Jordan

Jordan

By

Retta Michaels

Disclaimer:

If you are under the age of eighteen, or live in a locale which doesn't allow you to read these sorts of stories legally, then please don't. Come back when it's legal for you to do so and it will be great with us who are here legally. In fact, we'll support you and in the right circumstances help get you laid. Now, skedaddle and shut the door on your way out!

Now, for the rest of you who are supposed to be adults, act like it!

Chapter 8

As soon as the jet left the runway, everyone was excited and began talking at once. Kurt was polite and answered all the questions asked of him, but I could see he was tired. The group, being excited about the newest member giving us renewed hope for a better future, wanted to know all about him.

Jill gave everyone a look and said, "Guys, my questions are priority here. I hate to pull rank, but Kurt's going to be tired soon and I have to have a press release to send out as soon as we land."

Everyone shut up and allowed Jill to answer her questions. She asked her questions soon, she was proofreading her release. Kurt smiled politely and answered all of our questions. We found out he was 19, and which tied him with Bandy to be the oldest members of the group. Maybe I didn't mention it, but I'd just celebrated my seventeenth birthday. I was fifteen when we started.

Red was officially the youngest member of the group. He had just turned fifteen and Niles was next. The funny part of it was although they were the youngest, you couldn't tell that when they were wheeling their Rolls around our little subdivision. The way Red drove, you'd swear his next profession would be a stock car driver.

Chad and I were the same age. He was older than me, but only by a month. We had huge plans of doing an all out blast for our eighteenth birthday.

The questions came down of whether Kurt had learned all of our music and he said he loved all of our songs. He smiled shyly at Bandy and said, "Bandy had my attention in high school and when I'd heard he'd went on to become a singer, I was so envious."

Jill began to write franticly and asked, "Would you say it was a 'crush' you had on him?"

Kurt said, "It wasn't a crush, Bandy was as shy as I was. I'd say he was an unobtainable fantasy."

"Oooh this is going to be good." She said. Then she asked, "So, what were your thoughts when you heard Bandy was trying to get ahold of you tonight?"

"My brain was all over the place from him being interested in me to him wanting to put together a class reunion. I'd even thought of a class reunion video he'd want to shoot."

"Oh this is going to be so awesome" Chad said, "I'm thinking of the song now with them walking with books in their hands and going through a park staring into each other's eyes."

"Hum it and I'll pull up some words."

"No, because if I do, you'll make fun of me because it sounds too much like the first album."

"Oh, candy bar songs."

"Yeah, so sickeningly sweet they aren't real."

"Well, go ahead and shoot it to us. Kurt's not had his initiation into the trash yet."

"Chad began humming, and I began singing, "When you looked at me..."

Kurt picked it up and said, "Start over, and let me sing it to him."

Chad and I began humming, and Kurt knew the lines the first time after hearing them. He looked at Bandy and said, "Bandy, that's the way I felt in high school."

Bandy smiled and touched Kurt's hand. He said, "Kurt, let's take it slow. I'm not saying no. I'm just saying I want this one to be real."

Jill asked Kurt, "When we do the press release, will you sing that? I want the world to know you've got talent and we're already onto new material for you."

He said sure and Chad used his cell phone to call Jill's voice mail to get the words down. I made a mental note to get a keyboard on the plane for future sessions."

As soon as the plane landed, we saw press trucks. Everyone else saw them too and I asked Jill, "Someone else famous supposed to be in town this weekend?"

"No, we're playing the only arena."

"So, what are they doing here?"

"I don't know. There's no way they could have gotten news yet."

Not only did the press have the news. They had photos. Jill smiled sweetly to the cameras and answered questions, but if one had looked into her eyes, they'd seen Jill in kill mode. She'd have someone's blood for this and she was just itching to get her finger on the telephone to call Kurt's family. She'd paid a quarter of a million dollars for exclusivity and they'd reneged on the deal.

She turned and said, "Let me introduce him to you. Kurt, come on up and say hi to the press. This is probably the only time they'll be nice to you, so guys be nice to him."

Kurt came up and shyly said, "So, is this when I sing?"

She laughed like a politician on election day and said, "Kurt, they'll let you sing whatever you want."

He turned and said, "Bandy, come on up here so I can sing to you."

Bandy smiled and Kurt hit into the song perfectly. When he was done, he smiled shyly and said, "Kinda wrote that on the way up here...hope you liked it."

