Monday August 17, 2015 – Part II
The Hotel, Burbank, CA
11:00am – my poolside office
So we’re up to date. Except… not.
Slept in as much as I ever do, which means I was out of bed around 7:30. Took my time. Showered. Wandered downstairs for breakfast. Many of the team in the dining room. Saw Jon sitting alone at a table, and joined him. Grabbed some breakfast and coffee, and chatted.
Just to my right, I sense the appearance of Dev, smiling with his phone in hand. “News?” “Yes, and it’s not good news. Today is cancelled, completely. Ocean is still in London, and won’t arrive until tonight. They are ceasing set construction, because there are elements Ocean needs to approve. They sound very stressed.”
Yeah, I imagine they are. I can’t imagine what this is costing them.
So, what for us. Day off? No, we need to work. A meeting quickly set up for the Management Team. Out on the deck by the pool. Not too shabby. Victor is already out scouting a close-by community center and church as possible rehearsal spaces. The conference room in the hotel is available, for a price, but it kind of sucks size-wise. But we will have a place to work. Dev sends out an email update, that the original plan is scrapped, but we will meet at the time we planned and move to whatever rehearsal space we can arrange on the fly, and take it from there.
If any of these delays were of our making, I’d be a stressed-out mess. But it is not in our control. So, we do what we do. I come out to my morning office space by the pool and type this journal. By this afternoon, everything may have changed again.
4:30pm – my afternoon office (aka, my hotel room)
An afternoon of very useful rehearsal. Three sessions, the first about an hour and the next two more in the 40-minute range. Hernan and Mika presented a number of circulation and improv techniques familiar to the European and South American teams. Nothing completely new to me, although the “razor” was a bit of a new twist I had not heard before. Mostly very fun stuff. One test run through of Thrak as a potential bit of repertoire to pin their ears back in the tech rehearsal (whenever that actually happens). No clue or sense what parts of what we examined, if any, will be of use in our work with Ocean, but in terms of building cohesion within the team… an absolutely irreplaceable investment of time and attention. We rehearsed entirely on our feet. Partly necessitated by the size of the hotel conference room, but also because we reason that we will be performing on our feet.
By the end of the afternoon it had begun to take its toll. So as I type this, Luciano is presenting Tai Chi. We have one more rehearsal session at 6pm, either out in the parking lot or on the terrace. Our opportunity to make a bit of noise, and give Tom M his first experience of The Whizz.
Not sure at this moment what tomorrow’s schedule will involve. Hopefully it will be what we had originally intended for today, but no guarantees.
7:20pm - my afternoon office
Well there you go. The text from Dev at 5:28pm reading “Need to see you ASAP.” Immediately knew this was not going to be good news. Headed up to Hernan’s room, where Dev informed me, Herni, and Mika, that the gig is cancelled. Not us… the gig. The whole gig. Ocean is still in England, he is still not happy with the record, and he is pulling the plug on playing the gig at all.
So, we will be on our way home as soon as flights can be arranged.
What a world. Probably lots to say about what all this means to Ocean financially at the very least. But that for later, if ever.
We talked about how to tell the team. Agreed that we needed to play some music, and so we kept the 6pm call with guitars, meeting in the lobby. We moved out to the parking garage where we had planned to rehearse anyway. I assigned magic chords chromatically from C# at the 1st fret up to D at the 14th fret, and back down again. And then we whizzed until the world is a better place. Afterward, I announced that we would all meet in Hernan’s room without guitars immediately.
Crowded into Herni’s room, where Dev delivered the news.
Having spent most of the past month seriously conflicted about this whole thing, I have to say I am genuinely disappointed.
8:28pm – my afternoon (now evening) office
8pm meeting in the lobby becomes the 8pm meeting in an unoccupied hallway outside of the conference room. The European and South American team, in their meeting, saw that trying to change their return tickets was going to be a nightmare and very likely impossible. Therefore, they will stay in LA and do something. For the North Americans, stay or go is a much easier process. If we go, a ticket will appear. If we stay, nothing changes. So, we are staying. It is not going to be free. There are logistics that need to be dealt with, and Ocean is not covering things like our hotels and our transportation and our meals. One or two will probably need to leave – for reasons of the personal capital they had expended to get here. But the rest are on, and when a voice rises up like that, who can say no?
For the evening meal we headed out to a burger and pasta kind of restaurant, and put together a table of some of the North American team along with Angelinos Erin and Nora (Carl’s sister) to brainstorm all of the possibilities, what we could do, where we could do it, what connections we have in LA and what kinds of favors we could pull in. Lists are made, to-do lists compiled. Not a relaxing evening meal. Went back to the hotel pretty wired and not particularly happy.
The view from my poolside office. |
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