Smokey Joe’s Café is the Broadway show featuring Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller’s great catalogue of songs. I play “the white guy” in the cast of brilliant, multitalented freaks of nature that seem to inhabit every nook and cranny of Broadway. I sing and dance (yep, dance) my way through songs like “Jailhouse Rock” and “Stand by Me.” “Spanish Harlem” almost gives me a heart attack on the second night of the run.
It’s my solo on a classical guitar—and there are no fret markers on this type of instrument. Us boys raised on RedFenderStrats aren’t used to this, and we need guides for our nimble fingers, so I put little marker dots on the top of the neck where the usual fret markers are. In the middle of the song, in front of a packed house, I pick up the guitar for the solo and see that some overzealous stagehand has cleaned the freaking guitar and wiped off my marker dots. I don’t know where to put my fingers. Holy shit! I have to think fast: so I close my eyes, tell myself I don’t need bloody dots, I relax—and I play the solo without a mistake. It’s a very real example to me of what letting go and trusting can achieve.
Barbara and our boys join me in New York for a week or two, and I’m happy as any singing, dancing fool could be. B does laugh herself sick at my dancing, though: it’s a fair cop.
My album Karma does okay, but the company goes under in the middle of the launch … again. Is this 1978? After my stint in Smokey Joe’s comes to an end, I go back on the road and continue touring. Then, Vegas picks up the golden telephone once more, and this time, they make me an offer I can’t refuse. And for a guy like me, with my sexual issues, what better place to go than Sin City?
Whooooo-hoooooo!
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
HOW BAD COULD IT BE?
PRETTY FUCKING BAD, ACTUALLY
LAS VEGAS
2000–2002
There are still some details of the Las Vegas deal to be hashed out, so I sign on for a two-episode arc in Suddenly Susan, the Brooke Shields sitcom that is a big hit at the moment. We shoot in LA and I meet a young and gifted comedic actor named David Strickland, who’s a regular on the show. The last scene we film at the end of my second episode is an ad-libbed thing where I play the guitar and David goofily rocks out. Then everyone breaks and goes home for the weekend. Except David. He drives to Las Vegas, books into a motel room off the Strip, and quietly hangs himself, miles from anyone who cares or could help.
His personal Darkness wins one for the “team,” and it’s a sad mnemonic of what could still be my possible end. It also reminds me that while Vegas is a town of hyped high times, it’s also a town of less-touted lows—a haven for more depraved instincts that can bring on our Darkness. I will soon be residing in this asylum by choice, this place that draws desperate souls like bugs to a zapper. Am I one of them? I become a little afraid. My Mr. Darkness, however, is ecstatic. He’s confident that I’ll buy into the whole “What happens in Vegas” mentality, and he’s pretty sure he can get me to crash and burn for him out there.
Barbara and I have some heart-to-hearts and finally decide that since the Vegas gig is only for a year, we won’t drag our boys out of their school and drop them into some Nevada desert academy only to pull them out again in a few months to come back home to Malibu. I’ll go to Vegas alone and commute. The plane flight is only twenty-five minutes from Vegas to LA, and I’ll spend three days of every week here at home. What could go wrong? Really? I mean, hey, c’mon. Don’t assume that because I’ve gone through years of therapy and have come to some understanding regarding my straying ways, I’m no longer capable of tripping over my dick and seriously screwing up? (You don’t? Oh, okay, thanks for the support.) But my intentions are good, and I continue to thank the gods a thousand times for B, this amazing woman who has graciously agreed to accompany me through life and has stuck by me in good times and in bad.
The internet has arrived, and I have an active website as well as a fan base that is a growing online presence. “Reach out and touch someone” may have been a line used to plug a phone company, but it is waaay truer of the World Wide Web. I’m evidently easier to track down than ever. And so I’m contacted via the ether by a few enterprising girls, one of whom I knew (in the biblical sense) back in the ’80s. She starts sending some fairly sexually explicit e-mails my way. There is nothing physical between this girl and me anymore, but I can appreciate that there are degrees of unfaithfulness. One is virtual.
