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<h1>
<b><font color="#F0DA38">FAMOUS A<blink>**</blink>HOLES I HAVE KNOWN</font></b></h1>
<h4>
<font color="#83FFC5"><font size=+1>the BOOK- ©Tommy Mandel, 1999</font></font></h4>
<h4>
<font color="#65FFC8">chapters 35-37. in which I further
embarass myself.
<hr WIDTH="100%"><br>
</font><b>35. </b> ALWAYS LET YOUR CONSCIENCE BE YOUR
GUIDE</h4>
Paul Schaffer is known to America
as David Letterman's now domed,
<br>Jiminy Cricket lookalike band leader. He used to Musically Direct National
<br>Lampoon Revues like <i>Lemmings</i>, and he attended one show ("<i>That's
Not Funny,</i>
<br><i>That's Sick</i>"), in the Village when I was playing it in 1977
(my first "tour", a
<br>three month jaunt through the States and Canada.) Actually, I first
met
<br>Paul when he came to accompany Victor Garber, the actor ( he's played
<br>many many roles: ship's architect in Titanic, Syd's dad on "Alias",
and Jesus
<br>in the movie of Godspell) on piano. Victor was auditioning for ME,
of all
<br>things, at the Promenade Theater when <b><a href="http://www.users.interport.net/~tmandel/painfulpage.html">Joe's
Opera</a></b> was being produced
<br>for a St. Clements (off0ff Broadway) production. To this day, when
I run
<br>into Paul, he sings me my song, <i>Panther of the Playground</i>, that
he had
<br>coached Victor in before his (successful) audition for my show. He's
<br>such a musicologist, Paul, even MY material fits into his grand vision
of
<br>Rock. I love him for that. And also for letting me worm my way onto
<br>David Letterman's show when Bryan would come to NY to do it. It was
<br>kind of a political thing, and I could feel Paul's eyes narrow when
I
<br>called to ask his permission. He put me through the proper channels,
and
<br>made me feel welcome, and we had great times. "You're the Maestro!"
<br>he would tell me; so I'd show him the B-3 part I played on Run to You,
<br>and he'd do it, leaving synths and a (new) piano part to me. Then he
gave
<br>me the organ, and counted off Cuts Like a Knife at a breakneck
Vegas
<br>tempo, and We Were Off! (to the commercials, not the races.) As we
<br>finished it, and the show resumed, Letterman told the TV crowd in his
<br>insouciant manner,"You know, folks, sometimes the best part of the
<br>show happens during the commercials!"
<br>
Once I got called by Nile Rogers to play on a B-52's session. (for
<br>Cosmic Thing.) It was alot of fun to play synth bass on Nile's Ensoniq
SQ-80, a
<br>budget model while his expensive Synclavier just sat on the other side
of the
<br>control room; Steve Ferrone, the session drummer who often plays with
<br>Eric Clapton recently, sat on the studio floor, playing the FLOOR with
<br>drumsticks, trying to duplicate their homespun demo. Half way through
the session,
<br>Paul called in, and I learned that I had been Nile's SECOND choice
for the gig.
<br>Luckily for me Paul had been booked earlier, so I got invited in.
<br>
But I didn't get the call to be in Mick Jagger's solo band, and that
<br>was that. When Adams And Us opened a series of shows on the Voodoo
<br>Lounge tour, Charlie Watts came to visit us regularly. Real friendly.
<br>Mick came to our dressing area before the final show, and didn't recall
<br>having met me, OR Mickey, who had actually recorded with him! But he
<br>was quite civilized, and in all fairness, he's no doubt met Everybody
In
<br>The World... I think he came into the Empire Diner one night when I
was playing,
<br>accompanied by a ravishing brunette. I played all my favorite obscure
Stones
<br>songs, Back Street Girl, Lady Jane, etc, and when he left, he thanked
me warmly.
<br>Well, someone that looked an awful lot like Mick Jagger thanked me
warmly. Was
<br>it really him? Who knows?
<p><b>36</b>. STEVIE WONDER
<p> When I was working at SIR as an equipment humper and truck driver,
<br>I had the opportunity to take Stevie Wonder up. In the freight elevator.
<br>He had three BEAUTIFUL girls buzzing around his dreadlocked head like
<br>bees in his bonnet. They were fussing around him and cooing the
<br>sweetest things. I don't know if Stevie ever took LSD, but I sent him
<br>tripping. Out of my elevator that is. I was too nervous to line the
floors up
<br>exactly. I'm sorry Stevie.
