ATLANTIC CITY
There was a time when I obsessively called my answering machine for messages. Every time I saw a payphone I had a Pavlovian response and had to call in to see if any of my friends cared about me or if someone wanted to hire me to play somewhere. Nine out of ten times it would be nothing, since I had probably called within the past hour, but it was always so exciting when there actually was a message waiting that I couldn’t help myself.
We were in Jacksonville, Florida for the wedding of the daughter of a friend (although by this time we counted the daughter as a friend as well) and I couldn’t help noticing that our hotel room had a telephone in it. It may have been my fifth or sixth call of the day when I got a message from a guy named Jim Artson. He said that he had an “interesting job” for me and that I should call as soon as possible.
I think I had only met him once several years before at some gig where he was playing the guitar and I was playing with somebody else. I had an awkward experience with him a year or so after that, where he had hired me to sub for him for six weeks playing at a restaurant in New Jersey. At the end of the six weeks, the restaurant decided that they liked my harp playing better than his guitar playing and told me that they were going to fire him and hire me to play every week. I was very uncomfortable about this and told the manager of the restaurant that I didn’t want to feel like I stole the job from him. They said that they were going to fire him anyway.
I asked various friends and colleagues, all of whom advised me to just shut up and take the gig. I decided to call Jim and see what he had to say. I can’t remember the conversation exactly, but he said something along the lines that he had given it to me because he wanted to quit and that the six weeks was just his way of easing into it. I remember not quite understanding his reasoning, but it seemed like he was happy to let me have the gig and I ended up playing there for a few years.
So I called Jim from the hotel in Florida and he said that he had been offered a job playing at the Resorts Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, but the job was for a duo of guitar and mandolin, and he remembered that I played. The job was only four hours a night for five days a week. (Wednesday through Sunday) playing in a restaurant in the casino with a Mediaeval English theme. We would be dressed in period costumes playing English tunes.
He said it payed $750 a week plus tips, and that he could guarantee that I’d make at least $200 a week in tips. He also mentioned that after three months, the fee would be raised to $1,000. He told me that I got fed and, on nights when I was too tired, or if the weather was bad, they’d give me a room. This all sounded great to me. I was in a bit of a lull gigwise, so this was just what I needed. I told Jim that I was very interested, but that I was in Florida for a few more days. He said that he’d set up a meeting for when I got back.
I called Jim when I got back home and he said that everything was set, and that the casino was very interested in hearing us and that we were going to go down and play for them the next week. He said that I should wear my tux. I confessed that I didn’t own a tux, which shocked him. For Jim, a tux was as big a part of the job as guitar strings. I asked why I even needed a tux, since we were playing in costume. “For the audition.” Jim told me, losing patience with me for not understanding these basics of the music business. “What audition?” I asked, “I thought we had the gig.” “We do, but they have to see us first.” He explained, as if I was a child. “So we don’t have the job. What if they don’t like us?” Jim ignored me and asked if I could get a tux by the following week. I asked a few friends that might have had one I coud borrow, but had no luck. Jim was so desperate that he said he’d buy me one. We were going to meet and rehearse earlier in the day of the audition, so we’d get the tux then.
I got directions to Jim’s house in Northeast Philly and found that he lived with his mother. He introduced her as the woman who wrote the song “When You Wish Upon a Star”, but she blushed and explained that all she did was say something like that title to somebody that worked at Disney and assumed that when the song came out that they got the phrase from her. As far as her son was concerned, that made her the songwriter. Jim said that we’d practice in his room.
I admit that it did occur to me that I was in the bedroom of a 39 year old unmarried man who lived with his mother and that I wasa bit uncomfortable with this. To add to it, Jim handed me a little faded pink handkerchief that he said he bought for me. “It’s a little fetish I have.” he said, although I was pretty convinced even in this odd circumstance that he wasn’t aware of the sexual connotation of the word fetish and just meant that he liked collecting handkerchiefs. It was a small room with just enough room for a bed, a desk and a couple of chairs, and a small bookshelf. The bookshelf contained about a dozen books, all about the assassination of JFK.