For weeks, Barbara and I have been edgy around each other, courtesy of the looming Las Vegas gig. One afternoon all the smoldering mistrust (hers) and wounded resentment (mine) come to a head, just as I’m reading one of the e-mails from my freaky online girlfriend. An epic argument ensues, spiked by the powder keg of all the unspoken pain and resentment and lit by the fuse of this e-mail that I shouldn’t be opening, much less reading. The fight is not pleasant and is entirely my fault. No one hits anyone, but there are flying objets d’art here and there, and our furious, screaming argument pushes a well-meaning visiting relative who overhears it to call 911. Things get quickly out of hand, and before you know it there’s a cop car outside our house and, like my Australian convict forefathers before me, I am slapped in irons and taken away.
I will tell you everything about myself, but I draw the line where protecting my girl’s privacy is concerned, so imagine what you will: it’s probably way better than the real thing anyway. I’m taken to jail, booked, fingerprinted, and stuck in a cell. The cops who take me in do mention that I can “thank O.J. for this.” Evidently the post-O.J. rule is that if a report of domestic violence is made, someone is going to the pokey.
Around the same time that I’m sitting my arrested ass down in a cold cell, across town in a pretty swanky restaurant, the good folks from the MGM Grand Hotel are waiting for me to show up to discuss the final points of our contract regarding yours convictedly starring in their multimillion-dollar show, EFX. I would love to have seen the looks on their faces as someone stepped up to inform them that their guest of honor for this evening was, at this very moment, sitting in a holding cell at the local lockup with fifty of the most discerning members of the press lined up outside, ready to froth over and film the latest celebrity fuckup. It had to be a killer moment.
No felony charges are filed against me for spousal abuse, but they say I have to go to counseling for my temper. I take it up the ass and sign on for the counseling. Everyone loves a train wreck, and the only thing better than watching someone succeed is watching them fail. And what a pity I don’t have a new album out now, because the press coverage is excellent. There are helicopters buzzing over our cute little canyon home, and my young boys are afraid to go out and jump on the trampoline because of them. The ground-based press is also relentless: at my door, at my neighbors’ doors, and taking photos through the windows of our house to see if they can catch me in the act of beating my beloved wife to death with O.J.’s bloody glove. I think back to when I first came to the States and actually believed that the press was here to respectfully and earnestly help me further my career. Guess I’d been wrong about that too. Hahahahahahahahahahaha.
Eventually someone kills someone else by forcing them to choke on the Hope Diamond or something, and the fresh blood lures the vultures away. Our boys can again go and bounce on their beloved trampoline. And all those press ass wipes can suck my dick.
I do have some penance to do, however, and I swear off the unfaithful e-mails. And it sticks. I’m also inspired to back off drinking, since the whole argument was, of course, alcohol-fueled, so the bust isn’t a total loss. I have truly put my wife through hell in my time, and I am again thankful for what an amazing person she is. I’m also trying to figure out what I did that was so great in a previous life to have found her in this one. At this point we’ve lived in Malibu for fifteen years, and 95 percent of the couples we met when we first arrived have split up. Most of them seem even less happy now. There is something to be said for swimming across the river of shit in a marriage hand in hand, so that when you get to the other
side, you have someone to hose you off and together you can enjoy the last rays of the setting sun.
I get ready to go back out on the road. Then Las Vegas calls again to say that all is forgiven and would I like that job after all? Barbara and I talk it over and she says to go for it, and I do. With misgivings. So in Las Vegas, Sin City, the only town that really never sleeps, I go into rehearsals for the “big shew.”
I am ensconced in one of the high-roller penthouses at the top of the MGM. It has a winding staircase that Scarlett O’Hara would feel at home on, a butler, a private elevator, three huge bedroom suites, a mammoth wall of fifty-foot floor-to-ceiling windows providing a view of the million and one lights of the Las Vegas strip, a free Apple computer, and Carrot Top living two doors down. We go into rehearsals with EFX, and I quickly realize what a giant monster it is—one we need to get on its feet in a month and a half. It’s exhilarating to be part of a leviathan enterprise like this: so much bigger than the biggest traveling concert tour I’d ever been on, and the people are all talented, the food is great, the work is challenging, the location is exciting and has undeniable electric energy, the money is good, the songs I write work well in the new show, the stage sets are staggering, and, yes … the girls in the show are all pretty smokin’.
