Definitely NOT Tuesday.

Well, that's that. I'm out of Maybe Tuesday, by consensus of the other three members and the management. I certainly played my part in the debacle that led to it, but there's plenty of blame to go around.

Once I got over the immediate wave of anger and hurt at being told I was out (anger and hurt because I don't agree that the specific incident cited warranted such a severe action), I felt an odd and unexpected sense of relief and freedom.

I had to be talked in joining the band in the first place - I don't remember the time of year but it was not far either side of my 40th birthday, I'd been balding and about 40 lbs overweight for several years, and considered myself "done with that stuff." I certainly wasn't thinking any longer of chasing stardom in music. Kit and Iari gave me the story I had heard so often before: "This is the one, man. This band is gonna go places, and fast." I was genuinely intrigued and excited by the specific magic that happened when the three singers harmonized. It truly sounded like sibling harmony. And they had written some very catchy songs that were easy to imagine licensed for TV or on Radio Disney (they weren't edgy or dark enough, I didn't think, for mainstream radio).

I signed on, making my skepticism known, and they were OK with that.

At their behest I started doing some pre-production work for several of their songs. Each time I played my work for them, they were quite excited. I learned that they had been working with a producer who was unable to devote a lot of time to the project and they were growing a bit frustrated; the flood of work I was showing them was the most movement in some time and it galvanized them. As the line in the Tom Petty song Into The Great Wide Open goes, "The sky was the limit."

Gnawing at the back of my mind was the need for me to be primarily a guitar player in this band because up until that time Iari had been accompanying the three of them on guitar. I'm primarily a keyboard player; they knew this. I knew this. Why was I morphing into a guitar player? I got much better at it and it was fun but I never felt completely genuine at it. Always felt like a bit of a poseur.

A bit later the band went to the West Coast Songwriter's Conference (I couldn't make it that first go-round after I'd joined) and won the attention of Larry Batiste, a songwriter and mover/shaker in the music biz with ties to the Grammy organization who was coincidentally looking to get into artist management. He wanted to sign the group. They came back really excited.

Fast forward a few months and the other producer re-entered the picture. We played my pre-production work for him. With the exception of what I had done for a cover of Hotel California he hated it. It was "too loopy" and "too programmed" for him. The enthusiasm the other three had had for my work had instantly evaporated in an amazing display of butt-kissing and no one stood up for me. We would not be using any of my tracks, instead hiring live musicians for arrangements that were apparently supposed to be generated on the fly by the session musicians.

I turned to the band's manager and wondered aloud why I would be needed, and suggested that we do whatever paperwork needed to be done in order to write me out of the management contract. They talked me down off the ledge.

When I later told the band I felt betrayed by their failure to defend me and my work, or even just say how much they had liked it, instead of apologies I got explanations of how I was thinking about it wrong.

Another few months went by and the group's halting progress under the producer had come to a complete stop. Sessions were averaging about six weeks apart. The producer was preoccupied with entirely legitimate "bigger fish to fry." The guy that owned the building that housed the studio had passed away, the heirs were looking to cash out and walk away, and the producer was trying to figure out how to avoid having to move his business; it's a very good facility and moving/recreating it in another location would be prohibitively expensive if it could be done at all. If he couldn't get the heirs to consider selling to him, and then raise the funds to purchase the facility, he'd be finished and the Bay Area would have lost an institution with a great history in the music business. Even not liking him very much didn't stop me from seeing that it'd be a bummer.

It's worth noting here that this place has a large number of gold records on the wall. I now think the band was dazzled by this and assumed that because Producer owned the place, all those gold records were somehow related directly to him. In truth he has mostly engineering credits to his name, with a few credits as a percussionist. They had all been done in the studio before and during the time he owned it, but he had produced none of those gold records. I did my homework; I had looked him up on All Music Guide.

He provided a set of rough mixes that we all thought sounded like records from the 70's, and not necessarily in a good way. We told him of our dissatisfaction. Producer told us that he'd never had an artist who wasn't delighted - DELIGHTED - by his work. Although I never heard it from his lips, my hunch that he thought this had been all my doing had deepened.

We eventually decided to produce ourselves, using the methods I had used in the pre-production work. Our manager signed off on the idea, making his reservations known. "Vindication!" I thought. We got to work and the next couple of months were incredibly productive.

In the process of making that decision, I wrote an email to the band expressing my concerns for how it would go down. Since Producer and I hadn't seen eye-to-eye I was worried that he would think I'd been campaigning for this change. Since he had a fair number of studio hours donated to the project I expected he'd wanna hang on to the group, since he obviously saw profit potential. I was ready for a fight that never came, but the email somehow made Iari nervous. I had said I was worried that Producer would think I had poisoned the other members against him. Iari thought this was strong language and was concerned enough about it that we had a conversation about it. To this day I'm puzzled at how he could read a comment about my perception of how a third person might interpret my actions and be offended by it.

That began what was later explained to me as a "pattern of abrasive emails." Now. I'll admit, some of them WERE abrasive. At times I was frustrated with a situation or an outcome and I spoke my mind. I am direct and blunt. What's to be gained by sugarcoating things? Iari in particular was often offended. We finally, I thought, reached an understanding - Here's how I remember it:

Iari: "You know, I'm sorry we don't communicate well."
Ken: "Me too. I think in some ways we're so much alike that we rub each other the wrong way."
Iari: "Yeah, you might be right."

After that the two of us didn't seem to have any problems.

The latest bad communication/misunderstanding/incident of my abuse of my bandmates/whatever it might be called occurred after Megan got frustrated with the band's failure (and this extended to me as well as the band's managers) and expressed her displeasure that even after setting up a calendar for us, she still saw our family events, which she put on the calendar, getting stepped on by band activities.

The gist of Amanda's response was, "I understand your frustration but this is the way it is with a band sometimes." Now, Amanda really stepped in it, because she didn't remember that Megan's dad was in bands all her life, and I've been in bands the entire time she's known me. To use the expression Megan used, "It isn't her first rodeo." Naturally, Megan and I were both incensed by what sounded like Amanda presuming to lecture Megan on the finer points of what it means to be in a band. And this after having lambasted me on a previous occasion for lecturing her in an email.

Kit's response was similar in tone, and contained a phrase that Megan and I both interpreted as possibly implying that Megan's upset was partially as a result of her pregnancy hormones.

Anyone that has paid any attention to who I am knows I'm for my wife. I'm for her and against anything that opposes her, hurts her, or gets in her way. The same extends to anyone I care about, including, at that point, the band members. Anyone outside the band trying to mess with or hurt them within my sight would have gotten an earful or more from me in addition to whatever they got from that band member.

Nonetheless what I should have done was ask them about their comments rather than assume I understood them properly. But I went all red-eyed at the thought that they had condescended to and patronized my wife.

But rather than respond in white-hot anger, I decided to wait a day, re-read their emails, and respond a little more coolly.

So here's what I wrote:

I wanted to let a day go by before I replied to this because I was enough pissed off by the way my wife was spoken to in this thread that I was inches from just walking away without a word. That wouldn't honor Jesus or our friendship, though, so I decided to sleep on it and cool down. But the fact is, she was disrespected and patronized and I can't just let that pass. Kay lectured her about the way a starting-out band works (Megan knows more than Kay does about the subject, truly) and Kit kind of insinuated that pregnancy hormones might have something to do with her feelings.  