<br> Then he was rehearsing Wonderlove, his band. I snuck in, which
I
<br>wasn't really supposed to do, but I couldn't pass up this bask in musical
<br>greatness. I recall he was rehearsing a song with the band, perhaps
one
<br>that was to be on <b><i>Songs In the Key of Life</i></b>, his magnum
opus (hot-stuff
<br>incredible melody-bathed, star drenched, rhythm-laced true-to-itself
<br>creative masterpiece) (I guess you could say I like it;)
<br>anyway, in the middle of rehearsing a tune, he seemed to stumble
<br>across something on his keyboard, a Rhodes, probably. So he goes, "hey,
<br>wait a minute!", and goes over to the drummer and says, "Play this,"
<br>and sits down at the drums and shows him this cool beat.
<br>Then he walks over to the bass player and takes his bass, and says,
<br>"Play this, ok?" and shows him a new bass part. Like that all around
the
<br>band, and then back to his keyboard; and lo and behold, Wonderlove
was
<br>playing a brand new Stevie Wonder song! And it was good. Talk about
<br>creativity: it was dripping off that man that day.
<br> I still play
alot of Stevie Wonder songs at the Empire Diner on my
<br>Friday night gigs. They're keyboard based, have melody, interesting
<br>chords, and are as funky as I can make 'em. There's this kid from
<br>Michigan, a bass player named Dave Carlock, who's started coming in
<br>and he sings em great. His voice kinda slinks around the winding
<br>melodies, and he's never missed a note. His rhythm gives me chills,
and
<br>between him and Eric Armstrong, a cross between a Ken Doll (but
<br>beefier) and Johnny Mathis (but white), who waits tables there, we
can
<br>put quite a cabaret together there on a cold winter night. Once David
<br>Lasley dropped in and sang "Since I Fell for You" with that soulful
rasp
<br>that graces James Taylor's records and shows; David L's from
Detroit,
<br>another Michiganite. And while we're on jams, Richie Havens was eating
<br>at Home, on 91st and 2nd in the seventies, (four dimensional space-
<br>time coordinates seem appropriate here...) and when I started playing
<br>and singing (Sam Cooke's)<i>You Send Me</i>, he groaned, "Aw, my favorite
song!",
<br>so I got to accompany him on that then too. (I did one gig for Richie
years later,
<br>filling in for Murray Weinstock, who had been offered a jingle he
<br>couldn't refuse.)
<br> Richie had this "whatever happens is
supposed to happen" zen that
<br>made it impossible for me to make a mistake. Warm. And that VOICE!
<br>We grew up on it, introduced by Roscoe or Scott Muni on WNEW-FM; I
had
<br>this Fisher mono receiver and enormous speaker cabinet that I had
<br>scored at Audio Exchange, and those voices had more highs and lows
in
<br>my room through that system than I can relate to you here. (or have
heard since.)
<br> Another
Jingle That Could Not Be Refused led to my meeting with
<br>Clarence Clemmons, known as The Big Man in Springsteen's band.
<br>Lloyd Landesman, his regular guy had to do this jingle, so I went up
to
<br>Buffalo with Clarence and his band including David Landau on guitar,
<br>whom I had seen with Warren Zevon prior to that. David was a smart,
<br>mystical, dare I say Kabalistic dude, and I think his bro is Bruce's
<br>manager. I didn't get to know Clarence closely, but we were both
staying
<br>at the Sunset Marquis years later, and he said "hi" to me through the
intercom
<br>system from his cabana there. The Big Man musta been busy. Ever feel
small?
<br>
The ever morphing Joe Jackson was spending time in NYC and I kept
<br>running into him. Almost went on the road with him; he taught me this
<br>really cool salsa piano part and offered me a very long tour, but I
was
<br>in a materialistic phase (that I have yet to recover from,) and had
to
<br>tell him <font color="#C01361">no</font>. Much later, we found ourselves
at this ancient hotel in the old city
<br>of Lyons, supposedly the culinary capital of La France. Larry Saltzman
<br>and I had gotten him his keyboardist for that tour: Joy Askew, a British
<br>songwriter/keyboardist who went on to play for Peter Gabriel, but has
<br>a great solo act as well. And she's nice. A Nice Woman in Rock. Heavens!