I am excited and full of trepidation at the same time. My family comes and goes, and Barbara loves the seemingly thousands of world-class restaurants in Vegas. Josh digs it all, too, and will soon be my regular companion up here once the show begins its run. Only Liam doesn’t have much time for the place. He does like the video arcade that’s the size of a three-story Wal-Mart, however.
I immediately figure out that the only way to make money in Las Vegas is to work here. I stay clear of the gambling halls. It’s enough that I’m potentially gambling with my sanity, my marriage, and my life up here.
The show opens, and the audience and press alike seem unanimous in their verdict that it’s the best incarnation of EFX yet. I’m excited to be a part of such a dynamic spectacle. Having been locked up inside the MGM for three months now, I need to get out and feel some fresh air on my face, so I move from the hotel into a large house on the golf course of a private gated community off Tropicana Boulevard. The area, called Spanish Trails, also houses Las Vegas luminaries like Siegfried of Siegfried and Roy, Andre Agassi of Andre and Brooke, and some oil-rich Arabian dude who built a giant house here and then imported all his furniture from the homeland only to find that the couches and cushions contained large communities of rats, which, given the ample food supply in Las Vegas, went into reproductive overdrive and took over his house. He shut the place down, never having lived amidst its gold-plated sinks, solid gold toilets, and acres of expensive marble, and took a permanent hike. Oh, and thanks for the addition to the rat population, putz.
Once I move into the house, I start bringing Gomer up with me. I can’t fly him, so he has his own car and driver to take him back and forth from LA to Vegas every week. Clearly I’m getting into the Vegas spirit of goofy excess, but I love my dog and he’s more than worth it. He comes to all the shows and hangs out in the dressing rooms and workout areas, walking from dancer to dancer before the show, to get his scratches, pets, and massages. Dogs are good for everyone’s spirit.
Josh flies up with me and stays for a week at a time, school permitting. We are supertight until he meets Kris, the boy who plays young King Arthur in EFX. They discover a mutual love of video games and it’s hasta la vista, Dad. They are friends to this day.
I also bring my recording equipment to Vegas and set it all up in the living room of this big empty house. EFX is basically an evening gig, so I have plenty of free time before and after the show and I’m determined not to misuse it. I’ll make this time count: I will write songs. So I sit in my large and lonely house, ten minutes from the Strip, and wait for inspiration to come. The first year ticks by and the show is running like clockwork. I wake up at midday, get breakfast, and eat outside in the sunshine while Gomer sniffs around the pool area where the squirrels have left their annoying, dog-baiting stink. We take a walk, and then I noodle on the guitar and keyboards for a while. At around five I have a shower and get ready for the show. I have a light dinner, work out for a half hour, then hit the stage.
The show is a freaking spectacular that is a roller-coaster ride from the word Go. The $60 million spent on production, effects, lighting, stage sets, animatronics, sound systems, computers, costumes, and talent is evident from start to finish. We all take our bows amid exploding air cannons and a rain of confetti and streamers, then Gomer and I head back home, where I sit and noodle some more on my guitar and keyboards before going to bed. Everything is just fucking super, thanks for asking, but I’m in a bubble and experiencing nothing. Where is inspiration for writing to come from if everything is just peachy? I can’t write when I’m on this fat and happy, contented, regimented schedule. I worry again that maybe some of my best songs have come from hard times and struggle. And Darkness.
Barbara and I are in stasis while we wait out the year that this show has to run. It’s more difficult than we thought it would be, and we aren’t seeing each other enough to work through the issues, so instead we go into a holding pattern. I haven’t been drinking at all while I’m here in Vegas and I work out every day at EFX’s gym, so I have never been in better physical shape. I’m pleased to have avoided the obvious philandering, but I am stuck again with my writing and don’t know what to do about that. I feel like things need to be shaken up. Even the mood of the whole country is all “Happy days are here again,” with the stock market flying, real estate booming, people working, spending, and traveling, and not a lot of drama for us here on the home front. Then someone decides to change the game.
