Goodbye My Dear

There's been some chit chat about "Fly By Night" over at Jackson's blog that reminded me of an incident some years ago...

My senior year in high school, my friends Matt Armentano (drums), Jeremy Harris (guitar) and I (bass, keys, vocals) practiced our asses off getting "Fly By Night" ready for a talent show.

Our school wasn't really big on talent shows, this one was going to be the only one held during my 4 years. But we'd finally learned enough about our instruments to do at least a half assed job channeling the Canadians, and it's not that hard a song. We were ready.

Then shit started caving in.

As the fateful night approached, word went out that there were "too many bands" scheduled to play, and our Principal (Mr. Carmelich) wanted more "variety." Specifically, he wanted the Number 1 Theater Girl (Jocelyn) to perform. You know the Number 1 Theater Girl, the one who knew she'd be an actress since she was born. The one who was the lead in every school play, musical, revival, revue, and English class reading we ever had.

Gradually it became clear that there would be no talent show without her talent.

We fought long and hard, and were finally reduced to begging Jocelyn to perform, to do anything, to make a cameo, do the guitar solo, whatever. Just don't let them cancel the talent show.

Well, she refused. The show was off...

Cut to 5 years later, I'm at my first job (assistant at a talent agency here in NYC). Among my duties - opening the dozens of headshots and resumes that poured in every day from aspiring thespians. And who's headshot should happen to turn up? Yes, you guessed it. Number One Theater Girl.

You can guess whether this one got passed on to my boss.

The moral? Don't be fuckin' with da Rush. Or at least not with da Rush fans.