The kindest explanation is that both of you blundered into this honestly and that you had no intention of schooling her, talking down to her, or discounting her feelings as hormonal. Fair enough. But it sure read as condescending, patronizing, and disrespectful. (And we each sought reality checks from level-headed others: "This rubbed me the wrong way - am I just being too sensitive?" We each heard back that there was reason to take issue.) It was clumsy, at least. 

Something you need to know about me is that someone can kick me around and I can deal, but mess with people I love and I'm like Bruce Banner on a bad day. This goes way beyond our bandmate status and into our friendships. It will do serious damage. And it cuts both ways, too - someone outside the MT family does something untoward to any of y'all in my sight? Stand back. "They send one of mine to the hospital, I'll send one of theirs to the morgue!"

I want you both to apologize to her. And not via email.  

One big way to honor her is to faithfully use and check the calendar she set up for us. She checks it as family, work, and other stuff comes up 'cause she's trying to interfere with band stuff as little as possible. Iari's been really good at putting his stuff in there, but I think we've all been lousy at checking it for each other's conflicts before we accept an engagement or make plans. Larry and Tracy were given all the access info to the calendar and obviously they're not checking it, or they'd have seen a conflict on the 9th, cuz it was there. We need to fix that too. Larry and Tracy can further honor her by making sure anything they ask us to do that puts a significant burden on her has sufficient upside. Ya can't tell me that Larry has no nose for upside. 

Another way is to recognize that, in her words, this isn't her first rodeo. A person underestimates Megan at his/her own peril. 

I've asked Larry and Tracy for an offline convo regarding communications and expectations, so I hope that'll fix the nuts-and-bolts issues, but Kay and Kit need to clean up the mess they've made. If we all want me to continue (and for my part I want to continue), we can't afford to lose Megan's support for my being in this band. I would quit in a hot minute if she or the kids ever had any reason to legitimately resent the time I spend on band stuff. Unhealed relational blunders don't lead to good things, blah blah blah. Now I'm lecturing, and I'll shut up. But while we're on that subject, if there's anything I need to clean up with any of you, let's get it done.

Love, 

Ken  

This venomous screed was "too much" in Kit's words. It caught him off guard. It made Amanda "start bawling." So: court of public opinion. Anyone who reads this, lemme know what you think. Y'all were invited here, you have my email addy. Was that email purely offensive and attacking? I'm not entirely convinced.

But I'm taking ownership of it. I've always said that the burden of communication is on the communicatOR. I intended to leave an out for the kindest possible explanation and offer suggestions on how Megan's frustration could be avoided in the future, but instead I reduced one band member to tears and caught another "off guard" (I confess myself baffled: For what truth is that expression standing in? I'm caught off guard by lots of things but ending my association with people is not the first reaction that comes to mind). So, I get the Fail here.

I have an unseen anger problem that comes out in words I don't intend to be hurtful. I've done it to the band here, I've done it to pastor Mark Averill, I've spoken to Megan in ways that I didn't mean to hurt but did. Mark and Megan have extended more grace.

Never saw myself as one to see a counselor. I always thought I had enough tools to deal with whatever came my way. I also never envisioned a span of 6 or 7 years with as much change as these past years have held for me, most of it not positive. No wonder I'm angry somewhere deep down. I thought the way to deal with grief and loss and hard changes of other kinds was just to keep walking. Feels like a bit of a defeat to admit I need help dealing with it, but the eventual cost of not doing so seems like it might be too high. Better do it.

So what's the sense of freedom about? Well, I'm not posing as a guitar player anymore. I don't have the uncomfortable and never-answered question of "Am I just the guitar player or am I a full member of the band?" (Their mouths said full member, not all but lots of their actions said guitar player.) And I'm free to do whatever I want with music again. Most of all, though, I don't have the band and my family pulling in opposite directions. That was eventually going to come to a head no matter what else happened.

Disney Parks after tragedy

Spotted this on one of the geek sites I visit, emphasis added by me: 

URAYASU, CHIBA— Tokyo Disney Resort® announced today that it will reopen Tokyo Disneyland Park on April 15, 2011. Both Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea® Parks have been temporarily closed from March 12 following the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Tokyo Disneyland Park will reopen while making every effort to conserve the use of electricity in its operations.  Furthermore, a portion of the ticket price will be donated toward the relief and recovery of the disaster-affected areas.

Tokyo DisneySea Park remains temporarily closed for the time being, but we are aiming toward the earliest reopening of this Park as well.

Finally, Oriental Land Co., Ltd. would like to send our heartfelt condolences to all who have been affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake. We would also like to take this opportunity to express our apologies and gratitude to all who have been concerned by the temporary closure of the Parks. We will continue to strive toward providing an experience filled with dreams and happiness to as many guests as possible, and will make our best corporate effort to answer the needs and expectations of as many people as possible.

How very in keeping with the culture. Not that I'd expect any different. 


Apparently, something the park management (Oriental Land Company, which owns and operates Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea under license by the Walt Disney Company) has to contend with is slow turnstiles due to the Japanese concept of "shibari" or self-restraint – it is felt that to go and enjoy a day or a vacation at Tokyo Disneyland, or any activity that is frivolous in nature, is in bad taste when so many are homeless and suffering. So they have to serve two goals: Get people into the parks in order to stay solvent, and keep the promotion subdued so as not to appear crass and insensitive. 

Contrast that with Dubya saying on national television, by way of reassuring the nation that its airlines were safe days after 9/11/01, "Get down to Disney World! Take your families!" Now, the magnitude of the disaster was perhaps not equal, but the shock it caused certainly was at least equal if not greater. Megan and I had made plans to visit Disney World that October months beforehand, and it was only at the President's amusingly specific words that we decided not to cancel the trip. We experienced the American form of shibari on that trip. Everyone everywhere was wearing American flag pins, many in the "3 circles" shape representing Mickey Mouse's outline. Anytime we engaged other guests in conversation, it almost immediately included "where were you when it happened" and a strong, strong sense of gratitude for circumstances that allowed us to be at WDW at all. Cast Members seemed uniformly touched and grateful that we had "made the trip anyway" and were even more friendly and gracious than usual, even if their smiles looked just a bit forced and broken.  

Things all over the parks suddenly had new significance and poignancy. The daily flag raising and retreat ceremonies were extremely well attended: usually the flag raising is witnessed by a smattering of mostly elderly visitors, a lot of them WWII vets, I gather. Now you saw 5- and 6-year-olds hoisted up onto Dad's shoulders, actually holding still and watching. Anything that celebrated America was now more relevant and attractive than it had been in years.

George W Bush's words, spoken by his animatronic doppelganger at the Hall Of Presidents, were eerily appropriate for exactly what had just happened, enough that I wondered if the Disney people and the White House hadn't collaborated on a quick update to the robot POTUS's speech. 

The song played in the American Adventure attraction at EPCOT, "Golden Dreams," was suddenly much more affecting than it had been before, with its lyric about a Great Bird - the American Eagle, of course - "keeping dreams aloft in the rain."

The big EPCOT fireworks/lasers/multimedia show that ends each day, "IllumiNations," so named because the lagoon borders all the Nations represented in the World Showcase, has always ended with a blustery orchestral finale followed by a more reflective song played as the denouement. Post 9/11, the lyrics took on new significance and as I looked around I could tell who else was paying attention to the lyrics because our eyes were all welling up.  No doubt we were all wondering the same thing - will our American culture have to make fundamental changes now? Is our way of life going to survive knowing that the bad guys can get us at home now? Will we really just pick up and go on? 

