While in Los Angeles, guests of our show stay at the glamourous Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel” was an announcement I remember hearing on TV Game Shows or Daytime Talk Shows during the seventies and eighties. Those words conjured up images of movie stars walking about in the lobby or lounging around the swimming pool, high-end accommodation and lavish room service. Deciding I should experience a little of that “glamourous” life, I booked a room for my three day stint in LA. I would again be officiating for Mr. Manilow, this time taping a CBS TV Special and the DVD/CD “Ultimate Manilow” Collection at the Kodak Theatre right across the street from the Hotel.

            As soon as I walked into the Lobby it was obvious that its Best-By date had long since passed. There was a depressing shabbiness that hung about this vast but dark open space. Renovations had apparently been going on for a long time but had focused on the rear of the building around the pool and an annex. My room was at the front of the building and had not been refurbished. Because of these reno “inconveniences” they’d upgraded me (“at no additional charge”) from my $139.00-a-night Standard Room to a Corner Suite, listed on the door card at $349.00 a night. I wasn’t going to argue. The room was very bright with two large windows in each outside wall creating a panoramic view down Hollywood Boulevard and diagonally across the street to the Kodak theatre (once “Grauman’s Chinese”, now the Dolby Theatre). There was a huge living area with an overstuffed couch and easy chairs, coffee tables, a dining table and chairs, and a large desk and office chair. The bedroom was separate. Signs of years of use (and abuse) were evident upon closer inspection, but since I wasn’t going to be spending much time in the room, I ignored all that and I set up my laptop and printer at the big desk. I kept wondering what celebs had stayed in this room before me. In its glory days, it must have been considered very posh. I ordered in some room service, confirmed some meetings for the days ahead and was in bed by 10:30.

            One of my meetings was with John Nelson, Barry’s Agent, and the following morning we spent an hour going over the Orchestra budgets for the up-coming Tour sites. Like all of Barry’s Staff people, John was extremely friendly and relaxed. He was effusive about the job we were doing for them and that all my budgets had been spot on. In the course of our conversation, I learned there were upcoming projects where they might need our services, one being for a young singer for whom they were arranging a Fall Tour. His name was Josh Groban and John played me a few tracks from his new album. I didn’t know who he was, but became an immediate fan upon hearing his beautiful voice! Only because Sam had told me to, I ventured to ask about Celine Dion. Sam was tugging at the bit to get us into the Las Vegas market and since Caesar’s Palace was building her a new Theatre for a three-year sit, now might be the right time to make the pitch. I’m not very good when it comes to making “sales pitches”. It’s not because I don’t believe in our abilities, but I always feel like I’m imposing upon people, and it makes me very uncomfortable. I reminded him of all our services (which, of course, he knew already) and left it at that. There would be a lot of steps before we’d be at the point of hiring musicians, so I just asked that John keep us in mind when the subject started to come up. I was always surprised at how nice these folks were. They were big shots in the business, but I never got the impression they were anything but real, down-to-earth folks just doing their jobs. I thanked him for his time, and headed down to the theatre for the first rehearsal.

            I arrived very early and found Ron Basile, the “Executive in Charge”, and we hit it off right away. Ron was the Associate Producer of the Emmy Awards and had a lot of TV Specials under his belt. We’d been talking a lot on the phone over the past month, and it was another case of guessing what the face looked like based on a voice. This time, it was a perfect match. He was young, handsome, incredibly friendly and very laid back, like this whole thing was no big deal. We got my laminate taken care of and he took me around to get a lay of the land. Needless to say, I was incredibly nervous as I really had no idea what was expected of me this time round. In New York I had just stayed in the background and watched. This time, I was definitely in the middle of the action.