The way he said it didn't imply he'd written it, and the press didn't know any different, so Chad and I weren't upset. It made it sweet the way he'd made it look like he'd written it for Bandy and was publicly courting him."

Bandy went and stood back by us and turned to me and smiled really huge. The press's camera followed everything While Jill gave a brief explanation of Wend being terminated for co-worker bullying, and Jill stressed. "No one in this group, and I mean not a single one of these guys is above the rest when it comes to us stressing tolerance for a bullying attitude. It's zero tolerance and Wend knew that. He'd been warned and repeatedly violated that rule. An incident occurred and he got voted out of the group."

There was nothing left to be said. The press asked what the incident entailed and she didn't go further with it. They knew it wasn't for something light and they knew he got the axe. There'd be no releases on his part he quit.

Someone had nerve to ask what wage we'd hired Kurt and Jill looked at that person like they were the dumbest person on the planet. She began to speak and Chad went up and stopped her. He said, "Jill, don't fall for that. If these people want to know personal information as to how much we make, let them find out three years from now on our tax forms. They know we're millionaires, so let them guess how many hundreds of millions we're making."

The press began to ask further questions and Chad turned to them and said, "Guys, starting next year, I'm going the be the one who fields these questions. I'll tell you now, I won't be as polite as she was just a moment ago. You wouldn't have asked it to my face, but you'd try to get it from her. That's low. Shut the cameras off because this news conference is over. You got what you came for and we're leaving."

Chad had went up and made himself look like a meany, but I agreed totally with him. Jill smiled at him and said, "Kind of elected yourself there did ya kiddo."

"Yeah, but if no one else is going to do it, they better know I'll step up. You know they wouldn't have asked that to one of us, so they chose to ask you. If that makes me a hard ass, then they need to know I'm fully aware of who controls these press conferences."

Jill smiled and said, "I think you handled it well. We'll have to give you more practice in tactfulness, but the point got made."

She chuckled and said, "Guys, the limos are waiting. Bandy and Kurt, in the back limo with Matt and I." She paused and said, "Kurt, someone in your family just cost themselves a quarter of a million dollars. I certainly hope they got their money's worth from those photos, because I'll tell you now it will be a cold day in hell before they take another photo of this group."

Kurt gave a hurt look and Bandy just smiled. I don't think a comet coming down onto the limo would have knocked it off his face. He had no idea how transparent he was looking.

When Chad and I got into the limo with Niles and Red, Red said, "She's pissed. Did you see the look in her eyes?"

"Yeah, and I pity Kurt's parents. They knew better than to release those pictures."

Chad said, "I'm glad it wasn't me in her place. I would have said, "Sorry, no press announcement here, I just realized we hired the wrong guy. His family obviously doesn't know what confidentiality payments are supposed to be and I'm taking him back to Florida to drop him off and get a quarter of a million dollar check back. That would have left everyone knowing business is business and that's bullshit."

"Chad, you're really spreading your wings on taking ahold of the group's business. I kind of like that."

"I just realized tonight how much Jill and all those managers have made from us. Do you realize Jill made ten percent of everything we made?"

"Really?"

"Yeah, and RJ's made as much and I'm sure Pru and that scheduling lady has made a lot and that's more than what we made ourselves. So, you want to tell me why we can't save a few dollars and do some of these things ourselves? I mean, we don't even know the scheduling lady's name and we've paid her over a hundred million! That's crap."

"Well, know their job's aren't easy and if you're going to do all the press releases, then that sort of is pushing Matt into the rear."

"The way I'm seeing it is this way. Jill's the manager and she's paid to be upfront and be our spokesperson. Matt's supposed to be earning his money learning her job and he just hasn't stepped up like he should be. If it were my job, I'd be up there by her right arm willing to step in and tell the press what I told them. So, either Matt can learn to have some balls or we need to rethink him being manager."

"O.k., then let's take it to him and tell him. If he doesn't after that, then we'll fire him. There are more business managers out there than him and soon enough, we'll be paying the full salary of him."

Niles and Red were sitting over listening to us. Red smiled and said, "I never thought of that Chad. You're paying more attention to all this than we are and we're happy with what you've found out with the contracts. You're looking out for our interests and I'll tell you now we're glad you caught that mistake."

Niles said, "Chad, just be careful. RJ is the one who really calls the shots. Jill works close with him and what I'm thinking is if Jill goes to some other team, then RJ will step in. I doubt if he'll let Matt have too much of a free rein."