With the stillness of the night

there comes a time to understand

to reach out and touch tomorrow 

take the future in our hand 

We can see a new horizon 

built on all that we have done 

and our dreams begin another

thousand circles 'round the sun 

We go on 

to the joy and through the tears 

We go on 

to discover new frontiers 

Moving on 

with the current of the years 

We go on 

moving forward, now as one 

Moving on 

with a spirit born to run 

Ever on 

with each rising sun 

To a new day

We go on

We go on 
We all hoped these words would continue to describe America, I'm sure.  

That Story About My Friend Dax And The Fog Machine

In an earlier post, I promised I would one day tell the story of my friend Dax and the fog machine on the closing night of Bye Bye Birdie. 

Dax was on the stage crew of that show, which broke some new ground for the Santa Clara Junior Theatre, as it was then known. Set builders Craig Hedlund (who did not approve of my crush on Julie Crader and tried several times to intimidate me into leaving her alone) and Pete Muraco built a massive structure for the “Telephone Hour” number that somewhat resembled the setup for the old Hollywood Squares TV game show. As far as I know it was the largest moveable set piece they had built up until that time. It had a number of cubbies, each representing the bedroom of one of several teenagers in the number. The choreographer had stipulated that the set piece needed to be danced around, in, and on by more than a dozen cast members, so the fellas built it out of 3/4” plywood and 2x4s. (Also, parents tend to get a little grumpy if their little Stephanie falls 12 feet off the top of a flimsy set piece and breaks her neck on opening night.)

The result of the brick-outhouse-like construction was that the first time the thing was rolled out for rehearsals, once everyone got aboard and performed the number, the plastic, rubber-clad casters were mooshed flat under the combined weight of its own bulk and that of 14 or 16 teenagers. The plywood bases to which the casters were attached gently folded and collapsed. In the middle of the first run-through, the pianist halted abruptly and Craig told us all to quickly and very carefully get off of the sagging behemoth, which he later named Kurt. I never knew the set piece’s namesake but I gathered he was a large and lumbering individual that Craig didn’t like. 

I don’t recall exactly what happened next but it seems it would have been hard to continue rehearsals with the large, unsteady Kurt sitting onstage. I guess Craig and Pete and several other guys figured out how to lay it down and move it out of the way. Kurt returned a few days later with shiny new steel casters mounted to thick aluminum bases, which were bolted to the bottom. 

But that has nothing to do with Dax, or a fog machine, does it? 

The fog machine was used in a number called “100 Ways Ballet.” Led by the line, “I could just kill him!!” the number is Rosie’s mad daydream about not quite 100 ways to kill Albert, after she’s fed up with the latest fiasco related to Conrad Bieber . . . er, Birdie. 

Fog, in low-budget theatre, is a quick, cheap way to signal to the audience that the context has changed; it’s also used for pure spooky or ethereal effect of course, but here it was the stage equivalent of harp glissandi and fuzzy focus, signaling the beginning of a fantasy sequence. This wasn’t the kind of fog or haze seen at rock and pop concerts filling the air; this was the floor-hugging variety generated by dry ice and blowing the resulting CO2 “steam” out of a dryer hose. 

Readying the fog machine was a multi-person operation, and Dax was one of those people. The machine itself was made from a 55-gallon drum; it was filled with water and a heating element was immersed in the tank. The water rook a couple hours to come up to heat before use, so the process started long before showtime. A few moments before the fog was needed, two crew members made ready to dump a Styrofoam cooler full of dry ice chunks into the water; another crew member was to open the lid and then slam it shut as soon as the last chunk of ice cleared the cooler. A third crew member held the dryer hose, capping it with one hand and preparing to reach for the fan switch. It was slightly tricky and the crew enjoyed seeing how quickly, quietly, and neatly they could do the ice-dump operation without letting any of the fog escape. I’ve forgotten what Dax’s specific role was. 

On the show’s closing night, whoever was in charge of buying the dry ice bought double the usual amount – 40 pounds instead of the usual 20. They were going to go out with a foggy bang. The heater was also turned up to full, so that just before showtime the water was already uncomfortably hot to touch; the water would heat even further between the overture and “100 Ways.”  

The “ready fog” cue came. A few moments before Kristy Hughes as Rosie delivered her line, “I could just kill him!” the fog team executed their finely-tuned maneuver. As soon as the big load of ice hit the hotter-than-usual water, an explosion of sorts deluged one of the crew in borderline-scalding water. He bailed and ran, parboiled and cussing, for the door that led to the loading dock, whipping off his poached shirt as he went. The rest of them had been sprayed in the face with very hot water, and now they struggled to get the rest of the ice into the drum while containing the enormous cloud of fog that was erupting from the still-open lid. More cussing, and now nervous laughter. Cast members and other crew members rushed over with towels, props, whatever they could grab from the shop racks, desperately trying to fan the fog away from the stage, lest it start creeping out before the number began. The drenched crewman, now shirtless and literally steaming, came back in through the stage door and, sussing out the scope of the disaster he had just escaped, propped the door open to give the fog an alternate exit. Everyone begin fanning it in that direction.

Finally, the stage went dark, the curtain closed, and the stage manager called for "100 Ways." The fan on the fog machine was switched on and an alarming volume of fog fire-hosed from the end of the tube; before the curtain had a chance to open, the fog had filled the stage from corner to corner, stacking up to a height of 6 feet or so off the deck. Since it was CO2, I wondered how long before we all stared passing out. When the curtain did open, the ballet’s first several bars went by before the audience ever saw a single performer. Eventually, the dancers began to emerge as the fog started to equalize itself, but as they moved through it they stirred it up, causing great drifts that rose and fell mesmerizingly. The moment the curtain had opened, the fog began pouring over the edge of the stage and was now partially obscuring the orchestra and gliding out under the audience’s chairs. Still it poured out of the machine, showing no sign of tapering off. 

The number finished. The end of the dryer hose still looked more like a fire hose, with great gouts of fog still spilling forth. Dax and the other crew members had no choice but to hastily wheel the still-spewing thing out the stage door and onto the loading dock. As the curtain closed, cast and crew resumed the frantic fanning to clear the stage as the conductor thought on her feet, cueing the orchestra to “take it from Bar 49 again” to buy time for the fog to be cleared. By now the audience was chuckling good-naturedly at the obvious mishap. 

Because so many of us rolled from one show into the next, director Mackie McClelland often gave notes on closing night. There were always lessons to learn. After a pause in her comments, she looked at the stage manager. There was stifled laughter from the cast and crew. Staring over the top of her glasses, lips twitching, she deadpanned, “There was apparently some doubt or confusion, but I think now it's clear why there’s a specific setting marked on the fog machine and how we arrived at 20 pounds as the prescribed amount of dry ice.” 

There's a reason I nicknamed myself KenFused.

Well, actually the name was thought up and given to me by my old friend Jake Schaefer, but I have embraced it because it is often true. It's a way of laughing at those moments when my propensity to act or talk before thinking overcomes my better judgement. Or my striking occasional ability to become befuddled by the simplest of things. (Recent example - got in the minivan and discovered that I couldn't shift from Park into Drive. Wha?? Started to worry about the repair cost. 10 minutes of trying to figure out what the issue was and if I could get around it to drive home. Friend who stopped to help says, "Is your foot on the brake?" It wasn't. Foot on brake, shifts as expected. Facepalm.)

So in my last post I savaged the staff at the local outpost of the national music retailer for its incompetence, indifference, and general dirtbaggery. It was all about my frustrating experience buying a TASCAM DP-008 recorder. They certainly deserved it, however.

