Hard Listening: The Greatest Rock Band Ever (of Authors) Tells All
Page 5
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For the bus tour, I would perform two new songs: “Leader of the Pack,” by The Shangri-Las, and “These Boots Are Made for Walking,” Nancy Sinatra’s signature masterpiece. They were landmark songs, a contrast from the passive Princess telephone sad tunes. Like Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me,” these two songs were about women who defied expectations of good girls. That was especially true of “Boots.” Unlike the songs of girls wanting to mutilate themselves for having been cheated on, Nancy Sinatra’s song suggested that a wronged woman could mutilate the two-timin’ guy—that the tables would be turned and her boots would be walking all over them. This line was followed by the rallying cry: “Are you ready, Boots? Start walking!”
The song was ideal for me. I am not talking about masochistic tendencies, but vocal range: nearly monotone. The style was sangfroid, also known as “I don’t give a fuck.” It required maximum attitude. Attitude, I was learning, is the key to many things in life. You can’t fake attitude. You have to possess the moment, inhabit the persona, and move your audience to want to have sex with you. And to do that, you had to find your motivation—that deep place in your psyche where repressed memories of pain and rejection could be jiggled into the present with the proper accoutrements: costumes. “Boots” suggested an outfit that consisted of more than just boots.
EVERYBODY’S FAVORITE BAD GIRL,
Photo by Mike Medeiros
Kathi and I shopped in the Castro, also known as San Francisco’s gay district. There I had my choice of shops for buying a dominatrix’s trousseau at a reasonable price. You have no idea how difficult it is to choose between a leather motorcycle cap and a patent-leather police hat. I bought both. I also selected studded wrist cuffs, a studded belt, thigh-high boots, a little dress with a leather bodice and crisscross straps in back, fishnet stockings, a dog collar, dark sunglasses, and, of course, a whip.
I actually had experience in procuring whips. In 1970, I took a college class in drama and became the props person for Waiting for Godot, which required me to obtain wilted carrots, a roasted chicken, and a bullwhip. The bullwhip was fearsome. It made a crack like forked lightning and could make a grown man jump out of his shredded pants. That was the whip I wanted for “These Boots Are Made for Walking.” But I realized it could also make a grown man scarred for life, both physically and mentally, and I was lawsuit averse. For my first Remainderette whip, I opted for a limp substitute that was more akin to a flyswatter.
Being a dominatrix demanded more of me than just being a demanding bitch. For one thing, I had three and a half minutes between songs to change into my outfit. The necessary items were laid out on the sofa in the green room. Off went one dress as I struggled to put on the other with its tangle of straps. Usually I ripped the stockings when they got caught in the boots’ zippers. I would tuck a fake cigarette into the band at the brim of my cap. The tip of the cigarette glowed with red foil, and a smokelike powder issued forth by blowing on the mouthpiece. Backstage, where I waited for my cue, I would hear Dave give a spiel about my being a writer who wrote tender mother-daughter tales and children’s books. And then the deep descending notes of the bass guitar announced my entrance, and out I sauntered.
ARE YOU READY, BOOTS? START WALKING!,
Photo by Mike Medeiros
It was astonishing to me that I had gone from singing a duet on “Bye Bye Love” to a solo on “Boots.” I couldn’t memorize passages from my own books, and now I had to remember lyrics while sneering and swaggering, stomping, and swinging my whip in the air with menacing panache. Halfway through, I blew smoke from my fake cigarette, and as Roy cringed in front of me, I burned the fake cigarette on his forehead. The audience screamed.
Over the nineteen years of performing “Boots,” I flubbed the lyrics nearly every time. The lines were basically one accusation after another: “You’ve been lying,” or cheating, or whatever. One time I said, “You been same-in.” Same-in? What was same-in? But none of those mistakes mattered, because at the end of the song, I shouted: “Are you ready, boots? Start walking!” Immediately, the boys in the band turned around and bent over, their fannies facing me, some of them even wiggling in anticipation. The audience roared louder than the sound effects in Chariots of Fire. Any notions that I was a bad singer were instantly removed as soon as I raised the whip.
In the beginning of my dominatrix days, I did some pretty weak swings at those gluteal targets. So as not to hurt the boys, I had to adjust the force and angle of my whip, rather like a professional golfer using different irons and strokes. I was still a kind person. But when the audience screamed as I beat the boys, my attunement to force and pain was altered. Despite my best intentions, adrenaline sometimes got the best of me, and I let go of restraint and delivered a real nice snap. I found it amusing to see the guys jump with genuine pain and turn around to stare at me with shocked faces. Betrayal was fun. The audience hooted and shouted approval. It was like the adulation that real rock stars got. The whipping part of the song went on for quite a while because there were so many Remainder boys and guest musicians. Even the soundman wanted to be one of the bender-overs. Not a single guy politely declined to be abused by citing hemorrhoids, higher morals, or other bogus excuses.