"Well, RJ and I are going to have a talk. He should have caught the contract thing too. I realize if he hadn't gotten stabbed, he would have been with us tonight, but...he wasn't, so if he wants to say something about the way I handled it, I'll remind him Matt wasn't stepping up. I think he'll agree they shouldn't have asked that question."

Chad turned and looked out the window as we drove down the road. He turned to me and said, "Who ever broke that confidentiality agreement is going to hurt Kurt. He needs to rethink his position with them. If they'll sell photos, they'll sell personal information. I really feel sorry when our leak is another family member of his because I don't care who it was, I'll tell you now, I'll never speak to anyone else in that house again and I don't want any of you guys giving them any personal information on me or Jordy. Just think about it...if they'll sell a picture, they'll sell a new song and to me, that's not cool."

Chad was upset and I understood why. I couldn't fault him on what he was saying. "Well, don't hold it against Kurt. We know it wasn't him that did it."

"No, I'm not holding a thing against him."

Niles said, "Guys, we need to have a meeting about this. Bandy's really got it bad and he needs to know not to say anything either. Heck, if he tells Kurt what Wend did and Kurt calls home and tells them people, then it's going to be out in the next edition of whatever paper pays the most."

"That's what's so upsetting guys" Chad said. "So far, we've not had anyone in our whole group of families that have done this to us. Then, we hire someone and they do it right off the bat. That's enough to have me tell them to take him home."

"Yeah, but that'd be holding him accountable for his family's actions. So, let's lay down the rules and after this, if there are any leaks, Kurt goes on notice."

"O.k., but it's going to be hard to trust him."

"I know, it's going to be hard for me to trust him too. One thing I do want you to do is to sit him down and hand him the song he sang and tell him the next time he wants to take any sort of credit for a song, he better ask first. I'm not holding this incident against him because he played the press with it, but from now on, if I work on a song with him, you best bet I'll have a recorder going to guarantee I wrote it."

"Well, maybe he doesn't know that's what he did."

"O.k., it's a slip up. From now on after he's been told, it's an infraction I'll take to court."

"O.k."

Niles and Red asked, "Guys, we'd like to ask you to write some songs for us. We don't care if it's candy bar songs, or whatever...we just can't write love songs the way you two do."

Chad said, "Why don't you write down what you feel in your heart, or think about a situation and what would be in your heart at that time. That's what I did today. For me, it comes out as music. For Jordy, it comes out as words. He can pick up on the music and put his words to my music. It's strange because when he puts the words to the music, it's almost exactly what I'm thinking."

When we got back to the hotel, the press was there in force. For us in the group, we used it as a time to speak to the press and give a good short interview. Red, Niles, Chad, and I got out of ours and it pulled off. A lot of questions were asked of what we thought about Kurt being in the group. I answered from the heart and told them I thought his voice was better than Wend's and would add more character to our sound. We stayed all smiled and sort of cleared a paths for the second limo's passengers to step in without having to clear their own.

When the second limo pulled up, Jill and Matt got out and Bandy got out too. There was no Kurt. The press asked where Kurt was and Jill said, "We took him in through the rear. He's new to this and didn't want to have to wade through the press. We'll have him used to this before long and then, he'll be giving interviews like the rest of us.

Someone gave a yell, "He's got a gun!" And, the entire group hit the deck. Jill gave a squawk into her cell phone...code 1 get us out of here!"

We'd been trained to not look up and to stay down. Somehow the curiosity got the best of me and I was pulled up by my hair. Wend's sneering face was inches from mine and he said, "It's time to die asshole."

Somehow, anger overcame me and I said, "That's MR. ASSHOLE to you motherfucker! And elbowed him the hardest I'd ever hit anyone in his ribs with my elbow. It took the wind out of him and I turned to give him a full on face kick which bowled him over. He landed on Jill and she came up swinging. The gun had gone skittering across the concrete and disappeared under someone. Wend got off a few swings and took Matt out with one hit. Someone in the press had nerve enough to get either himself up or his camera and totally shoot off a whole roll of film. His shots he captured were incredible.

What was captured on the film was basicly everything. What happened afterwards was something I'll give my viewpoint on, but everyone has different versions.

As I said, Jill came up swinging when Wend landed on her. I'd say it was her that beat the daylights out of him. What the rest of the press got was the aftermath when they finally pulled their chicken hearts up off the ground. They flashed thousands of photos of him all bloody and laying out on the ground, and that all got attributed to me.

