Celebrity

My friend Lucy comments that the big stars have management and lackeys who carry their stuff around and arrange all the bookings.  Yeah, one of the sayings in the band (and probably other bands) was “you know you’ve made it when someone else is carrying your stuff”.

Thumper writes, “You know I love you for more than just your pretty face.”  Thumper, of course, being her code name.  She didn’t want to be identified by her real name in the blog so I said, “If it comes up, what shall I call you..?”  She laughed and didn’t come up with anything so I said I’d call her Thumper.  She said, “Nooo, don’t call me Thumper..”  So of course I’m calling her Thumper.

Lynn says she totally gets the pretty thing.  Knew she would.

Plus a few more.  Me like comments.  Me invites more comments.  Me say pretty please.

There’s a story about Carol Burnett.. I’m pretty sure it’s Carol Burnett.. Anyway, it’s about when she won one of her Emmys.  It was everything we’ve seen on TV – she’s in the audience and they announce the nominees, and then they announce that she’s the winner!  Everyone is very happy and she goes to the stage and accepts the award and gives a very funny and loving speech to wild applause.  Some days later she’s interviewed and is asked what she did after the award show.  The interviewer asked if  she’d gone out and celebrated in some way, maybe gone to dinner with a bunch of friends or to a party.  Her answer was, “Oh no, I went home and did a load of laundry.”

Laundry.

The hardest part about celebrity, the part that for me explains all the stories about the drugs and alcohol and the fights and the sleeping around and the trashed hotel rooms, is this:  the hours between the end of one gig and the beginning of the next one.  When you’re up on stage you are the coolest thing going.  You’re doing something that everyone wishes they could do.  When you do it well and it’s a good show you have everyone’s attention.  All eyes are on you.  You feed off the energy of the crowd like it’s ambrosia and you give it back tenfold.  It propels you to that next high note, that even better solo, that fantastic performance.  At the end of that good night, that great show, you feel like you’ve just hit 100 home runs in a row.  The adrenaline has been pumping so hard that you don’t even feel whatever alcohol you’ve been drinking, if you’ve even had time to drink on a night like that.  The tip jar is stuffed with cash, people are jamming the stage, you hear, “Man, you guys are AWESOME!!” again and again, and you are so pumped, so psyched by the night and you’re having a blast rehashing it with your band-mates as you tear down the equipment to pack up.  On nights like this there are some in the crowd who linger, watching the band tear down, listening to the banter and comments between band-mates, maybe drinking a last shot for the night with them and offering to help (help!) load out.  On nights like this you’ve made it, you’re a star.

But the bartender called last call about 45 minutes ago and the lights are going out and he or she and the wait-staff are waiting for you to get the hell out so they can close up for the night and go home.  It’s been one of the best nights of your freakin’ life, but for them it’s just another night of chairs to put on tables, floors to mop, broken glass to sweep up, spilled beer and alcohol to wipe down, and they want you, the band, just another bar-band to them, the hell out of the way.  So you and your mates and all of your collective afterglow spill out into the parking lot with your gear and guitars, laughing and throwing the big stuff into the trailer and your own stuff into your car to take home to restring or fix up later, to be ready for the next gig at the next club.  And it’s time to say good night.

And then it’s just me.  In my car driving home at 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning.  My ears are still ringing from the echo of loud music and cheers and applause all night but now the streets, the freeway, they’re all empty except for the odd car here and there, and me.  It’s middle-of-the-night dark, three a.m. dark, and the streetlights have that hazy glow to them and it’s just me in my car.  I turn on the radio and flip through channels but nothing suits.  I’ve got a 20 minute (45 minute, 90 minute) drive home to a dark house, dark apartment, dark wherever I’m living.  My girlfriend’s asleep or the place is empty, no one’s waiting up to hear about this fantastic night.  So it’s just me.  I park and gather my guitars and other stuff and bring them into the house as quietly as I can.  I’m still wide awake.  The adrenaline is dissipating, but I’m still awake and a bit hungry, and the house is silent around me.  And it’s just me.

