface with Kilgrave slung over her shoulder like a potato sack. The guards, standing ready to confirm her identity and purpose for her admission, seemed unfazed as she shoved him at them.

 

“This is Kilgrave, the one you had to get the shots for. Newest prisoner. Don’t know or care what proper protocol for admission is, he needs to be in here. Now, and forever. Don’t trust him, and don’t fuck this up. Someone will call you later if you need.”

 

Abruptly she leapt back onto shore, just in time to see the stoic guards putting obviously specialized cuffs on his wrists and punching in codes to take him inside. As the Raft began to descend beneath the water’s surface once more, Jessica let her shoulders sag, her heartbeat finally beginning to slow. She could see Trish checking the children’s vitals from the corner of her eyes, making sure they were all stable, but just for the moment, she closed her eyes, letting herself breathe.

 

It was over, again. At least for now.

 

Taking out her phone, she texted Luke. “Out of Raft. Not that I went in. Kilgrave showed. He’s their newest prisoner now.”

 

[hopelikethemoon]

Massage (Javier x Reader) {MTMF}

Title: Massage Rating: PG-13 Length: 2000 Warnings: Fluff Notes: You can find the Maybe Today, Maybe Forever Timeline here. And release order here. Set in January 1998. Summary: Reader gives Javier a massage.

Taglist:  @grapemama​  @seawhisperer​ @huliabitch​ @pedropascalito​ @rogrsnbarnes​ @thewallpapergoesorido​ @twomoonstwosuns​ @gooddaykate​ @livasaurasrex​ @ham4arrow​ @hiscyarika​ @plexflexico​ @readsalot73​ @hdlynn​ @lokiaddicted​ @randomness501​ @fioccodineveautunnale​  @roxypeanut​ @just-add-butter​ @snivellusim​ @amarvelousmandalorian​ @lukesrighthand​ @historynerd04​ @mrsparknuts​ @synystersilenceinblacknwhite​ @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead​ @exrebelshocktrooper​ @awesomefandomsunited​ @ah-callie​ @swhiskeys​ @lady-tano​ @beskar-droids​ @space-floozy @cable-kenobi​ @longitud-de-onda​ @cool-ultra-nerd​ @himbopoes​ @findhimfives​ @pedrosdoll​ @seeking-a-great--perhaps​ @frietiemeloen​ @arrowswithwifi​​ @random066​​ @uncomicalhumour​​ @heather-lynn​​ @domino-oh-damn​​ @cyarikaaa​​ @ahopelessromanticwritersworld​​ @im-still-a-pieceofgarbage @ksgeekgirl​ (if I forget to tag you, I’m sorry)

Javier peeled himself out of the armchair with a grimace, his hand going to his lower back as he all but limped his way towards the kitchen. You frowned as your eyes followed him until he was out of the family room. 

“Are you going to let me give you a massage?” You called out, moving onto your knees and looking over the back of the sofa as you waited for him to re-emerge from the kitchen.

“My back’s fine, baby.” Javier assured you unconvincingly, returning with two bottles of beer. 

“You tossed and turned all night.” You reminded him, “You couldn’t get comfortable. Because your back hurts.”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t uncomfortable, I just had a lot on my mind.” Javier sat a bottle down on the coffee table in front of you, before moving back towards the armchair. He tried to mask his pained expression as he sat down, sitting stiffly in the chair. “Might have to replan the entire schedule with all this Clinton bullshit going on.” 

“If your back’s fine then why are you over there? Hmm?” Your brows rose upwards, gesturing to the sofa beside you. “Already bored with me?”

He narrowed his eyes, “Can’t a man just sit in a chair?”

You shook your head. God, he was impossible sometimes. “Javier you have never chosen to sit in that chair over curling up on the sofa with me. Have you been abducted by the Pod People? Is there someone else?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He took a swig of beer before he hauled himself back out of the chair and moved towards the sofa. “Move your feet.”

You reeled them in beneath you, giving him an expectant look as he sank down beside you. You could see the strain in his neck as he slumped back against the soft cushions. “Javier, just admit you’re in pain!” 

“No.” He huffed, arching his back as he tried to alleviate the pressure he was feeling in his lower back. “Son of a bitch.” 

“Alright, we’re going to bed.” You said as you reached over and took the bottle out of his hand. “Come on. Up.” You clapped your hands together as you rose to your feet. 

“Baby.” Javier refused to get up, patting the sofa beside him. “C’mere.” 

You put your hands on your hips, staring down at him. “Don’t make me start counting like I do with Josie.” You warned him. “Come on, Javi. I promise you’ll feel better once I’m done with you.” 

He rolled his eyes and sighed heavily. “Fine.” Javier relented as he shifted to the edge of the sofa, reaching for his beer again. “I don’t wanna waste these.” 

You picked up your own bottle, taking a drink. “As soon as they’re finished, you’re letting me massage your back.” 

Javier shook his head slowly, “It’s not that bad, baby. I’m just stiff from sitting through student meetings.” 

“And why couldn’t you sleep last night?” You questioned as you took another sip, sitting down beside him.

“Because my back hurt.” 

“That’s what I thought.” You gave him a look, before you shifted closer to him and rested your cheek against his shoulder. “Just tell me, Javier. Please?”

“I know, baby.” He reached over and gave your leg a squeeze, rubbing his thumb against your skin. “I just fucking hate this.” 

You tilted your head and pressed a quick kiss to his jaw, the stubble there tickling your lips. “I know, but I’d much rather know when you’re hurting. I don’t need this macho shit.”

“It’s not macho shit,” He insisted. “I just hate having limits. You know? I don’t wanna worry about throwing my back out because Josie wants a piggyback ride.” 

A soft laugh escaped you, “She loved riding around on your back when she was younger.” You mused, recalling the numerous times you’d come home to him walking around the condo on his hands and knees. As much as he loved working at the university and making a change in his student’s lives, you had never seen him more happy than he was in that two-year period that he stayed home with Josie. 

“Hey,” You started, fingers ghosting over his jaw as you turned his face towards yours. “You always take care of me and the girls, let me take care of you Javi.” 

Javier leaned forward and pressed his forehead against yours. “Alright, baby.” 

“Thank you,” You kissed him softly, before taking his hand into yours as you started to get up. He reached for the remote and shut off the TV, before he followed you back towards the bedroom. The girls were both out cold, fortunately. Sofía was getting better about sleeping through the night.

“Strip.” You told him, before you vanished into the bathroom to get the small bottle of massage oil from under the counter. Javier had been good about giving you massages when you were trapped in bed during those final months of your pregnancy with Sofía. 

When you returned, Javier had stripped down to his boxers and was laying on his stomach in the middle of the bed. “You think this is going to help my back?” He questioned, folding his arms beneath his head. 

“If it doesn’t,” You whistled quietly as you moved to join him on the bed. “I’m sure Connie can help us find a nice chiropractor for you.” 

“We really going to let everyone know I’m falling apart?”

“They already know it, old man.” You teased, leaning down to press a kiss to the spot between his shoulders. “Where does it hurt the most?” 

“Lower back.” Javier informed you, reaching behind him to show you the spot. 

“I’m getting you a lumbar support for your office chair.” You told him firmly, popping open the bottle of oil and pouring some into the center of your palm. 

“The only person with a lumbar support on their chair is eighty.” 

You rolled your eyes, “And did the eighty year old spend the better part of his youth doing what you did?”

“No.”

“That’s what I thought.” You rubbed your hands together before you smeared the oil over his skin, spreading it down the length of his spine. “Not to mention, I’ve seen the work you and Chucho did at the ranch. You grew up putting a hell of a lot of pressure and weight on your body.” 

“Pops gets around just fine.” 

You snorted, “Your pops also smokes weed.”

“What?” 

“Oops.” You pressed the heels of your palms against his shoulder blades, rubbing them in tight circles as you worked them down his back. “You can’t blame him for not telling you.” 

“What the fuck?” Javier started to laugh, but the sound shifted into a groan as your fingers found a particularly stiff part of his back. You worked on that spot, digging your thumbs in as you worked the oil into his skin. “When did that start?”

“Javier!” You laughed, shaking your head. “You really didn’t know? What sort of DEA agent are you?”

“A bad one, clearly.” He shifted beneath your touch, stretching out a little more comfortably. “How did you figure it out?”

“He offered me a joint after Danny’s wedding.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“There’s a reason your father is one of my favorite people.” You grinned as he turned his head to look at you. “For the record, I said no… Seeing as I was breastfeeding still. Don’t be deceived, he’s got plenty of old man pain too.” You teased, working your fingers against the spot he’d pointed out to you.

Javier’s lips parted to respond to you, but instead of words another groan escaped from him. “Holy shit.” 

“I told you it would feel good.” You shook your head, reaching for the bottle of oil and adding a little more to your fingers. You spread it over his lower back, working your knuckles against the tense muscles. “But you have to stop making those sounds.” 

He opened his eyes and peered back at you. “That right there was nearly as good as sex.” 

“And yet you have balked every day about letting me give you a massage.” You pressed your thumb into the same knot again, biting down on your bottom lip as he let out another sound of pleasure. “Do you not remember how much I enjoyed your massages when I was pregnant?” 

“I do.”

“Mostly because it was the only way I could get you to touch me when I was pregnant with Sofía, but…” You shrugged your shoulders. “They feel really good.” 

“I’m coming around to them.” He remarked, shifting again beneath your touch. “I might be a new man tomorrow.” 

“Slow down there, babe.” You laughed, rolling your eyes. “Just because I work the kinks out, does not mean you should get yourself back into this same position in a day. Otherwise, you’ll be getting nothing but Bengay by the time it’s your fiftieth birthday.” 

Javier grumbled, “Let’s rewind to this revelation about Chucho.” 

You moved to straddle the backs of his upper thighs, giving yourself more leverage to work on his lower back. “What’s there to say? Your father knows how to manage his pain. It’s natural and it works.”

“It’s illegal.” 

“So is a lot of other fun things.” You reminded him, “If you want to follow the law here in Florida, I hate to break it to you babe, but we’ll only be having sex in missionary from here on out.”

Another groan escaped Javier as you pressed your fingers into a sore spot just above his left hip. “Really?” He managed, his fingers tightening in the sheets beside his head. 

“No more toys and our mouths must only be used for kissing.” You leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the back of his neck, your breath making the hairs at his nape move. “That doesn’t sound fun, now does it babe?” You questioned. 

Javier reached behind him, his fingers playing through your hair where he could reach. “That doesn’t sound fun at all.” He agreed, “I just can’t believe my father was smoking dope right under my nose.” 

You shrugged, “And to think, you’re the one of us that’s heralded for helping take down Escobar.” You sat back, dragging your hands down the length of his back, before you moved to get off of him. “How’s that feel?”

He stretched his arms out above his head, his forehead pressed to the mattress for a moment. “Remarkably better.” Javier answered as he turned to look at you. “Holy shit.” 

You grinned at him. “I told you. Massages are magic.” You wiggled your fingers at him, “I’m gonna go clean my hands off.” 

“Don’t be gone too long,” Javier quipped, rolling onto his back. 

Your tongue darted out over your bottom lip as your eyes raked over his bare chest. You followed the line of dark hair as it dipped beneath his boxers ⁠— which showed off the outline of his hardened cock. “Oh, you really enjoyed that massage, huh?” You grinned, your gaze flickering between his cock and his face. “I’ll be right back.”

Javier nodded his head, his hand slipping down to cup himself through the thin fabric of his boxers. “I’ll be here.”

Watching him palm his cock sent a throb of want straight through you. “Don’t have too much fun without me.” You told him, shooting a finger gun at him before you grabbed the bottle of oil off the bed and headed into the bathroom. 

You didn’t even bother putting the bottle back where it belonged, far too focused on cleaning your hands off as quickly as possible so you could get back to Javier. But even with your haste, by the time you made your way back into the bedroom, he’d moved further up the bed and rolled onto his side.

You couldn’t even be mad. He’d been holding all that tension in his back and you’d clearly done good with your work. And he hadn’t slept at all last night.

Carefully you slid into bed beside him and curled your arm around him from behind. 

“Baby?” He mumbled.

“You’re good, Javi. Go to sleep.” You whispered, running your hand over his bare chest as you pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “I love you.”

“Mhm.” Javier sighed happily. “Love you too.”

[ibelieveinahappilyeverafter]

Holiday Truce - come into my parlor (said the tempter to the sinner)

Happy Holiday Truce @therealsirsticker! My apologies for the lateness in your gift, but I hope you enjoy it anyways! Your requested “goofing about Ghost Writer, Amorpho” and, somehow, that turned into this insanity! I hope you still enjoy it, though, and that I did the characters justice (I’m used to writing my own version of Ghostwriter, but for this one I tried to be a bit more generic). 

Enjoy and happy holidays and new year! 

                                                            ⁂

Summary: Amorpho is not one prone to rash actions, but with the knowledge that the newer ghosts have no idea of who he is, well, there’s nothing to do but break into the Observatory itself. Of course, it never hurts to have a little extra help, and Amorpho knows that the Ghostwriter would just love to get a certain keyboard of his back. Overall, Amorpho thinks it’s his most brilliant plan, yet. After all, the hardest part would be convincing Ghostwriter himself.

Fandom: Danny Phantom  

Characters: Amorpho, Ghost Writer  

Rating: Teen Audiences

Word Count: 3,394

               Check out my writing commission information here!                     Pledge to my Patreon to get exclusive content!

                                                         ⁂

               come into my parlor (said the tempter to the sinner)

                                                         ⁂

A spider web of cracks spiraled out from under the sleek, black cane that was now embedded a couple of inches into the boulder it had taken its wrath out on, a silence accompanying it that had the beginnings of fear and wariness lurking around the edges. The fear was the only thing that kept Amorpho from screaming, instead hissing out a soft, quiet, “Excuse me?” 

“Yo, hey, dude, there’s no reason to get so pissed off by a simple question!” Staring down at the ghost in front of him, a new young thing with a bark louder than any bite he could possibly have, Amorpho narrowed his eyes behind his glasses. While he had never been a fan of his ‘true’ form, it was useful enough in intimidating the casual ghost. “I didn’t even do nothin’! I just asked who you were!”

“That, dear boy, is exactly the problem.” The crux of the matter, as it were, was that a ghost stood in front of Amorpho, looking at him with wary eyes that held no recognition. 

The ghost stumbled a few steps back on the abandoned rock they had come to land on, the ghost having obviously been lost and Amorpho feeling in just enough of a good mood to ‘help.’ His good mood had quickly vanished when he found out that he was unknown, but… maybe that was alright. This ghost was standing, after all - standing, not floating. He had stumbled backwards. Perhaps he just hadn’t yet learned who was who. 

Amorpho took a breath, pulling his cane out of the rock and giving it a little twirl, letting his voice relax into something more chipper. He would have considered smiling if he had a mouth. “My apologies for my outburst. It didn’t even occur to me that you might be new to these parts! Tell me, dear boy, how long have you been a resident of our fair Ghost Zone?” 

Amorpho made sure to gesture grandly to the area around them, an empty, desolate part that was between lairs and had nothing but crushed rocks for miles in any direction. No wonder the new ghost had seemed on edge being lost in a place like the Ghost Zone. 

“Uh- Yeah. Right. No problem, man. Uh, I’m not really new, I guess?” The younger was sneaking looks at him as he kept looking around as if expecting help to arrive at the last second. Shame for him that things never quite turned out like that for ghosts. “I’ve been here about five or six years?” 

The drop in his mood returned between one second and the next, Amorpho gripping his cane tightly enough that the faintest sound of creaking metal could be heard. The new ghost, wisely, stayed quiet as Amorpho worked on centering himself long enough to ignore the idea to shift into something very large with countless teeth. 

“Six years and yet you don’t know who I am?” Impossible. Amorpho may not have been the most powerful ghost there was, but he was known. “I simply can’t understand how that is, dear boy, when I am known by everyone here. My name is known by near every ghost that calls this place home, I am known- And not simply for those silly tricks you lot like to play on those worthless humans in Amity Park.” 

Just saying the name of the place left a bad taste in his mouth considering his run-in with Amity Park’s little ghostly protector. Shrugging the unease off, Amorpho focused back in on the ghost who looked scared. Good. 

“I am known from one end of this damned place to the other for my abilities.” Amorpho loved pranks and he had never been terrifying, but he knew the price of secrets - and how much they cost to others. There were perks to once being a spy in life, after all. “I am the ghost who knows every secret you neanderthals try to hide. I am the one who knows everything you did hide.”

It hadn’t even simply been that, either, but his ability to slip in and out of everywhere. “I am the only ghost who could slip in and out of Walker’s jail with ease! Never seen, never caught, never arrested, never noticed. Does all of this mean nothing to you? I am Amorpho!” 

The new ghost, once scared and starting to draw in and cower, blinked as tension seemed to roll off him, straightening back out with a hesitant, “Who?” Oh, he was going to kill this little brat. “I mean… Yeah, okay, knowing stuff is kind of cool, I guess, but the jail thing isn’t that big of a deal?” 

“What?!” Not that big of a deal? Not that big of a deal? Amorpho had been the only ghost who could slip messages and other ghosts in and out of jail for years! Walker still wanted to behead him!

“I mean-! C’mon, man, like, look at Phantom. The kid breaks into Walker’s jail and escapes with half the prisoners all the time. Like, I’m pretty sure it’s just a game for him at this point, right? So, like, I guess you’re cool and all, but…” The ghost shrugged, nothing about him looking frightened or wary or even startled in any way whatsoever. “It’s not that big a deal these days, I guess.” 

“Not that big-” Amorpho cut himself off with a growl, physically forcing himself to not break his cane - whether by squeezing it too hard or bashing it over the idiot’s head. “I could break into anywhere I wanted and get out without ever even being seen!” 

“Yeah, so can all of us. Invisibility, dude.” The ghost laughed, as if he had just told a hilarious joke, and Amorpho felt the urge to use his cane even more than before. It wasn’t like it would kill the brat. “And ‘break into?’ The only places worth breaking into are Walker’s jail, which, yeah, we just went over that one, and The Observatory, and no one goes there unless they have a death wish.” 

Amorpho watched as the paranoid little thing looked around as if expecting an Observant to pop up and cart him away there and then. The young ones always were idiots, Amorpho supposed. “Look, dude, maybe you were a big deal before, but I don’t know you, okay? I just need to know how to get to one of those portal things after getting turned around.” 

“A big deal once,” Amorpho repeated bitterly, the young ghost looking not one bit apologetic, instead shrugging as if it all didn’t matter one bit. Amorpho felt his temper rise. 

“Look, man, if you’re not gonna help me then I’m not gonna stick around and argue with you about this, so I’ll just-” The last word was swallowed up by the sound of cracking bones, Amorpho watching green skin lighten in a way that was a near replica of blood draining away from the face in fear. Good. 

“Not known, am I? Then maybe I should make my name one to be remembered.” It wasn’t a trick Amorpho used often as it was more annoying than it was worth, but he focused on shifting his natural body unnaturally, lengthening his arms and fingers until they were gross and disjointed and near dragging against the rock they were still on, back arching and twisting with the accompanying, fake, sound of cracking and shifting bones. 

He pushed his form to be bigger and larger, towering over the suddenly terrified ghost before adding the clincher; a mouth filled with razor sharp ‘blood-stained’ teeth that he then gave his best roar through. 

Amorpho kept the form up until the brat was long gone, screaming about mercy and Satan and oh, there was an idea. Legs with hooves would be an excellent addition if he really need to prove a point. 

As soon as Amorpho was certain he was alone, he dropped the form and changed back, shuddering at the feeling of pins and needles that took over his body. His shapeshifting was elegant, of course, but there was only so much to be done when stretching and attempting to change his real body. 

“‘A big deal once,’” Amorpho muttered to himself, picking back up the cane he had dropped and giving it a twirl. “What rudeness.” As if hearing about Phantom again wasn’t bad enough, Amorpho had to hear about how the newer ghosts didn’t know him at all. 

Oh, Amorpho had long since solved his issues with Phantom himself, but of course it was that boy who had caused all the latest upheaval in Amorpho’s afterlife. Even in the Ghost Zone Phantom had managed to make Amorpho’s name suffer a decline in fame and recognition. 

The solution was a simple one, at least. Amorpho would need to do something big. He would prove to the Ghost Zone, and that riffraff, that his name carried weight in their world; one way or another. 

Pranks were one thing, of course, but Amorpho would need to do something that left the others speechless. It would need to be incredible. It would… 

Amorpho looked to the direction the young ghost had run off too, feeling the smile he would have in any other body. “The Observatory, hm?” 

A challenge seemed exactly what he needed, but for one this big, well. A little extra help couldn’t harm matters. 

                                                         ⁂

Fingers stumbling and tripping over aged typewriter keys, Ghostwriter startled and jerked his head up to stare at the cat that had meowed loud enough to knock him out of his thoughts. Ghostwriter stared at the cat evenly, the fluffy black creature who looked alive and not at all ghostly giving another meow and puffing itself up as if to gain even more attention, as if it hadn’t just appeared on Ghostwriter’s desk in his lair in the Ghost Zone. 

After a few moments letting himself be utterly confused and lost, Ghostwriter finally rallied with a valiant, “One moment, please.” Because while a living cat appearing in front of him was interesting, it wouldn’t do to leave off on an unfinished sentence. 

Once Ghostwriter was certain he would know just where to pick his story back up once he came back to it, he returned his attention to the cat, flicking a scrunched up ball of paper towards the creature and frowning when the paper was immediately swatted back towards him. The cat wasn’t an illusion, then. He was halfway through wondering if the cat was an attempt to screw with him curtsey of his brother when he noticed the cat had red eyes; ghostly red eyes.

The realization must have shown on his face because the cat grinned, speaking up in an annoying voice that could break sanity instead of glass. “My dear Andrew. It has been quite a long time since we’ve seen each other, hasn’t it?”

“If you ask me it hasn’t been long enough,” Ghostwriter scowled as he directed his fiercest glare at the cat. “What do you want, Peyton?” 

“Amorpho, if you would,” the ‘cat’ frowned, as if he hadn’t called Ghostwriter by his human name first. “As for what I want, well… Is it so hard to believe that I merely came to pay a visit to an old friend?” 

“Incredibly so,” Ghostwriter snorted, standing up with enough force to almost knock his chair over before he was rounding the table towards the cat. “So, I’ll ask again. What do you want?” 

Amorpho pouted as much as a cat could pout, rising to all fours and padding closer before giving a sweet purr that almost knocked Ghostwriter off guard enough to want to indulge and scratch behind the cute thing’s ears. He then remembered this was one of the banes of his existence and he felt far less guilt about grabbing one of his heavier resource books and attempting to swat the damn thing. 

“Come now, Ghostwriter, there’s no need to be so rude,” Amorpho chided, nimbly dodging the attack before leaping up to rest around Ghostwriter’s shoulders, claws digging in just enough to let him know he wouldn’t be swatted off so easily. “I had a proposition of sorts for you.” At the word ‘proposition’ Ghostwriter had a furry tail flicking by and brushing the tip of his nose, deepening his scowl. 

“Oh, and I suppose I should listen then? Forget it, Amorpho.” Grabbing a few of his books, as well as his current notebook, Ghostwriter stormed out of his office and towards another part of his lair. Lord knew he wasn’t going to be getting any work done with Amorpho skulking around and trying to convince him of something no doubt dangerous. “The last proposition of yours ended up with me almost having my core torn out.” 

Amorpho scoffed, squirming around to no doubt hasten his approaching death by pissing Ghostwriter off further. “Dear Ghostwriter, it was quite clear that you were in no true danger during that last adventure of ours. If anything, I was the one who suffered the most by the end.” 

Ghostwriter muttered swears to himself, weighing the pros and cons of shoving a couple of bookcases onto the annoyance latched onto his shoulders. While on the one hand it could harm his books, on the other he might actually manage to kill the little bastard. Decisions, decisions… 

“Come on, Ghostwriter, at least hear me out,” Amorpho purred, voice sugary sweet. Ghostwriter muttered another swear before looking to Amorpho as best he could. 

“You have three minutes starting two minutes ago. Use your seconds wisely you overgrown fur rug.” Ugh, that last insult had sounded far too much like Skulker’s brand of revenge. Then again, there was something to be said for the effectiveness of skinning someone you hated. 

Amorpho, drama queen that he was, waited until his time was almost up before stretching out his front paws and saying, quite calmly, “I would like your help in getting into the Observatory.” 

The sentence was a simple one, only ten words with a central idea, but it was still enough to have Ghostwriter utterly speechless as he stared at Amorpho because there was no way, dead or alive, that anyone could be that stupid. When the following sentence of Amorpho saying it was a joke never came, Ghostwriter felt his eyes widen further, finally managing a weak, “You can’t be serious?”

“Oh, quite serious,” Amorpho chirped, slipping off Ghostwriter’s shoulders and changing back into his original form, as calm as if he was telling Ghostwriter nothing more or less than the latest prank he had managed to pull off. “It’d make quite the story, don’t you think? Two ghosts who no one takes seriously managing to get in and out of the Observatory right under the Observants’ eyes, the lot of them never any wiser.”

“Never any- They see all of time,” Ghostwriter hissed, whipping around and half-certain that he would see an Observant or one of their guards appear behind them. Ghosts had certainly been taken in for less than what could amount to treason in their world. “Have you finally lost all sense you had left?!”

“Perhaps,” Amorpho sighed, using his powers to shift himself into a ghost that Ghostwriter didn’t recognize before he was leaning against one of the bookcases casually. A newer ghost, perhaps? Ghostwriter wasn’t sure, but the expression on Amorpho’s face was nothing but bitter. “Or perhaps I’m starting to see the bigger picture.” 

Ghostwriter shook his head, nervously piling more books into his arms from the shelves he passed, hardly glancing at the covers to see if he really needed them. He was fully aware he was grabbing books just to have a distraction, shaking his head once more as he finally responded, “No. I’ll put you in touch with Randy, if you want, as this brand of crazy is perfect for him, but I will not-”

“Not even for your keyboard?” Amorpho’s voice curled through the air like silk strings winding around him, Ghostwriter fully aware of the web he was about to walk into. Yet… “I regret to say I wasn’t around for the event itself, but I heard all about that dreadful business with that Christmas dealing with Phantom. Your Reality Keyboard was shattered, wasn’t it?” 

The web was spun well, and Ghostwriter couldn’t help but to brush his fingers against it, turning around to stare at Amorpho’s eyes, feeling the familiar pulse of annoyance and lingering rage at seeing Phantom’s grinning face. Finally, he muttered a soft, “Yes, it was. That means nothing for this madness, however.” 

“Doesn’t it? You know as well as I do that all-powerful artifacts like that have a double in the Observatory - for safety, of course.” Amorpho shifted into an Observant, severe and serious with arms crossed behind his back. Ghostwriter couldn’t help a bitter laugh. Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly. 

“I also know that such a thing would never be given back to me. They barely let me keep my keyboard the first time around and you think they would give me another? After I broke the truce?” Ghostwriter swallowed, feeling the strings of the web tighten around his neck like a noose. 

“Oh, I am fully aware that they would never give you such a thing.” A flash and it was ‘Walker’ standing in front of Ghostwriter, twisted smile on his face. “That would be against the rules, after all.” Ghostwriter was fully aware it was Amorpho, but the sight of the warden in front of him was still enough to send a chill down his spine. 

“And so your plan is to break into the Observatory, home of the Observants, and steal it?” Ghostwriter swallowed, hardly able to get the words out himself. “This is madness, Peyton, and you know it. Your pranks are one thing, but you could be destroyed for this.” 

“Possible.” Walker disappeared and Skulker took his place. “It could be thrilling, though, don’t you think? A hunt of our own.” Another flash and it was Ember. “Pull this off and get out of there and everyone would know our names!” A change and it was Randy, Ghostwriter’s own brother with that familiar, wild grin that was always so good at tugging them both into trouble. “C’mon, Andy… this’ll be fun.” 

Ghostwriter bit his lip, looking away from Amorpho and back to his shelves, reaching out to straighten some of the books even though they were already perfect. He only stopped at the sound of scales slithering against his coat, climbing up his back slowly and surely before reaching his neck and shoulders and ah… No longer a web, but the tempter himself. 

“Come on, Andrew,” Amorpho said sweetly. “It’d be such a shame if you never got to use your keyboard again. If you never got to tell your stories again.”

Gathering himself together, Ghostwriter scoffed as he shot a glare to the red-eyed snake. “Temptation from the serpent himself, hm? Rather cliché - even for you.” 

“Oh, well, you know,” Amorpho waggled his head to and fro, tongue flicking out on a hiss. “You always did seem the type to give into temptation, Ghostwriter.” 

Plucking Amorpho off his shoulder, Ghostwriter dropped him and watched him calmly as the other shifted back into his usual form. He had no doubt Amorpho would be smirking if he could. “And just how, exactly, do you plan on getting into the Observatory?” 

“I’m me, my dear… and that means that I am everyone.” Amorpho shifted his form and even Ghostwriter, sheltered as he was, knew the sight of an Observant guard when he saw one. It was the words that came out that had him pausing. “My, my, Ghostwriter, caught using your powers to upset the natural order? I’m afraid it’s the Observatory for you.” 

Quite a plan, Ghostwriter mused to himself, to walk right in as if they belonged. Dropping his books and letting his powers wrap around them, Ghostwriter sent them to their proper places with a flick of his hand, looking at ‘the Observant guard’ sent to arrest him.

“Alright, Amorpho,” Ghostwriter grinned, slow and dangerous as he flicked his hand again, a quill appearing in his hand along with a softly glowing notebook. “This might just work after all.” 

[boredout305]

Vitus Mataré talks Jeffrey Lee Pierce, The Last and DIY Production

Vitus Mataré is a Los Angeles-based musician, producer and architect.