What I do know is the press made me out to be the hero of the day. I say Jill's the one that should have gotten that credit. All I did was hit him and sent him flying. She's the one that beat the tar out of him.

From then on, I was the one that got the bad boy reputation. People steered clear of me in interviews and for months afterwards, I was asked about the fight.

The interesting thing about it was the press can take one and one and come up with something different. They took Wend being fired and him pulling me up and our fight as me being the reason Wend got fired. You know the story, but that's what got played out by them. The good thing about it through everything was RJ's being stabbed never got one bit of press and Kurt never got to see the bedlam he'd surely seen if he'd been there.

When the security guys came running, they hauled Wend away carrying him by whatever extremity they could grasp and his bloodied face and the curses and threats he made were carried by some news channels.

Afterwards, the press began asking more questions and Jill stuck around and nursed her bruised knuckles answering the questions, but by that time, the security guys had us in the hotel in a lounge secured.

When we finally did get upstairs, Jill led us to our suite and instructed us all to stay together and to put a sofa in front of the door. She left and had so much security in the hallway there was no possible way anyone would want to attempt anything else.

Chad came over to me as soon as we entered the suite and got the run down of what happened. I was blaming myself for getting pulled up because I raised my head. He said he thought Wend blamed me because of calling him out. All I know was I was sort of glad it'd happened. It showed Wend to be as mental as he could be and the press now knew the reason behind Wend's being fired.

Kurt sat on the sofa while everyone else was going crazy talking all at once. Everyone was coming over and giving me hugs and telling me they were so scared. They were saying I was the hero, but I told them it was Jill that beat the tar out of him. I even went as far as to say maybe it was her that we should have sent into the suite with him instead of RJ, but who knows what would have happened then.

Soon, everyone calmed down and Bandy brought out the chicken. Somehow through everything, he managed to hang onto it all. Kurt politely declined the chicken.

Soon, we all bedded down and Chad and I ended up sharing the bed with Kurt and Bandy. Red and Niles had fallen out on the sofa.

The next morning, Jill had us up early and we were taken to a warehouse which someone had a dance studio in. It turned out Kurt had studied quite a bit of our dance moves and could have easily have stood in for any one of us and gotten the job done passably. The huge advantage of it was he could take Wend's place tonight and do a good job. We decided to skip the throws of other members to him until we'd practiced it more.

At one pm, Jill had us in front of the press. We once again had a press conference and we got a lot of acclaim. The national media were still playing up the footage and camera shots of the events from last night and all I can say is it's amazing how many different accounts can come from one incident. What's even more incredible is from the way the press handled it, you would have sworn from the call in interviews we'd had a thousand fans outside of the hotel. Neither the footage shown, nor any camera photos showed any fans, but still, the number that called in who said they were there and saw it in person is amazing.

Once we were done with the interview, we were taken to the arena for sound and stage rehearsal. It's a whole lot different being on an actual stage than it is in a warehouse. First of all, the environment is totally different and then the acoustics are different, but also, it's about twelve feet up off the floor. Learning to dance, and do routines on plywood panels is different too. It's different traction than a concrete floor and sometimes, there are edges which stick up. What I do know is the more Kurt practiced with us, the more he excelled and seemed to merge into the group. By show time, we knew we were ready.

As I've said before, a small venue and a medium venue has a totally different entry onto the stage for us. In a larger venue and stadium setting, the show we perform is a display of what technology can do. We're catapulted through holes in the floor by air lifts and we come out dancing. Later in our careers, they can't the air lifts and we're shot out of them at angles which send us out doing somersaults and following them up with hand springs. There's a lot of lasers and smoke effects, so it's quite good.

For the first fifteen minutes of the show, we are dancing and singing as a group. We got through three numbers and then Niles and Red do a solo which allows the rest of us to go in and get a change of costumes. When we come back out, we're in our tuxes and it's a short dance routine until Niles and Red can get their change completed. When they enter the dance routine, it's choreographed so we're doing a circle and the lights are low. We're using hand wands which are glow in the dark and when the lights come back up, Niles and Red are coming out of the circle with us and are off into another song as the entire group.

Right after that song, is when Band and Wend had their first two songs. With Kurt there, they did it effortlessly as the band sang backup. What happens after that is we do a dance routine and Wend and Band basicly get thrown Red and Niles over to them so Chad and I can perform our set. Since we couldn't throw anyone, we'd changed it somewhat to have the drummer give us a drum roll and we have the guys do a mime routine with the end result of them being across the stage.