The next day I wake late, alone.  Either I live alone or my girlfriend’s already gone to work.  And it’s just another day, and I’m just another chick at home making coffee and staring at that load of laundry.

Even as a bar-band in Denver, Colorado, this is the way it can be.  Plus, on those late mornings when you’re waking up and waiting for the coffee to finish brewing you’re turning on the TV and flipping through the channels (there were fewer then) and you see the latest star in his/her video singing his/her latest hit.. and it’s the dumbest, worst written piece of crap song in the world, and the video is even worse and you can’t help but wonder why the hell aren’t you famous?  Why?  How can that ridiculous person have a hit, a music video, and you’re playing bars in Denver, Colorado?  Don’t they know how fantastic you were last night?  Don’t they know how many people screamed your name last night?  Don’t they know how freakin’ gooood you are??

… and the next night you’re setting up to play a wedding somewhere for people who’ve never heard of you and could care less and all they want to hear is the Beatles.

So I understand the drugs and the serial relationships and the alcohol.  I am very very fortunate that A) my drug and alcohol days were behind me when I started playing rock and roll music professionally and, B) I’m just not a cheating around kinda gal.  There were nights I really wished I were, and I had plenty of opportunity but, alas, I’m just not.

These days we play once a month at a club called Q’s Pub down here in Ken Caryl where we live.  It’s a decent place to play as clubs go but not all that exciting really – that kind of club isn’t such a thrill anymore.  However, the last gig there a few weeks ago was actually one of those stellar magic nights when everything clicked and the crowd stayed till the end and we rocked the house.  It felt really good and we were all happy and I got a taste of what it used to be like…  then, of course, I woke up the next morning with my daughter wanting breakfast and Valerie waiting around for me to get up so she could get to work and, if memory serves, I think her parting words as she headed down to the basement were, “Oh, and honey I’m out of clean underwear..”

Sigh.  Yes, dear.

And The Band Played On..

Dennis got good at translating for me.  As I said, I didn’t read music and I only knew a few real musical terms (transpose, key, chord, note, etc.) so it would be difficult sometimes to describe to my bass player or drummer how I wanted them to play a certain part of a given song.  My musical direction might sound something like this:

“Ok, good!  But on that part just before this last part?  Yeah, I’d like it if we could put more bluesy oomph into it, like when you play the G… oh wait, I’m capoed up so I don’t know what note it really is, but on that part just before that last part I’m playing like this (strum strum strum) and I want you under it with this sort of wacka-wacka bum bum ba dum BOOM, when I’m singing the last part of the verse before that…”

They’d really try to listen and decipher the Paula-speak, but I mostly just got blank looks.  They learned to wait till I was finished and then turn to Dennis for translation, and he’d speak musician to them.  Then it was, “Oh!  That’s what she said?  Ok, I can do that..”  They got that I didn’t know how to say it, but I usually knew what I was talking about.

I’ve learned a lot over the years from listening to Dennis translate for me.  Also from watching him play.  I’m a much better guitar player from watching him play.  And he never saw any limit to what I could do.  Still doesn’t.

I was absolutely over-the-top thrilled beyond all description that I was in an actual rock and roll band.  With my name on it!  Hee!  We formed the band sometime late in 1991 and kept it going until just after the new year in 1997.  We played every bar and casino that was worth playing (and some that weren’t) in Colorado and beyond.   Beyond being, like, South Dakota’s Deadwood Casinos and, say, some little club in El Paso, Texas.  And up in Wyoming once in awhile, but we didn’t do too well up there.

It’s everything you imagine, being in a rock and roll band.  It’s fantastic being onstage in some club somewhere with a guitar in your hand, playing music you love and have always wanted to play for people who are eating it up and telling you how wonderful you are.  Your hair is long and you wear cool cheap clothes and bangly bling (although we didn’t call it that) and you stay up late and you’re drinking this and that (hardly ever paying) and you’re yucking it up with anyone and everyone around you.