           Mataré was a founding member of The Last, Danny and the Doorknobs and Trotsky Icepick. As a producer, he recorded some of the earliest and most coveted Los Angeles DIY punk records, including The Urinals’ first three 7”s and the Keats Rides a Harley compilation. Mataré would later produce The Leaving Trains and Savage Republic.

            The focus of this interview was Mataré’s brief tenure in Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s pre-Gun Club band, The Red Lights. Short-lived and with a revolving membership, Mataré played The Red Lights’ summer 1978 debut show. Two years later, he became the Gun Club’s first producer—recording the band on his portable Dokorder 4-track reel-to-reel.

           Recently, Mataré released a new Trotsky Icepick record, I Haunted Myself (2019). The Last’s ill-fated and obscenely expensive sophomore LP, Look Again (1980), will finally get a proper release in 2020.

Interview by Ryan Leach  

Ryan: Do you recall where you first met Jeffrey Lee Pierce?

Vitus: I met Jeffrey Lee Pierce at the Capitol Records Swap Meet. Jeff was there selling records and hanging out.

Ryan: That’s where Larry (Hardy) first spotted him.

Vitus: Right. Jeff was always roaming around the Capitol Records Swap Meet in his typical style. Over the top, excited about this and that. When Jeff found something that he was interested in, he got into it one-hundred percent.

Ryan: Did you meet him in 1978?

Vitus: Yes. I met Jeffrey in 1978.

Ryan: Being a big fan of power-pop and ‘60s groups, it makes sense that Jeffrey was a Last fan. How did he enter The Last’s orbit?

Vitus: There was a gig (September 18, 1979) at Gazzarri’s and The Last played with Jeffrey’s band, The Cyclones. Pleasant Gehman was the singer. We put it on. The show was a disaster. It was hard to get a draw. It was The Go-Go’s first real show and the first time The Urinals played in Hollywood. We put our favorite people in bands together for the bill: Jeff with The Cyclones, The Last, The Urinals and The Go-Go’s.

Kjehl Johansen (The Urinals) punched me in the nose while we were dancing to The Go-Go’s set, so I had a bloody nose for the rest of the night. But before I got punched, I sat down with Jeff at soundcheck. He showed me the chords to “Jungle Book,” a song he had done with The Red Lights. “Jungle Book” is one of the first songs I learned to play on guitar. Jeffrey was teaching me the song and guitar at the same time. That was really cool. We were just killing time. (The Last’s) Joe (Nolte) was there and had already suggested that we start incorporating “Jungle Book” into The Last’s set.

Shortly after the Gazzarri’s gig, we played a show with The Plugz and Jeff came up and sang “Jungle Book” with us. Phast Phreddie also came up that night and sang The Seeds’ “Pushin’ Too Hard.” There were several other gigs where Jeff sang with The Last.  

Ryan: How did you and the late Jack Reynolds (drummer of The Last) end up playing with Jeff and Anna Statman in The Red Lights?

Vitus: Jack Reynolds was a whole different story. Jack passed away (in December 2009). I liked Jack a lot—he was great—but he was a tough guy. He enjoyed getting into fights and drinking and perhaps taking drugs to excess. Jack didn’t drive, so I was his driver. We’d be cruising in my beat-up sedan, his drums thrown in the back with no cases, and we’d go by a construction site at 7:30 p.m. on our way to a show at the Starwood. He’d say in his British accent, “Woah, woah, pull over!” He’d find a chunk of concrete with rebar sticking out of it at a jobsite, throw it in my backseat—there goes that bit of upholstery—and he’d walk into the club with it. It’s 8:00 p.m. at the Whisky or the Starwood, so there’s no one there but the bouncers. They’d say, “Hey, fella, where are you going with that?” Jack would respond, “Have I got to stick it up your arse? Out of my way.” Even the bouncers would leave him alone. He’d use the concrete to weigh down his kick drum. After the set, he’d abandon the 200-pound concrete chunk up on the stage. I remember we played a show with 20/20 and the guys in the band were getting their guitar cables snagged on the rebar sticking out of Jack’s concrete block. The three of them couldn’t lift it whereas Jack brought it up there himself.

           Greg Shaw brings in a band from New York called The Boyfriends. I don’t know what they ever did—apparently they were really good—but I never got a chance to find out. The Last was opening up for them at the Whisky. It was a night Greg Shaw put together and promoted. We’re late; Jack’s in my car and he had forgotten his cymbals. The Boyfriends had done their soundcheck and they’re gone. We get to the Whisky and someone walks past us. Jack says (affects British accent), “Hey, can I borrow your drummer’s cymbals there?” The guy responds, “Sure. Help yourself.” Well, he had nothing to do with The Boyfriends or their equipment. Jack breaks his drums sticks as usual, so he’s out there playing with beer bottles on the guy’s cymbals. The Boyfriends’ drummer is not pleased about it.

           We got an encore. We’re in that little black corridor that’s up the stairs at the Whisky, towards the backstage. The Boyfriends’ drummer grabs Jack as we’re headed back to the stage. I guess the message he was trying to convey was, “Hey, who said you could use my cymbals?” Jack responds by pummeling this guy’s head into the wall. That’s all we heard: “Thud, thud, thud.” The Boyfriends’ drummer went to the hospital that night and they never played. I can give you ten other similar Jack Reynolds stories. So, when Jeff (Pierce) asked, “Hey, would you be willing to play Farfisa with me and do you know someone who can play drums?” I just figured, “Well, Jack’s drums live in my car, so why don’t I bring him too?”

           I only played one show with The Red Lights (July 14, 1978, at the Whisky benefit for Lobotomy fanzine). The lineup was me on Farfisa, Jack Reynolds on drums, Jeff on guitar and vocals and Anna Statman on bass. It was rather unrehearsed. We had one practice at a place called The Jungle. Jeff was really fun, but he was unsure of himself. He could get cranky and difficult.

We played The Red Lights show and Jeff did great but he was embarrassed about it for no reason. There were only a few people there and most of them didn’t get it. Nevertheless, it was awesome.

Ryan: The Red Lights only played a handful of shows. Was Jack Reynolds their permanent drummer?

Vitus: Jack wasn’t. Jeff had to use other people. Jack may have played two or three gigs with The Red Lights. I only played that one and I do not know how many more gigs followed.

Ryan: There’s a photo and review of your Red Lights show at the Whisky in issue #9 of Flipside.

Vitus: I remember Al (Kowalewski, founder of Flipside) asking us our names for the show write-up. He asked Jack Reynolds his name. Jack was drunk, possibly stoned and angry so he said, “I’m Jeff Fucking Beck.” Al’s like, “Okay, dude.” And then Jack points to me and yells, “The keyboard player, his name is Keyboard Player!” That’s why Al’s review credits me as Keyboard Player and Jack as Jeff Beck. I remember a lot of nights like that with Jack.    

           On the other hand, Jeff (Pierce) was never belligerent or impossible when he was drunk. I know other people will tell you totally different stories. I only had great experiences with Jeff.

           Later on, I did some preproduction with The Gun Club. I arranged with this guy Patrick (Burnette) over at Quad Teck—it was Hank Waring’s studio—to record The Gun Club. I had everything lined up but then I accidentally drank some gasoline. I got very, very sick and I had to go to the hospital and wasn’t available for that session. They went with Tito (Larriva), which was a great choice. Of course, that later became Fire of Love. But I was originally scheduled to engineer and produce that at Quad Teck.

Ryan: So, you were going to record the Gun Club tracks for the 12” split release that was supposed to come out on Fatima Recordz? The Gun Club was going to get one side of the LP; no one seems to recall the band who’d get the other side. When Fatima went belly-up, those tracks later appeared on Fire of Love (1981).

Vitus: Right. It all worked out for the best and I fully recovered. There were so many incidents back then where something took a wild left turn because of some issue or emergency.  

Ryan: Do you remember recording The Gun Club tracks for the Keats Rides a Harley (1981) compilation? Obviously, those recordings predated Fire of Love.

Vitus: Of course. We recorded those tracks at a horrible rehearsal space next to Hollywood High School. I can’t recall the name of the place, but I do remember it was named after the street it was on. I recorded The Gun Club on my cheap, 4-track Dokorder. It was a pretty low-budget, multitrack recorder.

Ryan: Digressing back a bit, to my knowledge the first releases you produced were the Urinals 7”s.

Vitus: I did stuff way earlier when I was a little kid. There were two guys who got kicked out of The Seeds. I recorded them when I was 13 years old. I was using my parent’s reel-to-reel and two fabulous electrostatic mics. They were amazed I could do sound-on-sound recording.

           But coming back later, The Urinals Self-titled EP (1978) was the first vinyl record I had recorded by a band other than The Last. The Last was recording (L.A. Explosion!) at Village Recorder in West Los Angeles. There are four studios at Village Recorder. At the time, Fleetwood Mac is in there doing Tusk (1979). They’re tucked away with their cocaine and other vapors. Frank Zappa is in another studio where the air is clean and he’s doing parts of Joe’s Garage (1979) and Sheik Yerbouti (1979). The other studio has a high turnover rate; the Stranglers used it while we were there. And we’re in this dingy little room known as The Royal Scam. All of the equipment in there belonged to Steely Dan. John Harrison, the first bass player of Hawkwind, got us in there. Harrison was the engineering guru for what was happening in the Zappa sessions.

When I got a test pressing of the first Urinals single I was so proud to have it that I gave my copy to John Harrison. Harrison ended up passing it on to Frank Zappa. The next night when I came in—we’d start at around midnight—John Harrison says to Zappa, “Hey, Frank, this is the guy who produced that record I gave you last night.” Zappa is lying down in this little step-down conversation pit on the couch. He can’t see me; I can barely see his shoes sticking out. He doesn’t get up but says, “That’s the worst damn record I’ve ever heard. But with a name like that (The Urinals), they should go far.”

Ryan: Considering Zappa was a big fan of The Shaggs’ Philosophy of the World (1969), that’s saying something. John (Talley-Jones), Kjehl (Johansen) and Kevin (Barrett) really outdid themselves.      

Vitus: (Laughs). Yeah. The Urinals singles predated The Gun Club stuff.

Ryan: I was under the impression that you were more interested in producing bands than playing in them. And that those early recordings you made with your 4-track were out of necessity—for groups just starting out or that were too left of the dial to get a recording contract.  

Vitus: That’s right. And I never thought about major releases. For example, I never thought of recording The Go-Go’s. I would be hampering their progress. Same thing when The Bangles asked me to record them, back when they were called The Bangs. That’s not really what I did. I wanted to make records that sound like you’re in the shower and the water is beating on your eardrum. I would record bands so they’d have tapes to bring to clubs to get bookings. The recordings didn’t need to be overly clean.

Ryan: It easy to forget nowadays, but back in the 1970s you had different-tiered studios. Places where people would cut demos to pitch to Club 88 on one end and 24-track studios on the other end.

Vitus: Exactly. I was helping bands get their songs recorded. I wasn’t working under some delusion that I’d be in a 24-track studio, cutting tracks with these bands a week later.

Ryan: How did the Keats Rides a Harley compilation come together?  

Vitus: There are two different versions of that story. John Talley-Jones has one version and I probably have another. The compilation was sort of my idea. Initially, The Urinals’ record was going to come out on Backlash. And there were two issues that came up at the same time. The Last’s manager, Randall Wixen, had started a publishing company called Backlash. He just took the name and then asked us to stop putting out records under the name Backlash. The other issue was that I played the first Urinals single for Joe Nolte when he wasn’t in a good mood. Joe ended up loving The Urinals, but at the time he said, “Hey, don’t put that crap out on our label, please.” That kind of jettisoned everything. I remember The Urinals were a bit disappointed when I told them, “Dudes, it’s not going to come out on Backlash, so let’s make up another record label name.” They came up with Happy Squid and put it out themselves.

           Joe and I always had our differences. I was drafted into The Last to play keyboards, but what I wanted was to be the Magic Alex—the guy who did sound effects and produced stuff. I wanted to record bands. I didn’t want to be on stage. I hated that. I didn’t get to do that with The Last, but I got to do it with The Gun Club and The Urinals which was great.

           I wasn’t doing whole records, just demo tapes, but I thought the sampler concept was a good idea. I wanted to put together a record that was a snapshot of what was happening in that particular garage on that street at that point in time. We just pulled all these bands together. The Urinals came up with the title of the record and actually put it together and got it out.  

Ryan: It’s an exceptional comp. Living in Arizona, The Meat Puppets mailed their recordings in. But you recorded the rest of the album and the bands are exceptional. Human Hands, Gun Club, Leaving Trains, 100 Flowers…

Vitus: All of those groups had people in them who were interesting to hang out with. They weren’t idiots or burnouts. To this day, the ones who are still alive remain great people to chat with.

Ryan: For Gun Club fans, Keats is a must have. As you mentioned, the recording is raw, but everything is mixed well. You can hear Rob Ritter’s bass and he remains the unsung hero of the early Gun Club.  Fire of Love (1981) and Miami (1982) are great records, but their mixes aren’t the best.  

Vitus: The tracks on Keats have poor frequency response, but great atmosphere.

Ryan: There’s another Last connection to Jeffrey Lee Pierce and The Red Lights. “Jungle Book” appears on The Last’s ill-fated sophomore record, Look Again (1980). Only test presses were made of that record, correct?

Vitus: I’ll tell you the whole story if you have ten minutes.

Ryan: Absolutely. I remember around 2004 seeing a copy of Look Again at Amoeba Records in Los Angeles selling for several hundred dollars.

Vitus: It’s not a good investment. It’s about to be reissued. I think it’s coming out on a label I’m not allowed to mention. Jonny Bell is doing the remixes right now. We baked and transferred those reels. But what needs to be told about that record is that we were not to produce it ourselves. Joe (Nolte) was to stay out of Jo Julian’s way. He was from the band Berlin. Julian co-engineered and produced the record even though he apparently had zero interest in doing so. There was a studio called Audio Arts. I believe Julian needed to get some sessions in and out and collect some money, so that’s what we were about.

Ryan: That’s a horrible situation to be in.

Vitus: Yeah. We were totally unimportant. Joe (Nolte) quickly realized that there was a bad vibe. Joe had a lot of input into L.A. Explosion! That was Joe’s record. It’s about Joe as a songwriter. I had one song (“A Fool Like You”) in there that made fun of A&R people. The second record was supposed to be a closer split between me and Joe. I would write one-third of the songs, and I would have more say about the production because it was supposed to be more pop. So I get locked out of the control room when it was time to mix. Jo Julian does direct injection on a Rickenbacker 12-string guitar, a Rickenbacker bass and a Farfisa. So, you have all this lovely 4,000-cycle signal with no life to it. John Frank, The Last’s new drummer, couldn’t hear us as we were playing. The mixes were terrible even though Joe’s songs are great. At the very least, it should’ve been interesting, but it wasn’t. Today we’re going back and re-amping the signals. Not adding anything, but getting a clean mix. The record should be out in late spring (2020). And “Jungle Book” is on there. It’s also on the new Trotsky Icepick record that is called I Haunted Myself (2019).

Ryan: Listening to you describe the Look Again situation, I’m able to put the pieces together. At least locally, The Last were really popular around the time of L.A. Explosion!

Vitus: The Look Again debacle killed it.

Ryan: You guys even had a billboard on the Sunset Strip, right?

Vitus: Yep.    

Ryan: That’s a real shame.

Vitus: All of that is fine. We got to play some great shows and events. There were wonderful experiences. And we never got dragged on the road and stiffed by some bar owner in Arkansas.  

           We played a Gronk and Jerry Dreva art exhibit Downtown with The Screamers and The Bags in an art gallery. What an experience. Ray Manzarek autographed my keyboard. David Bowie was in the audience, wanting to produce The Screamers. There was a whole energy to that night. It was better than having a number-one record.

[kinkingbird-blog]

“When the Mask Falls” Ninja Ship Party

NAME: “When the Mask Falls”

FANDOM: Shipgrumps

CHAPTER: Part 3 of a Series 

PAIRINGS: Ninja Ship Party

SUMMARY: A filled commission. Six months into his relationship with Brian, Danny invites him to move in. What starts as moving toward the next step of their lives together forces Brian's old demons to arise: imposter syndrome, running thoughts, and fear. As Brian's life begins breaking down around him, he worries he won't be able to hide it from Danny for much longer - especially if Arin's going to keep watching him so closely.

RATING: M.

WARNINGS: Angst with a happy ending, vomiting, panic attacks, imposter syndrome, sex used as a distraction

WORD COUNT: 18,453

AO3 Cross Post: [x]

Commissions are open!!

Buy Me A Coffee, if you’d like~

As they rested together in Danny’s massive bed, their bare and sweaty legs meeting from ankle to hip, Brian stared at the ceiling, still catching his breath and marveling at what he’d received. It was a gift. He knew it was. No one in the world deserved this much happiness at once.

Six months officially together. Six months of warmth. Six months of fondness. Six months of...of love. After what felt like a lifetime of pining for his best friend, being continuously blessed with his bright eyes and his laughs and his body seemed too much for Brian to keep for long.

Did he only have a limited allotment of happiness? Was he burning through it too fast? Did he only have a little bit left, and if Danny whisked away, would he be miserable for the rest of his life?

Brian was a trained man – one who’d worked for years to attain that level of skill and knowledge in his field – but during nights like this, when his adrenaline was finally slowing, he knew that he’d put himself in a corner by doing that. His mind seemed to work faster than anyone else’s. Danny might still be lying here thinking about how amazingly tight Brian was around his cock, but Brian was already three years ahead, anticipating their inevitable break up.

Sometimes he hated himself.

A hand on his chest made his thoughts still, and Brian watched Danny roll over and rest his head next to his on the pillow. With his cheeks still flushed and his gaze shimmering, he looked as languid and beautiful as a god, and Brian couldn’t help but smile back at him.

“We should do this more often,” Danny murmured.

Brian chuckled. “What, fuck? Twice a week isn’t enough for your rabbit libido?”

“Absolutely not.” He pushed in closer, his chest flush against Brian’s ribs, and he sighed and dropped an arm around Danny’s shoulders. No way in hell was he ever going to push him away when it came to cuddles. Silence spread between them for a few seconds before Danny opened his mouth again. “I just mean that, y’know, things feel...right when you’re here. It’s always been that way. It’s never gonna change.”

Shadow thoughts reared their ugly head, speaking so fast that Brian couldn’t comprehend them. Just felt the existential dread resting on his chest, pushing down more and more and more until he could scarcely breathe. “It’s because I’m fucking perfect,” Brian quipped in response, even as it made the rumble rise that much higher. “Not my fault you had nothing but a bunch of losers before me.”

Danny snorted and prodded him in the side, but didn’t reply. That was odd enough. Danny always at least tried to have a verbal comeback for Brian, even if it sounded ridiculous in hindsight. Straight up silence was rare.

He has something he wants to say.

Every nerve in Brian’s body sparked, hairs standing on end, as he listened to his lover’s breathing. Danny would inhale, pause, then let it all out quickly. Lift his hand, as if to use it to talk, and then drop it again and go back to thumbing over Brian’s skin.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Brian finally murmured when he thought he couldn’t take it anymore.

Danny cupped his cheek and met his eyes. “I get lonely when you leave, man.” Even after these months together, common pet names were still odd for them, and Brian felt the affection in that old form of address deeper than he ever had before. “My bed gets cold. I don’t sleep as good. It fucking sucks.”

Jesus. Realization filled Brian’s chest, and he stared at him unblinking. “Sucks to be you?” Sarcasm was safe. Sarcasm kept him from hoping for something that he didn’t think he might deserve.

A smile flashed up at him, nervous but true. “Your lease runs out in two months, dude. I know you haven’t signed it yet. And, uh...I think you should move in with me.”

Warmth and pleasure flooded him from his mind downward, engulfing his heart in such love that he could barely breathe. He rolled over and pressed in tight, until their noses rubbed together – until he could see every single thought in Danny’s brown eyes. “You really mean that?”

The grin only widened. “I wouldn’t kid about that, Bri. I love you – you know I do. And I’m sick and tired of watching you walk out my door to go to your shitty ass bed.”

“My bed is fantastic,” Brian declared as he wrapped his arms around Danny and kissed him.

Laughter vibrated against his lips. As Danny pulled back, Brian tried to chase him, but he wasn’t deterred. “I’m burning your mattress when you move in.”

“Yeah?” He kissed him again. “I’m burning your shoes.”

“Fuck you! I’m throwing all your old man clothes out!”

Brian pulled him on top of him and beamed. “I’m throwing out your shirts from college.”

Real terror filled Danny’s gaze. “You wouldn’t!”

Brian simply quirked a brow.

“You’re evil.” Danny rolled them over completely, so Brian straddled him, and dragged him down for kisses that filled them both with moans. “I’ll make you pay the mortgage with me.”

Brian chuckled and gripped his jaw lightly in one strong hand – a tease of power. “Careful, Danny. That sounds like you’re going to ask me to marry you next.”

He pulled him in.

Between kisses and gentle manhandling and faint groans of pleasure, Brian drowned in Danny once more. Bubbled up as brightly as he was with the golden sheen over their future together, he couldn’t quite remember where the dark storm clouds of earlier had come from.

 ~~

 Plans were easy to make. They were more like dreams than anything else. It was easy for Danny to lean on Brian’s chair in the office and tell him to look up a certain piece of furniture that he wanted to buy – but only if Brian wanted it too. He’d talk about starting to make space in his closet for Brian’s clothes. There’d be a question about what Brian might want to bring into the house from his apartment, since Danny had entire rooms that weren’t even being used yet.

It was perfect.

Brian was a logical man. He worked with numbers and facts, not things that were unattainable. The theory of perfection was impossible when it came to anyone – but for someone like Brian? Twice as unlikely. Something would inevitably fall to pieces every time, and with each day that passed without incident, it meant that the likelihood of failure doubled. Over and over and over it went, until he might very well be walking on a tightrope and peering down into the abyss and knowing that even the softest breeze would knock him over.

He did not deserve perfection. And that appeared to be precisely where their lives were heading.

 ~~

 “You’re really sure about this, huh?” Brian asked, interrupting Danny in the middle of talking about putting him on his homeowner’s insurance plan. “Like...honest and truly.”

Danny blinked at him. He set the bowl of popcorn in his lap aside with a quiet laugh. “I mean...yeah? Does it seem like I’m not?”

A few seconds of silence passed as Brian parsed through his thoughts, trying to pinpoint the exact reason he felt unsure. “I mean...it took me literal years to enter a relationship with you, Dan. You remember how we got together? When...when you weren’t even sure if you were still straight or not?”

More quiet. A hint of tension lingering in the air between them. Danny cleared his throat and turned on the couch to face him, their paused movie going completely ignored. “I, uh...no, yeah, I remember that.”

“So you can understand why I’m a little surprised that you brought it up in the first place.” Or that you’re even taking it as seriously as you are.

Danny reached out and snagged one of Brian’s hands, squeezing it. He kept his eyes on it as he spoke. “I took a while. I know I did. You didn’t have to be patient with me, man, but...but you were, and...I’m trying to show you that I’m serious. Okay?”

Brian glanced up at him.

“This isn’t about playing house. This is me trying to make sure you know that I want you in my life. Always. I think about you constantly when you’re not here ‘cuz it just makes sense for me to come around the corner and see you cooking in the kitchen or something.” Danny slowly met his eyes and ran his thumb over the back of his knuckles. “I know I kind of led you on there for a while. I know I kept getting scared shitless about what might happen if we...if we started being more than friends. And I’m glad we did – I really am – but I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life wondering if my fucking commitment issues are gonna suddenly pop up out of nowhere.”

Brian shook his head. “Us moving in together won’t obliterate those. They might still be there, and they might come out, and we’ll have to deal with them-”

“I know, I know.” Danny laughed and looked away. “I know, Brian, like...I’m the one here who’s gonna drag this relationship down, if it ever gets shaky. I know that. My issues are fucking ridiculous, and you don’t have, like, a single thing wrong with you, and it’s kind of intimidating, but...”

The shadow voices rose again, whispering in the back of Brian’s mind, a sinewy sort of melody that he couldn’t completely ignore.

With a sigh, Danny called his attention back to him again. “Look, I love you, Bri. I love you. That’s not gonna stop any time soon. And I wanna prove it by taking this to the next level.”

Brian’s lips quirked. “Even if it’s scary?”

“Even if it’s scary.”

“And I make you remodel your entire bathroom?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

Brian laughed. “All right, fine. So you put me on the fucking mortgage and insurance. What next?”

Danny beamed at him, looking up through messy curls, staring at him with far more love in his eyes than he’d ever deserved.

He was breathless with the weight of it.

 ~~

 Brian stepped away from his laptop to make some coffee, too restless to sleep and too jittery to keep looking at quotes for moving companies. He hadn’t even gotten too far into planning – he still had to go looking for boxes – but it was too much to handle all at once tonight.

Evenings like this called to mind some of the more desperate lows of his friendship with Danny. That phone call, the one where he told him about how he’d be moving to the United Kingdom. The response he’d received. It trickled down his back like shards of ice, chilling him to the bone. Sometimes, even if he couldn’t recall every single precise word, the devastation still came heavy, like snow that turned into hail, beating him down until he didn’t have lungs to breathe with.

He hesitated next to the kitchen counter, then sagged against it, feeling old concerns scratch at the back of his throat. Was Danny asking him to move in so he could guarantee that he’d keep Brian there, no matter what? Did he not trust Brian to stick around anymore?

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, took a deep breath, then tried to force it down, like sticking his foot in the garbage can and pressing.

These were reasons why he didn’t deserve the innocent happiness he saw in Danny’s gaze. He’d hurt him. Over and over again, he’d caused him pain in order to distance his own love from Danny. It was safer that way, he thought. Sensible. He could say that he wanted to move across the ocean to pursue better job opportunities, but the lies had been sand in his mouth, and every damn time he thought for sure that Danny knew.

Brian didn’t like lying. But it was all he ever did.

“Stop,” he whispered. He forced himself to inhale, filling his chest to the brim. He wouldn’t bubble over tonight. He wouldn’t let himself linger. He couldn’t. He just...he…

The pain stayed. Cloying him into a false sense of security, it traced claws over his muscles, then stabbed deep the second he thought the danger had passed.

It hasn’t been this bad in a while.

Brian considered the alcohol he had trapped high in his kitchen. He rarely indulged, and given that his boyfriend and most other friends didn’t touch the stuff he didn’t often find reason to bring it down. The temptation was there tonight. He stared at the closed cabinet, then moved away, wandering aimlessly through the apartment. He told himself that he was going to start sorting through things that he’d donate or throw away rather than take with him in the move.

Instead he ended up in front of his mirror.

For long moments, he simply stared, taking in the way he appeared to the world. The t-shirt with the physics pun on it. The jeans that had seen better days. Wrinkles on his hands and by his eyes. Silver hair slowly consuming the dark. Bulging eyes, thin lips, massive nose, thick gut, thighs covered in stretchmarks--

The pain was here. It sliced through him, dragging him into the thick of it, where there was no escape.

Danny deserved better than a man like Brian. Danny was...was beautiful and remarkable. He represented a far greater success story than anything Brian could ever do. He inspired people. He changed lives. He made everyone think that they could be better, if only they fought like he had. He had a laugh that lit up a room, and eyes that smoldered just as well as they sparkled, and a smile that made whoever saw it think that they were the only person alive.

It didn’t make sense that things had changed as quickly as they did. That Danny had...realized somehow that he wanted Brian. That he’d ached for him for years. That didn’t happen in real life. No one had happiness like that – especially not someone far past their prime, and who’d spent years making sure that their most secret, intimate feelings were kept hidden away.

Had Brian somehow manipulated Danny into wanting him without even trying? There wasn’t another logical explanation. Taking a man who had identified as heterosexual for his entire life – who even today still didn’t know what label to apply to himself, in this climate of ever changing sexuality language – and making him believe that he loved him? That he wanted to have sex with him? How did that happen? How did someone really have no prior concept that they might be slightly less than straight for almost forty years, and then suddenly wake up with a boner for another man?

Somehow he’d done something wrong, he thought.

A ping in the living room startled him, and Brian fought through the remnants of the haze before he remembered his phone, the message alert, that he had a text, and he forcibly turned himself from the mirror and breathed once more. He wandered back into the living room and checked his phone.

It was from Danny. A screenshot of a furniture website. A couch – far bigger than his own, something to compete with the massive sectional that Arin and Suzy had – that would finally make Danny’s living room look a little less barren.

“Plenty of room for cuddles and kicking your ass in games! Can’t wait for you to be here. The house is too quiet. The only way I’m staying sane is by thinking about when you’ll be here with me forever.”

Such sweetness dripped like honey into his mouth. Did he deserve it? No, maybe not. But he was a selfish man. He always had been. Why else would he have accepted Danny’s new feelings without questioning them? And he wanted this. Wanted Danny.

Maybe he was an imposter, and maybe Danny hadn’t figured that out yet. Maybe he never would. Maybe Brian would go his whole damn life knowing he didn’t deserve love as pure as this, or friendship as steadfast as he received from Arin or Brent or Ross, or kindness as rich as what he felt on a daily basis even from total strangers.

But he was going to fight to keep it. And nothing would stop him.

He sent a text back – ”It’s hideous. It’ll match the rest of your decor perfectly.” – and felt his lips quirk when Danny sent him a pouting selfie back. He saved the picture immediately, then sat down and picked up his laptop again.

Moving companies. Right. He could work on that. He could ignore the throbbing ache in his chest still – where the claws had marred him the worst. He could get things done and not be so fucking useless.

Easy peasy.

 ~~

 “Morning!”

“Morning.” Brian gave Danny a quick kiss on the lips and smiled at him fondly as they passed in the hallway. “Ready to do all my work for me?”

“Fuck you!” Danny sang out brightly as he disappeared around the corner, and Brian laughed. He sat at his desk with a sigh and immediately opened up his emails, preparing to slog through the important ones and neglect the shit. It’d take him a little while to wake up, and sipping his coffee while doing this always helped.