Chad and I do our songs and then afterwards, the music picks up and we have five songs which are high energy dance numbers. Usually after this part, I'm to the back of the stage guzzling water because my throat's dry as all get out. While doing this, there are people removing my clothes and I'm stepping into a costume as an angel so the guys can do the song they did while I was in the hospital. The National Enquirer issue and the placards of Phelps all get shown up on the jumbotrons and when Chad's down on his knees crying, I'm coming down as an angel.

Somebody tonight decided to change it without telling the group. Instead of the National Enquirer and the Phelps things, they put in the scream, "He's got a gun!" followed by the footage of the incident last night and showing Wend being carried away.

First of all, don't tie wires on my ass and have me hanging from the ceiling and have someone put on a speaker system, "He's got a gun!". I'll tell you now, there's no more feeling like a goose during goose season than that position. Second of all, don't do that shit when the rooms dark and the only lights in the place are on is the guys and Chad. As I've said, we've been trained to fall flat.

The way things went was Chad was on his knees doing the crying scene and the "He's got a gun!" went out over the sound system. The guys all fell flat to the floor and Chad apparently being down on bended knee couldn't fall flat forward, so he flew backwards. All I can say is do that shit and you've got a full fledge riot on your hands because that's what happened.

By the time we had lights up and my ass back onto the floor, there were seventy people crushed at the back doors of the venue. People were hurt and us guys were trying to find out who the hell in their bright ideas gave permission to do such a change without notifying us.

Ambulances and police from every precinct in the city were called in and I believe every fire truck in that part of the state was there. The concert ended with no more songs and us doing ever thing we could to do what we could to get the hell out of there.

The next day, we were once again in the press and at least five bootleg versions of video were out on YouTube and CNN. We were questioned and requestioned by the police and highway patrol. The equipment was checked and fingerprints were taken from the video machine which played the footage. Thankfully, no one was killed, but seventy of our fans were hurt.

Later that day, we were at the hospital visiting fans. It was nice because no one was so hurt they didn't know who we were. No one blamed us, but a valuable lesson was learned.

That night, we were on the road from Nashville to Louisville. The way it went, we were slated to perform in Louisville on Wednesday night and then Cincinnati on Friday and Saturday night. Cincinnati's promoter decided the press was so hot on us, he didn't want to have us there. Fortunately, Louisville's venue wasn't booked. Jill reacted by quickly contacting a major bus line and having everyone who was to see the Cincinnati performances taken enmasse to Louisville for the concerts. The concerts went off without a hitch and Kurt had practiced enough, he was able to make the catches.

After the sell out performances which had everyone moved from one city to another, we got a bit of a break. The press was favorable and everyone was saying we did what was understandable in the circumstances.

One thing I can credit is Larry King. In moments of crisis, whoever schedules his shows will get out there and get someone on so they can tell their side of the story. Jill sent Chad and I and sent Niles and Red to Leno and Bandy and Kurt to Letterman. We covered the press and those guys got to perform some of their solo work.

Being on King, Chad and I were shown the footage of the previous day and then a super excellent bootleg version of what happened that night. Larry King played footage of Reagan's attempted assassination and told the world that celebrities are trained to do exactly what we did. He showed the first incident in slow motion to show everyone how we did exactly that. What was interesting is he even showed Red's head bouncing off the pavement he did a face dive so hard. Then, he showed the next night's footage and showed once again how we did exactly how we were trained.

The end result was the world learned a bit of how a celebrity is trained to go into self preservation mode when some words are yelled. We never did learn who switched the dvds in the machine, but we learned a valuable lesson. Never yell fire in movie theater and never play a dvd that yells "He's got a gun!" in a darkened arena where the stars are trained to hit the deck when they hear that. Lastly, policy did get changed that the dvd player got put in a locked road box which only management had the keys.

In March, Jill came to us and notified us she was pregnant. Their wedding was scheduled for June and she was nervous about having to possibly move it up. Happiness prevailed and the group asked her to have a meeting with her and Matt.

In the meeting, we once again told her to get Matt more into the spotlight as our manager and we told Matt to step up, otherwise we'd shop for a new manager. I saw anger flare in his eyes, but when our reasons were given, he accepted it and his attention to us became more like a doting father.