You’re also schlepping all your gear in and out of clubs yourself.  You love the gigs that are several nights in a row so you’re not setting up and tearing down all on the same night.  If you’re lucky, the “stage” is close to the door you load into, or maybe there’s a service elevator.  If not, you’re lugging your gear up stairs and down long halls, through skinny doors and, usually, through a crowd of people perfectly content to watch you sweat and swear under your 75 to 100lb burden and barely deigning to move out of the way so you can get where you’re going and set up on time.  More than half of the shows are played to a crowd that is blind drunk and hardly paying attention, but still yell at you how great you are while they spill their drinks on you and breathe beer in your face.  And don’t even get me started about the bar fights… Or, the place is stone empty, not a soul around, but you’re still expected to play the full night because that’s what you’re getting paid for.  You’re exhausted after 3 to 5 nights in a row playing from 9:00pm to 2:30am, but you still have to tear down, pack up and load into the trailer, drive to wherever you rehearse, load it all in and set up.  If you’re brain is still functioning you might be able to learn a new tune or two for the next gig but more often than not you take the day and sleep so you can be ready for the next club the next night.  And you start all over again.

The only difference for me, if there was a difference (and how would I know?) was that I was a gay singer playing in a lot of gay clubs along with all the usual straight ones that had live music.  The gay community is very, very supportive of our own.  I imagine that’s because there is such a history of discrimination and condemnation from the rest of society.  At any rate, I was adopted by the Denver gay community as their very own and lots and lots of fans followed the band around everywhere we played.  It was very heady stuff to be that adored and followed by so many people.  Reporters for the various gay publications would call for interviews, people would ask me to pose for pictures with them and I signed lots and lots of autographs.  I remember going to an Indigo Girls concert at Red Rocks Amphitheater with my then girlfriend and being recognized and signing autographs there.  At a CU women’s basketball game I signed some.  Most anywhere I went where there might be a gay presence I would be recognized.  I was quite the celebrity in the Denver gay community.  And in so many ways for a long while it was very very fun.

We worked so many nights and different clubs that everything became a blur.  The people in the audience who used to be sort of quirky and amusing became mildly annoying.. then very annoying.  The women (and some men) who would come right up to me in the middle of a song, while I was singing, and try to talk to me.  The drunken passes.  The endless amount of alcohol being sent to the stage.  The fans who would follow me into the bathroom talking, talking, talking..  And the invitations to parties (bring your guitar! bring Dennis!) with people I didn’t know from Adam, and didn’t want to know, and who would become deeply offended when I would politely decline their offer to buy me yet another drink…

I even had a couple of stalkers.  They didn’t last as long with me as you read about with the big stars, but it was certainly unsettling.

And the days when you’re not feeling so hot and you’re tired and you just don’t feel like smiling, or maybe you’re just in a crap mood, well, there’s no room for that.  You’ve got to smile and talk to bar owners (they write the paycheck!) and you’ve got to smile and talk to the fans.  We were performing so much, so many days in a row that there just wasn’t any room for me, the real me.  Just plain Paula.  The Paula Westerfield machine had to stay greased and oiled for everything to run smoothly, for people to stay interested.  I had to be “on” every night, I had to be in character, I had to belt out every song with everything I had because that’s what they’d come to expect.  Anything less didn’t get the job done, anything less didn’t pull the people in.  It was exhausting, and I knew I couldn’t keep it up forever, much as I wanted to.  In the band’s last year I would be wiped out on the sofa during the days, resting as much as possible, then pulling myself together in the afternoons to get ready for the nights.  I don’t think we added one new song the last 6 months we played.  I just didn’t have it.

Dennis and I have both admitted that we never did as much as we could have to promote ourselves and attempt to become a national act.  We never went to LA, we never went to Nashville.. heck, we never went to Austin.  We would toy with those ideas, but there was always some reason sufficient to keep us in Denver, or at least Colorado.  Certainly my health was a good reason.  But that aside, I am SO glad we’re not famous.  I don’t know how those guys do it.

Anyway… what was I saying?