Having Danny beside him never helped matters of focus. It was a process – becoming comfortable enough in their relationship that they could still be pleased to see each other and occasionally play some kind of stomping foot wars under the desk in the name of flirting, but also no longer feeling like live wires the second they both made eye contact and being unable to complete any work again until they snuck away to the bathroom for a few stolen moments of making out. They were relaxing so much more now that it felt...domestic, somehow, to sit here and go through emails and to know that Danny would be back soon, and that they’d sink into the quiet of their keyboards clacking while simply breathing each other in.

Brian took another drink of coffee when he heard footsteps behind him, and he glanced, then turned fully in his chair when he saw Arin lingering in the doorway. “Hey.”

“Hey!” Arin grinned. “Heard you agreed to the move. Congrats, dude!”

So it was out, then. He anticipated a long string of well wishers.“Did Danny just tell you?”

“Nah, we talked about it, like, weeks ago.” Arin waved it off. “Between you and me, I’m pretty sure I gave him the idea, heh. Don’t tell him I said that – he’ll kick my ass.”

Something uneasy stirred in Brian’s chest. Vulnerability. Suspicion. He couldn’t let that manifest. He focused on quipping, taking a second longer than usual to find something to spit out. “Don’t lie to me about that, Arin – we both know you wouldn’t recognize a good idea if it spanked you.”

Arin laughed, shaking his head. “No, seriously! It was...kind of cute, actually? Like, in a gross way. He ended up in my office all sweaty and doting and shit one day? Probably after you two snuck off during lunch – yes, I know about that, we all know about that, don’t look at me like that. Anyway, he was nervous or whatever about how happy he was with you, and how he wanted to show it...”

As Arin went on, Brian stopped taking it in. He stared at his face, feeling the foreboding spread little by little.

This was exactly what he should’ve expected, and he felt like a fool for not recognizing it earlier. Of course it hadn’t been Danny’s idea to ask Brian to move in. It hadn’t been Danny’s idea to have feelings for him either – it had taken Brian’s entire breakdown to put the idea in his head in the first place, even after years of friendship – so why would it be his idea to make their relationship a little more permanent? Brian could foresee a future moment – Suzy flashing her wedding ring or something and telling some new acquaintance all about Arin had proposed to her, and Danny overhearing the story and immediately going out and looking for wedding bands.

It made sense. Danny was impressionable. Gullible. Easy to trick and tease. Why would this have been any different?

“...and I figure it’s just about time anyway. If you guys had been living together right when you got back from England, I bet he would’ve been proposing to you in a week, like, let’s be real – you two are perfect for each other, and I can’t believe he was so blind for so damn long-”

“Well, if you gave him the idea, then it’s only fair that you help me move in,” Brian interrupted. There was something hollow inside of him. His words felt wooden. He swallowed and pressed on, clinging to the joke. “I think you should go ahead and mark your calendar for a few weeks away – the last Saturday of the month, maybe? I’ll put my feet up and drink a beer or two while you carry all my boxes inside. What do you say?”

The joke should’ve been easy to move the conversation along. Wit was Brian’s most efficient weapon, and he wielded it with ease. But something about Arin’s expression didn’t sit well with him. He looked like a scientist peering through a microscope. Like he was going to start taking notes.

Coldness spread through Brian’s gut.

“If you think I’m gonna be free labor without you even buying me a fucking pizza, you’ve got another thing coming,” Arin finally quipped, his lips quirking. “But, uh, nice try, buddy.” Arin patted him on the head, and Brian made a show of trying to bite his hand, making him laugh. “Do you wanna get some lunch today, by the way? It’s been a while since just you and I did anything together, hasn’t it?”

Maybe because you do everything with Danny instead of trying to do anything with me.

The thought made him so unsettled that Brian immediately spoke. “Nah, I’ve already got plans, but some other time, okay?”

Arin nodded, eyes still firm on Brian’s own, and smiled. “Sure, dude. Hey, lemme know if you need anything today.”

“As always, boss.”

Arin left the office, and Brian turned slowly to face his computer without quite seeing it. Had his earlier thought been jealousy? He didn’t think so. He had a long history of being jealous of whoever Danny spent his time with in the past, but those fleeting emotional memories hadn’t been ones he’d revisited once their romantic relationship began. Arin had Suzy, Brian had Danny, and he’s wasn’t about to be an asshole who made his lover stop seeing his best friend just because he wanted more time with him.

No, it hadn’t been jealousy about Danny’s time with him. But the feeling had been remarkably similar.

It was true. Arin and Brian rarely did things alone together, and if they spent time with each other it was typically because Danny was there instead, from tours to recording sessions to panel appearances at a con.

So was it jealousy because Arin never tried to initiate a one on one friendship with Brian before today? Possibly. But he couldn’t exactly blame him. With how effervescent Danny was, it was any wonder people took notice of Brian at all. So many nights spent on stage without people responding to him unless Danny deliberately focused attention in his direction. So many tweets directed toward Danny specifically. So many streams where Brian had taken control of the situation only by forcefully inserting himself into the limelight, not by request or demand.

Dear Danny and other members of NSP.

Danny was the golden guy. Brian had known it all along. If even once he had a friend who he introduced to Danny for the first time, it was inevitable that they came to prefer his company over Brian’s. After the lifetime of depression Danny had, Brian couldn’t exactly fault him for it, but…

It would’ve been nice for Arin to ask him to lunch out of his own interest in being better friends with him – and not because he looked at Brian like he was a puzzle to solve.

Emails. Brian took a deep breath, cleansing the tension in his chest, and focused on his screen again. It took a bit to find his stride, but he hit it, and he refused to let his attention divert – even when Danny slid into the chair beside him and squeezed his hand.

 ~~

 “You sure you can’t just move in tonight?”

Brian heard the teasing words, but he didn’t attend to them as well as he wanted to. His head felt slightly swimmy, and he doubted it had anything to do with the single draft beer he’d had, nor with Danny’s presence. No, the stress of work, he reasoned, was what had gotten to him, paired with knowing exactly how much he had left to pack. “I don’t even have the living room packed up yet,” he murmured, taking another sip of the beer.

Danny snorted. “Just get rid of it. We can buy new shit. Y’know...make it our place, not just mine.”

More gentle lurching in his belly. More sips of his drink. Maybe he was getting ill.

“Unless, like…I mean, if you want, I can just wait until you’re all moved in first, or...I can go ahead and buy everything?” Danny let out a light chuckle. “Waking you up all hours of the night with questions about furniture or whatever’s gotta be annoying.”

Brian shook his head, but didn’t reply verbally. His gaze drifted to the nearest TV, where a game played by a team he didn’t give a shit about. His legs itched. Maybe if he moved around a little, he’d actually be able to focus.

It was rare nowadays that Danny and Brian even had a chance to come out to a restaurant on a weekend night. Brian’s schedule was far more open than Danny’s, but he spent it all packing, and Danny was always working on videos, songs, interviews, seeing old friends, thinking about the future…

Brian blinked a few times, trying to clear his head. When was the last time he’d even slept the whole night through?

“...good game?”

“Hmm?” Brian blinked and looked at Danny for the first time in twenty minutes. “I have no idea. It’s on, that’s all I know.”

Danny wrinkled his brow as he slurped up the remnants of his soda through his straw. “Then, uh...why’re you paying more attention to it instead of me?”

A very good question. Danny was his boyfriend. He was the entire reason Brian had gotten in his car and drove here for a proper date, not just the two of them sitting on his couch and eating takeout food again. But something about the entire situation had him on edge. Sleep? Work stress? He considered them both logical possibilities, making tick marks on the whiteboard he often saw before his mind’s eye. Correlation did not equal causation, and…

“I canceled plans to be here.”

Something in Danny’s tone finally resonated in Brian’s gut like a bell. His lover was a patient guy. He didn’t often sound so...so snippy unless something was genuinely wrong. But there it was – that edge, the sharpness that Ross sometimes took on if no one in the office was paying attention to something he was working on. From Ross, it felt bratty. From Danny, it felt hollow and depressed.

Brian’s heart skipped a beat.

“If you needed to get something else done, we could’ve rescheduled,” Danny murmured. As Brian met his eyes, he saw the ache right on the surface – not hidden even slightly. How was Danny able to be so open and vulnerable like this? Was it because he was so generally loved by everyone around him that he hadn’t had to fight for attention in years? Brian couldn’t even imagine being that free.

How many doors were still tightly locked in Brian’s mind with shadows trying to poke beneath them?

As a chill resonated through Brian’s veins, he reached across the table and covered Danny’s hand. When Danny didn’t pull away – didn’t even look away – Brian leaned on old habits. “I’m out of it. Lots of work. Lots of packing. It’s shit. But you know that doesn’t mean I don’t wanna be here.” He tilted his head to the side. “I can’t think straight around you. When I’m this tired, my head just...goes places. Thinks about things that...maybe I shouldn’t be considering in polite company.”

Danny’s gaze flicked down to the table, and he shifted, turning his hand over so his fingers tickled over Brian’s inner wrist. “I mean...”

“What’s that?” Brian leaned closer, trying to catch his eye. “Does someone want to hear exactly what those inappropriate thoughts are?”

Danny chewed on his bottom lip, and, against his better judgment, it seemed, a smile peeked at the corners of his mouth. “Like you can ever keep your mouth shut anyway,” he finally said with a giggle. “You like to hear yourself talk so much.”

“And you like to listen.” Adopting the more sinewy tone was easier than it should’ve been, given how he continued to stomp on the quiet spark of panic at the base of his stomach. “But, if you don’t want to hear me...maybe I should just show you instead.”

Danny pulled his wallet out, flipping through it clumsily and pulling out a few bills to set on top of the check they’d been neglecting. “Fifteen minutes of anticipation-”

“Who said anything about waiting until we get home?”

Eyes snapping to Brian’s, Danny watched him, an ember of heat in his gaze. It was one that Brian knew wouldn’t take much at all to coax into life, and he jumped on the opportunity, standing up and taking Danny’s hand and pulling him out of the booth.

They’d never been so obviously clandestine before – not even at work. While the office felt like an extension of home in many ways, all thanks to the careful decorating that invoked inspiration without the stress of a standard office building, the fact that Brian led the way to the bathroom with promise in his hurried pace meant something far more exciting. And Danny would go along with it, of course. He always did.

He was weak for Brian. It seemed that over thirty years of repressing a supposed side of him meant that he couldn’t resist a damn thing that Brian offered him. It was kind of him to be patient with Danny in the past, he thought, when giving him as little as a snog in the hallways probably would’ve made his pants fall off without any additional help, but he didn’t have to wait anymore, did he?

Why not use this? Why not let his lover feel good anytime, anywhere?

Why not embrace the distraction?

The bathroom was a single stall, and Brian pushed Danny through the door and locked it behind him. His lover’s breath was already catching, and as Brian pressed flush against him, palming his jeans told him he was already hard.

“Eager,” Brian murmured with a smirk.

“I-I missed you, okay?” Danny leaned forward for a kiss, and Brian hesitated for only a moment before he returned it.

It wasn’t the first time Brian gave a blowjob while on his knees in a filthy bathroom, but it was the first time he actually enjoyed it.

At least...he was pretty sure that he did.

 ~~

 Normally Brian was fantastic at keeping track of time and dates, but something about Danny’s visit back home to see his family slipped by him completely. One night he was texting Danny and asking if their weekly Netflix date was still on for Friday, and the next second he was being reminded that Danny’s flight left that morning, actually – that they’d rescheduled to eat out two days before on purpose.

It wasn’t often that Danny got out of town to see his folks – and the fact that his sister would be there at the same time was a huge boon. For the first time outside of major holidays, they’d all be together – and for a whole week, too, to help celebrate their parents’ milestone anniversary together.

It worked out, really. It gave Brian time to focus on packing.

He imagined he might’ve gotten more done so far if he hadn’t been so busy at work. With his nose to the grindstone there, it was increasingly more difficult to focus on getting boxes packed and sealed ahead of time – and now the move was only two weeks away. The deposit had been put down on the moving company. Empty boxes filled his living room. Everything was set up to make it as speedy and efficient as possible.

He just...couldn’t focus.

That entire week, he did nothing but go to work, then come straight home to focus on packing. It should’ve made it easy. Danny was so enjoying his time with his family that he wasn’t reaching out to Brian very often. There were no distractions. Yet even still, Wednesday came with only one new box packed the night before, and the crunch was starting to tighten around him.

“Hey, Brian?” Ross stepped in his path as he headed toward the door at the end of the day. “What’s up?”

Brian blinked. He’d barely spoken to anyone in the office for days now. It took a few extra seconds for the clouds to clear away. “Nothing. Just on my way home. You?”

Ross grinned. “Yeah, same! Hey, so, I know you’ve probably been lonely as hell with Danny being gone-”

“The time away’s been refreshing, actually,” he drawled. “I’ve gotten a lot done.”

Ross snorted and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sure, anyway, uh, figured I’d see if you wanted to come hang out tonight. Some other friends’ll be there, and we’ve got some new tabletop games, and-”

“I have to pack, Ross,” he snapped. Any other time he would’ve thought of how this invitation was obviously preceded by something very important that Brian hadn’t figured out yet, and he would’ve apologized. Today, however, Ross was simply an obstacle in his way. “Maybe another time. Have a good night.” And he pushed past him, and the door shut behind him, and Ross let him go, and that was all there was to it.

Getting home, however, afforded him no pleasure. His phone was silent and in his bedroom. He put book after book into a box, like an assembly line, and he thought of Danny, and how he’d be home soon with stories of his sister and his mom and his dad, and just how lovely it must be to still have a fucking family to go home to at all.

He tried not to think of the deaths of his parents anymore, if he could help it, but tonight all he could see were their faces. Had they been proud of him? If they could see where he was now, would they be prouder still, or would they be humiliated by what prestige he’d given up just to come here and sing songs about dicks? And what would they think about his relationship with Danny specifically? Things hadn’t been awkward when he came out to them in the first place, but how would they take his boyfriend? Would they think they were a good fit, or would they advise Brian to think about looking for love elsewhere?

He couldn’t even imagine sitting with either of his parents and telling them about his depth of feeling for Danny – how he burned for him to the deepest part of his core. They’d never really been that type of family in the first place. How could he pretend that they would’ve had excellent advice to give him, or even the patience to listen?

Danny’s family adored him. They were probably listening to anecdotes about his work and his friends and…

Brian? Had he even ever told them about him? Had he ever came out? Did they love him even still?

They had to. No doubt they loved him and built him up, and…and worshiped him. Admired him for everything he’d done when life felt so impossible. They respected their Danny, who’d thrown his medication into water, who’d not gone back to it, who’d learned to stand on his own two feet. Their incredibly whole Danny. Brave. Strong. Full of everything that the world seemed to lack.

He was whole. That was it, really. He wasn’t broken inside, like some people were, and he didn’t even realize that, did he?

As his thoughts turned and spun, losing coherency, he realized he was staring into the box with a book in each hand, unmoving – almost unbreathing. How long had he been kneeling there? When had he stopped paying attention? Brian set the books down with more care than he’d ever used in his life, then leaned back against the couch, staring at the ceiling. He tried to apply logic to why he couldn’t breathe deeply. There had to be a reason for it. There always was. It was easy, if he’d only try…

Somehow he ended up on his back on the couch with all the lights on, still in his clothes, teeth unbrushed, brain unfocused. He fell asleep there with his hands folded over his stomach and his too-small lungs.

Dreams were a window into the soul, and he knew it well. He dreamed of his beautiful, perfect Danny, being carried away by millions of adoring people, and when he tried to follow them, he tripped into a hole, where he yelled and begged for help and was never once even thought of.

And then he woke up and forgot about it before his eyes were even open – was only left with the lingering sense of unease that robbed him of safety even here, in his own home.

 ~~

 Even with Danny’s return to work, Brian was unsettled. He couldn’t find the words to ask him about his time away – how he’d enjoyed it, how his parents were, if his sister was well – and Danny didn’t volunteer the information to him either. He had too much to catch up on at work. Day in and day out he was recording videos with Arin, barely even pausing for lunch, and the quick hand squeezes and cheek kisses that Brian used to prize felt like nothing more than excuses now. Apologies, perhaps, for how he was in no real hurry to get back to him.

The move was almost here, and nothing was done – but Danny hadn’t even asked about it. And perhaps that was for the better.

Three days until the move, Brian ended up in the kitchen at work, his hands trembling as he reached for the pot of coffee. Did he need more? He wasn’t sure. His eyelids were heavy, though, and his control was fraying, to the point where his emails were piling up and he ignored conversations and let the list of his responsibilities go unfulfilled.

Coffee. Coffee was the answer.

The pot was full, almost overflowing onto his hand, and he hyperfocused every ounce of his attention on it, feeling blindly for the mug overhead while keeping an eye on the level of steaming coffee. A slip – just the barest movement of his fingers – had the mug falling, where it shattered on the counter, spraying shards of ceramic across his chest as he exclaimed and slammed the pot down.

“Fuck!” Brian concaved forward, shoulders rising, chest collapsing beneath the weight of his shout. That word – just one word – encapsulated everything he was losing and that he feared, and he felt the break on the edge of his tone just before his teeth clicked shut painfully.

Breathe. He stared at the massive pieces of the bland white mug surrounding him, his hands splayed on the countertop. Don’t stop breathing. Don’t let go. Don’t do anything. The shards blurred before his eyes as his breathing came faster and faster, over and over and over, until his heart burned. Fragile ribs splintered under the pounding weight of it.

And then he felt the eyes.

“You okay?”

Arin. Brian squeezed his eyes shut, bit his lips, and stood up tall so quickly he nearly lost balance. “Fine.” With one quick movement he jerked his chin upward and applied the veneer, then turned to look at his boss.

The naked concern on his expression nearly brought him to his knees.

He thought to that earlier lunch invitation weeks beforehand. The curious look in his gaze. Brian had interpreted it as Arin simply seeing him as a puzzle – like a toy that he wanted to tinker with until he was satisfied – but no, there was something far more frightening therein.

He knew. He knew exactly what Brian was struggling with. How could he read him so easy? Was it that obvious? Did everyone know what a fucking waste of air Brian was? That he was a shitstain smeared across the ground?

“Brian.” Arin wrinkled his brow. “Sit down, dude, you’re shaking.”

“I’m fine. I haven’t slept.” The lies came easier than truth, spilling over his lips, and he had a vivid flashback – Arin’s words against his ear through the phone six months before, the quiet Nothing is fucked, and how it had lulled him to think that everything could be okay with Danny, not risking falling apart like it was now. “Once I actually get some decent fucking rest and get this move over with, I’ll...yeah, I’ll be fine.”

Brian was so used to any word he said being enough to convince Danny. Why would Brian lie to him if it wasn’t for humor, after all? There was no motivation for it. Arin, however, didn’t look convinced. Nothing about his expression changed. Only the inescapable worry pressing down on him.

“I think we should go sit down together,” Arin said far slower, like he was still thinking through his plan of attack, and the itching in Brian’s legs only grew. “If you’re, uh, tired or whatever, we can get you settled on the couch, catch a few z’s, and then we can talk afterward, maybe?”

In seconds, Arin would no doubt get his footing as Brian’s boss again. He was good at what he did – fucking great, even – but the normally unflappable Brian was keeping him from transitioning straight into expressing his concern and asking him if everything was all right at home and if maybe he was having some kind of second thoughts about this move, if he didn’t deserve it or happiness with Danny or-

No, he couldn’t be allowed to figure that out. If he went down that rabbit hole, Brian was damn sure they’d never get out.

“I’m fine,” Brian snapped. He was moving before he even realized it. He pushed past Arin. Arin hit the doorframe, and Brian moved down the hallway. “I’m just, I’m going to run an errand, and I’ll be right back.”

The next thing he was aware of was sitting in his car, hands on the wheel, staring outside. How tempting it would be to drive home. He remembered doing that last time. Remembered emptying his stomach into the toilet until he felt as empty as he was as a human being – the vacant shell, the remnants left behind of who Brian was before he realized how utterly unexceptional he was and withered and died. He could do it now. He could go home and shut himself up, and maybe everyone would forget until tomorrow.

Or maybe he’d keep sitting here for an hour and wouldn’t even realize it.

He had nowhere to go. No errands to do. He drove around the block four times on pure autopilot before he pulled back into the parking lot and came inside.

He would just...find Arin and smooth things over, like they’d never happened. He’d give him a smile and a joke and some fingerguns, and then they’d move on, right? Easy. He stepped inside the thunderous air conditioner of their specific chain of offices and headed down the hallway, looking for him. Not in his office. Not in the kitchen. Not even Danny was at their desks.

That was when the cool panic began to set in.

As a rule, private conversations were rarely held in the recording area due to the backup microphones being constantly on at all times so that they’d never risk losing footage in the event of an emergency shutdown. It was considered a violation of privacy. Sensitive situations needed to be respected, lest they open up an entire can of worms.

Yet when Brian finally went to the last place he looked – the studio itself – what he saw brought him to a stop. Arin and Danny, sitting together, Danny’s back to the glass, Arin’s brow furrowed as he talked. He had no way of hearing what they were saying, but what else could they be talking about? Who else was having a fucking breakdown in the middle of the office just because a mug had broken? Brian lingered at the furthest door. There had to be a new plan of attack. How likely was it that he could get Danny to completely ignore everything coming out of Arin’s mouth? He imagined himself bursting in and flinging himself between them in slow motion, shouting, begging for Danny not to listen.

The fantasy hadn’t even finished when Arin locked eyes with him and shut his mouth – and then Danny turned his head.

He was wearing that goddamn concern now too.

Brian left. He ran. And this time he went home.

 ~~

 It wasn’t like he’d left incredibly early. In no time at all, everyone else would be heading home, Brian reasoned to himself, and thus he hadn’t exactly given them huge reason to worry. Danny wouldn’t come running over – at least, he wasn’t likely to, especially with how busy he was – and Brian could head everything off at the pass.

He just...needed to look like he was busy, in case there was a trap. If Danny walked in with his key - why the fuck did I even give him that? - he’d see that the apartment was a disaster. The signs of Brian’s half focused packing were scattered from wall to wall – objects that he’d begun wrapping in newspaper before leaving them on the floor, a trail of books from the shelf to a box that was half empty, abandoned dishes on the kitchen counter that he’d never quite gotten to washing. A man lived in a fugue state here. And he had to hide the signs. He couldn’t let them worry. Couldn’t let them know.

Packing was easy, he reasoned. No one sane struggled with something this simple, especially when they were over forty years old and had a doctorate in an extremely prestigious field.

But there was too much. Every time that Brian touched something – intent on packing it to lessen the damage – something else caught his eye, and he would put it down and wander over, then freeze again, head turning to the next object. By the time he heard his phone ringing, he hadn’t done a damn thing.

He picked up his phone, then dropped it on the couch when he saw Danny’s name. Feeling like a child, Brian chewed on a hangnail and stared at the screen, listening to the quiet vibrating until, finally, it went silent. He looked away. What kind of man did this? Who ignored their lover like they were nothing? How was he going to explain this?

Why did he feel so completely out of control of his own life?

His phone buzzed with a voicemail, and he forced himself to take a deep breath and listen to it.

”Hey! Um, this is Danny! I guess you already knew that, uh...listen, I just wanted to see how you were doing. I realized we hadn’t really...seen each other for the past couple of weeks, outside of work, and, like, with the move coming up, I kind of left you hanging instead of asking if I could help, and that was shitty of me, and...and I’m sorry. Um, can you give me a call and just let me know how you’re doing? I’d really like to hear from you. Love you!”

The message was dangerous. As Brian dropped the phone slowly back to his hip, he stared at the wall and felt the ever pressing weight of Danny’s worry on his shoulders. So this was it. This was how everyone found out that Brian – the man who held everything together like he was made of steel – was falling apart. Going insane. Collapsing from the inside out. This was how the world found out that he wasn’t worth his salt.

This was how Danny slowly discovered that Brian was weak and so not worth everything he’d given him.

We can still fix this.

The spark of panic flared into a smoldering wildfire, ripping through Brian as he grabbed his phone, his keys, and his wallet and headed straight for the door.

Brian was a master of deception and lies. For years he’d made a brand out of insulting humor. The amount of times that he’d spewed falsehoods just to make Danny think he wasn’t attracted to him was in the hundreds. And he could still lean on that here too. That was all it would take: just one little lie, and he could get his life back on target again.

He was fine. He was. He’d held it together for decades, and he wasn’t about to let go now.

The drive to Danny’s was done in the same fog he’d been struggling with for weeks, with the sharp-teethed voices in the back of his mind muttering viciousness that he could barely even translate. It was better this way, they said – better for Brian not to be known by a single person. If they found out what a fraud he was, they’d be happy to take the excuse to leave him. If they realized how he was only a mockery of a comedian, they’d turn their backs. If they knew he couldn’t do a damn thing without second guessing every step of the way, they’d finally realize how foolish he was.

It was better to hide it all. And Danny was just gullible enough to take it. After all, everyone wanted to take the easy way out. If Brian offered him the opportunity to pull the wool a little more over his eyes, he’d thank him for it – anything so he didn’t have to do the hard work of...of comforting, or…

Unbidden, images of Suzy holding Arin’s hand and talking to him quietly in the office during times of tight deadlines or sharp criticism or a dropped sponsorship deal raced through his mind. How Arin leaned into her. How she accepted the weight of him and pulled him in close and held him together when he was feeling weak. What did that feel like, to be so vulnerable with another human being? To know that they could be relied on to carry the burdens of their loved ones when they became just a little too heavy?

He couldn’t remember ever giving someone that opportunity. Not even once.

Fuck, his throat hurt. It tightened with a knot, and he swallowed it back down.

He pulled sideways into Danny’s driveway and climbed out of his car, making a beeline for the front door with his keys clacking in his shaking hand. He knocked on the door, and the second it opened, he pushed inside.

“Hey!” Danny grabbed him by the shoulder. “God, I’m fucking glad to see you. What’s up? Why didn’t you just call me back?”

The gleaming adoration in Danny’s eyes were almost enough to bring everything tumbling down. Every piece of the mismatched stones that Brian had shoved together into the tower that held him high above others...just one word of love from Danny would blow them over and leave nothing but the cracked foundation that he was so desperate to hide.

He couldn’t do that. If Danny saw – if he knew everything he’d been hiding…

Brian made one last ditch effort toward deception. It was easy. All he had to do was lean on Danny’s weakest point – even if it made him feel sick to do.

“Sometimes a guy just has to see his boyfriend.” Brian cupped Danny’s cheeks, scratchy with stubble, and came up onto his tiptoes, holding his gaze. “You missed me, didn’t you? You said it yourself. So here I am.”

Danny wrinkled his brow. “Brian...”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” He thumbed over Danny’s bottom lip. “Just a guy who’s sick and tired of waiting to see his lover. You feel that way too, right?”

“I-I mean, yeah, but-”

“Then c’mon.” He pressed their chests together and let his warm breath tickle over his mouth. “Show me how much you missed me. Make love to me like you mean it.”

Hesitation. For once, Danny didn’t reach out and touch Brian. He didn’t drag him in. And that just meant Brian would have to do a little more of the work himself.

He kissed him with a hum, tilting his head to deepen it immediately, and closed his eyes, trying to focus on the heat of Danny’s body against his. He’d wanted him for years. He’d jerked off to him every damn time he was drunk and home alone. The amount of times that he’d whispered Danny’s name into a pillow while some anonymous guy fucked him from behind was innumerable.

So why couldn’t he just turn his fucking brain off and enjoy this?

He forced himself to slide a hand through Danny’s hair, just barely avoiding tangling in the messy curls, and he felt the other man’s breath hitch as he touched him. Yeah, c’mon, just like that, give in to me. As Danny melted slowly, he slid his arms around Brian’s waist, one hand fisting in his shirt.

Just like he was supposed to. Almost on cue. Thank God, thank God.

He just had to get Danny to fuck him. If he could goad him on until he was bruising Brian’s hips in those beautiful hands of his, then even better. He just needed him to let go. He needed him to see that Brian was fine, and that he didn’t need to worry, and that everything was going to be okay, and nothing was going to fall apart.

He needed Danny to fucking swallow him whole. Trap him in his ribs. Let him snuggle up right next to his heart, where it was warm and safe.

Danny tried to pull away from the kiss, but Brian pursued him, and he felt the moan against his lips as he gave into him again. The bedroom wasn’t too far away, but Brian didn’t know if he trusted himself to get Danny that far without questions coming up.

It had been quite a while since he’d been fucked on the floor, feeling the carpet fibers scrape his body to hell and back. Did Danny still have lube in here? He’d jokingly told him that he had a bottle of lube in every room in the house, just in case – that it was always good for a gag, at least, even if it never got used. Condoms? Whatever. They were fluid bonded now.

He didn’t fucking want anybody else, just...just Danny, just this, just the promise that it would never end.

Promises fell apart as fast as cheap toys. So did wedding rings. So did mortgages and two names on the insurance and everything whispered between the sheets-

God, his mind was fucking everywhere. He zeroed in on Danny again, coaxing him down to the ground, until he could scramble into his lap and grind against the hardness he felt in his jeans. Brian winced – he himself wasn’t hard, and the sensitivity of his flaccid cock being pressed against something so unforgiving was painful in a horrible way rather than a pleasurable one, but…

Fuck, why wasn’t he fucking hard?!

He eased a hand between their hips to hide it, bucking the heel of his palm against Danny’s cock and swallowing up the sweet moans he fed him in response. Tongues tangled, slick and hot.

It was when Danny reached to lace their other hands together that Brian’s heart skittered in his chest.

What was he doing? Why did he think this was the right way to go?

Just...get over it, Jesus, just let him fuck you, c’mon, he’s ready, he’s into it, and he’ll forget all about whatever the hell is going on in your head if you can just man up and do this shit.