Here's the kicker, though - I made the wrong choice of recorder anyway!! Don't that beat all? I wanted a machine that would record 4 simultaneous tracks of audio, because at Maybe Tuesday's upcoming CD Release Party I need to record our performance. I want to capture a stereo feed direct from the house sound system - that's two tracks - while capturing stereo ambience and audience noise with a pair of microphones, and that's another two tracks. The TASCAM is an 8-track recorder, but will only record 2 tracks at a time. I got KenFused. Worse, I didn't discover this until after the store's 100% refund period had ended, AND I had thrown away the packaging. BRAVO!!

BOSS makes a device that will do exactly what I want, so I will be putting the TASCAM up on eBay and hoping for a decent sale, putting the proceeds into buying the BOSS product.

KenFused. Yep.

Incompetent Staff, Jedi Mind Tricks, Music Store Fail.

I bought a TASCAM DP-008 recorder for use with the band. Good Ol' [National Retail Music-Store Chain]. . . . I special-ordered it last week, guy said it'd be here end of this week, i.e. today. Said he'd call. Knew he wouldn't. Went in there earlier today to see if it was there. Handed a different guy my receipt (I had paid in full). He went and checked on it.  

"Not here yet," he said, dismissively, when he returned.  

"Well, can you tell me when it will be here?"

"Um, the power supply is here, but the recorder isn't."

"Thanks, but that's not much help. I would like to know when it will be here - I paid in full in advance."

Fella looked at the other fella behind the counter. "Do you know how to do that?"

"No," he said.

I reached for my receipt, and once he'd handed it to me I started to walk away.

"Wait - we can look it up for you. It's no trouble." 

Fella took my receipt again and went back to talk to the stockroom guy.

I looked down at the glass display case. Three TASCAM DP-008's were stacked on one shelf, a fourth on another.

Fella came back. "Sorry, the stockroom guy is out to lunch . . . I can't get an answer for you right this minute," he said, unconvincingly. 

"There seem to be," I said, pointing at the display case, "four of them right there. Can I have one of those?"

Long pause while he stared at the four boxes. "I dunno. Lemme check." Went away again. 

Different guy came back. "We'll have to cancel your special order, is that OK?" 

"Why wouldn't it be?"

Blank face. I could almost hear the "dink . . . dink" of cartoon eye-blinks.  

The salesman who had taken my special order walked over. "It's OK, [name redacted], I'll take care of him."

He started to punch keys on the computer (hadn't even said hello to me). He stopped. He frowned. "Why is the price $249? It's $299."

"I told you I had seen it online for $249 and you matched that price. I appreciate that, by the way."

His eyes narrowed with apparent suspicion. "Where did that price come from?" 

"I have no idea where you confirmed it. I saw it in 3 or 4 places at that price. You Googled it on your computer there. . . ."

He punched some keys. He still hadn't looked me in the eye.

"Oh, yeah, I see that now. OK, would you like to get the Extended Warranty? It covers you even if _you_ damage the unit."

"No, thanks, I didn't want it when you suggested it last week and I still don't think I need it."

"Are you sure? It covers you even if _you_ damage the unit," he repeated, as if he was Obi-Wan Kenobi lying to some Imperial stormtroopers. I half-expected him to wave his hand.

"I'm pretty careful with my stuff, dude. I'm good."

A manager came over, who was apparently needed to authorize the cancellation of the special order and approve the selling price for the second time. He looked up at me. "Can we set you up with the Extended Warranty today?" 

My teeth began to grind. "No, thanks."

"You know it makes sure you get a brand-new unit even if you are responsible for damaging this one, right?"

"I'm aware, thanks. No need."

"Anything else you need today? Cables, microphones, anything?"

"No, thanks, I'm all set."

"Just picking this up today, then?"

With great effort I tried to muster a friendly smile. I probably wasn't very convincing. "Yes. Thanks very much for all your help."

The now sour-faced salesman handed me the boxes and my receipt, and I headed for the door. 

Another guy wearing a nametag that read, "[name redacted] Store Manager" caught up with me on the way out.

"Hiya, I'm [name redacted], I'm the manager. I couldn't help but notice you seemed a little annoyed with my guys. Is there anything I need to know about?" He scored points for couching the question as if I might have a good reason to be annoyed. Was this a common occurrence, I wondered?

"Maybe." I explained all that had just transpired. [Name redacted] looked at me as if to say, "And?"

"Point is, your store had my money, AND you had the product I wanted. I got no phone call, and everyone seemed really put out that I wanted to take one of the units from stock. It took five guys to get it done. I had a funky experience with a very un-personable and clearly indifferent sales guy when I came in here last week to order this, and today's experience included even more indifference, plus a big fat scoop of incompetence. I'll level with you; I completely understand that Internet retailers have made it so you can't make any money on the actual item anymore. I'd be willing to bet the store cleared much less than $20 on this," I said, holding up my new TASCAM, "which means that all the effort expended today by three sales clerks, the warehouse guy, and an assistant manager ate up all the profits. Had it been handled in five minutes by one guy – and there's no reason why it couldn't have been – there would have been no need to pressure me none too subtly three different times to buy the box of air and pure profit known as the Extended Warranty. . . ."

He cut in. "You know, that protects you even if _you_ damage the item." 

What, no hand wave?

Mutt Lange, The Cars, and Def Leppard

Robert John "Mutt" Lange. A name that represents many things depending on who you talk to: Big Record Sales. Pop Perfection. Gross Overproduction. Lifeless Radio Crap. Amazing Intuition. Unparalleled Song Doctor. 


Put me in the "fan" camp. I think the man makes exquisite ear candy that bears repeated listening across decades. Two Mutt-produced records in particular are still in frequent rotation in my music collection: The Cars' Heartbeat City and Def Leppard's Hysteria. Only recently did I discover that these two records' stories are actually somewhat intertwined. 


In the excellent Classic Albums documentary on Hysteria, Def Leppard and their managers discuss the fact that Mutt wasn't going to be available to produce the record due to another commitment. What that commitment was isn't spelled out onscreen – it turns out it was to The Cars. So instead Lep's management hired Jim Steinman, who had no production credits. Lead singer Joe Elliott doesn't presume to speak for the band but indicates that he thought it was a bad idea; "Todd Rundgren produced Bat Out Of Hell. Jim Steinman wrote it!" The episode was a disaster. Steinman apparently enthused about takes where the band hadn't even fine-tuned their instruments. "To a kid in Iowa, it sounds honest," he's purported to have said. Elliott says his response was, "That kid will think it sounds out of tune, Jim." 


The band's management bought Steinman out of his lucrative contract and scrapped the work done with him at the helm, which meant that Def Leppard now had to sell a hell of a lot more copies of the not-yet-begun record just to break even. 


Then, drummer Rick Allen was involved in the car accident that cost him his left arm. 


By the time Allen was healed enough to begin figuring out how he would continue playing drums, Mutt Lange was finishing up Heartbeat City for The Cars. The record inverted the usual Cars recipe of guitar-driven rock seasoned with very pure, strident synthesizer sounds; Greg Hawkes' keyboard rig was now the centerpiece of the band's newly lush sound, with Elliott Easton's guitar adding flavor. A contemporary article about the band's experience gave a window into Lange's process. Bassist Ben Orr returned to the band's rented accommodations after a long day of working one-on-one with Mutt. Someone asked how it went. Orr replied, "Well, we started to get a bass sound today." Drummer   David Robinson might have had it worse; it seems clear that all the drums on the record are derived from machines rather than his drumming.