            The musicians started arriving in the Lobby at 4:15 and after introducing myself, I took them over to the box-office for their credentials and showed them the route to the backstage area. That’s when things started to get complicated. Snag Number One! I discovered that no one could go on stage until the Stagehands returned at 5:00 – exactly the time we were supposed to start the rehearsal! I piled everyone into the Green Room across the hall from the stage. Musical Director Steve Welch (who again greeted me like a long lost brother) arrived and I explained what was happening. He took over and got the band to organize their music before going on the stand. They seemed easy about it – after all the clock had already started for them – but we didn’t get settled until almost 6:00 and that, to me, had been a major waste of time. From there, it went a bit further downhill. The band played through the music with Steve keeping a good pace, trying to get through all the material before Barry arrived. I kept looking at my watch, concerned about the legislated breaks the band had to take. After two and a half hours from the actual start time of 5:00, which had only been an hour-and-a-half of actual rehearsal time, I told Steve they had to take a half-hour break. The musicians were pleased. The Producer was not! Snag Number Two. Sam had neglected to tell me that I should check with Stage Management before announcing the break. I hadn’t. As the musicians started filing off the stage, a little round man with a scraggly beard came bounding down the aisle of the theatre and ran up on stage yelling “What the hell is going on?!” This three-inches-shorter-than-I-am little man was Ken Ehrlich, Producer Ultimo. I could feel his energy as I ran up on stage from the other side of the house. I reached him at the same time Steve did. I introduced myself to Ken as Steve told him we had to take the scheduled break. David had come out on stage and stood listening to this little exchange. David was the Stage Manager, another really nice guy with whom I’d connected earlier in the day. He blamed it all on a scheduling miscommunication with IATSE (the Stagehand’s Union) and things calmed down a bit. Ken pulled me aside. “I’m not mad”, he said, “but you gotta tell Stage Management first”. I apologized and inwardly thanked the heavens that he’d not gone ballistic on me in front of everyone. There were a couple of good things that came out of this episode; one, was that the musicians realized I was working for them and not Management, and the other was that Carmen Fanzone, the Business Rep. from the LA AFofM Local had been watching all this transpire from where I’d been sitting with him only a moment earlier down front in the house. He had caught my eye at one point and smiled and nodded at me. Okay. That was all nice. But I wanted Ken to like me. My shot came only moments later … during Snag Number Three!

The Concertmaster, Mike, was a big, older guy who, Sam had warned me, liked to run things. He’d been playing at being “in charge” for years and no one had ever questioned it. But I had beat him to that button. Weeks earlier I’d been in touch with every musician, introducing myself and relaying all the engagement details. Mike had been my last call. I discovered later that after I’d spoken to him, he had started calling the other musicians to give them the gig info only to find out that I’d done it already. He made mention of this when I met him earlier in the day, but acquiesced somewhat as to who was in charge. Gamesmanship one might call it. I played nice and piled on the praise, expressing my gratitude for his support. I think that’s all he wanted.

David had come over to me and Ken after our little conversation and, conspiratorially, draped his arms over my shoulders leaning on me. Ken moved in closer. David whispered to us, “We have a political problem”. Oh Lord, what fresh hell was this? I was being generous with my above description of Concertmaster Mike. He was, simply put, fat and unattractive. Being Concertmaster, he had seated himself in the front of the two rows of string players with the attractive female players behind him. The section was perched on a very high platform above the brass and wind players. The problem was that the boom camera wanted to pan that part of the orchestra but with Mike front and center, couldn’t frame the attractive ladies without him. “What should we do?”, David asked. With Ken and David now staring at me I realized that “we” meant me! My mind was racing as I started to think out loud. We (I) couldn’t tell Mike we were moving him to the back row because he was ugly. After all, he was the CM and was supposed to be in that physical position in the section. Add to that the fact that the players behind him couldn’t see Steve conducting 15 feet below at stage level and Mike was giving them their cues with his head and bowing. I said that he was probably pulling a lot of visual focus at the moment because he was wearing a bright pastel blue shirt which made him a lot more obvious. He would be wearing black for the show and would probably not stand out so much. They both sort of agreed and understood how delicate this was on a number of levels. Then the jokes started about whether he could take off 120 pounds by the next evening, whether anyone thought Kaopectate would help. We all laughed, and it wasn’t brought up again. I breathed a small sigh of relief. This was followed by Snag Number Four!