I had made a tape for him with a bunch of English folksongs from my record collection; Maddy Prior, June Tabor, Martin Carthy, John Roberts and Tony Barrand (John had vent sent me a few cassettes with songs that might be useful), The Watersons. I also added a few Elizabethan songs with a hey nonny nonny and a whack fol the day o. Jim had a classical guitar arrangement of Greensleeves. We played through the song and Jim decided that this was good enough for the audition and we left for the formal wear shop on Castor ave.
Jim did all the talking, regarding me as if I were a child and the salesman at the shop had me try on a used tux that I could have for $125 and all I’d need was a shirt. Jim picked out a shirt for me and we were all set. Oh, wait, one little thing. Jim didn’t have any money with him, so could I pay for it and he’d reimburse me? So I put it on my credit card and that was the last it was ever discussed.
We drove to Atlantic City together and we talked a bit about our lives. Jim talked about his trouble with relationships; he sort of had a girlfriend who may or may not have lived in Long Island, where he had been living, but the way he described the relationship, there were so many inconsistencies, it sounded like he was making the whole thing up. He also talked about his interest in “secret societies” and explained to me about how there were five families that met once a year in Egypt and that they controlled the Federal Reserve as well as the elections, etc.
We arrived at the casino and met Jim’s agent Allison, who had brokered the deal. Jim had exaggerated my qualifications so she was very impressed to meet me. We walked to the restaurant and chatted until we were met by one of the guys from the entertainment department of the casino who said that the entertainment director would be down soon and we could get started. He had heard my overblown resume from the agent and said that it would be great if I could play some Irish music, as the casino’s owner was Irish.
The owner of the casino was the former talk show host, game show producer and (alleged) closeted homosexual Merv Griffin, whose fawning showbiz phoniness was his trademark. (“Ooooooh, isn’t Tom Jones fabulous? Ooooooooh.”) I mentioned that I thought that Merv was Welsh. “Nope, Irish.” “Hmmm.” I said “Griffin is such a Welsh name, and so is Mervyn. “Merv Griffin is about as Welsh a name as there can be.” (I mean he mentioned Tom Jones in my fictitious quote!) “The guy was on the verge of being annoyed with me and Jim and Allison were looking as if I might ruin the deal if I pursued the point, so I let it go. But, c’mon, I’m right aren’t I? Merv Griffin, Irish? No way!
In all of this discussion about tuxes and auditions, as well as secret societies, it was never actually explained what was going to happen at this audition. I just imagined that we’d meet the boss and play Greensleeves in our tuxes and that would be it. I was wrong. We were going to stroll through the restaurant from table to table and be observed. I had a sinking feeling. I’ve always based my approach toward playing music on the idea of what I would like to see, and I know that if I was eating and two guys came up to me and started playing, I’d try to ignore them. Combine this with the fact that our repetoire consisted of one song, and this promised to be uniquely humiliating.
So into the restaurant and off to the unsuspecting diners. We did get a few people that were made a bit uncomfortable by what even I saw was our intruding on their meal, but Jim had done this before and thought he was very witty and charming and took control. “Anything you’d like to hear?” he’d ask. “Whatever you want to play.” they’d usually respond. If we were close to the front of the restaurant, where the entertainment directors were observing us, we’d play Greensleeves, then move further away where Jim would play one of the four or five popular standards he knew, usually it was Blue Moon. Mostly he just talked to people. I remember him asking a man “Is this lovely young lady your wife?” to which the woman looked down and the man shook his head “no” with an embarrassed look on his face.
After about twenty minutes, we were waved back to where Allison and the Entertainment guys were. They seemed pleased enough. Although one of them said “I noticed you were playing a lot of popular songs and not so much English (and Irish) stuff. “That’s what people were asking for.” Jim answered. That’s when it hit me. Jim had no intention of doing what we were hired to do. He would just play the few standards he knew along with a few classical guitar exercises and get by with just that. His attitude was always that the way we looked was more important than the music we played, which was why he owned a tux.