Brian let go of his hand and reached between them to open up Danny’s jeans. He pushed him to the floor with his chest and held him there, panting against his mouth for just a second before he resumed the sloppy, unfocused kisses – ones that Danny kept trying to take control of, and that Brian would ignore. He yanked his lover’s jeans and boxers down and took him in hand, jerking him to full hardness with no real rhythm. His palm felt too dry against the smooth skin of Danny’s cock and he bit back the urge to apologize.

Just a little more. Maybe he could even try to take him dry. It’d hurt like hell, they’d be risking pain and bleeding and...but maybe it’d be better than stopping to look for the lube, and-

Danny’s hand suddenly touched between Brian’s legs, flush against his soft dick. And he froze.

They both did. Brian kept his lips lightly pressed against Danny’s, brain frantically looking for an excuse. A solution.

Danny turned his head and let out a shaky breath and, goddamn it all, but he spoke before Brian could think to kiss him again. “You’re not...you’re not hard.”

Fuck. Fuck. Any other day it would’ve taken no time at all for Brian to quip something out and get the show on the road again, but here? Now? A cold sweat beaded over his neck and forehead, and he dropped his hands to the carpet, holding there, staring at Danny’s chest.

“Are you not enjoying this?”

I love it, Brian wanted to say. But he couldn’t loosen his jaw. His teeth ground together painfully, making his vision blur.

“You don’t need to do this,” Danny said quietly, his soft voice tickling over Brian’s skin. A drop of sweat ghosted down his own cheek, as if chasing the words. “I’d rather just talk to you. See what’s going on. You don’t have to keep...hiding it.”

Something began building in Brian’s stomach as he sat up slowly. It traveled gradually up his chest. His throat.

“It’s...it’s been hard, isn’t it?” Danny whispered. “You didn’t want me to know it was hard. That...that something was going on. Because if I did...”

Brian shook his head. Where were the words to tell him to shut up? Why was he trembling?

“...if I knew something was wrong, I’d ask, and you wouldn’t be able to hide it anymore.”

Oh God, oh God, oh God…

Danny touched his cheek – his sweat-slick, overheated, ugly, disgusting cheek. “Brian, please tell me what’s wrong. I can’t watch you like this. I love you too much to let you hurt like this alone.”

Brian was off him like a flash.

“Brian!”

He ran – but he ran straight down the hall, stumbling into the bathroom and flinging himself on his knees in front of the toilet. It was too similar, spilling the contents of his stomach because of Danny - almost like the past few months hadn’t even happened.

The difference was that he wasn’t alone. Arms wrapped around his ribs, a warm and insistent presence, and Brian squeezed his eyes shut.

Humiliation wouldn’t even come to him, and neither would shame. After all this time of holding back, hot tears streamed down his cheeks as he struggled to take a full breath. “I-I can’t anymore,” Brian stammered. His fingers dug into the porcelain, trembling, trying to find purchase in anything around him. “It’s too much, i-it’s just too...”

“I’ve got you.” Danny’s voice, though tight with emotion, was soft in his ears, like silk dragged over sensitive skin. “It’s okay, Bri, I’m here, I’ve got you, you’re not alone anymore.”

He leaned back into the weight of Danny, nothing left to vomit, and shook in his arms, head tilting back so that the light from the hallway bled past his eyelids. The sounds he made – choked sobs – didn’t sound human, and he scarcely believed they came from him. All he knew and felt was the pain in his body, everything he’d been holding back for months – years – coming out in his tears. The fear, the agony, the knowledge that no one could put up with the amount of shit that Brian carried in his heart.

But Danny was right there. Right there. He wasn’t leaving. He was rocking Brian back and forth and whispering sweet comforting words. “You’re never gonna be alone again,” he said at one point in a voice that barely sounded like his own, and Brian had just enough presence of mind to realize that Danny was crying too.

Brian hadn’t let anyone see his tears in years. He hadn’t let anyone cry for him in even longer. But here, in this tiny safe room, with nothing but love surrounding him, even as horrible as it felt to let go, he couldn’t do anything else.

Not when Danny was giving him permission – and the acceptance to spill over the riverbanks.

Brian twisted in his arms and buried his face in Danny’s neck, soaking him in tears as he clung to him like a child. Yet Danny held on. He was firm. He wouldn’t be toppled over like a Lego tower. Everything that Brian feared – that he was too much for someone, that he didn’t deserve to be loved, that it was only a matter of time before he was left alone – stayed at bay. None of it came true.

There was time yet for his thoughts to be proven right. But he was damn glad it wasn’t tonight.

After long minutes of weeping, strength left Brian, until he was dry of tears and aching. He wasn’t a young man anymore. He couldn’t just throw himself around and have tantrums like this without a bone deep burning in all parts of his body – his bruised knees, his pained lungs, his red eyes. But even as he whispered two words - “I’m sorry” - Danny didn’t let go.

“Let’s get you to bed,” Danny murmured, running a hand through the short cropped hair on top of Brian’s head and leaving tingling in his wake. “C’mon. Easy does it.”

Never had Brian seen this side of Danny before – this calm, gentle, coaxing part of him that drew Brian up to his feet. He could almost imagine him taking a crying child into his arms and carrying him away to rock him until he could breathe again. He’d never said a word about wanting children, but the image was fixed in Brian’s mind now so vividly that he let the fascination distract him from just how hard it was to stand.

He leaned into Danny heavily with a sigh that nearly started his tears again – how was he so tired? The steps out of the bathroom, into the hallway, and down to the bedroom should’ve taken seconds, but they felt like hours, each careful placement of his foot taking intense deliberation lest he bring them both down to the ground.

He’d pulled all nighters while working on his PHD. He and Danny both had stayed up for days on end when they were at a crunch point with their albums. But he’d never felt this exhausted before.

It’s all caught up to me, he thought with a certain calm. It’s here. There’s no getting out of it, is there?

It was a bit clumsy, but once he sat Brian on the edge of his bed, Danny tugged the shirt over Brian’s head, along with his shoes and jeans. He hesitated and looked at his dresser – considering pajamas, maybe – before he shook his head and gently eased Brian down. His head landed on a pillow as soft as a cloud.

Faint panic sparked in his gut, and he grabbed hold of Danny’s hands, looking up at him with wide eyes.

“I’m here.” Danny smiled at him. He kicked off his pants and crawled into bed in his shirt and boxers, then curled up beside him. “It’s okay, Bri. Everything’s gonna be okay now. Got it?”

Brian opened his mouth, but his voice, so raw from crying, was impossible to find, and he settled for nodding as he nuzzled into the soft, well worn cotton of his lover’s t-shirt. A deep breath filled his mind with nothing but Danny – his smile, his laugh, his love.

Under the hand petting up and down his back and the quiet, faint humming of what Brian recognized as a lullaby, he fell asleep within seconds, plunging into a dreamless state of weariness.

 ~~

 He’s out. Danny let out a deep breath and closed his eyes as he felt Brian relax. He’s out, okay, it’s...it’s okay.

How he’d managed to hold up such a calm facade, he had no idea. He wasn’t built for this. Going from burning alive for Brian’s touch to crying into the back of his neck within sixty seconds nearly gave him whiplash. Hell, the fact that he’d even gotten him calm in the first place when he was falling apart at the seams...

How had he missed all the fucking signs along the way?

Danny rubbed his eyes as he rolled onto his back, tugging Brian closer as he went. Brian twitched in his sleep, but stayed under, and Danny exhaled slowly.

It didn’t make sense for Brian to fall apart. That was part of it. Brian was an incredible wall of intellect and cleverness. He didn’t give into these silly emotions like everybody else around him. He was unflappable to the very end. Right?

Apparently not.

God, how he’d shaken while Danny held him. He’d sounded like a fucking wild animal as he let out all the shit he’d been dealing with, wail after wail after wail. Danny was used to a more primal Brian in one instance only, and what happened in the bathroom had nothing to do with that. How eagerly he’d tried to seduce Danny – and how quickly he’d succeeded…

Had he done that before?

Danny’s mind flitted to the last time Brian had been so eagerly spontaneous – the bathroom at the restaurant – and covered his eyes as the weight of what must have been going on in Brian’s head sank down on him. He’d been trying to escape. Or distract him. Or both. And Danny had played right into his hands.

What a fucking shitty boyfriend he was, letting himself get caught up in being busy and working his ass off instead of paying attention to how Brian was falling apart. When was the last time he’d offered to help him pack for the move? Or that he’d even stopped by just to see him? Was this all about the move and nothing else?

No, the man who’d fallen to pieces and cried like that, it had to be about something different than planning for a new future. Right? Or was he wrong?

He couldn’t do this by himself. There was a reason that Danny’s preferred method of helping people going through things leaned on distraction rather than intimate conversation. He hadn’t even asked Brian what he needed, or said anything to help. All he could do was hold him and cry with him.

The depth of despair that Brian had felt… Even now, it could suffocate Danny as he considered it. He’d never been as empathetic with someone like he was with Brian. Was this what love was, truly and deeply, or was there a connection there that he could only ever have with this man?

So many questions. So much pain. So much that Danny couldn’t just fix. He hadn’t been in a long term relationship in years. How was he supposed to know how to handle it without fucking things up and making Brian feel worse?

Arin. He thought of the words he’d shared earlier that day – how he pointed out none so delicately that Brian was fraying at the seams, and had been for quite some time. How he’d shaken Danny out of his cluelessness and had told him with complete seriousness that if he loved Brian, he’d call him on his bullshit and get him to stop hiding whatever was going on. He’d anticipated having to do a little more work to get him to come out about it. He’d thought there would be deflection and laughter. The afterglow, he’d reasoned as Brian plied him with kisses, would be the perfect time to get him to start opening up about it, both of them floating in the honest intimacy that they ended up in every time.

Arin had been doing this for a lot longer than Brian and Danny had. He and Suzy had one of the healthiest relationships he’d ever seen. So maybe he could help.

Danny gently extricated himself from Brian’s arms, and when he heard the other man mumble something in his sleep he leaned to kiss his forehead, his heart swelling in his chest. He needed all the help he could get.

He wasn’t going to risk losing Brian over something as simple as this. As surprised as he’d been by the events of the day, he still knew him. He knew that Brian wouldn’t hesitate to run, if he thought it was better for Danny. Hadn’t he done that already? He’d gone to a whole fucking other country just to get some distance between them, even when he knew that Danny was falling apart over it – all to hide how he felt.

No more of that. Danny stroked Brian’s cheek, his forehead creasing with fervor. It’s you and me, man. You’re not gonna call the shots for me anymore. We’re figuring this life shit out together.

As he left him sleeping in his bed, Danny closed the door quietly behind him, then went to the living room and pulled out his phone. He shot Arin a text. “Can you maybe come talk to me about Brian? He’s here at my house. Sleeping. Things got bad. I think we’re fine, but I don’t know what the fuck to do when he wakes up.”

Arin’s quick “On my way now” reassured Danny to the point of sitting down and taking a deep breath. If he held all this in, would he melt down just like Brian had? He thought of the therapy he used to have – how it was the only place he could actually talk about what he was feeling without worrying what others would think of him. Suddenly he missed it, and he regretted laying his shit on Arin when he was just a friend – not even a professional paid to get his time taken up.

Was there a decent therapist nearby in town?

He didn’t have to wait long. Traffic appeared blessedly light, and a few minutes later there was a text coming through. “I’m outside. Didn’t wanna knock and wake him up.” Small favors. Danny went to the door and let Arin in, and immediately hugged him. Something he was thankful for in his relationship was that it inspired him to be more relaxed with touching his friends. That hug felt like the one thing keeping him afloat.

“Hey,” Arin murmured, squeezing him unabashedly in his arms. “He still asleep?”

“Yeah.” Danny pulled back and sighed. “I-I honestly don’t think he’s slept much for weeks now. You were right. He looks like fucking hell.”

Arin looked at the bedroom door as he moved past, rubbing the back of his neck, while Danny locked the door again behind him. “Yeah. Hell, he might sleep through the night. Might be just what he needs.”

Danny leaned into the door and curled his hand into a fist against it. “How didn’t I see it? I fucking work right next to him-”

“Hey.” Arin caught his arm and pulled him away, guiding him toward the couch. “No, don’t do that. That’s just gonna eat you up inside, dude. The past is the past. You gotta move forward. Both of you do.”

Danny nodded. They sat together, Danny perched right on the edge of the cushion, wanting to be able to spring to his feet if he heard Brian so much as start to stir. “I just...I was so fucking blind. My own boyfriend...I hate that I didn’t catch it. I don’t know how to do better in the future.”

“We can talk about that later.” Arin kicked off his shoes and curled up on the couch, watching Danny closely. “We’ve gotta talk about Brian, man. I don’t know what he’s gonna do when he wakes up. He’s been pretty damn deflective for weeks now. He could just try to pretend that nothing happened, or that we’re blowing it out of proportion, or...”

“Yeah.” He tented his hands and pressed them to his lips. The temptation to let more self hatred pour out was almost impossible to resist, but...no, he had to focus on Brian right now. All of him. “What do you think was going on? I haven’t even gotten to ask him yet.”

“You didn’t get anything?”

Danny shook his head. “He got here, he tried to, uh...distract me, and then when I tried to get him to talk he just fucking broke down. Threw up. Started crying. It was fucking bad, dude. Broke my goddamn heart.” His throat tightened up again in response, and he looked away. “Did I do this? Did me asking him to move in do it?”

“No, I don’t think that adds up. Didn’t you say he was excited when you first talked about it?”

“I think he was.” Every part of their relationship was cast in a different light now. He didn’t want to believe that Brian had been lying to him about how he was feeling this entire time – that he was happy and at ease in their relationship – but how was he supposed to tell for sure? “He’d...yeah, he looked like he was super stoked that I’d even brought it up. We talked about how I wanted him to know I was serious. He didn’t try to talk me out of it, he just...”

Arin hummed quietly in acknowledgment, and Danny felt like he could break under the gentle sympathy. “I don’t think this was your fault. If you’re thinking it is, get it out of your head right now.”

Bastard, knowing exactly what Danny was thinking. He stared at his feet instead of looking at Arin and showing him every damn thought in his head.

“Have you ever seen him break down like that today?”

Danny shook his head. “Not once. We’ve spent so much time together, and I’ve never seen him tear up. Not even when he’d get drunk and talk about his parents or anything, it was just...calm. Serene.”

Arin sighed. “That means it probably goes back fucking far as dicks.”

“You think so?” He blinked at him.

“Yeah. What’s the phrase, still waters run deep?” Arin stared back at him, chewing on his bottom lip thoughtfully. “Like, let’s think about what we know. He’s a perfectionist. He’s a master of bragging humor. He builds himself up constantly-”

“-and maybe it’s the opposite of what he feels?” Danny wrinkled his brow. “That’s what you’re getting at?”

“I mean, it could be, right?”

Had he been barely holding himself together their entire friendship? Danny thought back, remembering quiet conversations years before they even met Arin, when Brian would let something self-deprecating slip out under his breath, then laugh it off when Danny would look at him – as if he hadn’t even thought he’d notice what he said.

“What the fuck do I do?” Danny asked quietly.

“Talk to him.” Arin put a hand on Danny’s arm, a quiet but strong connection that Danny clung to. “Find out what he’s going through. Then just...go from there.”

“To what?” Danny bubbled up with a bitter laugh. “How am I gonna be any help to him? I’m just the asshole who brags about how he fucking stopped therapy and medication all on his own! No trouble! Just, yep, toss your pill bottle in the fucking water, guys, it’s all good!”

“You don’t do that,” Arin murmured. “Every single time you tell that story, you make sure to say that people all have to do things differently – that you got lucky. What do you think’s gonna happen, that you’ll just...send him over the edge?”

Danny covered his face with his hands. Utter helplessness spread through him. “I just...I don’t...”

“Danny, listen to me. You’re the only person here, between the two of us, who knows what it feels like when everything’s too hard to bear. When you can’t figure out how to go on anymore. And if Brian feels even a little bit like that...then you’re the best person to help him.”

“But I might fuck up-”

“Okay.”

Danny looked up at him, frowning.

“People fuck up.” Arin slid closer and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and Danny collapsed into him. “I’m not saying you’re supposed to save him, dude – that’d be fucked up of me. Brian has to be the one to decide he wants help for whatever it is he might be going through. But you can be by his side and show him that it’s not a lost cause.” He paused. “The amount of times that Suzy has brought me up out of a fog just with her telling me she loves me, or that I’m not alone, or pointing out something about me that she thinks is amazing...it’s incredible. It works. And it’ll work for you too.”

“It’s not that easy, is it?”

Arin shook his head with a wry sort of smile. “It’s never easy. I wish it was. Whatever’s gonna happen here, it’s a process, okay? You know that.”

He did. It had taken ages until he felt exasperated enough to throw away his medication, then even longer before he came out from under the foggy withdrawal of what it had done to him. He’d been warned it wouldn’t be easy, and they were right. “I just...want him to know I’m not running away. Even if he feels like shit. Even if things feel hard. I’m staying.”

“Then tell him that.”

Danny nodded. “Yeah.” It wasn’t hard. Just being the one to tell Brian that he wasn’t alone – even if he thought he deserved it – could do so much good, he thought optimistically. And it was one step toward doing better than he had. No more missing the signs of his lover struggling. He didn’t want to baby him or hold his hand all the time – and Brian would probably throw a fit if he did – but he had to get his head out of his own ass.

Things had changed for them. Their relationship was completely different than it ever had been before. He couldn’t keep treating Brian like he was still just his best friend and nothing else. He had to keep his eyes open and see things that he might’ve never called him on before because of how he was raised – believing that guys had to work through their shit on their own.

He wouldn’t have ignored the signs of a girlfriend going through pain or trauma. He wasn’t going to do that for his boyfriend either.

“Do you really think I can help him and not ruin everything?” he asked quietly, searching Arin’s gaze for answers. “That...that I can stick around and show him how serious I am about this? And help him through shit?”

Arin grinned. There wasn’t a single question in his eyes. No doubt. No consideration. Just a strong, unwavering faith – exactly what he needed. “Dude, you know you can do anything, right? If I had to pick, I’d always want you at my back.”

It was so weird, how things had changed in just the past few months. Before he’d dated Brian, Danny would’ve laughed and joked away from the way his words embraced his heart and made him feel…happy. He would’ve shied away from feeling an intimacy between the two of them. But it was okay. It wasn’t weird or bad or wrong. It didn’t make Danny weak.

Finally he could see why Arin loved being as open and touchy-feely and kind as he was. It felt fucking amazing, if he could just drop his guard and invite people in.

“You want me to stick around for a while?” Arin asked quietly.

“Nah.” Danny slipped out from under his arm and stood with a sigh. “I...I want it to be just me, this first time. Is that selfish?”

“What, to want to be the guy your boyfriend leans on? To want to prove to him that you’re gonna stick by him no matter what?” Arin scoffed and rolled his eyes, smile widening. “You’re golden, bro, c’mon.”

Danny pulled Arin into a hug. Only a moment of hesitation – surprise, he was willing to bet – happened before Arin wrapped his arms around him in response. “Thank you. Seriously. I-I feel like I can actually do this now – whatever it is.”

“You need anything, you call me, okay? I’m serious. Any day, any time, I’m here.”

Danny squeezed his eyes shut and shakily exhaled. He’d never had such a fervent belief in someone being like a brother to him. He believed Arin. “Thank you. Uh, same, I mean it.”

Arin broke the embrace with a beaming smile. “Text me tonight about how things went, okay?”

“You got it.”

As Danny let Arin out, he lingered at the door, watching him walk away with a quiet sigh. Regardless of how Arin had built him up, there was still the temptation to be intimidated by what was about to happen. He had no idea what had made Brian break down in such a disastrous way. If it had anything to do with Danny, he’d feel guiltier than he could say, and the likelihood that he’d break down again was high. It was terrifying to think about. He didn’t want someone he loved to turn into that ruined, animalistic creature again. He wanted him to be okay.

It’ll take time, he reminded himself as he slipped back inside and shut the door behind him. Stay the course. Talk to him. And it’ll be okay.

He made his way to the bedroom and lingered for a moment, watching Brian’s peacefully sleeping face. Was there tension still in his body? Pain? Could he feel what was hurting him even still?

He crawled under the sheets with him and curled up close. He’d wait.

 ~~

 When he began to stir, he was sore as hell.

For a few blissful moments, Brian had no memory of what had happened to make him so tense in the first place – and then it came crashing down, every single thing he’d been trying to avoid for weeks, and he heaved a sigh and rubbed his eyes.

It had come for him, then. All of it. All the pain. The agony. The fear. The frustration. It had hit him all at once to the tune of Danny’s voice.

But it was okay. He could still talk his way out of it. Though he felt exhausted down to his bones, sleep wasn’t an option anymore, and he felt oddly like he’d gone through some kind of catharsis. So he needed to have a breakdown every now and again. That was just fine. He could manage to do that in a far more private way in the future.

He could even make sure that Danny was calm. That he didn’t think any of this had to do with him. That it was a fluke, and it would never happen again.

Easy.

He opened his eyes, then pulled back when he saw Danny’s face a few inches from his own. Shit. He thought he’d have a few more minutes to figure out a plan. Just seeing the way his eyes sparkled in the low light from the curtains gripped Brian’s heart with guilt. Why wasn’t he stronger? Why did he have to exist in this pathetic, humiliating way? Why had he made Danny worry by seeing him like that?

Danny brushed his fingers over Brian’s cheek, and he fought the urge to lean into his touch. The stronger he could be, the better.

“You can keep sleeping,” Danny murmured. For once, there wasn’t an ever present smile shining at him. Just that quiet neutrality.

Brian grunted and shook his head. He could still taste the vomit in his mouth. He hadn’t even rinsed it out before he fell asleep. He rolled onto his back so Danny didn’t have to smell it. “I’m fine.” Fine in every way. If he kept sleeping, he’d only wake up feeling like he’d been put away wet again, and he would risk it being taken as a sign of weakness. And though he might be weak, Danny sure as hell didn’t need to know that.

“Okay.”

“Seriously. I’m fine.”

Danny hummed in acknowledgment – in that little way that told Brian he didn’t believe him for a second – and he couldn’t help but roll his eyes as he looked toward the closet. Silence stretched between them both. No, Danny suspected that something was very wrong – maybe even pitied him – and it only made the guilt stab claws a little deeper into his soul. I have to do better. I can’t keep living like this. I have to hide it more. What kind of asshole has a PHD and can’t even put on a good show? There was a reason Brian rarely went to improv classes with them. He knew his weaknesses.

Maybe he needed to take a few more anyway.

“Brian.” Danny touched his arm, and the bare tickle sent a shock straight up to his shoulder. He wished he wouldn’t touch him. With every second of contact, Brian felt something lurching in his body – something that could collapse at any moment. “Can we talk about how you’ve been feeling recently-”

“What, tired as hell?” Brian snorted. “That’s how I’ve felt for the past few years, Danny, and if you’re that worried about an old man not getting very good sleep, I regret to inform you that you’re going to be seeing a hell of a lot of it once we’re living together. Insomnia is genetic. My mom had it. I have it. It’s just normal, all right?” He turned his head to look at him – sealing the deal. “Seriously, don’t worry about it.”

Danny stared back at him. For the first time, Brian saw the flicker of hurt in his gaze, and he swallowed it down. He’d punish himself with it. He’d show himself what would happen if he couldn’t get better at dealing with his own shit. He’d lose Danny that much faster.

He could avoid that, if he just tried.

Danny pressed his lips into a thin line as he flicked his gaze over his face, like he was trying to memorize him. Was this it? Was this where he told him he wouldn’t be moving in? Bile tinged the back of Brian’s throat, and he swallowed, desperately trying to keep it down.

When Danny opened his mouth, his words were quiet but firm. “Why do you need to lie to me?”

He hadn’t expected things to be laid out quite so cleanly. Brian opened his mouth, then closed it again, wrinkling his brow. It was a hell of a question. Apparently he hadn’t done nearly as well with concealing how he’d been feeling as he thought he had. A wordless sound came out, embarrassing, and Brian looked away. He had a sharp awareness of the location of the door. Of where his keys were. Of where he parked. Run, his body whispered, run, run.

There was nowhere to run, though. Not anymore.

He was a fucking idiot, acting like he could just shove everything down and hide it once more when he’d already showed it in stunning clarity. Only someone worth their salt could manage that game, and Brian certainly wasn’t. The beginnings of hysteria kissed his mind. After all that time spent trying to look like someone better than he was to Danny…

It had been wasted. Either he could lie to him again and hurt him, or he could just...talk about it, so that at least Danny knew he wasn’t trying to burn things down intentionally.

Could he do it? Could he show him an ugly place inside of himself? He tensed, and Danny thumbed over the sensitive skin on his inner arm, up and down and up and down, a dizzying rhythm that made his head spin. I already did. He thought of the vomit in the toilet – the second time that he’d spilled from his emotions toward Danny. How did this man have such a grasp of him? How did he made it so damn easy to wiggle deep down inside of Brian and stir up the parts that he hadn’t touched in years?

“I’m not worthy of you.”

Silence. “What?”

He absolutely hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Brian sat up and rubbed his eyes. Lightheaded from his earlier exertions, he nearly tipped out of the bed, and Danny caught him, then kept an arm around his shoulders. Numbness spread deep through him like ice, but the warmth of Danny’s touch began to thaw it, and when he realized his vision was blurring again he felt a stab of familiar panic. No, no, he wasn’t going to cry again. He didn’t fucking do that.

“What do you mean, you’re not worthy of me?” Danny asked softly – coaxing him like he might a wild animal – and Brian choked on another rough sound. What right did Danny have to sound so gentle? So sympathetic? Like he could hold the world on his shoulders like Atlas and never flinch under the weight of it?

Brian was heavy. He could drag him down beneath the surface of his emotions and fucking drown him there. He couldn’t make him suffer like that.

But the game was so damn exhausting. Keeping the mask polished and in place, hiding the stress he felt, keeping people distracted by the gilding on his life… Eventually the facade would have to crack. It was only a matter of time before Arin would’ve caught a sign like he had with that coffee mug. Within days of moving in with Danny, he could almost guarantee he would’ve snapped and shattered something. It had to fall apart, logically.

Perhaps it was better for everything to fall to pieces here and now, before Brian had moved in.

“Danny, fucking look at me,” he whispered roughly. He lifted his hands – dry, calloused, wrinkling, already dotting here and there with hints of the age spots to come. Just from that angle he could see the unattractive swell of his belly – could remember how it bulged beneath his shirts no matter how perfect his posture was. He could see the stretch marks that coursed over his thighs where his boxers were riding up. “Don’t you get it?”

Danny crawled around to face him and sat with his knees gently pressed against Brian’s. Brian could instantly see how his face didn’t have a wrinkle on it. How his hair, even flattened from laying on the pillow, held a sort of life to it that spoke of the effervescence inside of him. How his eyelashes were long and his lips smooth. He was gorgeous. “...okay, so, what am I looking at, exactly?” Danny asked as he tilted his head to the side and skimmed his eyes up and down Brian’s face, torso, and legs.

He paused. “...I look like a troll beside you.”

Danny burst out laughing so suddenly that spittle hit Brian’s face, and he covered his mouth as Brian howled in frustration and wiped it away. “I-I’m so sorry, Bri, I just, are you fucking kidding me?” Danny grinned as he reached out and cupped his face. “Fucking look at you. Do you know how annoying it is that all I have to do is look at your eyes and I get hard? Those are panty droppers, man! I’d kill to have your eyes!”

Brian frowned and glanced down. “Okay, but-”

“Guess what?” Danny’s hand slid down to cup the back of Brian’s neck. “You don’t look like a supermodel. And neither do I. I look like a prepubescent boy most days. Do you know who I’d kill to have an ass like you do? I literally look like a child. I can’t stand it.”

That was absolutely impossible. Brian shook his head, but he couldn’t find the words.

“Do you miss the fact that all you have to do is say one damn word to me, and I’m ready to fuck you? Do you think that’s just a game?” Danny looked over him again this time, but far slower. “Like a troll. You’ve gotta be joking. You’re the first guy I’ve ever noticed an attraction to.”

“Is that not suspicious to you? I...Danny, you never felt attraction to a man before? Literally never? That’s not how it works. Attraction can feel differently for various genders, yes, but there’s not just a gay-for-you thing out there outside of movies or books or whatever.”

Danny chewed on his bottom lip as he seemed to consider it. “...you think I’ve never thought about that before? What’re you so worried about there?”

“That I manipulated you into thinking you were attracted to me, obviously.”

Danny shot him a look. The shock in his eyes told Brian that he’d never so much as pondered the idea. “You’re joking.”

“No!” Finally frustration bubbled over. “None of this is joking! Why would I kid about this? Why would I fucking want to throw a wrench in my relationship with the man I fucking love over a joke? Would you stop asking that?!”

With the way he’d leaned back a few inches, Danny was taken aback, but he came forward again just as quickly and rested his hands on Brian’s bare thighs. His touch wiggled past his desire to run all over again, rooting him to the sheets. “Okay. That was fucked up of me to say. I’m sorry, seriously, I wasn’t thinking, but, like...you’ve gotta understand that I’ve never felt that way. Ever. Before I even knew you were interested in me, I was already struggling with how I felt about you. Remember? It wasn’t you, dude. I’d been freaking out about it for fucking years. How the hell could you have manipulated me into wanting you if you’d been literally on the other side of the planet to keep that from happening?”

Ah, logic. Normally his best friend. It felt like his worst enemy now. He only liked logic if it played into his plans, but here? Trying to undo what he’d believed for every damn day they’d been together? Impossible.

“It’s not just that, it’s...” It was all so hard to say. These were dirty little secrets he’d kept quiet for a reason. Even now he wanted to shut down.

“Bri. Please, man, we’ve gotta talk about this.”

But he couldn’t hold it in. Not if Danny was going to sound so desperate.