On other side note to this meeting is we had a list of people who were interested in performing with us for the Summer concert schedule and it was agreed we'd have sets of shows at different cities which showcased the guest bills. The list was so wide and varied we began to look forward to each city's schedule and the benefit of it was throughout that tour, I don't think one of the members complained of boredom. We had fresh faces there whom we respected and we were in rehearsals to be sure to put our best foot forward so they wouldn't dare walk away from working with us thinking we were lazy.

In April, Aetna was constructed at a retired ballpark in the northeast and we were taken there for two solid weeks to rehearse and choreograph a new concert tour. The exciting thing was the first time Chad saw it, he got to see it from being a concept in he, RJ's, and Wend's minds and see it to become a reality. He had to laugh because one spot on the floor was painted a yellow splotch where someone had dropped mustard when they were drawing it up on the blueprints.

Seeing Aetna in action from a far is like seeing a super carnival ride at night. The action is never ending. Not one part of it was wasted. It was plasmas, jumbos, xenons, strobes, leds, and designed to be an entertainment system in it's own right.

The cool thing about Aetna was our dressing room was under the stage. Since we were performing in the round, we'd do our sound check and then afterwards, we'd go down into the orchestra pit and down some steps into dressing rooms. There was enough room down there to keep approximately a hundred people comfortable. There was even a catering facility built into one of the trailers.

What's neat is word spread through the industry like wildfire about Aetna. Concert promoters wanted to see her, artists wanted to see her, and management teams wanted to see her to see if they could either copy her or lease her. RJ very wisely chose to give Aetna a workout in live conditions with us performing for an open call. What that means is we put a full page ad in a number of trade publications like Variety, Billboard, and even Rolling Stone. We told everyone that if they wanted to see Aetna, they would be allowed to see her up close and in action on such and such date. Then, we practiced and choreographed some more to make sure everything was seamless for the performance.

RJ had healed nicely and by early May, we were in the studios for three weeks. We'd practiced re-recording Risqu'e' and when it came time to do that, we were prepared and then RJ changed things up. He used the master tracks from the original and took out Wend's vocals and put in Kurt's. Kurt was the only one needed which really bummed everyone out. The fortunate thing was Kurt was so prepared, he only needed two days to lay out the vocals. Then, we went into recording the double album and a studio mix album which became a quad release.

What that means is we had so much material that was old and new, we remixed it to be a long dance compilation. I loved the songs and knew some of them were going to be super popular. What I didn't know was how well it'd go over. That thing hit the shelves in July a month after Risqu'e' and although Risqu'e' sold twelve million and was still climbing, when Quad hit, that thing got play and it was like everyone had to have it. Within ten days of hitting the shelves, it sold twenty million albums and they decided to do a reprint which had us in the studio having new photos taken for the album art as they were doing a second edition. I had thought songs off it would be played individually in dance clubs and thought that would be cool, but apparently, some clubs decided to devote whole nights to the entire thing on slow nights and it became a fast cult phenomenon. Even entire new dances got created from that set.

In all of this hub bub, you need to realize we were busier than we had ever been. We were working sold out tours, and during the day time, we were doing press interviews and every moment we could possibly be whisked away to someplace, we'd be taken there and we'd be filming a commercial, or a video, or doing an interview show. It got to be so intense, for a month long period of time, we were gotten up at four am and didn't get to bed until midnight. We accomplished the filming of new videos and then, in all that me lee, we also decided to do a double platinum live album and dvd sets to be sold for Christmas release along with our own duo works.

Speaking of duo work, Chad and I recorded in our spare time two duo records which we released during the May release and the July release. Both went to sell over three million in their own.Red and Niles recorded one which was released in June and it went to sell similarly as ours. What was incredible was Bandy and Kurt teamed up and they pulled in some really good songs and wrote some real good stuff. They put it out and theirs sold almost ten million!

What was funny was it got to be so many presentations of gold and platinum selling records, when we'd see the company stuffed shirts, we'd tell the others, someone just sold another million, I wonder who it was! We'd all have each other knowing about them being there so the surprise presentation wouldn't be a surprise. Another thing was Chad and I had a hallway devoted we thought to a few gold or platinum selling records. As I said, we thought there'd be a few. By the time we got done with that hallway, the things were covering every inch of it and then we just started sitting them against the wall at the baseboard. We decided we'd find a better way to display them when we had time. Chad said he thought we should do like they did with Elvis' stuff and put them in a total different building.