Out of affection for the guys, and with his commitment to The Cars fulfilled, Mutt then signed on to produce Hysteria. What's interesting to me is that the experience with The Cars seems to have influenced the sound of Hysteria. It's been said that Hysteria would be a very different record if not for the hell Def Leppard went through to get it made. That's undoubtedly true, but the other side of the coin hasn't really been acknowledged; if not for Mutt's experience making Heartbeat City, where he developed some of his trademark treatments and techniques and was exposed to more synth and sampling technology by Greg Hawkes, Hysteria would have been a very different record anyway. 


Listen to them back-to-back sometime and you'll see how Heartbeat City informed Hysteria and evolved the sound Mutt and the band had already established in all kinds of ways: The hyper-layered background vocals sung by Mutt himself, the impossibly heavy backbeats, the sound of the cymbals, the commonality between the bass sounds of The Cars' Ben Orr and Def Leppard's Rick Savage. . . . The list of things pioneered or perfected on Heartbeat City and then applied to Hysteria is long, and why not? Heartbeat City was a smash, spinning off numerous Top Ten singles. Since Def Leppard's ethic on Hysteria was the idea of writing a "greatest hits" record from scratch, Mutt's success with The Cars made it natural that Def Leppard would choose to apply much of what he developed while making Heartbeat City. 

Open Letter to the PhotoPass/Entertainment Dept. at DisneyParks

To whom it may concern, 

Please reconsider the policy of locking down Characters to PhotoPass locations in order to simply maximize PhotoPass profits. The loss of more spontaneous experiences, like riding an attraction with a Character, is detrimental to Magic in the Parks. Admittedly, these experiences are like winning the lottery - not many get to experience them, and luck plays a chief role in whether or not they happen to us, but it must be pointed out that marketing materials (videos, photographs) used to promote the Parks still trade heavily on the idea of children being surprised and hugged by their favorite characters. If this "PhotoPass locations only" policy persists, these clips and photos will be a flat lie.

Disney has always flirted with the edge, balancing delightful, surprising, no-extra-charge magic for Guests and gate-keeping/stage-managing/extra-costing everything to death for maximum profit-per-square-millimeter in the Parks. This policy crosses the line, and please don't insult us by giving us some scripted line about the fact that PhotoPass photographers are able to use _our_ cameras to "make magical moments for free" or that it isn't necessary to pay anything just to meet the characters - this isn't a misunderstanding over what costs and what doesn't, it's about an erosion of Show quality; spontaneous Character interactions, while rare, are especially memorable and irreplaceable with stage-managed "celebrity appearances" at designated locations where we line up like cattle for meanlingless, magic-lite moments with characters. A PhotoPass meet-and-greet sets up the expectation that meeting the Characters is just for photos and autographs. There's not much Magic in that. Real celebrities are often (necessarily) aloof, rushing through fan interactions and being dismissive, albeit in a reasonably gracious way. Why being this intrusive, disappointing reality into our interactions with Disney Characters? The idea that my little girls will  _never_ get to ride the Carousel with Mary Poppins or the Teacups with Alice makes me very sad indeed, particularly in light of the fact that Disney promotional materials will surely continue to depict chance encounters of this type, therefore "promising" them. Remember what constitutes a promise to a child. Point at legal disclaimers all you want; they'll be no less heartbroken when Cinderella doesn't even have time to make proper eye contact. Just another sham. Is that the lesson the Walt Disney Co. wants its "future brand-loyalists" to learn at age 3-7? 

My wife and I were in California Adventure a few years ago, and I was clowning around with a door graphic on a construction wall in front of the Monsters, Inc. attraction, pretending to try and open the "door" for my wife's camera. Nearby, Frozone was out walking the Park. Apparently he spotted us from a couple dozen yards away, and ran over to us, even leaving his "assistant" behind for a moment. We had a completely spontaneous, unscripted, un-stage-managed interaction with this excellent Cast Member all to ourselves, and it was a lot of fun. We snapped a photo, of course, but it wasn't about the photo. I'll go to my grave remembering that Frozone (who isn't even among my _most_ favorite characters) spotted us and came to make a moment with us. I'm a rational adult who is fully aware that the person inside the Frozone costume was just a teen/twentysomething individual working for a few dollars an hour, but he threw himself into that low-paying position with alacrity that would have pleased Walt Disney. That's the kind of magic only Disney has ever bothered to try and create. Don't destroy it by confining characters to designated meet-and-greet locations where the quality of interaction moves from truly magical to mundane. Disney characters are not merely "properties." They belong to the world because the world has embraced them. Don't make meeting them as un-special as meeting "Santa Claus" at every local mall in the country. 

On the other hand, if you were to invest in and implement "interactive Mickey" on a permanent basis and expand that technology to all the other "rubberhead" Characters at designated locations, you'd have immensely improved the experience of meeting those Characters. Here's the only instance where a locked-down interaction would actually be a MAJOR bonus rather than a bummer. That technology more than lives up to the high standard of magic for which Disney is justifiably renowned. Adults and children alike are completely drawn in and awestruck by that excellent idea. (Then, let the face characters continue to roam and interact freely.)

Sincerely, 

Ken Hughes

DVC member since 2001

DIS shareholder

D23 Charter Member

"Thanks For Everything, Charlie Brown!"

Here's a (rather long) piece I've had knocking around for a while. . . .
Foreword, Sept. 2010

Not too long ago I came across the cast album of the 1999 Broadway revival of “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown!” and I bought it on the spot. Brought back memories even before I spun the CD and heard, somewhat jarringly, Anthony Rapp from “Rent” as Chuck and “what hasn’t he done” B.D. Wong as Linus; a lifetime ago I was in a children’s theatre production of the show in Santa Clara, California. Just a few days ago, in one of the “small world” moments that Facebook provides in abundance, I was sharing details about a newly-discovered and delightfully improbable mutual friendship and, in enthusing about the likeability of this person, told a story that let loose a flood of deep-stored memories that listening to the cast album hadn’t brought forward with much clarity. As these memories came into focus, I thought I’d better take a few snapshots before they receded into blur again. The scope of the story grew way beyond the original kernel. Who knows if this stuff would ever be interesting to an audience; I tend to doubt it. It may be that the only people who ever read this are those who were involved (I offered them all a read-through. I wanted to make sure I represented them kindly, correctly, and fairly, no matter where this piece ends up). Certainly my kids will read it someday. Hopefully long before I’m gone. I think the conversations this could spark could be emotionally epic journeys into my own and my childrens’ hearts.

________________

My luminous stage career, such as it’s been, began when I was cast into the teen chorus of “Bye Bye, Birdie” at what was then called the Santa Clara Junior Theatre. I’d always been a ham and loved the spotlight, but this was the first time I’d auditioned for anything anywhere. At last I could stand under real spotlights. I was hooked. I was home. Since then I’ve never been too far away from a stage; in musicals, revues, seminars, improv comedy, bands in country, R&B, rock, pop, reggae, and gospel styles, slam poetry, singing solo with my guitar in underground churches in Saigon, performing at fairs, schools, corporate events, churches, nightclubs, coffeehouses, prisons, even Disneyland once. I’ve yet to achieve any fame, or make any money at it, but I’ve had a blast.

I was fourteen at the Birdie audition, just becoming longingly aware of the allure of girls, and symmetrically aware of the soul-slashing sting they could inflict. Also emerging was the realization of my hopeless ineptitude at coping with either the allure or the sting.