I am not going to claim with one hundred percent certainty that all the guys actually enjoyed this. But at times I had my suspicions that their eagerness was more than playacting. In one city—I believe it was outside of Boston—we played at a club that catered to lesbians. Unfortunately, at the show before that one, my whip was swiped. When a few of the lesbians learned of my predicament, one offered me her whip. How many people do you know who carry a spare whip? From a distance, this borrowed instrument of pain was a fair rendition of a bullwhip. Up close, it looked like cardboard, rope, and black electrical tape. That night, Stephen suggested that I jam the butt end of the whip into his mouth to give the act the verisimilitude of genuine cruelty. Leave it to Steve to suggest that. I honored the request, and this was a big hit with the lesbians, in part because it was their whip that had done the deed. After the gig, I remarked to Steve that I had been thinking about that whip, that it was preowned, and it did not take much imagination to guess where the butt end of that whip had been. I think he liked that thought very much.
BEND OVER BOYS (1 of 2),
Photo by Joseph Peduto
BEND OVER BOYS (2 of 2),
Photo by Mike Medeiros
After the Boston show, I received requests from the other boys to be the lucky one who would get deep-throated at the end of the act. They said it as if they were joking, but I could see in the twitch of their lips and the shine of their saliva that this was serious. They wanted it, if anything, because it made them special. It was a different kind of best-seller status. The audience cheers varied in volume, rather like an applause-o-meter, depending on who was getting whipped. The biggest roars were for Stephen, of course, and second loudest went to those who jumped and howled.
My act got a big boost when Scott gave me a real whip. It was a gorgeous cat o’ nine tails made of mink and leather. It had heft and glamour. I would twirl it in the air above my head throughout the song. That way, the audience could see what awaited the boys. I gradually perfected the role with each performance—not in terms of my singing, but in the overall act. I changed my voice dynamic to one that was rougher, which worked well until I forgot my lyrics and Dave Barry burst into laughter.
Despite much care in wardrobe and whip-wielding, I received a letter of complaint one day. A representative from a local B&D organization noted that I was wearing a dog collar, which contradicted my role as a dominatrix. Dog collars were for submissives, the letter stated. The representative of the B&D organization felt it was important that I not give mixed messages. This was a serious request. They did say they appreciated my giving the B&D culture favorable visibility. After all, I was a respected author. I gave the dog collar to a dog and got a studded collar that could pierce a guy with a body slam.
The Guys with Guitars did not view our lack of changing room as a problem. They had typical guy sensitivity. Problem? What problem? They had arrived in T-shirts and jeans, which was what they would wear onstage. If they needed to pee after drinking a couple of beers, they could use the empty beer bottles. Not an option for us. The dude at the club pointed out there was a perfectly good bathroom at the front of the club, at the opposite end of the stage. All we had to do was cut through the audience and wait in line for ten minutes. Sexist jerk. The Remainder boys did not offer to break the guy’s kneecaps. They were busy figuring out which of three chords they should play.
We girls eventually created a dressing room with what we had at hand; we took turns holding up sheets in a dark corner. But I would not forget our humiliation. That night, when I sang “These Boots Are Made for Walking,” I wielded the whip with extra gusto, egged on by my sisters. “You’ve been bad!” I growled. “Bad, bad, bad. Bend over, you wimps!” I loved the shocked faces on those boys. Best-selling authors—ha!
I learned to love “Boots.” I felt the same power that Billie Jean King must have had when she beat Bobby Riggs. I felt the thrill of women who broke the glass ceiling and became CEOs. I was avenging The Ronettes, The Marvelettes, and The Shangri-Las. To the women whose Princess phones never rang, this whip is for you.
I had power that comes from attitude. I had motivation and results to show for it. The simple fact is I had allowed myself to act like a fool. And I came to enjoy it as much as everyone else did. I did not have to take myself seriously, and no one else did either—except for that Eastern European publisher.
Being a dominatrix gave me the ultimate power: to sing without self-consciousness. I know I am not a better singer even after nearly twenty years of whipping some of the best writers in the country. But these days I can sing in public—onstage, at restaurant birthday dinners, at ballparks when the anthem rolls out, and in the privacy of my own shower. I sing robustly, with attitude. I sometimes sing “Boots” with fond memories of band mates and their array of butts. I sing with feeling, remembering the roar of an audience that affirmed I was a rock star. And for three minutes, I was. Enough for a lifetime.
Dom-Outfit Shopping with Kathi
When Kathi and I went shopping in the Castro for my police cap, studded wrist cuffs, leather rhinestone collar, boots, and whip, she did not say, “That’s always nice” to any of the things I picked out. “That’s always nice” was the lukewarm phrase she’d use to avoid flat-out telling me that my choices were bad ideas. Instead, she said, “Cool,” and “Coooool,” and even her highest accolade, “Coooool—I want one!”