Everything led up to Labor Day weekend. For that weekend, we'd decided to lease Wembley and have a huge concert for Elton's foundation and then have a similar concert in the Houston Astrodome, In Madison Square Garden, in Los Angeles, Rio de Jinero, and in Melbourne, Perth, and Moscow.

What was interesting was Elton discovered we were intending on performing at Melbourne, Moscow, Wembley, New York, Houston and Rio. He gave Jill a call and asked if we needed a ride. She gladly told him we'd appreciate it and then never bothered to tell us.

During the build up to the concerts, we plugged away at Cardinal and MCC's charities as the agreement was we'd share the proceeds with Elton in a 60/40 split. He'd get the sixty.

The acts that got involved were many. And it became a world wide endeavor. Someone forgot Africa in the plans and a hurried concert got scheduled to be included in Cairo at a futbol stadium. RJ donated Aetna for Houston and Pele, for Los Angeles. Vesuvius went to Melbourne by many transport planes. I don't know if I mentioned it, or not, but RJ had so many requests for stages from the designs, he constructed seven of the things which really helped out the industry. Suddenly people in our company were playing on the same caliber of equipment as us and the advantage of it was we got to leave up the equipment so all we did was shuffle people around from one venue to another. One exciting facet of the day, was we got to perform on the stage we saw on YouTube that started it all.

Now, I'll go into a different realm here for a moment and then get back to everything which was going on for us stateside.

It was planned for us to tour Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia in our off season. We had concerts scheduled for two months on each continent. We'd planned on that, but what happened was totally different. The way we did things was we'd be busy and we'd be scooting from one place to the next and doing promos and performing and then in the off hours, we'd be out doing videos or recording. Up to twenty hour days were the norm. If our families wanted to see us, they had to come to us as it was so hectic and even then, we'd not really get to see much of them.

We did the tours through Europe and Africa and everything went like clockwork. Sometime in there, we had to get back stateside to do promos for the duo albums and commercials for I Pod and I Phones. The things were really selling and then after Christmas, we went and did Asia. We had a large clue things were really taking off for us when we got to Asia because in some of those countries, they'll turn out for a cockroach race and fill an arena. What you don't see in a lot of those pieces of concert footage is a huge turnout for American acts that are really super. We were told to be prepared for empty stadiums and be prepared for a lot of interviews where we'd crack jokes and the interviewer wouldn't get the joke.

As I said, we were prepared for this and we'd mentally conditioned ourselves to have it happen. Even Chad and I were planning on singing to each other and not seeing all the lighters out in the audience. What someone didn't tell us was they had planned on dropping the quad album and double platinum live in those markets when they released them for the Christmas market over here or re-released the quad album..in it's case. They never told us they were planning on this, so Chad and I decided to do some sightseeing over there since we'd be virtual unknowns. Talk about surprised when venues over there suddenly began selling out like they had for us over here and RJ suddenly had to start shuffling the Volcano sisters to get us them for the onslaught of publicity we were experiencing.

We had no clue how many records we were selling. I'll tell you that now. It's something when you sell records, but after a while, when you're so isolated, you just don't have a clue. What you don't count on is going into a country and that country being severely pissed off at you because the amount of currency in their system has moved to you and you're not paying taxes for that move. It' gets to the point you have to put it into their banks, otherwise they hold it hostage due to their currency devaluing and it becoming an international incident.

We called RJ about this and said, "What do we do?"

His comment back was, "Hell, I don't know! I've never had this shit happen before! You guys are bigger than I ever was and they've got you in mega star status up there with the Beatles."

To say one in numbed and humbled when one gets off the phone from a conversation like that is an understatement. One sits down because their knees are shaking so bad and the flashes of news footage of those stars goes through your head. Being compared to someone of that stature is one thing, but thinking about being in it from the inside is different. It's a moving experience to think the music you're performing today is going to be still having you in icon status ten, twenty, thirty, or even forty years from now. Chad looked at me and I looked at him and we both busted out bawling and clung to each other like babies.

One thing I can say about Elton, is he's been through it all. He's seen the ups and downs and he's triumphed because he's a genuinely nice human being. If that man ever gives you his phone number and says, "Call me", and you do, you're richly rewarded. He's there for you night and day and he's there to give you advice. He'll listen to your worries and he'll subtly tell you bits of wisdom which if you follow through with it, you score like walking into a casino and pulling ever slot and coming up jackpots.