One girl in particular, a cast-mate in Birdie, became the long-suffering victim of my clueless, inept, sometimes wildly inappropriate, always ineffectual attempts to convince her to return the romantic feelings I imagined I had for her. (Sample: “But. . . I like you. Like you like you.”) She had theme music in my head, and this was before “The Wonder Years” actually played theme music every time the main character’s crush appeared. Julie Crader at fourteen was blonde, pretty, possessed of a braces-saddled but wonderful smile and big, sparkling green eyes. She had the same feathered hairstyle I saw Jenny McCarthy wearing on a talk show just last week, and a personality that was equal parts shiny, happy girl and old soul. She was smart, funny, quick, and a little quirky. She had what I’ve since come to recognize as an almost standard-issue “cute girl” speaking voice, and was a skilled dancer and singer. Duran Duran was her favorite band.

For reasons known only to Julie, she would patiently sit thru hours-long telephone conversations with me, tolerate my morose lamentations that we were not yet an item, and gently deflect my endless attempts to enter grave DTR discussions. She really ought to be nominated for sainthood just for the grace she showed me during the few short years our lives intersected. I see pictures of her from that time and they must be lying; they show a slightly awkward teen where I remember a grown woman in miniature. I never kissed her, never even held her hand. And truly, I wouldn’t have known what to do if she had some miraculous sudden attraction to me and offered those gestures.

SCJT more or less had a policy of giving a part to every kid who auditioned. “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown!” had just six roles, though: Chuck, Linus, Schroeder, Snoopy, Patty, and Lucy. And they weren’t going to do multiple casts. The auditions took place in a small, dark-paneled side room across the hall from the auditorium. The gravity of the atmosphere was unfamiliar and intimidating. Casting was based almost entirely on vocal range. It was cold, but fair: If we couldn’t cover the vocal range, we were out, sent to the auditorium to take part in the other production mounting at the time. The phrase was, “Go see Mackie.”

Mackie McClelland was a hard-looking but not unattractive woman; tall, thin, and blonde, she wore a lot of black. She seemed very glamorous to me, maybe to most of us. She had directed “Bye Bye, Birdie,” so while she was familiar, her formidable presence was undiminished by familiarity. Not at all unkind, Mackie was nonetheless a bit of a taskmaster and didn’t mince words. Nor did she ever talk down to us kids or treat us as anything less than adults. The flipside was that she expected us to act in kind. She could quell misbehavior without a word, like a stern schoolteacher.

In the audition room, the music director, Kathy Smith, was already edgy. In contrast to Mackie’s calculated distance and businesslike professionalism, Kathy was a softie. She didn’t hide her affection for us behind any kind of “professional” veneer, and she knew already that some of us were going to get hurt. Everyone was wound up tighter than a two-dollar watch. I don’t recall the exact sequence of events, but it wasn’t the first cut. After a desperately uncomfortable silence, Kathy blew out a breath and said, “Oh, my god, you guys are gonna hate me.” Another long, pregnant pause. No one breathed. Kathy was practically hiding behind the sheet music on the piano, studiously avoiding eye contact with any of us. With the expression usually worn by a parent forced to deliver the worst of news to her child, she seemed to force herself to look at each of us as she said, “Julie, and Ken, go see Mackie.”

Gutted. Reeling. Vision actually blurry. Tears or just shock? Don’t know. Looking at the floor. Blur of blonde hair and shorts-clad legs and white Keds past my right side as Julie runs sobbing, almost doubled-over, for the door. Door. Where’s the door? Gotta get outta here. Embarrassed. I’m no good. I thought I was doing pretty well. Where did I choke? Heart broken. Oh, god, she’s really upset. Now she’s leaving the building, wracked with great gasping sobs. I will never know joy again, for the world has ended.

I came back to myself sitting in a chair in the main auditorium, wondering darkly how I could possibly participate in the little kiddie show. Was it Candy Land? Whatever. Mackie approached. In the warmest tone I ever heard her use, which edged just past tepid, she said, “I know you’re disappointed, but I need you onstage right now.” I couldn’t stomach the idea. I frowned. I exhaled. I was a bit disarmed by the easing of the presence, and didn’t want to snap at her. “I don’t mean any disrespect, Mackie, but I just . . . can’t.” I got up and walked out the door, trying to keep my body language free of any sign of petulance. I wasn’t angry at her, but I didn’t want to be misunderstood and I didn’t want to appear childish.

Once in the hall, I realized I hadn’t seen Julie come back in. I worried. Empathy took over and my romantic obsession was improbably set aside, for the first and possibly only time. I needed to know she was OK, or would be OK. I went out to the loading dock, where I’d seen her headed earlier. I spotted her on the switchbacked wheelchair/loading ramp that led to the stage door, blonde head bowed, shoulders heaving. I approached cautiously, pausing several times to give her the chance to wave me off from a distance if she wanted to. She didn’t. I wanted more than anything to see her tears stop. As disappointed as I was for myself, the apparent magnitude of her hurt was breaking my heart. I stepped to her and put my hand on her shoulder, and I tried to muster the same tone of concern and safety I’d heard my mother use. “Hey. . . .”

Perhaps to her it sounded like, “Hey, baby. . .”

“Just . . . LEAVE ME ALONE!!” she screeched, batted my arm away, and ran, still sobbing.

Minutes later I was riding my silver ten-speed home, pouring all my disappointment, hurt, and confusion into going as fast as I could in top gear, as if I could outrun my feelings and leave them behind. Past Kaiser hospital, across Homestead, past the street where Kevin lived . . . did he get a part? I was sure he did. My legs began to burn. I made the right turn onto Pruneridge and I finally let up. I sat up on the seat, riding no-hands, coasting, feeling the air as I moved through it.

________________


Once or twice over the years, I’ve wondered what happened after I left the theatre and before the phone call. Maybe Kathy, choreographer Judi Jones, SCJT director Roberta Jones, and Mackie had a meeting after the day played out. Kathy might have expressed her concern about the way things had gone; perhaps she felt she’d had to be unfair to several of us. Each of them had seen some part of the aftermath, but Kathy had had to watch Julie implode. And it couldn’t have been easy. There seemed be a lot of dithering just before Julie and I were dismissed. Endless rounds of “Row, Row, Row, Your Boat” in descending and escalating keys to establish everyone’s effective vocal range, tone quality, and the blends between different pairs and groups. It seemed to take longer than the earlier cuts. There were only two female roles to begin with, and couple of other, traditionally strong performers also didn’t make the cast; Amy Mack and RoiAnn Phillips. The three girls and I must have missed getting cast by a pretty slim margin; perhaps others were strong where each of us was just adequate.

“It’s Kathy, from the Junior Theatre,” said Mom, calling me to the phone. (Mom always said, “thea-AY-ter.”) I’d retreated to my room for a couple of hours, idly looking through books and magazines, turning the radio on and then wanting silence, turning it off and then wanting to hear something other than my own thoughts, actually considering doing some homework, and trying to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my now-ruined life. Why would Kathy be calling me at home?

I picked the phone up off the table. “Hello,” I said, flatly.

“Hi Ken,” Kathy said. She sounded as if she wanted to ask, “Are you OK?” She said instead, “We have a part for you if you’d like to be in the show.”

“Just tell me,” I replied, “that you have a part for Julie, too. She took it even harder than I did.”