So they hired us for a six month contract that would likely be renewed as long as they had music there. We were set to start in two weeks, during which time we were supposed to expand the repetoire and get fitted for our costumes. I felt a little uneasy about my experience with Jim so far, so I called a woman that I knew who had played with him. She said that he was a wonderful guy and was like a brother to him and had never had the slightest problem. I made arrangements with Jim to meet a few times to learn new songs, but every time it was the same as before, we’d run over one song and he’d be satisfied that this was enough. He turned down every suggestion of mine and dismissed the tape I gave him as being “All female vocals”.
I got a call telling me the time to meet the costume designer in Philadelphia, but when I got there, they knew nothing about it, so I drove back home. On the way, I spied a payphone and just had to call for messages. There was a message from Allison asking me to call her. I called and she told me that the fitting had been cancelled. (Thanks, Allison.) She casually asked how rehearsals were going and I told her that we were planning to meet another time before the first night. She sounded concerned and asked if we were going to have four hours of material in time. “It’ll be fine” I assured her, but when I got home there was a call from Jim. “What the fuck did you say to her?” he demanded. “She thinks we’re not gonna have enough music for the whole four hours.” “Well Jim....” “Listen, from now on, I don’t want you talking to her.” “But SHE called ME!” “Well you should never have given her your number.” “I didn’t. YOU gave it to her!” I was starting to lose my patience. And I was getting scared. I was supposed to work with this nutcase for six months? He continued making these crazy pronouncements and I eventually calmed him down, and he ended by saying. “Well, just let this be a lesson.” I really lost it now. “Ok, Jim, just tell me...what is the lesson?!” “The lesson is, I’ll take care of things, you just show up and play.” “Oh, ok, because I thought the lesson was that if we’re supposed to play for four hours, we should have more than ten minutes worth of music.”
Atlantic City is exactly a hundred miles from Doylestown, and I could make the drive in about two hours if traffic wasn’t bad, but since I’d be driving down there during rush hour, I gave myself three hours. I parked in the lot next to the casino which cost only two dollars. The casino made enough by relieving gamblers of their money that they didn’t need to charge much for parking. When I got there that first night, I met Jim in the lobby. We were waiting to meet whoever was going to show us where to change into our costumes. While we were waiting, a musician who knew Jim came up and saw him. They seemed to be on good terms with each other; they had obviously worked together. He asked Jim if he had a gig at the casino. “Yeah, private party, just for tonight.” Jim told him. When the guy left, Jim said that they played in a band together for a few years. I couldn’t help asking why he told him that we were just playing for one night. He explained to me, as if I was a child (A growing theme) “Never tell anyone that you have a job like this.” Now, I realized it was pretty humiliating doing this, but I didn’t see why I should never tell anyone. Jim explained that as soon as word got out that there was a gig like this, every musician in town would try to steal it from us. “Happens all the time.”
The costumes were waiting for us in a sort of dressing area above the kitchen; a big puffy white shirt with a leathern vest, Mediaeval looking pants and, instead of boots, we had these boot tops that covered the calves, but left our shoes visible. This was a basic theatrical shortcut that was much cheaper than actual boots. The problem was that I was not wearing black shoes, I was wearing white sneakers. Somehow I found some black socks and spent the evening walking around in them. When the manager saw this, she said I was lucky that I didn’t step on any broken glass.
There were two managers at the restaurant, Rebecca, a rather attractive woman who was about a foot taller than me, and Hector, who came from Mexico and suffered from alopecia, a condition the left him completely hairless. Jim made it clear that I was forbidden to talk with either of them, which besides being completely unreasonable, was impossible because they were both very personable and showed an interest in us.
After our first set I asked Jim how we went about ordering dinner. It turns out that we weren’t eating at the restaurant, but in an employee cafeteria. He showed me the way through the network of hallways to a large dingy room with a big salad bar, some cauldrons of soup and a line where you could get basic cafeteria food; grilled cheese, fish sticks, lasagna, etc. I guess this was technically what Jim had described (They’ll feed us”) but it was a pretty big letdown. This made me curious about some of the other perks that he had mentioned. I asked about how to get a room in case I wanted to stay over. Jim admitted that this wasn’t part of the deal. “To tell you the truth, I never really thought they’d go for it.” he explained. “You can get a cheap room at one of the motels up the road.” I asked about the employee parking lot. “You don’t want to do that.” Jim told me. “It’s miles up the road and you have to take a shuttle here. It takes forever.”