Shopping for skintight clothing and wigs became part of our Remainderette sisterhood, and together we created a fashion statement that led security at one hotel to escort us out, thinking we were hookers. Yay! Success. I think this was one of the reasons she awarded me a statuette later for being the “Most Improved” Remainderette. Competition, however, was not that fierce, since she was the only other Remainderette and did not need improving.
INBOX > Subject: Past Our Bedtime
From: Amy Tan
Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2012 9:17 a.m.
Sorry, Mitch, according to the Examiner, you will not be playing keyboard. I am. I can loan you my dominatrix costume, which this year is leopard Lycra.
If I were Kathi and planning her tribute, I would buy everyone leopard-print clothes. For the guys, this far it is only short-shorts. Lucky you. For the Remainderettes, it is a leopard catsuit. Scott, what size are you?
Amy
From: Amy Tan
Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2012 9:23 a.m.
Good news!
From: Amy Tan
Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2012 12:29 p.m.
Scott, here is our outfit!
From: Ted Habte-Gabr
Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2012 11:37 a.m.
Hel-lo
From: Scott Turow
Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2012 10:50 a.m.
Amy, I would have hoped you remembered after our interlude at the Detroit JCC when you walked in on me dressing in the men’s locker room.
From: Ridley Pearson
Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2012 11:14 a.m.
Amy:
I’m alone in a hotel room.
Thank you.
From: Dave Barry
Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2012 11:15 a.m.
This is WAY too much information.
From: Amy Tan
Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2012 11:58 a.m.
Ah yes, I do remember Scott, of course. It is seared into my brain, something I think about when I am, like Ridley, alone in a hotel room.
Fortunately, the leopard catsuit is Lycra and thus stretches to accommodate those lower areas that are generously endowed.
From: Sam Barry
Sent: Wednesday, June 6, 2012 2:06 a.m.
Actually, I am here with Ridley, but he wouldn’t own up to it.
Sam
From: Ridley Pearson
Sent: Wednesday, June 6, 2012 5:20 a.m.
Tattletale
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Singing in the Key of H
by Scott Turow
“Every writer of our generation,” I said to Kathi in the late summer of 1993, “who was not invited to join the Rock Bottom Remainders bears a psychic wound.” At that point, I was on book tour, and Kathi, the nation’s most-beloved author schlepper—aka “media escort,” the person who knew the back way into every TV and radio station—was driving me around to my stops in the Bay Area. The Remainders, Kathi’s brainchild, had performed for the first time a year before at the American Library Association convention in Anaheim and they had been a sensation, at least in the narrow confines of the literary world. All these famous authors who really didn’t sound that bad!
This was my third tour with Kathi, and I, like so many other humans, had been instantly drawn to her. We’d become friends, and I could see that my jest had left her stricken. She threw a hand across her chest as we raced onto the Bayshore.
“Scott,” she said, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize. What instrument do you play?”
“None,” I admitted. Nor, I added, could I really sing either, since I could reach no better than seven notes in any octave. “But,” I concluded, “I’m wounded anyway.”
It was a longtime axiom that no author ever got into the band by asking, and nothing about my conversation with Kathi broke that rule. Much as I harbored the same rock ’n’ roll fantasies as millions, or wanted to play shortstop for the Cubs, I had, like every grown-up, accepted that a total lack of talent was, generally speaking, a barrier to those kinds of dreams. With regard to music, I knew there was an ‘h’ in chord, but was still not sure if ‘h’ was a note. I was just pulling Kathi’s chain and we both knew it.
As a result, I was thrilled three years later when another book tour brought me to the Miami Book Fair and I was invited to join the Critics Chorus, a mob of writers who were friends with so
meone in the band and who would holler from the back of the stage during the band’s final number, usually “Wild Thing” or “Gloria.” There was a pack of us that night, as I recall, and I sang alongside Art Buchwald and Michael Moore, who, no disrespect intended, were pretty much my musical match. The only members of the band I knew at that point were Kathi and her BFF, Amy Tan, because Kathi had extended to me Amy’s invitation to be a guest at a National Kidney Foundation Author’s Luncheon in San Francisco, an event Amy has long supported. It had proved a memorable meeting. Amy and I sat side by side on the dais, with 1,500 people grazing on lunch below us and somehow had gotten into a moving but very intimate talk about the families in which we’d grown up. It felt a little like visiting with your shrink in the middle of the Super Bowl.
Now, as I came onto the back of the stage in Miami, Stephen, strumming his guitar in the midst of a number, walked over to introduce himself and ask me how I felt about a recent remark by Camille Paglia in Publishers Weekly to the effect that we each blurbed too many books. The comment had gone past me, but this was the first evidence of what I would soon discover to be true: There is no end to what Steve knows.
Aside from that first gig, I yodeled along with the Critics one more time before my big break came in 1999, in another midtour return to the Miami Book Fair. Roy, who relentlessly failed in the face of the near-operatic task of the a cappella sections of “Wild Thing” was absent, and so the band needed somebody else to mess up the song. Somehow, they chose me, and I was asked to rehearse with the group at Dave Barry’s house.