Julie was offered the newly-created role of Sally Brown. (Interestingly, the 1999 Broadway revival brought Sally into things as well, but dropped Patty.) I was offered Pig Pen; the potential social stigma that came with the role was far less worrisome to me than that of not being in the show at all. My costuming and makeup were a bit of a pain; I wore army-green shorts and a T-shirt the same color, smeared with black and brown stage makeup, and dusted with talcum powder. On top of my standard-issue male stage makeup, we had to add smudges of “dirt” and my hair had to look unwashed and unruly. My legs and arms had to be smudged with black and brown makeup as well.

RoiAnn Phillips accepted the part of Violet. The RoiAnn in my memory seems far more mature than the rest of us. Above it all, but not in a haughty way. Friendly and often exuding joy, she possessed some of the stereotype qualities of “hippie” but the label wouldn’t have done her justice. Amy Mack came in as Marcy. Amy was a little younger than the rest of us, and so little did I regard her at the time that my memories of her, sadly, are few. She was fun and talented, and I liked her in that kid-sister kind of way, but in the cold social economy of teens, she was not friend material.

As Snoopy – a pretty demanding role – was Philip Newby, the youngest member of the cast, and another person who I considered beneath my station to befriend in any meaningful way. My loss, for sure: Philip took his own life in 2009. Depression. Something else I just recently learned about Philip: at age ten, inspired by the Peanuts cartoons, he and his younger sister Emily once set up a psychiatry booth at a local shopping center and charged adult passers-by 25 cents for psychiatric advice. Emily recalled in an LA Times article about Philip that people paid the quarter and played along.

Schroeder was played by Larry Dilley, an SCJT vet who I’d seen make the most of his few lines as the Mayor of Sweet Apple, Ohio in Birdie. Larry and I shared an enthusiastic appreciation for Sondheim. We once took in a local production of “Company” together, and the events of that evening, I’m sure, led my dad to be a bit concerned about my sexual orientation. Since Larry was driving age and I wasn’t, he picked me up in his car. I put on a sport coat, wanting to appear mature since the show dealt with adult themes and included a bedroom scene. Must have looked like I was dressing up for a date. Larry and I grabbed a bite to eat after the show. Years later it finally dawned on me that it was just possible Larry considered it a date. It doesn’t matter now, but if so I’m glad I was too clueless then to catch on; I’m sorry to admit I probably would have been very unkind.

Anna Muraco got the part of Patty. This was very much against type; Anna wasn’t over-the-top girly, but there certainly wasn’t much tomboy in her. She was sweet, however, and when she smiled, all of her smiled. The Muracos were heavily involved; Anna’s older brother Pete built sets, designed and operated lighting, and stage-managed show after show after show. Their younger sister Christina was also in many shows, and I have a vague recollection of Mr. and/or Mrs. Muraco making it a family act once or twice as well, in “Birdie” and maybe “Fiddler On The Roof.”

Playing Linus was Mike Borgstrom, to this day the best hoofer of his age I’ve ever seen. We were friends at school too. Mike was the one who originally encouraged me to audition for “Bye Bye, Birdie,” assuring me I’d be part of the in crowd – he’d pull some strings. Mike and Anna had probably the healthiest friendship of any two in the cast; it was tempting to think they were a pair, but frankly there wasn’t nearly enough drama between them to indicate anything other than platonic friendship.

Kevin Cornelius was cast as Charlie Brown. Wonderfully, Kevin now directs the Roberta Jones Junior Theatre, as it was later renamed in honor of the founding director. (Reams could and should be written about dear, tireless, gold-hearted Roberta – who is regarded with extraordinary fondness by the scores of people who passed under her care and teaching – but it would all be tangential to this particular story.) The role of Charlie Brown’s nominal adversary, Lucy, went to Shani Valencia.

Shani’s older brother Dax and I were thick as thieves and almost as dangerous from elementary school up through college. I was seen at the Valencias’ a lot. So Shani had been more or less stuck with me as a second annoying older brother for years. Dax was also involved here and there with SCJT, crewing a couple of shows, including “Birdie.” There’s a good story involving Dax and a fog machine on that show’s closing night, but this too would be a tangent. By this time Shani and I were beginning our own friendship and there wasn’t much pigtail-pulling anymore. It was a little weird – it changed the tenor of my frequent appearances at the Valencia home a little – but I liked it. Shani was smart, funny, and pretty. It would have taken an unjustifiable effort not to like her.

At the start of rehearsals, everyone was asked to bring in Charlie Brown collections. The strips were collected together in book form for years, and we each had a couple. Since so much of the existing script was culled from Peanuts comic strips anyway, it was natural to go right back to them for new stuff for Sally, Violet, Marcy, and Pig Pen. The show would go on around Halloween, so we incorporated some Linus/Sally Great Pumpkin material. We posited that the Peanuts gang’s school had a glee club, so we worked in a medley of “pumpkin carols” that featured the whole expanded cast. There was an exciting sense of ownership that came with all of this; we were helping shape the show, just like real actors on Broadway did with a brand-new show. I don’t remember what, if any, lines or bits of business were given to Pig Pen other than a few lines of some of the songs. I couldn’t have cared less. I was in the cast with these people who, despite our often immature interactions, understood and respected one another on that show-people level at least. And, if I’m honest, there was just the pride of having made it into the club, however nearly I missed induction.

If you’ve never seen it, “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown” carries forward the gentle humor, wry wit, and wistfulness of Charles Schulz’ comics even better than the animated TV specials do. The show is a string of loosely-connected vignettes with no plot or through-story, much like the comic strips themselves. If there’s a central theme, it’s the small daily struggles of the human heart. Schulz, who battled depression his entire life, found poetry and humor in dysfunctional friendships (Charlie Brown and Lucy), co-dependent and mutually-enabling friendships (Patty and Marcy) nerdhood (Linus, Schroeder), megalomania and delusional behavior (Snoopy), hopelessly unrequited “love” (Sally and Linus), and we see all of it in ourselves. The brilliant songs are funny, poignant, entertaining, and ambitious. Unless you’re a hardened cynic – or the company was really bad – it’s pretty hard to walk out of any performance of the show anywhere without feeling a bit lifted.

The big-cast musical (Big Rock Candy Mountain? Teddy Bears and Baby Dolls? Who cared?) was also in rehearsals at the same time and the stage was taken up with set construction, so we staged Charlie Brown in the round on the floor of the auditorium. Choreographer Judi Jones, Roberta’s eldest daughter, taught us all about the stagecraft of working in the round – one memorable term was “vomitories,” the aisles that led from the round “stage” to areas out of sight to the audience. There was a learning curve in getting used to working to an audience that was going to completely surround us. Where are stage right and left if the audience is everywhere? Does it depend on which direction you’re facing? What’s upstage and what’s downstage? We used both clock and compass metaphors to describe stage positions. Choreography was sometimes a bit difficult to wrap our heads around, and watching other performers for cues was occasionally impossible because Judi had staged us in “freeze frame” at moments here and there to eliminate a bunch of needless and distracting entrances and exits. We learned and grew together, and because we were so few, we were close. With that came all the social intrigue typical of teens. We could knife each other with one breath and be encouraging and supportive with the next. We did plenty of both. I got teased (and advised) a lot about my going-nowhere crush on Julie. Kevin, who had brown hair, got it for using a product called Sun-in to achieve blonditude, but the stuff mostly just turned his hair a weird, unflattering orange color. Mike and Anna probably got teased about whether or not they were a couple. Shani and Kevin needled each other unceasingly; got under each other’s skin, into each other’s heads. Really gave each other the business, pretty much all the time. Anytime any of us messed up something, it became the subject of whispering by anyone who was momentarily sidelined while other actors were running through their bits. Most of it was different modes of he-said-she-said. There were no smartphones, iPods, portable video games, and the like to distract and isolate us from each other. (On the flip side, we weren’t sexting or widening the gossip circle via Twitter and Facebook, nor did we have earphones stuffed in our ears.) Downtime wasn’t plentiful but it afforded us the opportunity to spend and kill time in pairs and threes. Socially-destructive behavior was inevitable, but so was bonding.