By now, a couple more hours had gone by without a break. Breaks were becoming the bane of my existence. I spoke with David and Ron and Ron decided that Ehrlich Productions would pay for the breaks not taken and an extra half-hour of rehearsal time. These minute-to- minute changes were destroying my budgets. All this was giving me an incredible case of heartburn that I had no way of quelling. It came to a point when I absolutely had to call another break later in the evening. “No!!” Ken yelled at me – from out in the house this time! “I’ve done 15 of these shows! Ya gotta work with me, Richard! Ya gotta work with me!”. The heartburn intensified.

Barry, who had arrived in great spirits, had been maintaining his humour and composure during the earlier part of the rehearsal, but now, three hours in, was wearing down. Combined with all the stopping and starting, little things were getting to him; like when his ear speakers weren’t working properly or when he decided he didn’t like a move he’d been given to do or when a prop was brought on at the wrong time. Finally, at 11:45, he yanked out his ear pieces, said “That’s it” and walked off the stage. And that was the end of the first day.

I found a convenience store after walking up and down Hollywood Boulevard and bought five rolls of Rolaids. I would pop these constantly over the next two days. I’d had nothing to eat all day and the only thing I could get from Room Service at that hour was a tuna salad sandwich. I devoured it and I began the now-massively-complicated re-calculations on my budgets. I was basically dealing with four AFM tariff schedules – one set of numbers for the rehearsal charges, one for the taping/performance charges, one for the DVD royalties and one for the CD royalties. The DVD and CD money would stay the same as they were one time buy-out numbers, but I knew there would be more additional rehearsal charges (those damn break infringements) the next day and wanted to give Ron an idea of what the costs were adding up to so far. It was a LOT of money! A HUGE amount! But there was nothing I could do about it. I popped some more Rolaids and flopped into bed praying that the next day would be easier. It wasn’t!

Armed with my laptop and portable printer, I was back at the Theatre by two the next afternoon and was given a desk in the Production Room downstairs. Warning him that the numbers would probably change by the end of the day, I gave Ron the new budgets incorporating the additional charges from the day before. He looked at the bottom line and said the number was what he thought it would be. A small triumph! Ken was working at the next desk, so I took my heart in my hands and went over to him. I had been thinking about how I was going to approach him after our little set-to the night before. The heartburn continued to rage despite the Rolaids. I crouched down beside him.

“Look”, I said. “I have to apologize for adding to the pressure on you last night. I’m afraid I wasn’t being very helpful.” He held his hand up.

“No. I should be apologizing to you”, he said.

“I guess the chaos hadn’t helped things. It was all just in the moment”, I said.

“Exactly. We’re good”, he said, and that’s where it landed … and stayed. Things were fine.

The rest of the afternoon was still chaotic. Barry, now back to his affable self, sailed through the rehearsal, although he sounded a bit scratchy. At 5:40 Stage Manager Dave told me that the strings could go because they were doing a camera pass for the horns. Then Ron popped up and told me that everyone could go, so I dismissed the entire band, and they all started to leave. Which was when Ken bounded up the stairs yet again yelling “Where’s everybody going??” Now I didn’t know what was happening … neither did Dave.

“It’s going to take too much time for everyone to get into costume and back on the stage”, Ron said. “We have to shoot the promos with Barry first. I pay the bills, and everyone goes.”

Ken turned to me and started on about my dismissing the orchestra. I was at a loss for words. I hadn’t made this decision. There was an odd moment in which I felt very comfortable, as if I was a part of a family having a squabble. There was no animosity, no real anger, just folks talking loud enough to be heard. Since I had no response to Ken’s comments, I just turned to Ron, tilted my head and widened my eyes in silent questioning.