<br>Larry Saltzman, a talmudic guitarist, was playing with the Blue Nile
<br>last time I looked. I say that because he plays with everyone these
<br>days. Him and Ira Seigal: NYC guitar stalwarts. Ira once told us we
were
<br>his 21st record date of the week. And it was only THURSDAY! Others?
<br>Jeff Mironov, David Spinozza (he was the best dancer at my Junior
High School
<br>before he played for McCartney or produced James Taylor's Walking
Man), (I
<br>finally fulfilled a personal dream and played on a record with him
in '98-Joe
<br>Pesci's "My Cousin Vinnie Sings"....Steve Love (my acid rock buddy
from the sixties),
<br>I'm such a guitar-hag. Just love em. Jeff Southworth who played the
solo on <i>Kiss on My List</i>
<br>for Hall and Oates, and wrote The Heartbeat of America (Today's Cheverolet)
<br>with Robin Batteau, is another guitar magician. Quick. Deadly. Unfortunately
<br>Jeff learned to program drums and sequence his own synthesizers (quite
well...) so I
<br>don't get to work for him any more. Amherst man.
<p> I had this art teacher
in junior high school, Mrs. Steinmetz. She was a
<br>gym teacher in grade school and then they put her in art. Me, I was
a
<br>total waste of time in art. Couldn't draw a straight line, couldn't
draw
<br>a realistic face, or sketch. But somehow I could draw a candle. You
<br>know, the kind with the flame burning, wax dripping down its side,
in a
<br>candle holder that resembled a slipper with a little handle above where
<br>the heel would be. Call it Christian-envy, I was good at that kind
of
<br>picture. One day, I did a candle in Mrs. Steinmetz' class. She took
one
<br>look at it, sitting in front of me on the desk and said, "All right,
who
<br>did this?"
<br> I said, "Me, I did."
<br> She said, "Come on, who did this?!"
<br> I said, "Me, I really did it."
<br> She walked away convinced I was lying. She just wasn't prepared
to
<br>accept that a loser could do something good.
<br>
<p><b>37</b>. MAMI AND HER FRIENDS
<p>Japanese fan-girls are really funny. There's this one, Emiko, who is
<br>very shy, tall and thin, from Niigata, in the very north of Japan.
She
<br>gets tongue-tied when she tries to talk to me, but writes eloquent
<br>notes. Humble like you dream a western woman would be. (I'm ducking
<br>as I say this.) I heard from a friend of hers that she was very very
ill,
<br>but she never spoke a word of it. I wrote her a haiku:
<br>
Pure as virgin snow
<br>
Softly the mountain rises
<br>
She melts for one man
<br>Then there's Mami. Well actually there are two Mami's but the one I'm
<br>talkin about would just come and sit in my room at the fancy Tokyo
<br>Hotel, which was fine by me, since it gets lonely. I'd be composing
a
<br>piece of music on my In-Room-Synth, (an Ensoniq SD-1, ASR-10, or TS-
<br>10, depending on which tour leg), or drawing a GWOA (great work of
<br>art- pastel crayon rubbings, water colors, irridescent markers,
<br>rapidographs, in a Yellow Submarine Collage of my current
<br>psychological inkblots, taken up when my knees started to go from
<br>carrying so much synth equipment down long hotel corridors!) and there
<br>she'd be on the floor over in the corner, reading. It was a bit tricky
when
<br><font color="#411E80">Chris Chappel</font> or <b><font color="#500D3C"><a href="http://www.users.interport.net/~tmandel/famous.html/paco.html">Paco</a></font></b>,
our accountant came to the door, because I
<br>knew they'd misunderstand her presence. So I hid her. I always got
the
<br>impression from Mami that she was barely tolerating my low
<br>intelligence, but that I amused her. Kinda like I was a dog. Mmmmmmmm.
<br>Now Mami's a Canadian, married to Allan, with a son named after another
quite
<br>excellent guitarman, Keith Scott!
<br> I met another very talented Nipponese (<a href="http://www.users.interport.net/~tmandel/famous.html/books.html">Neal
Stephenson</a>'s preferred terminology,
<br>see Cryptonomicon, his newest book...), a lady, named <a href="http://www.linkclub.com/~riesambo/">Rie
Osakawa</a> last year. She paints,
<br>makes <a href="http://www.quicktime.apple.com/">QuickTime</a> movies,
and does websites. She's a big Richie Sambora fan too.
<hr WIDTH="100%"> <a href="http://www.users.interport.net/~tmandel/famous.html/table.html">Table
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