“You’re going to figure out one day,” Brian murmured, “that I’m not who you think I am.”

Danny watched him so closely that Brian half hoped he could read his mind and see exactly what he meant without him having to say every painful word. “...like, how do you mean that?”

What sort of secrets did Danny think he’d been keeping from him? Brian sighed. “Everyone always thinks that I’m this brilliant perfect guy. Right? Intelligent, educated, no boundaries, no discomforts. It’s obnoxious. Like everybody thinks I’m a fucking robot instead of a man with flesh and blood and too much shit to hide.” He shook his head. “I’m not that smart. C’mon. What kind of genius would deal with the things I do?”

“I don’t understand-”

“The fucking imposter syndrome? Hating what I see every time I look in a mirror? Knowing that it’s only a matter of time before things fall apart? If I was actually smart, I could hold it all back and-”

“Okay, stop there. Stop.” Danny grabbed both of his hands and squeezed them. “First of all, let’s just wipe that shit out of your brain right now, okay? That you need to hide it. Why would you need to do that?”

Spoken like a man who’d never felt the shadow of his failings hanging over him like an anvil. “It’s a lot, Danny. I can’t put everything I think and feel on you. You’d be exhausted. I’d be bleeding you from emotional labor every single fucking day, until you left me...” His throat tightened, and he tried to swallow it down. No. Not right now. He was better than crying like a child every thirty seconds. “I’m not going to make you put up with all of my shit.”

“Even if I want to?”

“Especially if you want to.” He forced himself to hold his gaze. “That’s how relationships go down the tubes. Someone has a Messiah complex, and someone leans on that person too hard and expects them to fix them.”

He knew that Danny couldn’t disagree. They’d seen it happen way too many times in the years they’d been friends – men expecting their girlfriends to be the only person to listen to their fears and pain, girls demanding their boyfriend’s utmost attention every second of every day rather than letting them go out with friends where they couldn’t watch them. The constant societal pressure of having a ‘one and only’ and how unhealthy it was. It would’ve been far too easy for Brian to slip into that mindset. Danny was soft and sweet and spongey, and he would’ve soaked up every bit of Brian’s pain without even questioning it, until it overwhelmed him. Brian would’ve taken and taken and taken, and Danny would’ve crumbled into dust.

He’d never do that to him. Ever.

For a long moment, they were both silent, no rebuttals, no plans, no magic methods to fix everything. But then Danny crawled forward, right into his lap, and wrapped his arms around his neck. He pressed their foreheads together. Brian expected him to kiss him – maybe to lull him away from the darkness in his mind with his body, like Brian always leaned on – but Danny just...stayed there. Held him. Touched him. Shared his breath with him. And, as the seconds ticked by, Brian’s heart pounded.

“I’m not gonna try to fix you, dude,” Danny whispered. He brushed a kiss over the tip of his nose, such a tender gesture that Brian’s eyes watered. “That’s not my job. I know it’s not. You think I’ve never felt like you have?”

Brian closed his eyes and held his breath. He wouldn’t break, he wouldn’t.

“I’ve been there. I’ve hated myself. I’ve thought I threw my life away. I...” He stayed quiet, but Brian saw an image in his mind anyway – the wall he’d stared at, sitting on his floor, listening to the silence after he’d told Danny he’d be leaving for the United Kingdom. How that must’ve felt...how he must’ve believed that everything he’d ever worked for had fallen to pieces. Maybe even wished he’d never sent the email introducing himself to Brian in the first place.

I’m so sorry, he thought, tucking his arms around Danny’s trim waist and holding him even closer.

“I didn’t wanna be a burden on anybody either. My friends. My girlfriends. My family. It felt like if I told even one person what I was going through, everything would shut down, but...I did end up telling somebody. Just one. You know who?”

Brian shook his head.

“I had a fucking amazing therapist.”

Something sharp and venomous spread through Brian’s mouth. He couldn’t imagine doing that – sitting in front of a stranger once or twice a month, saying every intimate secret he’d ever kept locked down tight. How selfish that seemed. How infuriating a job that had to be, listening to people be weak every single day for hours and hours on end.

He opened his mouth to say something biting, but the words wouldn’t come.

Danny kissed his forehead next, like he didn’t even care how wrinkled it was, and continued to murmur the words against his skin. “You’re a fucking master in your field, Bri. You and me both know you are. You’ve studied that shit until you knew it in your sleep – things nobody else would ever discover. And that’s what she had too, my old therapist. She knew things that none of my friends or family or partners would ever be able to say to help me. She walked me through getting on meds. She walked me through my withdrawal too, when I got off them. She was fucking amazing. If I had my way, I’d take you to her right damn now.”

Brian dug his fingers into the back of Danny’s shirt. Mortified, he realized he was trembling again – that the pressure on his eyes was from how he refused to open his lids even slightly, because he couldn’t let those tears fall.

“We could find you somebody. I wouldn’t let you settle, okay? I’d help you go down a list until you found somebody you felt right with. Someone that didn’t make you feel like you were stupid or weak. Someone who’d help you build your own coping strategies. Who’d help you stop your lies.”

He shook his head out of instinct, but Danny’s words shone light into his chest.

“You know they’re lies, right? You know I love you. That everybody loves you. And all we want is for you to see the handsome, brilliant, talented, incredible man we all see every day.”

He couldn’t believe that. He knew that he was a fantastic liar, and he’d been pulling the wool over people’s eyes for years, but...but he wanted to believe it. He wanted to think that the people he loved more than life itself loved him in the exact same way. Could it really be that simple? Why was it so fucking hard to knock the cobwebs out of his brain and think that, just once, he could be loveable?

Danny clung to him. He hugged him until Brian could barely breathe – and then he realized it was from the sobs he was holding back. That Danny could read him – could feel it, and knew exactly what he needed to let go. “Will you just try it? For me? Try getting some help? I-I can’t watch you hate yourself like this. I love you, Brian.”

That was it. It was too much. He buried his face in Danny’s bony shoulder and let out the tears, soaking straight through his shirt. He couldn’t keep doing this on his own. He’d hated himself these past few weeks – far more than he ever had before. Just indulging the thoughts was enough to suffocate him.

He wanted to see the man that Danny saw every time he looked at him. The man that he kissed, hugged, and made love to. The man that made his eyes look like stars when he stared down at him in those moments right before he pressed inside of him. Was Brian so brilliantly deceptive that he’d made Danny look at him like that? Or was there in fact some good inside of him that he had lost sight of years before?

“I-I don’t even know when it started.” The words were slurred, and it was all well and good – he didn’t know if he wanted Danny to hear them in the first place. “It wasn’t always like this, i-it wasn’t always so...”

“It won’t be.” Tears were on Danny’s voice again, and Brian hated himself for making the man he adored cry, but fuck, he loved Danny twice as much for crying for him so easily. “It’s not gonna be like this forever, I promise. We’re gonna get you help. And I’m gonna be right there with you. I’ll go with you. I’ll hold your hand the whole fucking time. It’s gonna be okay, babe, I promise.”

As Danny rocked him slowly, something about the motion seemed to stir the fog in Brian’s body. The darkness that had held over him for so long began to move, until a faint light shone through it and barely illuminated his heart. It wasn’t vibrant. Not enough to burn. Barely even enough to be seen at all. But it was there. For once, the black was shifting to gray.

It was the promise of hope and change in the air. And, as Brian cried out every tear in his body, he clung to it and welcomed it closer, inviting it in.

 ~~

 “I think that’s them!”

“You think the giant truck pulling up to your house is anything but the moving company?” Brian drawled, and Danny laughed, swatting his shoulder.

They’d done it, then. It had been hard as hell, and they’d been up past midnight the night before sealing the rest of Brian’s belongings in boxes, but it was finished. Never once had Brian seen Danny with so much patience. Every time that Brian began to feel even slightly overwhelmed – staring around them at everything left to pack, feeling the breath catch in his chest – Danny had brightly asked for him to go grab him a drink, or buy him a snack at the gas station, or carry a handful of boxes closer to the door. Gentle distractions. Things that gave Brian a task that was far easier rather than calling him out on how uncomfortable he was and making him feel like an idiot.

Brian hated being wrong, but he had to admit that Danny understood him far better than he thought possible – and that he was the only man who really seemed to know how to help.

He watched him as he bounded toward the front door like a puppy and jogged outside to greet the same movers they’d spoken to barely twenty minutes beforehand, and he smirked. “I love you, you idiot,” he whispered, just for the pleasure of saying it – of the fact that it still didn’t feel real, that he was here, doing this, moving in with Danny. Combining their lives…

They had such an adventure ahead of them.

“Just bring it in anywhere!” Danny said as he wandered back inside and gestured with drama better suiting an actor than a gangly guy with a shrub on his head. “Just, y’know, here, there...”

“I think they’ve got the idea.” Brian held a hand out to him, and Danny stuck his tongue out, as if he wasn’t already walking toward him to grab it. “Let’s get out of their way.”

“I’m never in the way,” Danny said with incredible confidence even as he let Brian coax him toward the kitchen. “You just want a snack.”

“Maybe.”

As Brian began rooting through Danny’s cabinets just because he could now – because the food in there was all his as much as it was his lover’s – Danny snuck behind him and wrapped his arms around his waist. “So.” Danny kissed the back of his neck. “You’re ready for the appointment tomorrow? Got all your insurance info and stuff?”

Brian paused. He leaned against the counter with a sigh. When he felt the encroaching desperation to call the whole thing off, he took a deep breath and willed it away – just far enough that he could focus on the warmth of Danny’s body. A fitting distraction. “I have everything – and I’m as ready as I’m going to be.” He cleared his throat. “You, uh, still going with me?”

“Duh!” Danny laughed. “I’m with you to the ends of the earth, babe, you kidding me?”

No one deserved to be this lucky – yet here he was. Here Brian stood in the house of the man he loved, the house that now nearly belonged equally to him. Here he could live in utter domesticity with him, and dream of a future that might involve matching wedding bands on their hands, and even think a little bit about the sounds of tiny feet slapping the kitchen tile as they ran. Was that so terrible to wish for? To imagine? To hope would come to pass?

Nothing was fixed. Barely anything had changed. But, for once, Brian had the vision of a time where it could.

“You mean it?” he murmured.

Danny gently turned Brian to face him and cupped his face, leaning in for a deep kiss. He sucked the concern right out of Brian and replaced it with promises and intent and love, so much of it that he felt it in his curling toes. “You’re mine. I’m yours.” Danny grinned at him, and for the first time Brian caught sight of the deepening wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. A bright, smoldering attraction burst in his chest, spreading through him. “Nothing’s gonna ever make me let you go. I mean it.”

Brian cupped his face in both hands, brimming with hope. “I love you so fucking much.”

“And I love you.” One more kiss before Danny held him close. “I always will.”

[thelastspeecher]

A while back, I started writing the scene in the Superhero/villain AU where Stan meets Pa McGucket, bc I love writing villainous Pa McGucket so much.  I never got around to finishing the scene, though.

...Until today.  Enjoy.

              Stan opened the door to Angie’s hospital room.  He proudly held up the cup of water he’d been sent to get.

              “Took me a while, Ang, but I-”  The words died in his throat.  While he’d been gone, Angie’s family had arrived.  Both of her parents and all five of her older siblings were crowded around her bed, cooing over the newborns.  Stan recognized Angie’s mom, Sally, her older brother Fiddleford, and her twin, Lute, but the others were strangers.  Angie smiled weakly at him.

              “Stan, this is my fam’ly.”  Stan nodded. “You’ve met my ma.”  Stan nodded again.  “My pa’s the one holdin’ Danny.”  The middle-aged man who had Danny nestled in his arms scowled at Stan. He looked eerily like Lute, a fact that didn’t ease Stan’s nerves.  Lute was very explicit about his less-than-charitable feelings towards Stan. “Basstian is-” Angie continued. Her father put a hand on her shoulder.

              “Junebug, why don’t ya wait on the introductions,” he said smoothly.  He handed Danny to his wife.  “I want to have a talk with Stan, first.”

              “Oh- okay,” Angie stammered.  “Sorry,” she mouthed at Stan.  Mr. McGucket marched over to Stan, grabbed his shoulder, and shoved him out into the hallway.  Stan’s brain kicked into overdrive at the display of aggression.

              Okay, his power is plants, right? He can control them?  Yeah, that’s what Angie said.  Mr. McGucket dragged him to an isolated corner.  And his name.  What’s his name?  It’s somethin’ weird.  Mr. McGucket crossed his arms.

              “Explain yourself,” he snarled.  Stan held up his hands placatingly.

              “Look, Mearl, I-”

              “It’s Mr. McGucket to you, boy,” Mr. McGucket spat.  A nearby potted plant sprouted a few new leaves.

              Yep.  His power is plants.

              “You’ve got some nerve,” Mr. McGucket continued.  “Gettin’ my daughter pregnant, weaslin’ yer way into her life, and then not even gettin’ her to the hospital in time to give birth.”

              “Hey, I’m pissed about that, too,” Stan shot back.  “I didn’t want my brother to deliver my kids.  But Lute didn’t believe me when I said Angie was in labor.”  Mr. McGucket seemed taken aback.

              “Lute’s fault?  Is that so?”

              “Yes!  My brother’s doctorate isn’t in medicine, why the hell would I want him involved when my kids were born?  Angie and I had a plan.  I would fly her to the hospital since she couldn’t fly and there was construction. But my coworkers called and insisted that I come help, and I couldn’t get out of it.  Angie was still barely in labor, so I thought I would be back in time, but then things started happening fast, and like I said, Lute didn’t believe me, and by the time I got back home, I missed the birth of my daughters.”  The words tumbled out of Stan like they tended to around Angie’s disapproving relatives.  Stan caught his breath.  He waited for Mr. McGucket to respond.

              “Hmph.”  Mr. McGucket took off his glasses and idly polished them with his shirt, a carefully neutral expression on his face.  “That’s a fair point, that ya missed yer daughters’ birth.  From what I’ve heard ‘bout ya, from both my wife and my daughter, that’s not somethin’ you wanted one whit.”

              “No.  I wanted to be there.”

              “Mm-hmm.  And Lute does have a tendency to not listen to folks if he don’t like ‘em.”  Mr. McGucket put his glasses back on.  “Stan, I’m goin’ to ask ya a few questions now, and ya need to be truthful when ya answer ‘em, okay?”

              “I was gonna tell the truth anyways.”  Mr. McGucket scowled.  “…Yes, I’ll be honest.”

              “Good.  The first question I have for ya regards yer…career.”

              “Okay.”

              “If, fer some reason, somethin’ happened that made it impossible fer you to continue yer hero work unless you cut off contact with Angie and the kids, would ya stop bein’ a hero?”

              “Yes,” Stan said immediately.  Mr. McGucket raised an eyebrow.  “I- I’ve actually thought about that.  If the only way I could take care of Angie and my daughters was to stop being a hero and cut off all my ties with my squad, I wouldn’t even think about it. I’d just do it.”  Mr. McGucket nodded slightly.

              “I’m glad to hear that.  Now, would ya ever try to make Angie switch sides, or raise yer daughters to be heroes?”

              “No.  Angie’s too proud of her heritage.  All I’d do by trying to get her to become a hero is push her away.  And we agreed that we’ll raise the girls neutrally, so that they can choose which side they want to fight for when they’re old enough.”

              “Excellent.”  Mr. McGucket crossed his arms.  He leaned forward.  “You seem to be pretty fam’ly-oriented, boy.  My daughter said yer mother is a hero?”

              “Yeah.  Retired, but, yeah.  She’s why I got into the hero game.”

              “Hmm.  Would she ever be a concern?”

              “Angie and I haven’t told her that Angie’s a villain, if that’s what you’re asking.”

              “Yes, it is what I’m askin’.”  Mr. McGucket narrowed his eyes.  “And yer father?”

              “Out of the picture.”

              “Really?”

              “He kicked me outta the house before I was eighteen,” Stan said.  Mr. McGucket leaned back, clearly thrown off-guard.  “Not all of my scars are from fighting villains.” Mr. McGucket’s eyes widened.

              “Pardon?”

              “You heard me,” Stan mumbled, abruptly realizing he had accidentally shared information even Angie didn’t know.  He looked away.

              Why did I say that?

              “Stanley, what I just heard ya say was that yer father abused you,” Mr. McGucket said in a low voice.  “Is that correct?”  After a moment, Stan nodded reluctantly.  “Goodness gracious.”  Stan looked back at Mr. McGucket.  Mr. McGucket shook his head.  “That ain’t right.”  Stan remembered a conversation he’d had with Angie a month ago.

              “I’m just sayin’,” Stan said, handing Angie a sandwich on a plate, “you don’t really seem like a villain.”

              “You need to widen yer narrow-minded view of the world,” Angie said, shaking her head.  She rested the plate on top of her large baby bump.  “I’m a villain, through and through.  Always have been.”

              “But I’ve seen how you and Lute fight.  You never hurt civilians.  You only target places that can handle it.  And I’ve never seen you guys get involved in any of the really bad scenes, like drugs.”

              “That’s how we were raised,” Angie said with a shrug. “My folks aren’t traditional villains. Sure, we break the law.  Sure, we’ve infiltrated high levels of government before. But we don’t hurt those who are already hurtin’.  We only injure those who get in our way.  We don’t get our kicks from punchin’ homeless people.  My siblin’s ‘n myself, we were raised with strong moral compasses.  A sense of right and wrong.”

              “You still break the law.”

              “You said you noticed we never target mom ‘n pop stores,” Angie shot back.  “Like I said, we go after people what can take a beating.”

              “Yeah, but-”

              “And if you want to talk ‘bout right and wrong,” Angie interrupted, “how ‘bout we discuss the heroes that kick out their kids? Not all villains come from villainous fam’lies.  There are plenty of villains who were disowned by their hero parents fer not goin’ into heroism, or fer bein’ gay, or fer bein’ a dif’rent gender than they were given at birth.  There’s nothin’ right about that.  But the heroes get away with it.  ‘Cause they’re the ‘good guys’.”

              “How- how do you know that happens?”

              “I’ve met ‘em.  My fam’ly hosted a lot of runaways and homeless teens when I was growin’ up.”  Angie picked at her sandwich absentmindedly.  “My folks, they told us, ‘See?  This is what happens.  Heroes only accept those that fit their narrow views of what is right and what is good. Remember that we’re better than the heroes, ‘cause we accept everyone.’”

              “I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Mr. McGucket said, drawing Stan out of the memory.  Stan stared at him in astonishment.  “No child should have to grow up in a household where a parent lays a hand on ‘em.”

              “I mean…yeah.  It sucked.” Mr. McGucket nodded somberly.  “But it also made me determined to do better than him.  To be better than him.  I tracked Angie down when I realized she was pregnant with my kid because I always wanted to be a better dad than mine was.”  Mr. McGucket smiled.

              “Yer a good guy, Stanley.  And I don’t mean that in the sense of how ya fight my children.  I mean that in the sense of what’s inside you.”  Stan opened and closed his mouth silently.  “I’ve known a lot of heroes who were bad guys. Took in some of their children, actually.  There’s too many people what have only known a home filled with anger and bruises.  I wanted them to experience one filled with love and warmth.”  Mr. McGucket looked off into the distance, his eyes misty.  “I’ve spent plenty of time interactin’ with heroes and villains. I know there’s no true moral consensus between all members of each side.  There’s bad folks who are heroes, good folks who are villains, and, like some of my former coworkers, bad folks who are villains.  Ya can’t trust what someone is like based on what side they’re on. Ya have to judge ‘em yourself.” Mr. McGucket patted Stan on the shoulder.  “If my daughter had to get involved with a hero, at least she got involved with one of the good ones.”  His smile was fatherly, his gray eyes twinkled with warmth.

              “Th-thanks.  Mr. McGucket.”

              “Don’t mention it.”  Mr. McGucket’s gaze hardened.  “But you listen, and you listen good.  If you ever so much as look wrong at my daughter or my grandchildren, you’ll be feedin’ the worms in my garden so fast it’ll make yer head spin.”  Mr. McGucket paused thoughtfully.  “Actually, yer head wouldn’t spin.  Muscles tend to freeze up upon death.”  He let out a chortle.  Stan’s blood ran cold.

              “I- I almost forgot for a second that you were a villain,” Stan confessed. Mr. McGucket laughed again.  He squeezed Stan’s shoulder painfully.

              “It wouldn’t be in yer best interests to forget that again,” he hissed. Stan nodded jerkily.  “Good.  Now, let’s head back to the room, and you can meet the rest of the fam’ly.”

              “Can’t wait,” Stan mumbled.

[aion-rsa]

Best Movies Coming to Netflix in September 2021

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Fall is here. Almost. Technically we’re in the last grips of summer’s dog days right now, with Americans gearing up for a three-day weekend by the grill. But Netflix at least isn’t ready to leave the sunniest months alone, as indicated by a number of the major films coming to streaming in the next few weeks, including iconic summer spectacles like Jaws… plus Jaws 2 and all those other seaside sequels.

But there’s more than red dye in the water to enjoy in the below outings for those content to stay home as things continue to stay weird out there. From cult classic science fiction to a Spike Lee masterpiece, here is the best of what to expect from your favorite streaming service.

Blade Runner: The Final Cut (1982)

September 1

Of the many versions floating out there in the ether of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, this is the best one. Only a slight reworking of the director’s cut—complete with new footage being shot to fix a particularly troublesome wig during one stunt—the Final Cut is a refined distillation of the science fiction thriller that increasingly looks like a masterpiece with each new iteration. Dense, evocative, and strangely beautiful in its fatalism, Blade Runner remains the quintessential blending of sci-fi and noir, and a haunting work about what it means to be human.

Harrison Ford plays Deckard in the film, a laconic cop in an apocalyptic and rain soaked Los Angeles. His beat? To hunt down and exterminate replicants (robots) who disobey their programming and go rogue. Yet to the frustration of early 1982 audiences, and the film’s producers, Blade Runner is not a movie particularly concerned with plot. It’s about the mood evoked by its exquisite nightmare of tomorrow, and the realization that our toasters can be more soulful than you or I.

Clear and Present Danger (1994)

September 1

We know what you’re thinking: Isn’t Jack Ryan over on Amazon? That may be true of his current iteration with actor John Krasinski, but if you want to see Tom Clancy’s originally not-so-super spy done right, we recommend this delightfully dated ‘90s action classic. Starring Harrison Ford at the peak of his grumpy dad phase, Clear and Present Danger is the third Jack Ryan movie and arguably the best one after The Hunt for Red October. Like that other Ryan high bar, there is a winsomely nerdy fascination with the technical side of spycraft at the end of the 20th century here, as well as the political undercurrents which can leave even the most well-meaning spooks high and dry.

The ostensible plot is about the then-popular drug war, with Ford’s noble if weary Ryan finding himself swept up in the politics of Colombian drug cartels. However, the film’s real villain in the U.S. president whom Ryan serves, a man who uses the U.S. intelligence and military as his personal hit squad to settle scores, and then leaves them stranded when it becomes politically convenient. In many ways this is a prescient film about the 21st century to come. Which is to say that Clear and Present Danger has just enough brains to make its explosions matter. And yes, there are ‘splosions.

Cold Mountain (2003)

September 1

A movie that it’s hard to imagine folks making today, Cold Mountain is a Civil War epic which eschews the usual trappings of dramas set during that era. The film’s main characters are North Carolinians who find themselves drawn into the Confederate cause of secession (and thereby slavery), although Jude Law’s Inman is no slaveholder. In fact, he has no real reason to be fighting the war, which is why after seeing years of carnage he goes AWOL, embarking on a Homeric quest to return to his Cold Mountain home and the sweetheart waiting there for him, Ada (Nicole Kidman).

Not that things are much better back in the poverty of Appalachia where Ada’s land has fallen on hard times. Living under the tyranny of the home guard, Ada and her own sorrows on the domestic front complement Inman’s, revealing the horrible futility of war from many perspectives. A bit overwrought in places (Cold Mountain was clearly designed to win Oscars), there is nevertheless an earthy authenticity about this yarn which is impossible to ignore.

Do the Right Thing (1989)

September 1

Spike Lee’s seminal masterpiece is as potent 32 years later as the day it was released. A funny, heartbreaking, infuriating, and ultimately thrilling experience, Do the Right Thing proves as elusively complex as its misleadingly optimistic title. It’s also just a blast to watch.

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An ensemble piece, Do the Right Thing primarily focuses on Lee as Mookie, a delivery man for his neighborhood’s pizza joint owned by Sal (Danny Aiello). The relationship between the white business man and the Black employee, and what that means for the predominantly Black Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford–Stuyvesant, is explored from every angle as both men, plus Mookie’s whole community, endure the hottest day of the year. Tensions rise, prejudices are exposed, and an ending involving a young Black man and violent police officers, and a trash can and a window, remains as poignant as ever.

Green Lantern (2011)

September 1

Ah, Green Lantern. Remember when this movie was supposed to be the launching pad for the DC Cinematic Universe or whatever it ended up being called? Following the gritty realism of Christopher Nolan’s first two Batman movies, the loopy cosmic vibe of this would-be epic was just not what audiences were expecting to see. And even with all the visual pyrotechnics, an earnest try from a somewhat miscast Ryan Reynolds in the title role, and a great turn by Mark Strong as anti-hero Sinestro, the movie just came across as uninspired and unfocused.

Part of the problem may have been hiring Casino Royale director Martin Campbell—known for bringing Bond back to Earth—to helm what is essentially an uneasy mix of superhero origin story and space opera. Campbell does his best, as do actors like Reynolds, Strong, Tim Robbins, and Angela Bassett, but the script is too saddled with stuff. The primary villain is a cloud and the secondary villain—Peter Sarsgaard in a puffy head—is chewing the scenery in another movie entirely. We may get a good Green Lantern movie one day, but this one is best enjoyed while cleaning the house or getting drunk.

Mystery Men (1999)

September 1

Made in a time before superhero films became a Hollywood mainstay, Mystery Men is an artifact from a bygone era. The admittedly overstuffed superhero comedy made by “Got Milk?” commercial director Kinka Usher flopped at the box office, despite having an ensemble cast that included Ben Stiller, Hank Azaria, William H. Macy, Greg Kinnear, Janeane Garofalo, Paul Reubens, Lena Olin, Geoffrey Rush, Eddie Izzard, and Claire Forlani. Perhaps 1999 wasn’t ready for a superhero satire about a team of lesser superheroes who are asked to save the day?

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Likely, this concept would do much better today in a pop culture climate where superhero subversions like The Boys and Watchmen have thrived. Sadly, this wasn’t to be the fate for Mystery Men, which made only $33 million at the box office against a budget of $68 million. The cult classic may yet find its time to shine on the Netflix Top Ten and, if not, it will always be able to boast its connection to Smash Mouth’s “All Star” music video, which features characters from the film.

Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

September 1

The story behind the last film ever directed by the great Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone is as fascinating as the picture itself. Having made his reputation as the king of spaghetti Westerns—and then transcending the genre with films like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West—Leone set his sights on gangsters in 20th century America. But his nearly four-hour epic was severely truncated down to 139 minutes and rendered almost incomprehensible in America where it failed spectacularly. Meanwhile the original version remained largely unseen until it was restored in 2012.

Leone’s methodical and occasionally dreamlike esthetic might still be a tough sit for some audiences, but we hope that Netflix is indeed showing the full-length version (this is the company that backed The Irishman, for Chrissakes, which probably wouldn’t exist without Leone’s influence). It’s an expansive, truly gripping epic that stretches across a 50-year span, encompassing Prohibition, Italian, and Jewish criminal mobs, plus politics and more in a vast portrait of a corrupt American dream. It’s been called one of the greatest gangster films of all time, and rightly so.

School of Rock (2003)

September 1

Bless the movie gods above for a filmmaker like Richard Linklater. Typically an indie darling known for time-bending cinematic experiments such as the Before Sunrise trilogy and Boyhood, the Dazed and Confused filmmaker can still also do genuinely great mainstream entertainment when he wants to. Hence his partnering with the oft-underrated talent of Jack Black. Together, they made an all-time family classic between them in School of Rock.

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The plot, if you somehow haven’t seen it, involves Black playing an out-of-work rocker who cons his way into becoming a prestigious private school’s new music teacher—one who’d rather teach his kids about the awesomeness of KISS or Led Zeppelin than Mozart and Beethoven. He even gets the kids to start a rock band! The supreme appeal of the movie, however, is the interest and affection Linklater showers onto Black as well as his entire cast of talented youngsters, who all get to shine and help build this Zoomer touchstone. That includes future iCarly star Miranda Cosgrove as Black’s pint-sized nemesis turned frenemy.

Jaws (1975)

September 16

Arguably the greatest summer blockbuster ever made, there is no debate over the fact that Jaws kickstarted this type of summer spectacle. Which makes returning to it now kind of remarkable when one realizes how grounded and real Steven Spielberg’s primal horror still feels. And we’re not talking about the killer shark; Great Whites do not behave this way, nor do they look like that rubber monstrosity fans affectionately refer to as “Bruce.”

Rather the film’s paradox of being a thriller intended for adults during New Hollywood’s golden age in the 1970s, as well as being the accidental creation of the summer blockbuster, means the film maintains a surprising degree of naturalism and complexity among its three central characters, and their various motives for getting in a boat to do primordial battle with a fish like something out of a Hemingway book. Plus, in addition to the terror of not seeing the shark for most of the movie and Spielberg instead relying on John Williams’ nerve-shattering score, the film’s depiction of politicians who will let their voters get eaten before listening to the scientists hits especially close to home these days.

Jaws 2 (1978)

September 16

The making of Jaws 2, which was inevitable following the unprecedented success of Steven Spielberg’s classic 1975 original, was beset with as many problems as the first film. The first, of course, was that Spielberg did not return to direct; that task fell to John D. Hancock (Let’s Scare Jessica to Death), who was replaced prior to filming by Jeannot Szwarc. The script was constantly revised as well, and star Roy Scheider was apparently unhappy that he was contractually obligated to show up.