Ron turned to Ken. “Bruce (the engineer in the recording truck outside) said he didn’t need anyone”. I was safe. Ken stormed off yelling at no one in particular, “We’ll have to do the camera pass live tonight” and disappeared into the backstage dark. Ron stood there sort of smiling and looking a little bit lost. I shrugged and walked away saying that I’d see him in an hour. I felt no guilt at all … but the heartburn was still raging. There had been no additional charges!

Back at the hotel I sat watching some baseball on TV and downed another tuna salad sandwich trying to calm myself while waiting out the hour before the call.

There were four thousand invited guests (the “Fanilows”) in the house when I got back. They had been lining up outside when I left at 6:00 and now they were ready for Barry. Backstage, things had calmed down. I found Dave and asked if I could let the band know the stage was available. I did and, at that point, essentially, my job was done. I wandered about saying “Good show” to folks and eventually I found myself a little niche behind David and stayed there. While the show was only an hour long, it took all of the allotted two hours to film, mostly because Barry kept forgetting his patter. After the opening medley, he got lost. Ken came out with the script, they chatted for a moment, Barry got his face powdered and we were off again. I could see how the show was looking on the monitors and it was incredible. The lighting was spectacular, very theatrical and Barry, while doing it piecemeal, was in fine form. He made mistakes all over the place, but the audience loved the flubs and forgetfulness if only because he made a thing of them. They would roar with laughter and applaud at his apologies and excuses. Finally it was over. I looked at my watch and held my breath. It was two minutes past ten! I was waiting for the musicians to come off the stand yowling that they’d gone into overtime. No one said a thing. But then why should they? It ended up that with all the rehearsals, the additional charges for overtime and infringements, the royalties and the performance fees, the base salary (what a string player would get) was about three thousand dollars for the two days! The wind players, many playing three or four instruments which required doubling fees, would end up getting close to twice that base fee. For events like this, money was no object!

I spent a lot of time afterward thanking the band folk and telling them how incredible they sounded. They were effusive in their responses to me. They told me I was “one classy guy”, that not many Contractors would have been so calm and reasonable in the many spur-of-the moment tense situations they had witnessed. That made me feel good. Ken also seemed pleased and shook my hand, thanking me for all my help in making things happen. I took the compliment. Ron hugged me saying we should do this again soon. I told him Sam could deal with it. Twice was enough for me. And we laughed. I spent a bit of time with Steve. “We did it, buddy” he said as I came up to him at his keyboard. Over the past few of months we’d become good friends and I felt very connected to this wonderfully positive and joyous guy. I knew we’d be working together again.

There wasn’t much sleep that night. I had to get up at 3:45 to catch a 6:25 plane home. I could feel the heartburn ebbing the further I got from LA. By the time I got to Calgary mid- afternoon it was pretty well gone. Once home, I immediately called Sam to report the details of the past two days. I told him that the stress was horrifying, and that the heartburn had not helped things. “Welcome to my world”, he said. I thought that if it was this way every time (it hadn’t been like this in New York because I wasn’t the honcho there that I’d been in LA) it wasn’t high on my list of things to do again. There was one thing I had to mention to him of a more serious nature. In the weeks leading up to the engagement, Carmen, the LA Business Rep, and I had talked many times about budgets and conditions. But on that first afternoon in the theatre, the first thing out of his mouth was, as he put it, “for the record”. He told me that the “real” Contractor had to be on-site for an event like this. He wasn’t put out that I was there working FOR Sam but said that he was just making the statement because he had to. Sam suggested that it might be time for me to join the main US Locals so this issue wouldn’t come up again.

The experience was eye-opening. I can’t say that I hated it, but there had been moments when I wished I was anywhere else but there. It was a learning experience on a very high level, and I think it would get a bit easier if I were to do this again. That’s a very big “if”. Maintaining a balance between pleasing the musicians and keeping them happy and protecting the Producer’s money and time is not easy. Caught in the middle with no control is not a comfortable position to be in. At least now I can say “been there, done that” and it didn’t kill me.

Now it was back to the grind.