Opening night arrived. Philip as Snoopy was brilliant, eventually earning cheers and standing ovations throughout the run. He had to sing higher, dance more energetically, and do more scenery-chewing than any of us. And he had to do it in a slightly awkward dog costume that was more like an oversized set of footie pajamas. It may have been made from exactly that, now that I think about it.

If Snoopy carried the show from a comic standpoint (he did get most of the laughs), Kevin’s Charlie Brown carried the emotional center of the show. Kev rode Chuck’s emotional rollercoaster well enough to sweep the audience up with him. This at age 14 or 15. He brought the character’s tragicomic qualities to life with exactly the right balance of pathos and comedy; crippling self-doubt, manufactured optimism, sincere but ineffective attempts at leadership. His portrayal of Charlie Brown’s quixotic relationship with his kite in “The Kite” was hilarious.

Mike’s Linus gave a tour-de-force performance of “My Blanket and Me,” a dance number with the ever-present blanket as his partner. And his pressure-induced loss of composure in “The Book Report,” where he frantically put forth a psychological profile of Peter Rabbit characters, was particularly funny. Julie’s Sally was inescapably sunny and adorable, Larry’s Schroeder was entertainingly annoyed by all things Lucy, and Shani’s Lucy was suitably imperious, condescending, and know-it-all. I remember nothing about Anna’s, RoiAnn’s, Amy’s, or my own performances.

The experience was one of few high-watermark experiences of my youth. Cathartic considering how it had begun, it was a chapter that made a huge impression on me; just thinking of these people still brings fond feelings that are stronger than I can explain. We were war buddies, as much as kids that age can be.

Now, finally, here’s the specific memory that began the unpacking of all the rest of it:

Inevitably, closing night snuck up on us. In fact I think it was a matinée. Mackie, knowing all of us pretty well by this stage, was naturally aware of both how much we all cared for each other and our inability to express it in any mature way. She sensed the gathering storm of emotion in the dressing rooms. We were all going to be devastated by having reached the end of the line. Acknowledging our rising dread of the end and the emotion we were already showing, she sternly cautioned us to stay in character. It was the highest expectation: we were professionals. Children in the audience would be confused and upset if we broke character and let our emotion show. Yet there was something perhaps too sincere about her admonition. Adding a layer of potential challenge to our composure, the show’s closing number is a little gem of a feel-good tearjerker (“Happiness”) about uncomplicated, childlike friendship and simple joys. Even trickier, the number ended with a scripted group hug, all of us smiling at one another. It was so sweet that a warning in the program for diabetics might not have been amiss.

We gave a great show. A go-for-broke spirit took hold of us. We reached the closing number. We hit our marks. We sang our parts. We smiled. We were professionals. Until. Was that someone’s voice breaking? I was turned the opposite direction in a freeze-frame, having just sung my line: “Happiness is playing the drum in your own school band. . .” the light on me was extinguished and I moved to my next mark. Was that someone else’s voice breaking, or the same voice? Why can’t I tell who it is? We coalesced the big circle, everyone raised their arms to one another’s shoulders slowly, in unison, and, as choreographed . . . hugged.

And there it was. One big tear trickling cinematically down Shani’s cheek. We all must have seen it at about the same time as we sang the last line together: “Happiness is anyone, and anything at all, that’s loved by you.” Now, not to get too musical, but this needs to be known: the score called for the cast to harmonize the entire line, with the lushest harmony coming on the word “loved,” but “you” was sung as a unison, everyone singing the same note. A charming bit of symbolism in the vocal arrangement. In my memory, we sounded lovelier in that moment than we ever had before. We had stopped thinking about notes and tone and blend and we just . . . felt it. Then our collective dam broke; the finality of the moment crashed down on us. Within seconds we were all trying like hell to stifle the sobs that were now coming; it was way too late to stop the tears. I spotted Judi down one of the vomitories holding her hands to her mouth, her eyes shining, blinking back her own tears with some effort. The orchestra played the coda, and the audience applauded. Exit cast.

But it wasn’t the end. Shani and Kevin then had to get thru the show’s little tag, where the tender heart of the show really lives. It’s a moment with Lucy and Charlie Brown in a tight pool of light at center stage, where she starts to leave but turns to Charlie Brown, offers a handshake, and says, “You’re a good man, Charlie Brown,” firmly but almost as if she’s made a slightly startling discovery. It’s a touching moment, even on the page – Chuck’s biggest critic and tormentor, the one who’s always calling him a blockhead and broadcasting his every folly and failure, validates him in spite of herself.

She’s saying, in her own prickly way, “I love you.”

But Shani was frozen. And Kevin was turning purple trying to hold himself together. (Against his orange hair it was quite a sight.)

A pause followed that seemed several minutes long, the two of them looking at each other across three feet of empty space. Shani and Kevin were living the moment written in the script even as they acted it out. And waiting was not helping them compose themselves. Silence hung tensely in the air. We probably all prayed for someone to do something. Shani couldn’t have forgotten her line, could she?

Finally, she just threw herself at Kevin, burying her face in his chest in a genuine embrace of friendship and love.

Blackout. Cue orchestra.

I think we just barely pulled ourselves together for the bows and curtain call, but once offstage for the final time, we broke into twos and threes of hugging, sobbing, and now embarrassedly giggling kids. Having been so unguarded with one another was an aberration. We tried to pretend we were cool. Mackie came backstage for the usual director’s comments, congratulations, and critique. She said she was disappointed that we broke character, but her voice was ever-so-slightly unsteady, and there was something else just under the surface, too. Had she been touched by what happened?

Drained, we trooped back to the dressing rooms to wipe off our stage makeup, change out of our costumes, gather our stuff. We said our goodbyes and see-you-at-schools. Mackie gave us each a hug, saying, “I don’t wanna cry. I don’t wanna cry.” RoiAnn approached Kathy, saying playfully thru the remnants of her tears, “I can’t let you leave without giving you one of these stupid things,” as she pulled Kathy into a hug. We left the auditorium, climbing into our moms’ cars.

I always hated leaving the theatre after the close of a show, but I always hoped for a moment alone to look back one last time at the empty stage, “where the magic took place,” as over-dramatic and mawkish as that is. There were no standing sets waiting to be struck, and the chairs had already been cleared, so all there was to see was Snoopy’s doghouse in the empty auditorium, now lit by clinical fluorescent light. Almost like it had never happened. But there had most certainly been magic, of a sort: Some talented but otherwise ordinary kids forgot to play their social games for a moment and got very real with one another in the closing number of a musical. A song, appropriately enough, about love and friendship.

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Thanks to Julie (Crader) Beebe, Mike Borgstrom, Kevin Cornelius, and Shani (Valencia) Verdon for sharing their recollections, clarifications, and illuminations. And for their friendship, especially then. (Extra special thanks to Shani for revealing to me that she did the "ugly cry" when she read the end.)