So after awhile Dennis started chafing at the duo thing. We were gigging all the time and making decent money and all, but he missed paying with actual live musicians. (I used to make jokes from stage for how people could pretend there were more of us up there, since it sounded like a full band. Like putting their finger in one eye and applying just a bit of pressure would make that eye see double… or, y’know, drink more..) I was anxious at the idea of a full band because one, I’d never played in a real band and two, I was intimidated by actual musicians because I didn’t consider myself one. I didn’t have the discipline as a child to stick with piano lessons, mostly because I was capable of playing piano by ear and my teacher wanted me to practice scales, gak. And I’d never really learned to read sheet music below the treble clef, and then only one note at a time, in the choruses I sang in. I pretty much taught myself how to play guitar by just listening to songs and playing and playing and playing. So I had the idea that “real” musicians, professional players, would quickly discover that I was a rank amateur and.. I dunno.. point and laugh or something. Then Dennis would realize he’d been wasting his time with me and off he’d go with those guys and they’d all become famous somewhere and here I’d be, a single act once more, in your local Holiday Inn lounge.

The horror.

Plus, to that point the compliments I’d get were about my singing, not my playing. Hardly ever my playing. Also, people would assume that Dennis had done all the background tracks we played in front of. So I made it a policy to make an announcement from the stage every night of how our show was produced; I sequenced all the instrumental and drum tracks, I sang all the background vocals, and Dennis and I stood in front with our guitars and played and sang the rest. I’d make that announcement and people would ignore it, and invariably on a break between sets some guy would come up and compliment Dennis on how good the background tracks sounded. He’d say, “Thanks, Paula does all that.” And the guy’d look over at me in surprise and say, “Really?!”

Yes, really, you chauvinist asshole. And the chauvinist asshole would try to recover by flirting with me. Because THAT would fix it.

And finally, I had an experience, pre-Dennis, when I was up in British Columbia playing in clubs up there for awhile. I had an agent in Vancouver who would book me all across lower British Columbia. She was good at what she did and kept me real busy for awhile. One day I was in Vancouver to bring her her 15% and pick up my schedule for the next few weeks and as I approached her office I heard her on the phone presumably talking to a club owner about an act she wanted to book there. She went on to say, “..Oh yes, you’ll really love her. Her name is Paula Westerfield and she’s very pretty. (pause) Oh yes, she’s very pretty, you’re clientele will love her. (pause) You’ll know as soon as she walks in that she’s your girl..” They talked for another few minutes while I listened in the hall about how much the fee was and what dates I’d be there. Nothing was said about what kind of music I played or what instruments or anything. She booked me totally on my looks. I walked into her office at the very end of this conversation and she beamed at me as though she’d paid me the highest compliment there was. I smiled back.

I don’t know how many of you will understand this, but I found that devastating. I had worked very, very hard on my music. I was determined that all the recordings (on equipment I had no idea how to operate but learned the hard way) of bass, drums, and whatever other instruments involved be very professional and authentic sounding. I would spend days on each individual song making sure every track resonated with some of that “live” feel. And I’d sing the vocals over and over until the levels were perfect for the background. And I’d practice practice practice, over and over and over again on piano and guitar until I could play and sing everything without having to look at my fingers or miss a chord, and knew it all by heart. I wanted to present as a professional musician, not as a Barbie doll chick singer. I wanted that respect.

Of course as a woman I wanted to look good. I knew I was pretty; it’s not like I took pains to look my worst. But looking good is something you don’t earn. Or as least I didn’t. I looked good. I was pretty and I didn’t have to work hard at that. To have that be what she was selling, rather than the music I was making, made me feel hollow. I wanted to be “a multi-instrumentalist/vocalist”. She sold me as “pretty”.

I’m trying to distill it down and what I come up with is this: anyone can take a shower, dry their hair and put on makeup. You either look good after that or you don’t. But not just anyone can play several different instruments to tape and then stand up and hit all the notes spot on. That I looked good while doing it, to me, was gravy. Not the selling point.

Anyhoo, all these things made it difficult for me to get used to playing in a band, much less being the band leader. But it was The Paula Westerfield Band. I WAS the leader. So I had to jump in and do it. Rock and roll (or any genre, probably) is a boys club and the guys did initially want to look to Dennis for direction. They wanted to pat me on the head or flirt with me and treat me like any other chick singer.

They quickly learned better.