In the end, Jaws 2 isn’t a bad film; it’s just a pointless one. The town of Amity is plagued, improbably enough, by a second shark, and once again the mayor (Murray Hamilton, somehow reelected after pulling a Ron DeSantis in the first movie) idiotically refuses to heed Chief Brody’s warnings. The film’s centerpiece is the shark’s relentless attack on a bunch of teens headed out to sea in a small flotilla of boats, and Szwarc generates some real tension and horror even if we see way more of the monster this time. There’s no way Jaws 2 can match the greatness of its predecessor, but considering what came afterward, we’ll take what we can get.

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INTERVIEW: Justin Strauss with Lenny Kaye

Lenny Kaye is a gentle force. One of the most influential people in rock history, he's helped usher punk in as guitarist of Patti Smith Group. He’s been called a punk pioneer and The Godfather of Garage Rock. He’s our heroes’ hero, and he’s an eloquent and brilliant wordsmith, humble and with an intuitive wisdom that manifests in conversation that reads like poetry. Here, Ace friend and DJ legend Justin Strauss sits down with Lenny Kaye to wax poetic on his current projects, the necessity of a future sound and the mystery of the Magic Mushrooms. Follow closely. 

Justin Strauss: Lenny Kaye, where did you grow up?

Lenny Kaye: I grew up in New York City. I'm a native-born New Yorker. I was born up by the George Washington Bridge and when I was a year old my folks moved to Jamaica, Queens. When I was eight or nine, we moved to Brooklyn, Flatbush, and then out to New Jersey. Then back to New York as soon as I could.

Justin: When did you realize that music would be something you'd be doing, something you'd want to do for your the rest of your life?

Lenny Kaye: I still don't realize it. It's a miracle and a blessing every day — I wake up and realize that my job is to think about music, play music, find a record in my collection and participate in the wonderful world of music. I didn't really decide. It’s the thing that happens as you get drawn closer to something. I always loved to collect records as a teenager and I had, what would later be known as a garageband, in the 60s. And I just kept being lucky.

Justin: Was there an artist or a record that you heard that made you say, "Oh, wow"?

And I haven’t really looked back since.

Justin: I remember watching The Beatles when I was seven...and that was it. I just knew it.

Lenny Kaye: It was a great role model. In New York, there weren't a lot of bands because it was mostly singing groups. You couldn’t just look and see rockabilly on the corner. It was more like harmony groups. But to see a band playing, especially a band like The Beatles which was really a band of equals — it was really one for all and all for one — it was inspirational and about nine months later (I guess the actual gestation period of a baby) I had my first gig with The Vandals.

Justin: Did that band ever record?

Lenny Kaye: No, no. It was purely a party band. Four sets a night, played for a fraternity. Everything from “What’d I Say” with all the risque lyrics like, "see that girl from Trenton State, that's where they teach you to masturbate. What'd I say?" And covering some of the English Invasion and Four Tops. I don't like to think of it, but when I went to college I actually learned my future.

Justin: You went to Rutgers?

Lenny Kaye: Yeah, Rutgers. I was an American History major so I learned cultural history and that's always helped me in my writing. And I was playing in bands. Those are the two poles in which I function these days.

Justin: Did New York City play a role in your rock n roll foundations?

Lenny Kaye: Yes, it was the capital of the universe, especially at that moment in time. There also was a real explosion of band interest then. At the beginning of the 70s there was no local rock bands at all. It's impossible to imagine this, but really it's true. And until the New York Dolls poster went up on the wall at Village Oldies record store where I was working, there was no local band scene at all. And slowly, slowly it grew. Then out of the New York Dolls and the associated groups like The Harlots of 42nd Street and Street Punk, it took root at CBGB, which became an actual breeding ground for New York rock, and a great moment in time.

Justin: Were you going to clubs and seeing bands in the late 60s before the New York Dolls?

Lenny Kaye: I did.

Justin: The Young Rascals ?

Lenny Kaye: I did see the Rascals at The Telephone Booth on the East Side. They were one of the greatest bands I’d ever seen. I actually placed bass behind a folk singer named John Braden during the summer of 69. We were the house folk singers at Ungano’s, we opened for Junior Wells and the Amboy Dukes. One week the MC5...that's kind of amazing to think of. But it wasn't really. I liked to go see them and, at that time, I just about started writing about rock n roll which gave me another entrance into seeing bands and getting involved in the inner workings of music.

Justin: Did you go to the Electric Circus club on St. Marks Place?

Lenny Kaye: I did. I saw Tim Buckley open The Mothers of Invention at the Electric Circus. I remember that one. I mean, a lot of it I was still driving in from New Jersey, so it wasn't as available as it might have been a year later. And then when I moved to New York, the Fillmore had opened and you could go down there every week and see the most amazing triple bills ever.

Justin: What did you start writing about when you started writing about rock n roll? Where were you writing about it at school?

Lenny Kaye: I did a little bit for the school paper at Rutgers, just trying it out, pretending I was writing for Crawdaddy. But when I got here, my main gig before I knew anybody was at Jazz & Pop — a friend of mine was the boyfriend of the editor there, Patricia Kennealy (later to marry Jim Morrison in a Wicca ceremony. So now she's Patricia Morrison). But yeah, I did my first record reviews there. I think my very first review was a review of The Small Faces’ Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, a great record still.

I'd get free records and maybe $25 and kind of started to see that this would be great. I wrote a review of The Stooges’ first album for Boston's Fusion Magazine and Danny Fields (who signed the Stooges to Elektra Records) called me up out of the blue and he said, "Who are you? Why don't you come to a press party," and literally discovered me — like he has so many others. I went to the press party and I met the circle of rock writers that were in New York at the time.

Justin: Who were the big rock writers of the time in New York?

Lenny Kaye: I would say Richard Meltzer. Lester Bangs was more west coast. It was mostly Richard Meltzer. I was kind of in the wake of Richard, Sandy Pearlman, John Landau and Paul Williams, all the Crawdaddy writers. I was a little bit in the second generation, even though it seems like splitting hairs now.

Justin: I might have seen those reviews as a kid. I don't think you can stress how important magazines were to someone who was interested in music because this was the time of no internet, nothing. And that was the lifeline.

Lenny Kaye: That's how you found out about stuff.

Justin: That and reading liner notes on albums was how I learned everything I know, basically, about music.

Lenny Kaye: You had to dig for it, which is good. By digging for it I remember, especially being a record collector, you had no information on who was in bands. When I put together the first Nuggets album I really had to do a lot of research into who's who. I just couldn't click on something and find out the personnel and where they're from. And I still don't know who The Magic Mushrooms are.

Justin: That was when I first became aware of you, when I got a copy of Nuggets album. And then I got a record by The Sidewinders that you produced. I was obviously a record freak, too.

Lenny Kaye: Power Pop, yeah. It’s all making sense now.

Justin: The Nuggets record didn't leave my turntable when I was a teenager for years and just turned me onto so much music. I guess it opened up a Pandora's box of music.

Lenny Kaye: A Pandora's record 45s box.

Justin: The Nuggets things just went on and on. Many compilations came after.

Lenny Kaye: That's pretty much why I get all the credit for it. But I didn't discover that music, and for me, I think one of the things that made Nuggets so popular is that it's not just about garage rock. It's about great records that are garage rock. Any of those records are just superb pieces of three minute great songs, or six minute, or whatever they were. They were very communicable. It wasn't like you hear something and you have to work to get into it. These were songs, some of them were actually semi-hits. But I never really thought Nuggets would come out.

Justin: What was the story behind it?

Lenny Kaye: I was hired by Elektra Records. Jac Holzman, the president, liked rock critics because he had an intelligent label and he liked when people wrote intelligently about them. He came upon me and he asked if I wanted to be an independent talent scout for Elektra. And I said, "Oh, sure." But I never really found any bands that they appreciated. I know I tried to get them to keep The Stooges on the label for their third album, which didn't happen. But one of the ideas he had was an album called Nuggets which would get the songs off of albums that had one good song. My theory about it is this: he got one of the first cassette players and wanted to clean out his record collection.

But he gave it to me, and in my willfulness and hubris, I got together all my favorite records and presented him with a list and kept asking for the moon. “A double album, let's do a double album” and “You know, I don't like that cover. Let's get this cover.” And the best thing about Jac — he had that mark of being a great record company president — once he trusted you, he’d want to see where you would go with your instincts. He wasn't trying to say, "Well, you know, we need more hits or we need less hits." He just went with it, which actually in retrospect seems unbelievable.

Justin: In this day and age.

Lenny Kaye: I can't believe I got away with it. And I only lasted at Elektra for about three months and I'd given him this list over that time. About six months after I left the company they called me up and they said, "We have all the rights to X number of songs. What are we doing with them?" And I thought, "Wow. This project is still going on. I can't believe it." So it got completed and now it's 45 years later and it's still buying me beers. I'll go to some weird city in the middle of Europe and there'll be a Nuggets fan there who’ll say, "You changed my life," and I say, "No. Nuggets changed my life, really."

Lenny and Patti Smith at CBGB

Justin: Did they get all the songs you wanted?

Lenny Kaye: Oh, no. Some of them have shown up on later projects. Like when Rhino did the box set, they had the list of what I wanted for the second volume...had there been a second volume. But I always wanted “96 Tears” by Question Mark and the Mysterians on it. I thought that should be there. I wanted “I See the Light” by The Five Americans. I couldn't get the rights to that. I couldn't get the rights to “Talk Talk” by The Music Machine, even though I still think it's on there for some reason, on my original one. A lot of weird records. And of course as soon as I did it, people started flooding me with their suggestions. And their suggestions, Blackout of Gretely by the Gonn, I mean that’s an insane, crazy record. Question of Temperature by The Balloon Farm. The Sonics from Washington, great, great records. I knew that was going to happen because as soon as you open a genre, people start digging.

I noticed this with the new series of albums that have just started coming out called Brown Acid. Songs from the American Come Down which gathers early 70s proto prog metal, these weird little singles by groups in the midwest. They all sound somewhat like Grand Funk, somewhat like Deep Purple and somewhat like Black Sabbath, but they were all crazy. And I realized this is a genre I never conceived of. It's what Detroit would have gone to if the MC5 could have stayed together. There's something really elemental about it, and now there's five volumes of it.

Justin: I think the internet has changed the whole way of people finding records.

Lenny Kaye: But a lot of them you can't find and that's what makes people go out and dig. I'm sure you're on Instagram. There's so many crazy vinyl people showing off albums, showing off their equipment, getting out there and digging and keeping everybody in communication.

Justin: I mean, it's a great thing. As great as it was to be digging in a dirty record store and finding that record that no one ever heard of. Nowadays you just type it in and you can pretty much find a lot of stuff.

Lenny Kaye: And you can drunk bid on it on eBay. “Oh, I don't know, what's another few dollars?” And then you wake up the next morning —

Justin: “What did I do?!”

Lenny Kaye: “Oh, my God!”

Justin: How did you go from writing to being in the studio with the Sidewinders and start producing things?

Lenny Kaye: Well, I think when you write about stuff it's kind of like Jean Luc Godard or Francois Truffaut. You want to start trying your hand at it, especially if you have a hand to try it. I always thought about being a producer. You need the opportunities, of course, and my friend Richard Robinson was working at RCA at the time and we found the Sidewinders and gave it a shot. It seems like a natural progression from writing and analyzing and looking at bands from the inside out to seeing what makes them tick and trying to help them make their record by being essentially their best friend in the studio. Sometimes the better you are as a producer, the less people know you're there, which is a tricky balance wheel. But I kind of like it. I always think producing is where the right and left halves of my brain come together. I have the analytical writerly side and then I have the musicianly side, which is pretty much all intuition. I don't read music, I hear it deep in my head and try to feel it. And I think producing is probably the combination of those two worlds.

Justin: I mean, there's producers like Phil Spector.

Lenny Kaye: Who is their artist.

Justin: Right.

Lenny Kaye: I mean, they're the artist and the group is there to serve them. As a producer, I was very lucky that I wasn't the artist. I worked with really quirky, strange, idiosyncratic artists, Suzanne Vega, Soul Asylum, Allen Ginsberg, Pussy Riot. I got to work with people where you're just trying to make sure they can make the best record they can. And whatever their next record will be, you find the groundwork within this record to give them a lot of expansive power, enhance the vibe, let the creativity flow.

Justin: More of the George Martin approach, or Rick Rubin.

Lenny Kaye: Absolutely.

Lenny Kaye: Try to find the right settings and give advice. I always think that if I make a suggestion and we're in the same ballpark, and you don't like it, well you're telling me who you want to be. If you don't like anything I say, I'm going to let you do it yourself, or find someone who's more empathetic.

Justin: When you were doing the first one, did you know your way around the studio?

Lenny Kaye: With the Sidewinders?

Justin: Yeah.

Lenny Kaye: No. I still wish I would have turned the dial on the reverb a little bit more. I was pretty conservative.

Justin: You were working with an engineer, I assume.

Lenny Kaye: Working with an engineer who says, the first time I walk in, "What kind of mic do you want me to put on the bass drum?" I still don't know, to be honest. But that's why I like engineers.

I think when you listen to a record you each have your role. When an engineer listens to a record, he looks at the frequency responses. I don't do that. I listen to the feel, parts and performance, that's my thing. I once went to Greg Calbi, the great mastering engineer at Sterling, with two mixes of a song that I had  been going back and forth on. One of the snares was a little louder, I just didn't know which one. So I said, "Greg, what do you think?" And he says, "You know, I don't listen to records like that. I can tell you whether it needs a rounder bottom, but I can't tell you which is the more effective mix as a listening experience." He said, "That's your job." And I thought, "Hmm."

Justin: I've produced stuff too, and people ask me to describe what a record producer does. In some instances I liken it to a director of a movie who sees the big picture and works with  other people who are great at their jobs. I mean, some people do it all themselves. Some work with a great team of engineers, editors, programmers or whatever. But the vision at the end of the day is between the artist and the producer.

Lenny Kaye: I think it's like being a mirror. The artist looks at you, at your sense of aesthetic taste, and they want to know if their hair is in the right place. “How do I look? Does that hat make me look better or not? How about if we try this?” It’s the old, "What do you think?"

Sometimes people want you to tell them exactly what you think, if you can be honest. And sometimes a producer has to be a cheerleader. “You're great! Aaaand I think this next take could be a hair greater.”

Justin: It's part psychiatrist.

Lenny Kaye: Oh, yeah.

Justin: There's a lot of psychology involved.

Lenny Kaye: It's a psychodrama in there. Especially younger artists or artists that are making their first or second records. There's a lot of paranoia. I've had so many discussions, "Let's over-dub this part or let's double this." "Well, I don't know if that's taking away from the artistic integrity." But my feeling is that a record is an illusion. It's not live. Groups always come to me and say, "We want to record live and take the best track," and I say, "Well, you can do that and you can sit there and choose the best track. I'm not exactly sure what I would do." Because record making is not like playing something in a club to a number of people who are freaking out in front of you and you're on 10, you got the atmosphere, you got the inebriations. That's not a record you're probably listening to at home far removed from a live show. So you have to create the illusion of live performance.

Justin: I remember when my band Milk 'N' Cookies got signed to Island Records and we were put in the studio with Muff Winwood to produce it, and we were playing him all these records we loved, all the glam records, which had a very specific sound. He kind of took a different approach. As much as we would push him, he kept it more organic and more straightforward. And at the end of the day — although at the time we were very upset about it — he was right, because it's lasted. It wasn't a gimmicky sound or something that was a fad.

Lenny Kaye: Exactly.

Justin: It was something that people, kids today still relate to. I think it was a testament to his no-nonsense approach.

Lenny Kaye: You guys are one of the founders of power pop.

Justin: Sometimes you need to listen to people.

Lenny Kaye: And sometimes you don't need to listen to people.

Justin: We did push him in, "Listen to these drums," or whatever. There were little battles.

Lenny Kaye: Sometimes even in conflict, when people have different ideas, like John Cale...we thought when he came in to do Horses he’d be all about the art and the spontaneity. And no, he was into his Beach Boys period. He wanted to layer this and layer that, and we wanted to go out there and look for improvised, live moments. And betwixt and between, that record got battered out. You're all in the same band. A producer joins the band for that album and he can be the frustrating bass player or he can be the genius orchestrator. Everything is different now.

Justin: Are you still producing?

Lenny Kaye: Very little. Actually I did a beautiful record this year that took me quite a long time to do with Jessi Colter, Waylon Jennings’ wife. It's called The Psalms, and it is what it is. When I was working on Waylon's book, I came into the living room one day and there's Jessi — who is a very spiritual person — with the bible open in front of her, singing away. Just putting her hands on chords, letting the melodies flow where they go. And I just thought, "Man, this is about as beautiful and illuminating experience as I've ever had." And so one day after Waylon's passing I was speaking to her and I said, "You know, Jess, there's a record I would like to hear, which is you singing the Psalms like I did in your living room." She came to New York, just about 10 years ago, and I got a studio with a nice piano and met her up there. We had no rehearsal, no discussion. We chose a psalm, set the bible on the piano, and she would sing it. One take, two takes, sometimes I went out there and we played together. It was very spontaneous. And at the end of the two afternoons, I had seven in the can.

Justin: Wow.

Lenny Kaye: She came a year later and we did another five just like that, no rehearsal or anything, and I had the other five, including the hit psalm, the 23rd. And over the years I tried to differentiate them a little bit texturally. I got Al Kooper to play on a few tracks, Bulgarian singers on another one, Jenni Muldaur, and Bobby Previte drums on a few. I tried to retain the intimacy, but make them a little… In one track she's just warming up, singing, and she plays four minutes of this beautiful thing. I was able to get a double bass on there and a harp. It's just a beautiful, beautiful record and SONY Legacy put it out this past March.

Justin: Congrats.

Lenny Kaye: I got to say, it's one of the most beautiful records I've ever been part of.

Justin: Now I need to listen.

Lenny Kaye: Oh, you really got to, especially during the holidays. Her voice is beautiful. Her interpretations on these sacred poems are so great. I tried to keep it non-denominational, to kind of take away the church part and move it toward the light. And yeah, it’s just a gorgeous record.

So I guess I still produce.

Justin: Good. You mentioned the New York Dolls. For Milk 'N' Cookies, that was the band that made it seem like, "Hey, we can do this."

Lenny Kaye: Totally.

Justin: It always seemed like The Beatles or Rolling Stones was too far away. It didn't seem like it could be possible. When I stumbled upon the New York Dolls my life changed.

Lenny Kaye: Oh my god. That must have been a great moment.

Justin: It was quite something. You were involved with this magazine called Rock Scene. It was like the bible of that whole scene.

Lenny Kaye: I wouldn't call it the bible. I would call it the high school yearbook.

Justin: High school yearbook or bible, it was informing everyone about all the New York bands. We were lucky we lived in New York, but for some kid out in OshKosh or wherever, it was a way for him to find out about things he could never have dreamed.

Lenny Kaye: To see what life was like backstage at CBGB. Now when you look at an issue it's got to seem really weird and historical. I wish we had a Rock Scene for when the bebop scene happened over at 52nd Street. Like Bebop Scene. I would have been great to see Charlie Parker in a rare pensive moment.

Justin: It was very, very candid shots. You did it with Lisa Robinson.

Lenny Kaye: And Richard Robinson.

Justin: What was the inspiration behind it?

Lenny Kaye: It really stemmed from Richard. When I first met him in the 60s, he was doing five magazines. He was doing Hit Parader or he was doing Go Magazine. He was a real media generator and got me and Lisa into that thing where “yeah, we're newspapery. Here's what's happening, let's have some fun with it.” Richard had the contact with this guy who had worked at Hit Parader and spun off and did Rock Scene. And Rock Scene lasted six, seven years. It's amazing. I don't think it ever broke into the black.

Lenny Kaye outside CBGB

Justin: I think there's 50-something issues.

Lenny Kaye: Yeah, it's quite amazing.

Justin: Bowie was on the first one, if I remember.

Lenny Kaye: Yes, that's right. Good memory.

Justin: No one put the New York Dolls on a magazine before you guys did. Do you remember seeing The Dolls the first time?

Lenny Kaye: Yes, I remember going over to the Mercer Street Art Center out of curiosity and seeing The Dolls, just thinking they were so great, and dancing to “Bad Girl” with Miss Elvis and Miss Ohio, wherever they are today. It was a great scene. There couldn't have been more than 20 people there to start, but it grew exponentially because there was a need for it. And then once that grew, there also came places to play, even though there was a real shortage until Max's restarted and CBGB started. I remember Patti Smith and I mostly opened up for weird folk singers in folk clubs on West 4th Street when we could get a gig because we never could break into the Club 82.

Justin: I remember seeing The Dolls at Club 82 and Wayne County and The Fast.

Lenny Kaye: Just Another Pretty Face, I remember them. They were great.

Justin: I saw Iggy and the Stooges do Raw Power at Max’s Kansas City. Mind blowing.

Lenny Kaye: Oh, yes. I remember that's the one where he cut himself.

Justin: That was a life changing experience, being three feet away from that.

Lenny Kaye: It was very small scale.

Justin: Everything was very intimate.

Lenny Kaye: It didn't seem so, but it was very private and I think that allowed all the New York bands enough space and time to get to where they wanted to. I must have seen Television dozens of times and it took them a year or two to play in-tune. Of course, this was before tuners, and I suffered from that, too.

Justin: Was this before CBGB?

Lenny Kaye: No, it was kind of contiguous. I think it was kind of end of 74, so CBGB was definitely happening.

Justin: And Television, were they the first band to play CBGB?

Lenny Kaye: I've heard that Eric Emerson was first. It's a little bit shrouded. Everybody claims to be first, but certainly by spring of 74 it was underway because I remember going with Patti. We went to see the movie Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones up at the Ziegfeld Theater uptown. After that we went down in a cab to CBGB because she had been invited by Richard Hell, and I'd been invited by Richard Lloyd who I knew under the name of Crossfire (that was the name of his earlier band). We went to CBGB and hey, saw the beginnings of what would become the central gathering spot of the New York scene.

Debbie Harry in The Stilettos, 1974.

Justin: And Television was playing that night?

Lenny Kaye: Television was there that night. If there was a Sunday night, they just would play. I think before The Ramones ever played there. Maybe Blondie had played there under the name The Stilettos. It's so nice. It's nice when these little loci become a touchstone for the universe. It's hard to believe, and when they're growing you don't really think of it because it's just your local scene. It's just a place you go to. I spent more time at CBGB out on the sidewalk chatting someone up than watching The Ramones inside.

David Johansen, Lenny Kaye, Dee Dee Ramone & Andy Paley, NYC 1977. Photo by Bob Gruen. 

Justin: I remember going to see The Ramones. And when did you and Patti Smith decide to play there as a band?

Lenny Kaye: It just happened organically, we never set out to be a band. What we were doing was out of the mainstream. We didn’t have a drummer.

Justin: Were you already doing things pre-CBGB?

Lenny Kaye: Yeah. We did our little poetry reading in February 71, and then we didn't do anything again because it was meant to be a one night happening. But then we started again. She had a piano player. She was singing standards and she'd do her poems, and I'd come up and play something like “Annie Had A Baby.”

Justin: Was she playing with keyboardist Richard Sohl then?

Lenny Kaye: It was before Richard. There was a guy named Bill and then we had a different piano player every gig until we got Richard. Richard came in March of 74 and we started really cohering as a band. Originally, I would just come up and do things and then she'd do something with the piano, and pretty soon I'd be on the stage the whole time and she'd do a poem. Then we'd segue into a song like “Gloria.” You know, a little poem thing and then we'd go into “Gloria” or “Land of 1,000 Dances.” We improvised and we didn't know quite what we were having. At each show we could feel, "Okay. We've gone as far as we can as this weird little trio. We need another bass/guitar player." And then we got Ivan Kral. When we went to CBGB to play with Television for seven straight weeks, we were just about a band. And that's where we met JD. He became our drummer and the rest is history.

Justin: How did that go from playing in CBGB to getting signed by Clive Davis to Arista Records?

Lenny Kaye: Well, he came down to see us because Patti is an incredible performer and we generated a lot of interest.

Justin: Seymour Stein of Sire Records was signing Ramones, Dead Boys, Talking Heads.

Lenny Kaye: I think this was before. It was really just us and Television as I remember. If we could play for seven straight weeks, four nights a week, it probably meant there were no other bands there.

Justin: Two shows a night?

Lenny Kaye: Two shows a night, and we would switch off with Television Thursday through Sunday. You know, it was pretty great, and then the ball started rolling and it became a scene. I mean, the English Papers and NME and Melody Maker would write about it, and all of a sudden people started coming down to check it out. And Clive came down. I think he might have even known Patti from Blue Oyster Cult...

He signed us and allowed us to do whatever it is we did, which was probably the point. I think we got an offer from him and an offer from ESP-Disk. Sometimes I regret not being on the same label as Albert Ayler or Sun Ra.

Justin: Is she still recording for Arista?

Lenny Kaye: She records for Columbia now. We shifted to Columbia. I don't even know if Arista still exists. I think we're on Columbia at least for the last three records.

Justin: The first album was 1975?

Lenny Kaye: 1975, amazing. Just about this time of year we were on tour with it for the first time.

Justin: And never could you have imagined that you would still be doing it?

Lenny Kaye: I can't imagine that still, you know? It really is remarkable that the work you do keeps on circling around and paying you back. I know a lot of it has to do with the fact that we have a very unique leader. Patti is so frontal on so many different levels, artistically, different mediums, and is such an incredible performer. A lot of that has to do with our longevity and the fact that we're not really pigeonholed as any kind of music. We're associated with the punk scene, but a lot of our stuff has as little to do with punk rock as anything else. We're as much a progressive jazz band sometimes. We have a lot of long songs and a lot of involved poetry. We're all over the place, and sometimes that's good if you can't be classified. I mean, lord I love The Ramones, but they had a very specific one-note sound. I think Patti's always been hard to categorize. It's kept us at a good level in the musical world. We're not playing arenas and we're not playing dumps. We're playing nice theaters, and that's always a good thing.

Justin: Do you think something like that is ever possible again in New York? A scene where something came out of nothing?

Lenny Kaye: Well, I don't know what's happening out in the wiles of Bushwick. I'm sure somewhere there's a collection of people who are doing what they need to do in this universe.

Justin: Because people are always saying, "Oh, New York's dead. It's not like it was.”

Lenny Kaye: Well, it's not like it was, but it wasn't like it was when it was. I mean, I got sheet music from the 1930s that says, "New York's not the place it used to be," bemoaning the fact that the lobster place in Times Square or Rector's isn't there. I mean, things change and I'm all for change.

I don't even think it should be “New York.” In my book I traced the evolution of these scenes, as I call it, from Memphis in 54 through New Orleans in 57, Philly in 59, Liverpool 62, San Francisco 67, New York 75 and on and on. It's interesting to see them all gather the energy. Whether this is possible in the age of instant communication, that's a question I think the 21st century will answer. I know one of my favorite places that I desired to go to see bands was San Francisco in 67. I had that Fillmore poster with The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service on my wall, waiting to get in the car so I could actually hear what they sounded like. I had no idea. I had no idea what Big Brother and The Holding Company sounded like, and I couldn't hit a button and just go.

Justin: There weren't records out?

Lenny Kaye: They hadn't put records out but you were hearing about them in the "underground press" and you just want to hear them.

Justin: Did you take that drive?

Lenny Kaye: Yeah. 1967, me and my buddy Larry got in a 56 Ford with $80 and just kept going. And we arrived there and I got to see The Grateful Dead in Golden Gate Park, Big Brother at The Avalon. They're just amazing.

The desire to be where it's at. Like how a lot of people migrated to New York when they heard about CBGB. Whether they need to do that now, I don't know. I haven't heard of a place that everybody wants to move to all of a sudden. Maybe the internet has made it too easy to get your message to somebody. You form a band and two days later your video is on YouTube, everybody could see it. That's a different path to people's consciousness. I don't know. All I know is that I really like when geography, time and space meet.

Justin: Milk 'N' Cookies was living in LA around 76, 77 when the whole UK punk thing exploded and the Sex Pistols played their last show at Winterland. And we all got in a van from LA with a couple of the Go-Gos and Brett Smiley and Legs McNeil and went to see the Sex Pistols for what turned out to be their last show ever.

Lenny Kaye: That's amazing.

Lenny Kaye: Maybe it's happening somewhere that I don't know about, and more power to it. I'm sure all those bebop jazz guys from 52nd street, when they heard about CBGB, would think, "What are those kids doing? They don't know a Flatted 5th if it fell on them." I like musical progression, and I think we're now getting distant enough from rock n roll that it’s almost like rock n roll is enclosed in its own parentheses. And I'm sure people will be playing guitars from now until kingdom come. But at this point, just about everything that you can do with a guitar has been done and maybe it's time to make room for the next type of music to take over.

Justin: Have you seen any newer bands that you think are exciting or inspiring?

Lenny Kaye: I actually just go see my friends play, I got to say. I'm going back home to continue writing. I'm trying not to do anything because I have a really bad deadline that I've blown already. Just happy to get this interview done with you.

Justin: Thank you. I appreciate it.

Lenny Kaye: Just enjoy it because we've been friends for way too long.

Justin: You were high on my list when I started this thing, and I know between touring and my DJ stuff it's been hard to make it happen.

Lenny Kaye: There's no wine before its time.

Justin: But it's great to sit down with you because, like I said, when Nuggets came out it was one of the records that was so inspiring to me, just finding all those songs. I knew some of them of course...

Lenny Kaye: Some of them were weird. You know what, we love music. I still find myself buying records and adding to my increasing piles.

Justin: You still dig for vinyl?