It also turned out that the tips were not the $200 a week I was “guaranteed”. On a good night we’d split about forty bucks between us; Twenty dollars, which, multiplied by five only came out to $100. One night a big guy was showing off and gave us a hundred dollar bill as a tip, but Jim refused it. Another time a guy gave us each five dollar poker chips. I still have mine in my mandolin case.
And then there was the music. As I said, Jim refused to learn any new material, so we played his limited repetoire of standards, Beatles songs and Classical guitar exercises. The tempos of the classical pieces varied wildly and since I didn’t know them, I had to just noodle along. Fortunately, since he played these pieces at least a dozen times a night, I learned them within a few days. The interchanges with the diners often became very awkward, as people would occasionally ask for an actual old English song, and Jim only knew Greensleeves. Before long I had to step in and offer to play a tune on the mandolin, which Jim would try to accompany. He hated this and resented me for it; for knowing more English music than him, for being better qualified for this gig than him, for instinctively knowing when a man was out with someone other than his wife. Jim knew that the only reason he was hired was because we looked the part, and we only looked the part because there was a mandolin. And the only reason there was a mandolin was because I was playing it. Frankly, it was because of me that we were hired and Jim knew it. And every time he was reminded of this fact, he hated me even more.
Jim’s way of handling this was to try to control me. He forbade me from speaking to the agent, from speaking to the managers, and if he had his way, I would be completely silent at all times. In the cafeteria he would find the emptiest table and make sure I sat with him. But one evening a woman came and sat with us. “So, you’re the new guys, right?” she said. “Who plays what?” Jim answered, as if he was on a witness stand, that he played guitar and that I played the mandolin. She introduced herself as the pianist at one of the other restaurants, the most expensive and prestigious one in the casino. When she heard that I played mandolin, she asked “Are you like a real mandolin guy, or is it just, like, for the gig?” I answered that I was pretty serious about the mandolin. “Like, do you know other mandolin players? Like, if I mentioned someone, would you know them?” she asked. “I might.” I answered. “Ever hear of Barry Mitterhoff?”
I knew Barry pretty well. He was probably my biggest mentor on the instrument. “Know him?” I said, “I played at his wedding!” “No way!’ she said. “I played at his wedding!” “Are you Lisa Tee? I’m Jay, I played the harp in the little orchestra they put together. We played together!” “Oh yeah! I remember you.” It would be impossible to describe the look of sheer panic underneath Jim’s phony smile. This was his worst nightmare. While he was trying to keep me as invisible as possible, I had suddenly become buddy buddy with the most established musician in the place. Jim knew that before the first week was out, that everybody there would know that she was friends with the new mandolin player.
Sure enough, within a few nights, Rebecca and Hector were being much friendlier to me and Lisa was stopping by to check in and listen to us. This put me in the awkward position of having to downplay things for Jim’s benefit. Curiously, Jim started getting friendly with the musicians at one of the other restaurants. At first I thought that this was his way of being competeitive, but after a while I began to suspect that Jim was buying cocaine from them.
My suspicions about Jim’s possible drug use was fostered in part by the fact that his playing was so inconsistent; one night he played some of his classical exercises so fast, that I played along as if it was bluegrass, with rhythmic chops on the backbeats. Jim never even noticed it. Another night someone requested the Anniversary Waltz. Jim didn’t know it, but I did, so I told him it started on an E chord. Jim started vamping on E in 4/4 time. So I figured out a way to play the Anniversary Waltz in 4.
The other factor was his growing paranoia. At one point he told me that I was not to park in the casino’s parking lot next to the entrance. “It’s for customer’s, not employees.” “But the employee lot is too far away. You wouldn’t even tell me where it was. Where am I supposed to park?” “There’s a lot about 4 blocks away that’s only $5 a night.” “That’s more than twice what I pay here! What difference does it make?” “It’s for customers! We could be fired if they find you parking here.” “Who will even know?” I asked.