Marni O’Doherty is an investment banker in New York City. She’s a smart and funny thirty-one-year-old with a successful career and a loving husband. She is also an RS fan. On a Tuesday morning like any other, she’s at work in her office building in Manhattan and takes a moment to post a comment on a Yahoo! Rick Springfield message board. It’s the last anyone will ever hear from her. A few minutes later, 300 tons of commercial aircraft plows through her office window overlooking Manhattan, and 9/11 has begun.
I’m sleeping in our home in Malibu when Barbara wakes me up crying to tell me that terrorists have just flown planes into the World Trade Center. Our complacency vanishes. We walk out into the morning and feel an eerie silence from the skies. No planes are flying. Everyone is wandering around in shock. I drive to the store. It all feels completely surreal. Like a dream. I call Las Vegas to find out what’s going on with EFX, and even Vegas has come to a standstill—there are no shows tonight. Planes are grounded for days while America tries to get a handle on the threat, but life must go on, and MGM is saying it wants to start running the show again starting Wednesday, so I drive back up to Vegas. Being so far away from my family at such an uncertain time is unnerving for us all, but I am my father’s son and I must not shirk my responsibilities.
The first show, the night following the attacks, is the toughest performance I have ever been involved in. There is a weight hanging over the room that we can’t lift no matter how hard we dance, sing, joke. We do drop a huge U.S. flag at the end of the show, which is a way of sharing the grief, and I have a guitar made with the stars and stripes across its body, but the flag waving is short-lived, and the pain and loss that we all feel are laid bare. Traveling suddenly feels much more dangerous, flights are cut, the economy nosedives, and so I sign on for another year with EFX. B and I continue to live separate lives, and the strain grows greater for both of us.
Then halfway through EFX one night, a safety rope breaks on a beam that I’m supposed to be hanging from during an Indiana Jones–type fight scene in the show. The huge stage resembles an aircraft carrier deck, complete with elevators, trapdoors, and a very solid, unyielding, all-steel surface. I feel the rope break loose while I’m swinging twenty-five feet above this stage. The fall seems to tak
e forever. I have time to think what I might do if I survive. When I hit, the world goes fuzzy like a TV set that needs tuning. I leap up, glad that my legs are still working. “Hey, maybe I’m okay,” I think as I run to the H. G. Wells time machine I’m supposed to jump into so I can fly away as the earthquake hits and the giant stage sets rock. Then I see the curtain coming down and think that maybe I’m in worse shape than I first supposed. As I try to change my clothes for the next scene (still unaware that the show has been stopped), a sharp, jarring pain shoots up my left arm and I realize it’s broken.
The emergency crew enters the backstage area as I’m being helped to my dressing room. The cast and crew are giving me the “Oh my God, it’s the Elephant Man” look and I am wondering if maybe I have fucked myself up pretty good this time. As the ER guys strap me onto a gurney and begin asking me if I know where I am, what my name is, and how many fingers they’ve showing me, I remember thinking, a while back, that “Things need to be shaken up.” I’m carried out, now with a scary-looking neck brace attached, to the waiting ambulance and loaded in amid hurried shouts and admonitions of “Don’t move—just lie still.” I begin to think that maybe I should have been more specific as to exactly how things should be shaken up.
Hey, wait a minute! Aren’t I now in a very enviable position? Millions would kill to be in my shoes, wouldn’t they? Because I have just severely injured myself while working at a Las Vegas casino … and it’s the casino’s fault!! Casinos are really, really, really, really rich, if I’m not mistaken! Well, MGM hired themselves the right guy when they signed me on, because when the bosses call the hospital to see how I’m doing and how much it’s going to cost them, I let them off the hook right away. I have a broken left wrist, broken left arm, and (again) rib damage, but my brain, braincase, and spine are all good. I tell them to relax, there won’t be any lawsuit, just pay for my hospital stay. They do that and send me flowers, too.
Late, Late at Night Page 29