Lenny Kaye: Yeah! I just got a vintage Marantz receiver so I've been getting my records out and enjoying how great they sound. I just love music. It's really fun to be able to justify being immersed in it. I feel very whole in my consciousness, which is a great blessing in my golden years.

Justin: It's a beautiful thing when you get to do something you love.

Lenny Kaye: And you're able to keep doing it. I'll do anything within the world of it. If I'm not playing and I get a chance to take my records to DJ somewhere — actually enjoy listening to them as well as seeing people get wild out there — that's a great thing. It's great to play the music. It's great to write about it. It's great to look for whatever that next record is going to be. And we don't know yet, do we?

[nashvillesingersblog]

Ken Hatton shares his insight about performing with the Bluegrass Student Union, the Louisville Thoroughbreds, his experience as a director, solo performer, and arranger, and his very candid opinions about the evolution of the music industry and the Barbershop Harmony Society.

Top photo: Ken Hatton

Bottom photo: Bluegrass Student Union 1978 International Quartet Champion of the SPEBSQSA (DBA Barbershop Harmony Society) (L to R) Ken Hatton, Allen Hatton, Dan Burgess, Rick Staab

Todd Wilson had a chance to interview Ken Hatton for our email newsletter. Todd is one of our founders and serves the Nashville Singers as Executive Director and Artistic Director.    

You can subscribe to our newsletter by texting the word SINGERS to 42828

DISCLAIMER: Some of our readers may find Ken’s responses to a few of Todd’s questions a bit edgy. Due to the length of this interview, only a small portion was published in the Nashville Singers newsletter. Hatton’s views do not necessarily reflect the views of the Nashville Singers organization.

TW: When did you know you wanted to be a singer?  

KH: It’s impossible to remember not being a singer.  Granddaddy and Dad were both “song-leaders” in the Church of Christ (“Minister of Music” was considered too “uppity”), and Dad joined the Louisville #1 Chapter of SPEBSQSA, Inc. as a tenor with his high school gospel quartet, in 1951.  Mom was a fair pianist and could hold a tune pretty well too.  Brother Allen was born in 1954, and I came along in 1955.  

The Church of Christ held that instrumental accompaniment was a sin when making a “joyful noise,” so all the worshippers sang in 4-part harmony, you know, just like that original quartet, “Matthew-Mark-Luke-and-John.”  It was all we knew as toddlers, so I can’t really recall when I learned to sing harmony.  It just always was.  Dad taught us to use our “musical ear” to find the harmony, using the shape-notes in the hymnal.  His advice was, “When the note moves up, sing higher, and when the note moves down, sing lower, until it sounds good with the melody-note.”  That was how we learned to woodshed; it was a spiritual thing.  

I do remember at the age of five, when I learned my first popular song.  Allen was in the first grade, and I would wait for his school bus every day on the front steps. I really missed my playmate!  Each afternoon, he would teach me all the things he had learned that day in school.  On one of those afternoons, he sang me a song that some of his fellow first graders had heard on the radio.  Within a few minutes, we were singing it in unison, and with some occasional improvised harmony.  “When I was a little bitty baby, my mama would rock me in my cradle, in them ol’ cotton fields back home.”  I’m not sure that’s when I knew I wanted to be a singer, but that’s when I realized that I was one.  

TW: What can you tell us about growing up in the Hatton family?  

KH: We were encouraged to participate in music-programs in school by our parents, and we enjoyed those activities.  Perhaps talent at a given discipline affects one’s motivation (For some reason, I did not really dig long division or algebra).  Allen learned to play the trumpet, and both of us took piano-lessons as youngsters.  Later, our younger sisters displayed similar talents for singing, and the oldest of the three, Jo Anne, played piano.  Dad was one of the original Thoroughbreds, when the chorus was formed out of the old Louisville Chapter, and Mom sang with the Kentuckiana Chapter of Sweet Adelines, Inc. (later, Sweet Adelines International).  Both parents dabbled in quartet-singing from time to time, and their ensembles always sounded musical, but never seemed to stay together long enough to earn rank in competition.

Dad took Allen and me to an occasional chorus show, where we would be seated in the audience and admonished not to move.  Then, we would watch the chorus rehearse for their performance, and would enjoy the show. I can recall getting an unexplainable lump in my throat whenever that chorus of men would sing with reckless abandon. The highlights of those shows were the several chapter-quartets, including the Derbytowners and (later) the Citations, both of whom were really good competing quartets.  We didn’t realize that the goose-bumps and throat-lumps were being caused by the ringing of chords.  The big thrill for us, as kids, was to experience the Club House Four. They were a pretty good singing District Champ quartet, but those guys really worked at entertaining.  Their jokes and routines were not as “edgy” as the Brian Lynches of the world might prefer, but old folks and kids alike just couldn’t stop laughing whenever the “Club House” was on stage.  

The Thoroughbreds’ Musical Director was a guy named Bill Benner, who had moved to Louisville for work, after having directed the Lake Washington Skippers to a second place finish in international competition in 1957.  Over a four year period, he took the brand new Thoroughbred Chorus to 8th, 6th, 2nd and 1st place finishes, winning their first chorus championship in 1962.  Soon after that competition, Bill resigned as director, though he still conducted the Sweet Ads for a while.  It seems he had been so focused on barbershop that he had ignored his wife and his job, and they both sort of fired him.  He needed to get paid for directing the chorus, and the 1962 T-breds didn’t like that very much.  So, our family took him, in, and Dad provided him with a job at his real estate company.

The saddest part was that Bill was being considered for the Society’s Music Services Director position. The Thoroughbreds’ 42 singers had finished second in 1961 to the 160 voice Chorus of the Chesapeake, under the direction of Bob Johnson.  It was revealed later that year that a certain judge was a member of the winning chorus, and he had over-scored the winners and underscored the ‘Breds.  The judge was kicked out of the judging program, and the Thoroughbreds received a secret apology, which was delivered in person by the new Music Services Director – Bob Johnson!  It probably was a good thing, as Bill’s tunnel vision personality might not have been a good match for that position.    

Bill proved not to be much of an agent, but he sure was fun to have around the house!  While he was thinking about what he was going to do with the rest of his life, and eating Mom’s home-cooked meals every night, Bill would teach us tags.  The guy was a savant, carrying all four parts in his head, and could teach the whole song by rote – eight bars at a time, with no “spots (That’s what we called sheet music back then).”  In fact, that’s the way Bill had had taught most of the charts to the Thoroughbreds for four years – by rote.  

So, Allen and I had one of the Society’s premiere musical smart-guys in the bedroom next to ours, and we got quite an education during his year and a half long visit.  It turned out that we were pretty quick studies, which was a good match for a bipolar type, like Bill.  There were five us in the house at that time who could hold our parts, and it was fairly easy to sing one of Bill’s tags after very little teaching time.  The first one we learned was “I Found in My Mother’s Eyes.”  

Bill moved to Chicago, and none of us ever heard from him again.  Jim Miller and Joe Wise had been appointed co-directors, and with the help of coach/arranger Ed Gentry, ushered in a new era of barbershop chorus singing through the Thoroughbreds.  Meanwhile, Mom took Bill’s place as Musical Director of the Kentuckiana Chapter of Sweet Adelines, Inc., later directing Falls of the Ohio Chapter, Derby City Chorus and Song of Atlanta.  She served as a judge in SAI contests, and sang a pretty mean baritone.      

Most choruses had a rule back then that excluded men under the age of 16. The exception was that one could join at 15, if your dad was an active member.  The thinking was that the members looked forward to their night out with the men (not with the women or the children).  They didn’t watch their language, and if they felt like having a beer or a smoke, they didn’t have to worry about being a role-model for just that one night each week. Boy, I miss those days!

Allen and I both joined at 15, and sang in our first Chorus Contest in Atlanta, in 1972, in which the chorus placed third.  We were disappointed, as the Thoroughbreds had won the championship without our help in 1962, 1966 and 1969, and were tied with Pekin, IL for the most international wins. Allen headed off to Morehead State, and back home, Rick Staab, Danny Burgess and I got our feet wet, singing with an “old” Thoroughbred named Paul Morris on tenor.  Paul was 28.  We sang together for about six months.  Rick went away to attend Georgetown University, breaking up the group, and Allen came home to attend University of Louisville.  Then, Rick surprised everybody, and came home to attend U of L as well.  That’s when the final combination of the Bluegrass Student Union was formed, with Allen on tenor.  Now, we had four guys about the same age, with similar skills and education.  

Mom (Mary Jo Hatton) was our first coach, and refused to let us work on craft, focusing instead on singing with the right muscles.  She knew we wouldn’t go back and do that grunt-work after we had earned the “cheap” points.  Mom was concerned about us damaging our young voices, so she demanded that we master vocal production first – a smart move.  

TW: What got you interested in barbershop harmony?

KH: One could say, “See Question #2,” and just stop there, but there is a twist.  As a young teenager during the hippie-years, barbershop was associated with the establishment, and we young people had our own subculture. We were told not to trust anyone over 30, and pop music was progressing in a different direction from Tin Pan Alley and the Great American Songbook.  I perceived barbershop in those days as a fun hobby for older fellows, but the quartets and choruses I had heard didn’t seem like a good fit for the musical trends I was following as a baby-boomer.

Allen and I attended our first International Convention on our parents’ coattails in 1964.  Later, we attended our second one in 1968 (I was twelve), and discovered that barbershoppers had lots of pretty daughters in the “Barberteens” room, but didn’t appear to have very many sons. That turned out to be handy for us. We enjoyed attending those conventions, and sang some tags, but didn’t really pay much attention to the musical goings-on – too many distractions.    

Fortunately, Mom and Dad had a library of recordings of the Society’s Top Ten quartets, as well as recordings of live shows and Long Play (LP) record-albums produced by top quartets like the Renegades, Roaring Twenties, Boston Common, Dealers Choice, Regents, Gentlemen’s Agreement, Sundowners, Sidewinders, etc..  We listened to them all, and enjoyed some more than once.  But far and away, the quartet whose records I fell in love with were produced by the Sun Tones (later the “Suntones”).  My headphones and I spent hundreds of hours poring over their fantastic renditions of popular songs set to barbershop, and that music convinced me that this particular a cappella style could actually be “cool.”  Later, I would wait by the mailbox for each new Suntones-record, as it was released.  I listened until I had accidentally memorized all four parts to all of the several “Sunspots” records that we had.  That was the final piece of the puzzle.  I then joined the chorus, because I simply had to.

TW: You were a member of the Thoroughbreds, considered one of the most successful barbershop choruses in history.  Can you share a few of your own experiences with the T-breds?

KH: Like you guys, I could write a book.  Most of my experiences would be similar to those of other long time barbershoppers, and if I started telling about funny things that happened, we would never be able to list them all.  I will mention one general happening that helped create my personal mission and philosophy.  

Our 120 man chorus showed its best face during competitions, but after winning each trophy, about half of the guys would take a “break” for a couple of years.  We would be left with 60-70 active singers, who did the business of the chorus, week in and week out.  That core of “lifers” sold the tickets and program-ads, built the scenery, commissioned and tweaked the arrangements, rehearsed the show-tunes and performed the package-shows. The rest of the guys came back only to compete.

To our director, Jim Miller, it didn’t matter how small the audience was, or whether it was a prestigious event.  He spent the same energy in preparation and performance, whether we were singing for a banquet of 75 people or a stadium of 10,000.  I can recall many tough shows for small audiences who were not expecting the entertainment to be some barbershop group.  Jim would plan the show carefully, knowing that we would have to work hard and smart, in order to please the “tough” crowd.  Then, he would rehearse us for a couple of hours before the performance, to see which key people were missing, and would change his plan accordingly, moving certain singers to different voice parts to achieve balance, and substituting some second string MCs, soloists and quartet-singers.  

After a complete run-through, the chorus would hit the stage, and Jim would let the audience know with his body language and apparent effort that we wanted to please them. He would work up a sweat, and motivate us to dig in, so as to deliver the most emotional and exciting performance we could muster.  We always exceeded the expectations of those tougher (smaller) audiences, and each performance made the event seem more important to them and to us than it really was.  

BSU followed Jim’s example in that regard, and, with few exceptions, we exceeded the expectations too. For three decades, our quartet did a complete run-through before every performance.  We found that our percentage of remembered lyrics and accurate intervals went up, while our number of seconds of dead time went down.

Music Educators generally teach singers to perform without showing any apparent effort, but that was exactly the opposite of our approach.  We always wanted the audience to sense how hard we were working for them, so we made sure that all of our effort was apparent.  That made our audiences feel special, which is supposed to be “the job,” isn’t it?  Jim’s and our approach was one of the things that set our chorus and quartet apart from most others, who tried to hide their effort during performances, for some unknown “sophisticated” reason.  

One exception?  We sang for a United Nations General Assembly dinner at the Waldorf Astoria in the early 1980s, and we gave ‘em our best stuff, performing with reckless abandon.  We never got more than a white gloved golf-clap from those diplomats. Our host explained that they had all been taught to be very reserved, when in the presence of each other.  But our job was to make them forget their emotional training, so we failed that day. There were no whistles, shouting, hats in the air, money or room-keys on the stage, and no tears or laughter from anybody.  It was miserable.  Later, at the reception, the audience-members were quick with the compliments flattery, but I just wanted to crawl under a rock.

The rest of the 33 years of shows pretty much run together in my mind, because they were the same in this regard:  We gave everything we had in preparation and performance, and fell across the goal line each time, totally spent and exhausted… victorious!  Looking back, our experience was a lot more fulfilling than if we had taken some drugs, skipped across the stage, and tried to hide our efforts from the crowd.  Thanks, Jim!

TW: What were the names of some of the quartets and quartet-singers you sang with before the Bluegrass Student Union?  Compared to those quartets, what was different about the BSU?

KH: BSU was the first organized quartet of which I was a member.  Years later, I sang in several other quartets; Kids at Heart, The Sensations, The Exchange, Four for the Price, Bold Venture and The Daddy-Ohs!  One difference with BSU was trust.  Since I knew that the other parts would always be where they were supposed to be, I was free to think about the message of the song and our emotional connection with the audience, instead of being preoccupied with a few synchronization errors, out of tune chords or horizontal tuning (song going sharp).  The other main difference was the fact that BSU was all business.  When the last man arrived at rehearsal or at the studio, we started singing, and we didn’t quit until the first guy had to leave. On the road, we didn’t sight-see or attend a lot of parties.  We discussed future plans on the plane or in the car, had our carb-dinner together, rehearsed at the hotel, went to the venue early, set up our recordings in the lobby, dressed and made up, did our complete run-through, and gave our performance. Then, we repeated the process before the afterglow.  We often listened to the show tape on the way home, and discussed improvements for the next show.  Every action was designed to maximize the quality of performance.  In some of those other quartets, we spent a little time more enjoying ourselves, and that was fun, too, but in a different way.

TW: What can you tell us about a few of your most memorable BSU performances?  

KH: There was a sameness about our performances over the years that makes them all kind of a blur.  The common denominator was the audience-reaction. We started with a short, fast, high pitched opener, designed to get the audience’s attention away from whatever had preceded us on the show. We followed with self-deprecating humor, to make them like us personally. Then, we sang a swing-tune to charm, and followed with a sincere love-ballad, for the “kill.”  After that, we could sing our novelty songs, to demonstrate virtuosity, and repeat the process ad infinitum.  We were never really a one-song standing ovation kind of quartet. Our approach was a selling process, designed to earn the audience’s respect and love over the course of the performance.  Typically, the long or standing ovation would come at the end, as designed, and only then would we agree to perform an encore. Incidentally, you never saw BSU take cups or bottles of water on the stage. What’s up with that?  Do beta-blockers dry you out?    

Of course, we saw our share of far-away places and prestigious venues, but prestige and exoticness were not what made a performance memorable. Again, it was the audience.  One that stands out was in Viborg, South Dakota.  This community had one hotel, made of unpainted concrete blocks. There was no phone in the room, and a black and white TV was advertised at 50 cents extra per day.  The venue was a high school gymnasium, and our expectations were low.  Nevertheless, we prepared according to our training, and when we hit the stage, we realized there was standing room only in the place; people were hanging from the light fixtures to get a chance to see this show.  We didn’t know that South Dakotans rarely got to see any kind of live entertainment.  People had driven to Viborg from several hundred miles around.  It was such an appreciative crowd, and we were able to deliver a solid performance because we had not taken them for granted.  Carnegie Hall was nice, but this crowd was deafening!

We were invited to sing on the Saturday evening show at the Buckeye Invitational, in Columbus, Ohio, 30 years after our first performance.  It was to be our second appearance at the Buckeye, which was rare, so we were excited about the opportunity, late in our long career.  

We decided to dress and make up in our hotel rooms, and arrived during intermission, knowing that there would be a feature quartet before our spot as the headliner, which was traditionally the final act.  The stage manager excitedly welcomed us into a dressing room, expressing surprise that we were so late, and advising that we were scheduled to open the second half of the show.  I apologized, and asked, “Who is headlining?”  “Max Q,” he replied (who at that time was a silver medalist).  

Barbershop-etiquette calls for the International Champion to headline the show, which should have been us. It was (and is) a slap in the face for any champion to play second fiddle to a second place quartet.  Of course, it was possible that the show producers were neophyte barbershoppers who didn’t know any better.  However, there is no way that Max Q would not have known that tradition.  They should have declined immediately, when asked to headline, but evidently, they had decided it was appropriate for them to be the stars of the show, for some reason that was more important than good manners.  

We decided that the only thing to do was to remain quiet about their offense, and to simply do our “talking” with our performance, as we had been trained to do.  We spent a few minutes in the dressing room, rearranged our song-order and palaver for maximum effect, and went through the curtain with big ol’ grins, about half pissed off.  We opened with “Back in Business,” and the crowd went wild.  We just banged every song, and there was nothing left for Max Q, but a pile of juice.  In the lobby after the show, our recording table was mobbed, and theirs had four lonely guys in tuxedos holding pens, with a couple of crickets chirping, and no autographs to sign.  Second again!

As we were packing up, Jeff Oxley ambled over, and said sheepishly, “I guess you guys probably should have headlined this show.”  Ya think? Yeah, that one was memorable.  We never told anybody about it, until this writing.  

In the 80s, we did some research by surveying the various chapters.  There were over 800, and about 600 of them held an annual show, with a guest quartet.  If you took out the holiday weekends, on a given Saturday night, there were 15 annual chapter-shows going on in the country.  All of the show-chairmen wanted a champion, a past-champion or a top ten quartet as their headliner.  As one of the most popular show-quartets, we had our choice, so we conducted a survey, and began to be selective about which bids we would accept.  Our goal was to maximize fun and profit.  We started to perform only where the chapter had a larger crowd (good for recording sales) and a reputation of hospitality where other guest quartets were concerned (good for the fun).

We pitched in with the Citations, the Harrington Brothers and eventually the Suntones, to organize three special weekends.  We approached chapters about sponsoring special shows that would feature BSU and each one of those other quartets, with only quartet-singing – no choruses.  The idea went viral, and the three weekends were spectacular - so much fun!  The last one was in 1991, with the Suntones.  We performed on a Friday night, two shows on Saturday and one on Sunday afternoon in the southern Michigan and northern Ohio areas.  What a kick to ride around for the weekend with our idols, and get to know them personally!  We included a set as an octet, since we knew all of their tunes, and we traded two of our guys for two of their guys at the afterglows.  It was a dream come true, and BONUS – we all became good friends.

TW: What BSU CD recording project generated the biggest sense of pride, and what about that project was different?  

KH: We were proud of all of our recordings, because we took great care in the production of each one. From a young age, we knew that our quartet was finite, and hoped that people would listen to our recordings, long after we were gone.  That thought was on our minds with the planning and execution of each project. Bobby Ernspiker was our recording engineer, and he was also the son of a Thoroughbred.  

On the first two albums, “After Class” and “The Older the Better,” we had a largely technical approach, caring more about the accuracy of the notes, the ringing of the chords and the intelligibility of the lyrics than about the art.  We were making pretty good bucks on the road, so we decided to give Bob unlimited control over the duration of sessions.  Bob was our fifth set of ears, and was instrumental in capturing the best performances we could muster. Unlike other quartets, we spent six months to a year in weekly recording sessions, to do our best work.  It was our perception that those albums were not perfect, but they were better than most others.  We made money, although our sales were not yet commensurate with the expense and effort we had invested.  

Having met Walter Latzko, we decided to do our first theme album, which would be the first one created by any barbershop quartet.  We chose Meredith Willson’s “The Music Man” as the theme, and set to work on Walter’s fantastic arrangements.  We spent more time listening to Bobby’s guidance in the studio about emotional performance. It took a year to take the tunes from the paper to the stage, and another year to record them.  This time, we spared no expense on the studio time, the costuming, choreography, graphic art and photography, in an attempt to create the best show-package and recording in the history of the Society. The result was an artistic success, but again, the sales were no better than those of any ol’ past champion.

In spite of the apparent unwillingness of the buying public to notice any difference, we were pleased with the product, and decided to look for another theme.  We eventually settled on the songs of the 40s, and the idea for our “Jukebox Saturday Night” album was born.  Latzko and Waesche, our two faves, collaborated on the charts, and we applied the same attention to detail (and spent the same moneys), to create the best product possible.  We accelerated our attention to capturing the right mood for each song.  When that recording hit the streets, the sales went through the roof.  It was puzzling; perhaps the barbershoppers were tired of the Music Man theme, but excited about hearing tunes adapted to barbershop that they had not heard before. For whatever reason, this particular theme appealed to them, and Jukebox catapulted us to a new level of acclaim that left the other past champs behind.  The perception was that we were progressing, improving and pushing the edge of the envelope musically, just as our great examples, the Suntones and the Buffalo Bills, had done twenty and thirty years before.  

We continued that approach with a collection of tunes written by George Gershwin, whose chords and progressions had earned his songs taboo-status in previous Society competitions. But we liked them, and so did Walter (Latzko) and Ed (Waesche).  The result was our album, “Here to Stay,” the first one we did not release as an LP record, but only as a CD and a cassette.  The songs were more sophisticated, the arrangements were arguably better, and the performances were emotional.  The singing demonstrated greater savvy, while our technical execution was just a hair less precise than that of the previous two recordings.  The perception was that this was a lateral move, kind of an extension of Jukebox, and the sales were just as strong as those of the previous album.

In 1998, we introduced “LEGACY,” a 25 year collection of audio recordings in a 3-CD box set, including all five studio-albums, several previously unreleased tracks and a recording of a live show, complete with declamatory stuff between songs.  In 2006, we created our final recording product, called “COMMENCEMENT,” a 2-disc set (1 CD and 1 DVD).  The audio disc includes a few tracks that we were messing around with when we decided to retire for good.  The video disc includes the best performance of each song that we could find on video tapes we had collected over the years.  

Fans of “Here to Stay” and “Jukebox” have since gone back and checked out “Music Man,” and found it to have been under appreciated by past generations. We understand that our video of the Music Man show-package has been used by teachers at Harmony University for decades, to demonstrate showmanship, the way to put a show together, avoidance of dead time and the use of costumes, props, lighting, effective pauses and voice-over-music, to enhance a quartet’s performance.  That pleases us very much.  All of our tracks are available perpetually and digitally through iTunes, CDbaby.com and Pandora.  We have discontinued production of all hard copy CDs, etc.    

We are certainly proud of all of the products, since those five (original) releases each represented our best work at a certain stage in our development.  By design, many of the songs in the second half our career had a timeless appeal that continues to pay dividends.  Thanks to some good taste in song selection, great arrangers, hard work, outside-the-box engineering and professional artwork, our collections of recordings are still being purchased and listened to today.  We anticipate that people will enjoy our music a century or two after we start keeping each other company at the ol’ marble orchard.

TW: The Nashville Singers had a chance to sing your arrangement of “Manly Men” a few years ago, and the audience loved it!  When did you complete your first vocal arrangement?  Do you remember the name of the song?

KH: Glad you liked that one, but sorry, I really don’t remember the first one. When BSU started, I was not adequately educated to sight-read. That skill was developed slowly, and by necessity, over the years.  BSU was a hybrid quartet – that is to say, we were products of the woodshedding generations of the 40s, 50s and 60s, but were also affected by the work of genius-arrangers of the 70s and 80s.  As a result, we did not trust some aspects of the written arrangement, and always reserved the right to woodshed our own changes. Sometimes, they were necessary, to facilitate breath-points and “covers” of pickups.  Other times, they were swipes that we heard and felt, as we learned the chart. Helping to create the tune was a big part of the fun that we simply refused to give up.  

Most arrangers think it is presumptuous of others to change anything about their work.  That attitude is hypocritical and presumptuous in itself, since an arrangement, by definition, is composed of changes from the songwriter’s original work, who is the real (and legal) artist in question, anyway.  As we experienced different arrangers, we figured out which ones had a problem with our changes, and we quietly declined any and all opportunities to sing their charts. Ed Waesche was the first to exhibit an appreciation for what he called our “musical sensibilities,” and endorsed our changes, unless we committed a form-error, which he would help us to correct. Later, Walter Latzko encouraged those same sensibilities, so we had two of the smartest geniuses in our corner, which was more than anybody else had.  Those who wanted to dictate every aspect of the way we sang a song could go find their own quartet.  This one was ours!

The woodshedding accelerated my learning process, and over the years, I learned to spell some of the chords, identify intervals, tell a major key from a relative minor key, make up simple key-changes, etc.  Before long, I could sight-read all four parts, and would know them cold before we had our first rehearsal on a given song.  

It wasn’t until 2002 that I bought my first Finale software.  Friend Walter, had suffered a stroke several years prior, but was still writing arrangements daily, using his left hand to operate the mouse of a computer. The Finale system would enable me to be of assistance to him.

In his salad days, Walter could write an arrangement with his lead pencil and some blank staff-paper while on an airline flight that lasted a couple of hours. He could see the notes on the page in his head, could hear the tune being sung (also in his head), and he could write it down as fast as you or I could write a letter to Mom.  That was his genius, and it explains why only a handful of our Society members were respected arrangers in those days.  In no case did it take Walter longer than a few hours to hand write an arrangement of a single song.  

However, the stroke had robbed him of the use of his strong writing hand and of some of his energy. On the computer, it then took Walter about twelve hours to write an arrangement.  It became a two day job, so he would sometimes tire of the piece before he finished, and would send it to me for ideas from my old “musical sensibilities.”  We collaborated on a lot of charts during the last years of his life, and he taught me a lot about arranging.  

Lacking formal musical education, I am certainly no match for the geniuses who have that special (in their head) kind of talent.  However, with the aid of the Finale program, I found that I was competent to write a chart that included some original ideas.  With the computer, I could listen to my work through speakers, instead of “in my head,” and, with effort, could tweak the chart until it met my own standards as a top quartet singer.  

It was a labor of love, and I was mentored by a guy whom I loved.  I found that, even as my performing ability began to slow down, my strong imagination produced the same endorphin-rush, while writing, that I had enjoyed as a performer.  Over the past 14 years, I have compiled a modest library of 60 or 70 charts. However, I was not the only one who discovered that Finale can take the place of those certain genius-skills. There are now more competent arrangers than there used to be, all competing for the attention of the top ten quartets and choruses.  Of course, there only ten of them, right?  So, my catalogue has been placed with friend Jay Giallombardo and his wife Helen, in the hope that some hot shot quartets might notice them.  Some of those charts are listed on Jay’s web site, but I am not writing much these days.  

Some favorite arrangements that I wrote include a medley of songs from “Paint Your Wagon,” a millennial song popularized by “Five for Fighting” called “100 Years,” and a five part solo (with barbershop chorus background) called “I’m Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town.”  My favorite collaboration with Walter is a contest-chart of a song written by Mel Tormé and Bob Wells, called “County Fair” for an obscure Disney film called “So Dear to My Heart.” We finished that one shortly before my old friend passed away.  All of those tunes have matching learning tracks, which should be available from Jay.  You can hear full mixes of several of them on my album, “Walter and Me,” available on iTunes and CDbaby.com.  Thanks for the commercial.

TW:  From 2004 to 2011, you released four recordings as a soloist. What/who inspired you down that path? How would folks purchase some of those products?

KH: In January of 2002, the phone rang, interrupting a BSU rehearsal on a Sunday evening at Thoroughbred Hall.  A tiny voice said, “You don’t know me, but my name is Chilton Price, and I’ve written a song to honor the fallen firefighters from the 911 disaster.  We would like for the Thoroughbreds to sing it.”

Usually, such a phone call resulted in an embarrassing experience, because I would have to tell the person that they had written a bad song.  This time, such was not the case.  Ms. Price faxed me her song, and on Monday, I sent it to Walter, who wrote a chart that same day.  That evening, I passed it out to the chorus, and we learned in the same night.  Two weeks later, we performed it for a thousand attendees of a convention of the National Association of Retired Military Officers and their bejeweled significant others, at the Grand Ballroom of the Galt House Hotel, in downtown Louisville.  The place came apart.  

I visited Ms. Price the following Tuesday evening, to present her with a recording of that performance, and to thank her for thinking of us.  She said,” Ken, I didn’t tell you who I really was, because I wanted you to judge my song by its own merits.  I have several gold records hanging on the wall in my hallway.  I wrote ‘You Belong to Me’ and other hits from the 1950s. They stopped recording my music when Elvis came along, because I refused to change my writing style.  But I have continued to write new songs that sound just like the Great American Songbook tunes for the last 50 years.  No one with talent has ever heard them before.  Would you be willing to listen to some?”  

Chilton played, and I sang. I felt as if I had won the lottery. The first song made me cry, and each one was better than the last one.  This was the start of a beautiful friendship that lasted 400 Tuesday nights over an eight year period, until her death at the age of 96.  We catalogued her music, and wrote verses and extra lyrics together.  We collaborated on new original songs.  And we talked about every aspect of our lives, keeping no secrets.  You guys should know by now that when you make music together, it is one of the most intimate things you can do with another person. When writing together, we had to communicate the same feeling to the listener, so we had to compare our feelings and life-experiences, in order to tell the same story.  It really was one of the thrills of my life, to become friends with an accomplished songwriter, and Chilton, in particular, was a genuine person, with great wisdom and class.  She taught me how to write songs.  