Jim explained as if I was a child that the parking lot attendants might start recognising me and would then report me to their supervisors, who would in turn tell the entertainment department who would fire us. When I told him that I thought that was crazy, he said that the lot was in full view of the entertainment department’s window on the fourth floor, and that they would see me coming and going every day. I told him that I was sure that the people working there had better things to do than to monitor the parking lot, and that, even if they were tracking me, I was sure somebody would say something before we got fired, and that, until that happened, I was not about to more than double my parking expenses. Besides, since I arrived in my street clothes, I was pretty inconspicuous. “That’s another thing. You can’t show up dressed like that. This is a very fancy place and people expect you to look nice. I explained that I was spending five hours driving to and from the place and about a minute from the time I left the car until I got to the dressing room, and that I wasn’t going to dress up for this. I pointed out that the dancers in the shows always came to work in shorts and T shirts.
More and more I was seeming like a loose canon to Jim and he was clearly getting fed up with me. But I was going crazy. Every night was a new insane disaster. There was the time Jim started yelling at me in the dressing room because I refused to play Dueling Banjos. “It’s a banjo tune!” I said “You can’t play it on the mandolin. (I played the little signature strums.) Besides, you don’t even know it!” “It doesn’t matter. If someone asks for a song, you play it.” “This from a guy who doesn’t know that the Anniversary Waltz is played, like most waltzes, in waltz time.” Jim took a different tack here and started yelling at me about how bad my costume smelled and that I better get it cleaned. I pointed out that he told me that they casino would clean the costumes and I that I was waiting to find out what the procedure was to get it taken care of. “I don’t want to make waves” was his answer.
This was his paranoia. He was sure that everyone there was watching him looking for him to screw up so they could fire him. If anyone figured out that he was not doing what he was hired for (Playing Old English music), it could be a problem, so Jim was determined not to draw any attention to himself. He knew that he could control his own behaviour, but I was not so easy to control, and it was driving him nuts.
It all came to a head at the end of my third week. The night before, Rebecca and Hector came up and said that Lisa told them that I did origami and had written books on it. Rebecca had been interested in origami and asked if I could get her copies of the books and maybe show her a few things. Hector had two daughters and asked if I could make something for them. I had some paper in my mandolin case, so during my breaks I made a few origami animals for them. Jim made it clear that he disapproved. But I asked him how I should deal with it? they asked me for things and I was responding. Would it be better if I refused and ignored them?
The next night I brought copies of my books for Rebecca. Jim and I got changed into our costumes without saying a word to each other, and there was definitely a bit more tension than usual. The sets were the same as usual. Olde English favorites by Sir George Gershwin and Lord Irving Berlin along with selections of Etudes from the Mel Bay “How to play the Spanish Guitar” tutor. A cheesy arrangement of the Beatles “If I fell” and so on.
As I was heading out for the night, which was the last of the week, I waved goodbye to Rebecca, the manager, who said “Hey, where’s my hug?” Jim had already left, so it seemed safe. After a very nice hug, Rebecca asked me if I was happy at this job. What a question! I was miserable at the job! I decided to be honest. I said that I liked her and Hector, and that I enjoyed talking to the customers. (This was actually true. After three weeks I had gotten pretty good at chatting with people and, when they were into it, it was enjoyable.) But I had problems with my partner.
Rebecca responded as if she had been waiting for an opportunity to ask what the guy’s story was. She was very puzzled by his slick but aloof personality, and well aware of the fact that we seemed to be playing the same few songs over and over. I started pouring my heart out to her. Finally, someone who understood! I had been telling all these stories to my wife and friends, but they were all so ridiculous that they must have assumed that I was exagerrating, but Rebecca was aware of how bizarre Jim really was.
We talked for maybe ten minutes, when Rebecca muttered under her breath “He’s coming up behind you.” I turned around and there he was, standing less than a foot away from me, and standing nearly a foot taller. His face was bright red and covered with sweat. “You heading out?” he asked “I’ll walk you down to your car.” It was clear that this was not an offer, but a command. “Yeah, Rebecca was just asking some questions about origami, but I’m ready to go.” As Jim and I walked out of the restaurant toward the lobby and out to the parking lot, Rebecca was so concerned that she called security to keep an eye on me.
