OK!  This yarn takes us back to circa 1992.  I guess we’ll need to change the names to protect the guilty.

Through a series of circumstances, I found myself in Los Angeles staying at a posh hotel near The Beverly Center.  A friend was playing with a certain Heavy Metal icon and he invited me out from NY to “hang”.  The artist is probably the most famous classic Hard Rock/Metal legend alive (if only just barely) and he hired himself a seriously bad-assed guitar “Head-Cutter” to write and play on his latest project.

Cut to the house of the guitarist in question; nestled up on the Hollywood Hills.  I arrive with a couple of musician buddies and am introduced to the famous guitar slinger as a fellow guitarist and pal in town for a visit.  The man is pleasant enough. He shakes my hand and we exchange a bit of small talk.  His house and studio are very cool and are decked out with many, many photos – of himself.

Anyway!  A day later, one of the techs working for the drummer on the project tells me the guitarist (We’ll call him Avi Veets), needs some help with some gear and would I be interested in making a couple hundred bucks doing some grunt work.  “Sure”, I say and we go to receive our instructions.

Avi explains how he’s got a large storage unit filled to the brim with all kinds of gear dating back almost 20 years:  Guitars, amps, cases, wardrobe, magazines, video tapes, effects, recording equipment and so on that needed to be opened, cataloged and organized.  His plan was to have us completely empty the storage space and put it all back together nice and neat and in addition, catalog all the gear and serial numbers and print it all out for him hard copy and on computer disk.  Sounds reasonable, right?  Sure.  When it came to the question of payment he said, “Well, I can only pay you around 7 bucks and hour, but don’t worry, its a few days work at least – there’s a TON of shit in there.  So, you guys will definitely make a couple hundreds bucks each.”  It still sounded fine to me.

OK!  So, we’re given the secret code to gain access to this storage building and in we go.  Yikes!  It was unbelievable – the gear was literally packed 2 inches from the front door and right up to the ceiling.  No exaggeration.  We stared for a minute slack jawed and then we attacked!  The two of us were digging furiously through tons of gear that had been crammed in the space for years and years.  Amps, guitars, guitar parts, effects pedals, clothing, hundreds of magazines and videos – it was amazing!  We were moving at hyper-speed and did not stop for a steady 5 hours.  Then, we took a quick break and realized something miraculous had happened – we were nearly done with the massive task.  Hmmm.

We quickly called Avi’s house and spoke to his sister, who ran his accounting affairs.  We explained how we were working feverishly for over 5 hours and were nearly finished, but we wanted to re-discuss how payment would be administered.  Since Avi was prepared to pay us “A couple hundred bucks each” over a few days, would he be opposed to give us each a bit of cash for the job?  Oh, let’s say – 100 dollars each?  Avi’s sister answered, “Sure, of course, no problem, thanks so much”.  Great.  Back to work we went and after a little over 7 hours we were done and we were PROUD!  We did a fine job.

Back to the drum techs house we went to enter all the info, gear and serial numbers into his computer and then – zip!  Back to Avi’s studio with the list, a broad smile across each of our faces and a humble “thank you” to Avi for the opportunity, blah, blah blah.  “Great job guys” said Avi, “I’ve got your dough for ya”.  Not bad for a days work, right?  Clean out a rock star’s storage room and earn a Benjamin, right?  WRONG!!  Avi hands us each a check.  I look at it and feel my smile fade and morph into a twisted grimace.  “Whut’s dis?” I ask, my Brooklyn accent floating to the surface, “Forty nine dollars???”, I said incredulously.  “Uh-huh”, replied Avi, a tight lipped smirk on his face, “Seven hours work at 7 dollars an hour – that was the deal.  Take care dudes.”

FORTY NINE DOLLARS!  Not a hundred, not even a 50 dollar bill but a CHECK for 49.00 bucks.

I left Avi’s place with teeth clenched.  What a PISSER!  So much for Rock and Roll excess.  I was short changed, but at least I earned a good story for the boys back in Bensonhurst.