Along the way, Chilton expressed her desire to have other artists sample her work.  We were already familiar with the freshly budding careers of Michael Bublé and Josh Groban, so she was inspired to hire a pianist and record a demo-CD of original songs, with me doing the singing.  We called it “Pure Price.”  The project turned out well, but we were advised that new songs presented by a new singer was a tough sell.  So, we went back to the studio, and recorded a CD with half original songs and half familiar songs, called “The Best Is Yet to Come.”  Then, we were advised that, while piano-vocal was charming, the tunes really deserved more accompaniment.  So, we went back a third time, and recorded yet another CD of half familiar and half original songs, but this time with a full 17 piece big band and a dozen string-players. The original band-charts were written by our favorite pianist, Jay Flippin, who also put together the best musicians in Louisville for the project.  Man, this was a dream come true!  To be the Sinatra-guy, with a studio full of hot players and the actual songwriter, smiling behind the glass.  It really was heaven.  We got to meet with Michael Feinstein for an afternoon, but so far, none of Chilton’s and my unpublished works have been recorded by anyone famous.    

By that time, BSU had slowed down, and in December of 2006, we called it quits for good.  Another singer who was working at the studio had a steady gig, fronting a big band on the Cunard cruise-ship “Queen Elizabeth II,” and needed some relief, so he could spend more time with his family. So, he got me set up to take his place on several trips for 35 days at a time over the next two years (2007-2008). That was a real learning experience. I was surprised to learn that those musicians do not rehearse.  They don’t need the practice, because they can sight-read it the first time, and make it sound like some guy on the radio.  The only question was, could I keep up with them?

We had several thousand passengers on the ship, and several hundred of them came on board strictly for the ballroom dancing in the ship’s famous Queen’s Room, which was designed and furnished in the style of the Titanic, from the original White Star Line. It was a classy joint, full of rich folks from several continents, who were very sensitive to the tempo required for each different kind of dance.  We performed two one hour sets each evening, seven days a week, and we were not to repeat a song during any certain cruise, some of which lasted for more than two weeks. I had the opportunity to perform several hundred different songs, and I had a whole four measures to figure out the key, tempo, meter and rhythm of each one, before coming in on time and in tune.

The international montage of musicians was mostly fresh out of college, using their talents to work their way around the world, before settling down with a job and family. These guys were all pretty jaded, and showed it with their playing.  Everybody was in business for himself, and not enjoying the room, the crowd or even each other.  It became apparent that they had been taught by their university professors to look down their noses at the listeners and at other musicians who could not play as well. We had a trombone player who was a great sight-reader, but who was not an experienced improviser.  They would “throw him the ball,” and then laugh hysterically (in full view of the audience) at his feeble attempts to play a trombone-solo.  

I dressed them down pretty good during the next break.  I let them know that this was unprofessional behavior, and I expected them to get a haircut, be sober, stop showing up with spotted ties and wrinkled clothes, and to act like pros, instead of amateurs.  They could set me off the boat in Tahiti, and I could fly home – no problem, and they could explain the absence of the singer for the rest of the month.  Then, I began to recognize horn players from the stage whenever one would distinguish himself with a solo.  I gave them nicknames, like “Mr. Incredible (Ukrainian)” and “Lady-Killer (Canadian).” Before long, those guys were smiling at each other, calling out the measure-numbers and enjoying playing as an ensemble.  We didn’t feature the trombone player anymore.            

It was a little nerve-wracking at the start, but after three or four days, I was comfortable enough to look up from the music-stand and perform.  After another few days, the music-director in charge of all the acts asked me to handle the speaking between songs.  At the end of our first 17 day cruise, the passenger-evaluations gave us a score of 85 out of 100, which turned out to be the highest score ever awarded to that particular room.  The musicians and the bosses were pretty doggone happy, and the band-director got a raise.  All that resulted from a barbershopper – an amateur with a professional attitude – being thrown in with a bunch of professional musicians with bush-league attitudes.  I found out from the band-cats that singing in tune on that ship made me an anomaly, which helped.  

We made some good noise, and I learned a lot.  The favorite tunes we played turned out to be a samba called Quando Quando Quando, with lyrics by Pat Boone, and a waltz-rendition of “If You Were the Only Girl in the World.”  The young cats had never heard of the latter, but played it well, and told me, “Dude, you sang that tune like you wrote it!”  It was fun!  I was able to stick and jab – to back phrase – whenever I felt like it; much different from singing homophony with a quartet.  No rehearsal was necessary.

After each performance, we had a midnight buffet, and then I would stay up all night in my cabin, writing band-charts.  What was cool about that?  The band would play the chart the next night, and would then give me pointers about my writing.  It was a great experience, but after two years, I had enjoyed a lot of songs, and had learned everything the ship could teach me.  I came home, and fronted for the Don Krekel Orchestra, a big band in Louisville, for a couple years, before retiring from solo-singing.  It was a kick, but in the music biz, “you is either famous, or you is pore!”  My last gig was a party for some rich folks at the Galt House on New Year’s Eve of 2015. I looked marvelous, but filled the room with mediocrity.  Time to move on.

By that time, I had collaborated with Walter on some great charts, and I had written some myself that I liked, so I produced an a cappella recording, singing all four parts.  I called it “Walter and Me, and it appears with my three solo recordings on iTunes and CDbaby.com, under the artist-name Kenny Ray Hatton.

TW: Can you talk about some of the choruses you have had a chance to lead over the years? What advice could you give to aspiring choral-directors?

KH: It was always a dream to someday be front-line director of the Thoroughbreds.  At the same time, I had watched as the guys who followed John Wooden at UCLA and Adolph Rupp at University of Kentucky do well, but fail to come close to the records of the great ones.  I did not relish the thought of following Jim Miller with the ‘Breds.

Brother Allen got his shot when Jim resigned in 1985, as co-director with Ken Buckner.  Then, when Bunk left town to work for the Society in Kenosha, Allen was the man!  He did well, and if you listen to the recordings, the chorus did some of its best singing ever, under his direction.  But certain other choruses were getting better exponentially, and even though the T-Breds tied for first in 1990, the proverbial “coin-toss” went to Dr. Greg Lyne and his Masters of Harmony.  Egos, trends and politics divided our chapter after that. Choruses have a way of assigning all the credit for a chorus’s success and all the blame for its failures to the director, neither of which is true.  But directors and chorus-members know that going in, so I suppose it’s fair.

When Allen resigned in December of 1992, I was not active in the chorus, but the BOD sent guys to talk to me.  I had recently started my own business, and was not prepared to discuss the matter until August of 1993.  They had appointed a guy as “interim director,” while they conducted a “search.”  The Board asked me to keep quiet about their approach, so they could make that guy think he was getting the job permanently, while they waited six months for me.  I refused to make that promise, but I did not go out of my way to let him know. I regret that.  

That’s the thing about chorus-directing that I detested – the politics.  The official BOD of our beloved Thoroughbreds deceived that poor fellow, an action which was, in their minds, “in the best interests of the chapter.” I never understood how lying to a guy could ever be in the best interest of any chapter.  But that’s what you get, when you put humans in charge.

A seasoned judge once wrote, “You get good marks, and win a scholarship. You finish pre-law, and get into a great law-school, where you graduate with honors, and land a job as a clerk for a Federal judge.  You get on with a prestigious firm, and after several years, they make you a partner.  Then, you run for circuit-judge, and win the election.  Your first trial is almost over, and who makes the decision?  Two retired guys, three housewives, a file clerk, a bricklayer, a schoolteacher and ditch-digger!”  That’s kind of the way a barbershop chorus works.  The Board of Directors searches to find the most skilled and knowledgeable person they can to be the Music Director.  Then, knowing they are less qualified, they complicate your efforts with frequent attempts to micromanage. Unless you can earn enough implied authority with the troops, it is a built-in recipe for failure.      

Regardless, I showed up to accept the directorate in August, and we went to the Cardinal District prelims a few weeks later.  We won handily, with a group of about 70 men, and began to prepare for our annual Christmas Show, as well as the 1994 International Chorus Contest in Pittsburgh, with 92 guys on stage.  

International competition was a different story.  Our ranks had been decimated during the prior year by the formation of the Louisville Times Chorus by David Harrington and Mark Hale, along with a couple of dozen of our better singers. The new group had a tough audition for admission, and didn’t invite any of our “average” singers to participate.  Wonder where that idea came from?

That loss of so many good singers gave us a tougher row to hoe, but we started in earnest on the fundamentals.  We tackled a new Ed Waesche medley of Hoagy Carmichael’s “Billy-A-Dick” and Jule Styne’s Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat,” along with a new chart of “Till We Meet Again.”  We had Sally Whitledge, of International SAI Champion “4th Edition” fame as our choreographer, and her husband, Bob, of the “Gentlemen’s Agreement,” was our bass section leader and one of our associate directors.

We worked hard, but the resulting performance was scored in the mid-80s; not up to the chorus’s reputation, nor to my standards.  I was privately embarrassed by the singing, even before the scoresheets revealed a 6th place finish.  Another year and two new contest songs later, our 1995 contest performance in Miami was equally embarrassing (to me), and the rank was identical (a gift, in my opinion). In the meantime, we had done a lot of exciting B-level singing on shows, and held on to most of our local following.

When Ken Buckner announced that he was moving back to Louisville, I was sure that he could lead the chorus to greater heights than I.  As it turned out, the performance we gave in the 1995 fall contest was the best singing the chorus had ever given under my direction.  I had my letter of resignation in my pocket, and handed it to the Chapter President immediately after we came off stage, and before the call-off.  I was finally proud of a contest-performance, even before I learned that we had won, and we had beaten the second place chorus, the Louisville Times, by 20 points. I handed the baton to Bunk, and wished him well.

Three years later, in February of 1998, the chorus was struggling even harder, and I was approached by the president and one of the associate directors to again serve as front line director.  When I showed up at the Board meeting to respond, both of those guys denied in my presence that they had approached me.  Once again, they didn’t want to hurt the feelings of the guy who was in charge at the time.  More politics – more lying.  

I then announced to the Board that this idea must have come to me in a dream during the night.  I would be out in the parking lot long enough to have a smoke – about four minutes, and then my offer would be withdrawn. They came out and got me to serve as director three minutes later, but explained that they had to complete their “search,” so it would be a couple of months before I would start my term. That wasted time led to a slim defeat in the fall contest at the hands of our rivals, the Louisville Times – more embarrassment.  We weren’t even the best barbershop chorus in town!  Still, we received a “wild card” bid to participate in the International Chorus Contest, where they finished eighth, and we finished fifth.  

This time, I quickly got Brother Allen on Board, appointing him as co-director for the duration.  The group improved exponentially in preparation for the 1999 chorus contest in Anaheim.  We commissioned a new Waesche arrangement of the Irving Berlin tune, “Pack up Your Sins, and Go to the Devil,” and dusted off Ed’s old chart of “Over the Rainbow.”  The Anaheim contest saw the Thoroughbreds return to the medals, although it was a bronze, awarded for a 5TH place finish.  In the old days, it would have been disappointing, but our guys jumped for joy, as they had failed to even qualify for the dance the previous year (for the first time ever).

We seemed to have a tiger by the tail, but that’s when the wheels started to come off.  Allen and I agreed to implement individual performance-accountability, and divided the chorus into two groups – one performing group and the other remedial.  This was our way of competing against the “hand-picked” choruses – by focusing our teaching efforts on smaller groups and individuals where they were needed most. We had not predicted that the remedial group would be embarrassed to the extent that they would vote as a political block.  The following year, we competed with fewer singers, and dropped out of the top ten choruses, and in 2001, in Nashville, finished 14th. That was it!  Allen and I were pretty much out on our ear.  

We left the chapter with about 30 guys, and formed the New Horizon Chorus, leaving the ‘Breds in even worse shape.  We had allowed ourselves to be affected by the individual performance accountability standards which were running rampant around the Society, but our Thoroughbreds were not willing to accept them.  In retrospect, we would have been smarter to have continued the path of John Henry against the steam drill.  We still would not have won the championship, but we would have gone down swinging! Instead, we joined the plethora of chapters who had divided themselves in the interest of the elitist-singer. We had become what we had previously scorned.  We ended up with three “also-ran” choruses, in lieu of the mighty International Champion Thoroughbreds.  

In 2013, I moved to Alabama for work, and also accepted the job of Music Director of Voices of the South, in Birmingham, Alabama.  We started with sores of 68%, and (several times) raised those scores to the middle 70s. We finished second in our first spring chorus contest, and three years later. We tied for second, one point out of first, in my final contest performance as a director.  We sang some good shows during our three years, and the guys were kind enough to sing some of my arrangements, along with some written by my late pals, Walter and Ed, as well as two original songs written by my dear departed friend, Chilton Price and me.  I retired in 2016, because some physical ailments made it difficult to perform the athletic tasks associated with conducting.  Also, I had not been able to figure out how to grow the chorus. We started with 22 active, and we ended with 22 active.  I thought perhaps a younger guy could do better.            

What did I learn that I can share with aspiring chorus directors?  I was not smart enough to figure that  out.  All hail Jim Miller!  He used to say, “I hate when you guys whine, ‘I don’t know what to do, Jimmy.’  Maybe I’ll smack you in the balls, and then you’ll sure know what to do.  You’ll say, ouch!”  I wrote an e-book about Jim’s life called, “If Not for Jim,” available on Amazon and iBooks, which was released in 2012, a few months after his passing, at the age of 87. Read the book, and maybe you can get some advice from Jim. My advice is, if you don’t know what to do, stick to quartet-singing, or you might get smacked in the balls.    

TW: You’ve had a chance to work with so many amazing coaches over the years.  What is some of the best advice you have been given by a coach?

KH: Well… not so many.  In the 70s, Jim was too busy directing and singing in the Citations to coach us as a quartet.  Ed Gentry was already coaching the Citations, the Thoroughbreds and the Cardinals quartet.  My mother was our first coach, as previously mentioned.  Her lessons had to do with breath support and using the right muscles, which held us back at first, but raised the level at which we would perform later.  We failed to qualify for International in our first two attempts, in 1974 and 1975. However, we had won the Cardinal District Championship, in the fall of 1974, a year after our formation.  Back then, there just weren’t many good singing young quartets.  Most good ensembles were in their thirties, forties and fifties.  The hot-shots of our youth had been the Sundowners and the Grandmas Boys, who were six to ten years older than we.  

The Johnny Appleseed District had scouted us at our convention, and invited us to an all-expense paid trip to the JAD spring convention, in 1975.  There, we sang for the quartet contest audience, while the scores were being tallied. Let’s just say, we were having a good day.  We sang almost everything we knew, and there were money and panties thrown on the stage.  We got to our dressing rooms, and already had our jackets off, when the MC came to get us, and said, “They won’t stop clapping until you guys come back out here. They don’t care who won the quartet contest.”  

So, we went back out, and sang the only other song we knew; the Suntones’ “Lollipops and Roses,” being sure to apologize in advance for the fact that it wasn’t suitable for the contest stage.  In the judges’ pit that night was a man named Don Clause.  When we left Dayton on Sunday, he was our new coach. Don was one of the writers of the category description of the new “Sound” category, and was getting ready to be C&J Chairman, which we didn’t care about.  He was also the coach of the 1973 and 1974 International Champions, the Dealers Choice and the Regents.  We recognized him from his picture on the back of the DC’s first album, which we did care about.  

Within a year, Don had introduced us to several original Ed Waesche contest-arrangements, had us as his guests on Long Island for a weekend coaching session, had interpreted all four of our new contest songs (which we recorded), and had challenged us to master our craft, using the Society’s “green book,” a craft-manual patterned after the one Ed Gentry had written for the Thoroughbreds.

We didn’t always sing every phrase the way Don had instructed, but he never noticed that. What Don did for us was to convince us that we could master our craft, and provide a tie-breaker to keep us from arguing about how to sing each phrase.  We did all of our homework within six months, having applied our new craft to the four Waesche charts, including “Midnight Rose,” and “I’ve Found My Sweetheart, Sally.”  In the spring of 1976, at the ages of 20 and 21, BSU won the Cardinal prelims, and in San Francisco, in our first International Quartet Contest, we were awarded a 4th place medal.  That was the biggest thrill in my quartet career, to this day.  It was so unexpected by so many people, including us!

Don’s impact was the greatest, but not the only one from great coaches.  He put each of us in touch with our weaknesses.  Mine was pushing down low, instead of trusting my fellow singers to help create my note.  Ricky’s was forgetting the dynamic plan.  Danny’s challenge was to be firmer with his diction.  Allen’s was to keep his falsetto tenor balanced (softer).

Our visual presentation coach was the great Ron Riegler, from the Roaring Twenties, who came in fifth to our fourth, at the San Francisco Convention. Ron taught us to move to the outside when singing louder, and move to the inside when singing softer.  He taught us to do a preparatory move in the opposite direction from which we intended to move, like Jackie Gleason before he would say, “And away we go!” Sadly, Ron became gravely ill in early 1977, and passed away after the 1977 convention.  We recruited my high school drama teacher, Gene Stickler, to choreograph four new tunes for the 1977 and 1978 contests.  You would have sworn that Gene was Ron’s brother; they were so much alike!  

The third coach was a more modest fellow, also from Cincinnati, Ed Weber. Ed was a stage presence judge, who specialized in facial expression, focal point and the fundamentals of stage presence.  He taught us that it mattered where we looked in the audience during each phrase, and that our facial expression should be planned to mirror the emotion suggested by the changing message of the song.  Ed taught us never to raise our hands above the waist, unless there was a planned reason for them to be up there.  And don’t ever close your eyes.  They are the windows to the emotions.  

Our makeup guy was Joe Bruno, who taught us which stage makeup to buy, and how to apply it modestly, so that we looked normal and handsome on stage, rather than like a bunch of clowns.  The makeup was a part of our ritual of preparation, which helped us to feel an aura of invincibility before we took the stage.  The longhairs coming out of the universities to save us all from ourselves have since convinced our lazier members that such efforts are unnecessary. Consequently, their faces wash out in the stage lights, and we can see their expressions only by watching the big screen – when there is a big screen, that is.  We miss you, Joe.    

Our costume-designers included Louise Cecil, a professional, who made the brightly colored thrift-store knickerbockers that we wore during our three contest years for $143.75 – for all four them!  Another was clothier and barbershopper Mike Mazucca, who designed our unique kelly green tuxedos and our rose colored (pink) tuxedos for the other two contest sets. Our last costume-designer was Dan’s wife, Cyndy Burgess, who had a degree in Home Economics from the University of Kentucky.  She designed and built our Music Man costumes – the ones that appeared in the photograph, with the plumed hats and reversible jackets.  We wore them on stage for many years.  

TW: What are your thoughts on the evolution of the music-industry and songwriting over the course of your lifetime?  Are you happy with this evolution?

KH: Well first, let me say that Irving Scrooge Berlin was a greedy SOB. Besides refusing to allow barbershop arrangements of his songs because our genre was not “legitimate,” thanks to that stuck up, crusty old curmudgeon, who never learned to read a note of music, and played piano only by ear in the key of F sharp, and thanks to his lawyers, the term of a song-copyright was extended from 50 years after the copyright started to 90 years after the death of the longest surviving collaborator.  I don’t like that very much.

I am glad to see the money-people, whose only talent is to recognize and take advantage of the potential of others, finally being left out of the mix, thanks to technology.  With the advent of cell-phones, video and social media, any artist can reach the public directly with his or her songs, voice and instrument, from the safety and obscurity of his bathroom or basement. He or she no longer needs cow-tow to the David Fosters and Phil Specters of the world, in order to be “discovered.” If his or her talent is special, it will now be noticed by the real judges.  In the words of the late George Gershwin, “It is not the few knowing ones whose opinions make any work of art great; it is the judgment of the great mass that finally decides.”

Of course, I detest licensing agencies BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, and abhor publishers Hal Leonard and Alfred Publishing for what they have done to the undiscovered songwriter and hobby-singer/player of music, and I am embarrassed and angry that our Society is playing ball with them.  By the way, BHS is both a licensing agency and a publisher.  The former group of pariahs caters only to the writers of songs featured in blockbuster movies, the top 100 grossing concerts annually and of protected works that get radio, TV and internet airplay.  The latter group is squeezing the rest of us out of mere participation by the high cost of permission to arrange, perform, record and promote, and our Society is helping them do it by agreeing to their terms.  

Our better option is to join together to boycott all protected works, and resort to Public Domain songs and original songs copyrighted by our own members, and to make sure not to allow any of those publishers or licensing agencies (or our Society) to participate in even partial ownership of our protected works. This happened once before, you know, when ASCAP got too big for its britches in the late 1940s, and took all of its catalogue off the radio airwaves. That’s what gave birth to the country music industry and caused BMI to be formed.  Perhaps such a boycott now, would birth another industry called a cappella. There are thousands of public domain songs that are very fine vehicles, and we are perfectly capable of writing our own songs that fit the style.  

Meanwhile, if you want to adapt any protected work to the barbershop style represented by one of these licensing agencies or publishers, just so your quartet or chorus can sing it in a show or a contest for which you might earn no moneys in exchange, please be prepared to pay several hundred dollars to the copyright owner, just in exchange for permission.  Of course, another way is to woodshed your own arrangement of a protected work, which constitutes “fair use,” under the law, as long as it is not written down. We used to all know how to do that!

TW: What personal accomplishment are you most proud of outside the world of barbershop harmony?  

KH: Many people like to say they are proud of their families.  I cannot take the credit for the successes of my children, and I will not take the blame for their failures.  We lead the horses to the water, but it is up to them to make the choice to drink.  I feel good about having done my job.  They did not ask to be brought into the world.  Their mother and I made that decision, and all three arrived kicking and screaming mad about it.  We owed them good food, clothing, shelter, education and love.  We paid our debt and provided additional things like cars and money after they were grown.  Since then, it has been up to them.  To their credit, they are all paying taxes, and none are drug-addicts or criminals. I am glad for their varying degrees of success, even while meeting different levels of hardship, because I love and want only good things for them.  But to be “proud” would claim responsibility for their success, which I cannot do.  There are people close to me who have had adult children who made wrong choices that resulted in incarceration and even death.  Those children enjoyed the same benefits that mine did.  If I claim credit for my own children’s success, I would be blaming other parents for the failures of their kids, which would be over-the-top inappropriate.  That’s why I cringe when I see parents bragging about “pride” in their adult children’s successes, and it’s why you won’t see claims of pride in my kids’ accomplishments on my Facebook page.  

That being clarified, I suppose I am proud of the fact that I work hard every day, and that I am not a burden on my family or on society.  I am proud of the kind of work I do, and that makes it necessary for this answer to overlap the answers to your good question numbers 15 and 16.

TW: Barbershoppers probably know you best as the energetic performer and lead singer of the Bluegrass Student Union, the 1978 quartet champs of the SPEBSQSA, now known as the Barbershop Harmony Society.  What are a few things that folks may NOT know about you?

KH: I can juggle.  I discovered as a teenager that I could isolate overtones with my voice, and play tunes with the overtones while holding the same note, simply by changing my mouth opening and tongue position.  I speak fluent Spanish.  I have not been able to walk farther than a block and a half without resting for ten minutes since 2003.  That will likely never change.  I didn’t like Irving Berlin when he was alive, and now that he is dead, I still do.  Oh yeah, we covered that.    

I have worked as a loading dock equipment and industrial doors application-expert on and off since 1986. When I entered the industry, I was sent to a school held by our main factory, which was called KELLEY, inventor and manufacturer of the hinged lip dock leveler, a bridge between the loading dock and the trailer bed.  The fellows who taught that school were the same ones who had been around since the invention of the device, in 1953.  They had been the first generation of sales persons, who introduced the product to American industry, and they imparted to me their noble mission.  Their product had revolutionized the safety and comfort of the loading dock worker, and, along with a later invention by a competitor (the trailer restraint), had saved the lives and limbs of countless people around the world, none of whom realized that they would have died or been maimed without it.  

Most businesses provide goods and services that help people in some way. We don’t all get to be astronauts or Supreme Court Justices. Most of us make our contributions to humankind in smaller, less famous ways.  On our tombstones, it won’t say, “He laid a lot of brick,” or “She counseled a lot of crazy people.”  On mine, it won’t say, “He sold a lot of levelers, restraints and overhead doors, and made sure they were properly installed.”  But that is exactly the thing of which I am most proud.  Funny how one can attain something akin to immortality by doing a little singing, but the day in and day out saving of lives by most of us who do it goes unnoticed.  

When I was a kid, I didn’t imagine growing up to be a dock leveler salesman. The job sort of found me, instead of the other way around.  But I developed a keen interest in the product and in applying and installing it correctly.  I found that once I embraced the noble motivation, my clients could sense that sincerity.  When I get the job, lives are saved, the work area is more comfortable, the customer’s management enjoys the savings that comes with increased productivity, and my commissions take care of themselves.  It’s a great business, because my degree of personal fulfillment just happens to be commensurate with the financial rewards.  What a great country!  I have to believe that unless you are a criminal, or you work in the liquor- or tobacco-industry, your job probably offers similar fulfillment.  We are all here to serve each other, and most jobs allow you to do that.  I can only hope that it brings you similar rewards.  

TW: What’s the next item on your bucket list?

KH: That’s a tough question, because I have had such a great life!  I had two marriages that lasted a total of 36 years, and 29 of them were pretty darned good.  I loved me some women.  I am now divorced and single, and life is really stress-free these days.  My three kids are healthy and standing on their own six feet.  I have a special relationship with my son, Mike.  I always treated him as an equal; not as a child.  As a result, he is now my friend, in addition to being my son, which pleases me very much.  I enjoy my work, and will never retire, as long as I can walk and think.  I have lived many of my dreams, helping the Thoroughbreds to earn four gold medals and some other colors too, winning quartet contests with my three “brothers,” Allen, Danny and Rick, and then going on to join the Suntones-Buffalo Bills-Boston Common-club.  I got to direct the Thoroughbreds in competition on several occasions, although it didn’t turn out as well as I had envisioned. I traveled around the world a few times, and got to visit 47 states, most of them multiple times.  I directed a chorus across mainland China for four 2-week trips, and coached my way across New Zealand and Australia.  I learned how to arrange music, with no formal education, and I sang professionally in jazz clubs with a great accompanist.  I became friends and wrote songs with a real award-winning Great American Songbook writer.  I met idols, heroes, presidents and other famous people along the way, who all turned out to be regular guys, just like me.  My quartet recorded some of the best-selling barbershop-recordings of all time.  I recorded a big band album with 33 top musicians that sounds like it belongs on the Sirius Sinatra channel.  I wrote a biography about the life of my mentor, Jim Miller.  I made a barbershop recording dedicated to my other mentor, Walter Latzko.  I made three recordings that honored yet another mentor, Ms. Chilton Price.  I wrote original songs and arrangements, and heard them sung by others.  On occasion, I even got to perform on the ‘lectric television.  Hoo-wee!  

I promise you that I have done everything that I wanted to do, and more.  I have a few regrets, but owe no amends.  There is no bucket-list, but I discovered something else that I enjoy, just this past year.  You see, I moved to Alabama five years ago, for my work, and I have no “old friends” here. New friends are nice, but there is nothing like the friends with whom you share some history.  I see Allen, Rick and Dan once a year, at a reunion at Allen’s lake house.  I hate to think that I might see those guys only a handful (or two) more times before one of us takes a header.

I have other friends around the country, with whom I stay in touch.  Still, there are others who I care about deeply, but don’t get to see anymore.  Last June, I visited Marjorie Latzko at her home in Lewes Delaware, where she lives, with her daughter, Melanie and her husband and two boys.  Marjorie is one of the tenors of the Chordettes, of Mr. Sandman fame, besides being Walter’s devoted wife for over 50 years and one of my dearest friends.  After a great three day visit, I took the ferry across Delaware Bay, to Cape May, New Jersey, and drove to Brigantine, where I met with old friend Carol Plum. We took her parents, Ellen and Neal, out to dinner, and enjoyed reminiscing about his quartet, Sound Revival, back in the 70s and 80s.  

The next morning, I met pal Jack Pinto, of Old School quartet, for breakfast, and we traveled to New York City, where we had dinner with genius arranger, judge and quartet-man Steve Delehanty and his wife, Connie, along with medalist lead singer Scott Brannon, of the Cincinnati Kids.  I enjoyed spending time with these many good friends, and made a new friend, Keith Harris, the barbershopper and professional opera-singer.  It took some effort and expense on my part, but this was more fun and fulfilling than going around the world.  I did that already, and got paid for it – twice!  It couldn’t be as much fun the third time, especially if I’m paying.  But this trip was a gas, because I got to see those lovely people one more time.  

So, I don’t have a bucket-list of things I want to do and experience.  I just want to see my old friends one more time.  So, I have already planned my trip for 2018.  In February, I will see Todd and Jennifer Wilson, in Nashville, and then hop on a plane to see Holly and Brian Beck in Colorado Springs.  With any luck, Bobby Gray and Terri will be available for dinner, and maybe I can sneak in a luncheon with George Davidson, Terry Heltne and Kurt Hutchison in Denver, before visiting old quartet-buddy, Vince Winans and his wife in Salt Lake City. After a couple of days, I will head for Palm Springs, California, to visit former Thoroughbred Jonathan Friedman and his wife, Annabelle, where they will introduce me to their new baby girl, who is to be born next month.  Then, it’s on to Oakland, where I will spend a few days watching some of my grandkids play soccer and volleyball.  

I might try to visit old pal Greg Lyne, while I am there.  He always tries to tell me that the Thoroughbreds should have won that contest in 1990.  I like that about him.