One such bit of advice was for us when we went to Russia. His bit of advice was, "If you get there and their President/Premier wants an audience with you, "GO!". And, when you go, if that man offers you vodka, "DRINK!".

Now, you all know my position on alcohol It matches Chad. Others in the group, well, they're free to do what they want, but what we didn't count on was Putin knowing about our aversion and respecting it. His inner joke was he decided to call up General Mills and have them send over Kool-Aid man and get us Cherry Pop kool aid served to us. We did it and the photo opportunity and the resulting friendship were invaluable to us. Here's why.

In Russia, even today, one has to have paperwork strapped around your neck in order to travel. We're used to it because of our back stage passes, so all it was, was another piece of paperwork placed around our necks in a little leather holder like a luggage tag.

With that man's approval, our entire entourage had free range of the entire country. Nothing and I mean nothing was off limits to us. We asked to go to their bases to perform and we were even allowed to have photos taken of us sitting on top of missiles. We performed and what was interesting was double and quad were allowed for sale in their record stores and our merchandise was allowed to go onto the free market there. It got funny because we entered a train station one day to get out of the infernal cold and saw an old woman there dancing while she was listening to a Pink I Pod with our songs.

Another advantage of it was the Cardinal was allowed to fly there. Once Mr. Putin saw the Cardinal's color scheme, he loved it. He had one made for him in the same color with the only difference being the star on the tail instead of the Fleur- di-lei.

Being in St. Petersburg, for me was like a homecoming. No other place in the world, I've wanted to be so bad as there. No other place says to me, "The City Of Love" like St. Petersburg, Russia. Ice skating there and walking hand in hand with Chad along the river was like pieces of the puzzle all came together. Chad could tell the difference. The crew could tell the difference, and the guys were blown away by the difference.

It's strange, because each of us had our own places we wanted to go. When we got those dreams, we felt complete and we felt inwardly we had arrived into our stardom. It happened at different times for each of us, but for me, St. Petersburg was that milestone.

One other thing, I mentioned to Mr. Putin I wanted a house along the river. He asked me which one I wanted and I told him it didn't matter, all I wanted was a view of the river from way up looking down along it.

He took me to a brand new government housing complex which was a high rise apartment building and I was given the keys to an apartment there as a gift. He told me whenever I wanted, all I had to do was come to the country and it didn't have to be announced...just come and the airspace would be opened to us and my apartment would be waiting.

In return, the man saw me break composure and sit down in the middle of that apartment and cry my eyes out. The man broke his composure too when he knelt down and hugged me and told me he's seen a lot of foreigners in his position, but no one had made an impression as I had on him with the love I held for his country.

Now, getting back stateside.

When the albums hit and the live dvds hit, they sold out immediately. Our Christmas releases sold out immediately of ten million prints. It was a full blown frenzy in which we rode the tidal wave of the success.

What was interesting was Chad and I in a rare moment of watching television saw a family sitcom one night, the mother told the little boy, "Why can't you be like that one guy?"

"Which one mom?"

"The one in that group."

"Mom, those guys are gay!"

"Well, they're still nice. You be more like him."

Chad looked at me and I don't know who was fastest on their phone calling RJ to tell him we wanted a bit part on the show.

RJ's reply was, "Guys, you don't want to do that to me or yourself because if you do, it will open up a box you can't shut and you'll be in every show there ever was."

"Well, Chad and I want to be on that show."

So, as they say, "what you ask for, you shall receive a hundred fold."

From My Keyboard To Your Heart,

Retta

RettaMichaels@Gmail.com

Copyright Notice - Copyright © December 2007 by RettaMichaels

The author, RettaMichaels copyrights this story and retain all rights. This work may not be changed or duplicated in any form, media, ( known or unknown) without the author's expressed permission. All applicable copyright laws apply.

Disclaimer: All individuals depicted are fictional, and any resemblance to real persons is purely coincidental

-- From My Keyboard To Your Heart Rhett

Here is a list of stories I've written and where to find them:

With Love - Nifty - Beginnings Section Rural Love - Author Heading - DeweyWriter.com Write Me A Love Story - Author Heading - DeweyWriter.com To Love Him - Author Heading - DeweyWriter.com Military Zone - Nifty - Military Section Evan - Nifty - Beginnings Section Jordan - DeweyWriter.com If I Could Give It All Back - DeweyWriter.com