As we were walking out, I literally started trying to leave my body, trying to prepare myself for the beating I was about to receive. There was no question that I was about to have the shit kicked out of me, so I tried to go into a sort of Zen trance and tell myself that this was going to happen and that it would soon be over, and that sooner or later I would be okay again. I was as terrified as I’ve ever been. I didn’t know at the time that security was watching us, so as far as I knew, I was just going to end up a bloody heap on the parking lot.
As soon as we hit the street Jim exploded. “What the fuck is wrong with you!!!???” he shouted “How many fucking times have I told you I don’t want you talking to these people???!!! Why don’t you ever just fucking do what you’re fucking told?” I don’t remember the specifics, but I went to the only defense I could think of; a mental version of a Tai Chi technique I learned from my friend Rolly Brown. The idea is to basically absorb the blow rather than stiffen up against it. I apologised. I acted as if I had been wrong the whole time; I was forced into talking with these people and couldn’t get away without being rude and I would make an effort to avoid situations where I’d have to talk to them anymore.
Amazingly, this pacified the beast. After a few minutes he basically calmed down. He was still very angry, but he no longer seemed violent, which was what I was mostly worried about. We agreed that I had been acting like a jerk and I now understood how close I had been to ruining the whole gig for us. Thanks Jim. These are the types of things I need to learn.
He actually shook my hand and said goodnight as I started to get in my car. I was so shaken by this experience that I drove all the way home without turning on the stereo. I stopped to call home, but Claudia was already asleep and the phone was not waking her up. When I got home I burst into the bedroom and woke Claudia up to tell her what had happened. She said “You’re not going back, are you?” and I hadn’t even considered that possibility. In all of my mind’s madly racing and going over everything that had happened, I never thought of not going back.
I pondered this over the next two days and discussed it with everyone I could think of. I still wasn’t sure what to do until it was about time to get ready to leave for the casino. It hit me like a ton of bricks that there was no way I was going back there. I don’t know what I was thinking before. This guy was clearly nuts and it was just a matter of time before the next episode, which undoubtedly would be much worse and harder to stop. Either that or I’d snap and do something reckless like say hello to someone who worked at the place.
First I called the agent and told her that I was not going to be playing that night or any other night as I no longer felt safe working with Jim. She seemed genuinely shocked at the idea that anybody could have a problem with such a gentleman and asked why I hadn’t said anything to her before then. I explained that the last time I had talked to her Jim called and screamed at me and forbid me to talk to her. There followed a long silence on her end. “Are we talking about the same person?” she asked. I told her about all of the various promises and lies and bizarre rules he was enforcing and she was not unsympathetic, although she said “well, alright, but I have to say, I don’t think you can ever expect to work in Atlantic City again.” I explained that this was a fact that I was prepared to live with and I apologised and said that, at a certain point, one develops priorities that include not getting beaten up, and I was absolutely certain that this was where the job was heading.
Next I called the restaurant to tell Rebecca and Hector that I wouldn’t be seeing them again. Rebecca said that the Security guard told her that I would be nuts to work with this guy anymore and figured that I had quit. She was very nice and offered to do what she could to help; talk to the agent, write a reference or something. I thanked her and said that maybe some day I’d stop by and say hello, but on one of the musicians’ days off.
Then I called Lisa Tee to ask her to sneak in the dressing room and get my good shoes and mail them back to me. Then I called the woman who had worked with him, who said he had been like a brother. I told her that Jim had flipped out because I was talking to people there. She said “I had a feeling that something like this might happen. He can be pretty weird.” I asked why she didn’t tell me this when I asked about him before. “I never like to say anything negative about people.”
Last I heard, Jim played there (with a woman who learned to play the mandolin just for the gig.)(She took lessons from Barry Mitterhoff.) until about two years ago.
Jay Ansill
Barcelona, June 2004