A Trip Down To L.A.

Lisa rested her head on Brian's shoulder as they rolled along. She was tired, she wanted to sleep, needed it for the big day ahead of them. But the blaring music, the rattling of the old bus, and the chattering going on all around her made sleep impossible. She lifted her head and yawned. Brian turned smiled at her. She stretched, yawning again. She shook her head.

"Where are we?"

"Gorman overpass. Should be at the studio in two hours or so."

"Ah…crap," she groaned, her head in her hands, eyes clenched shut.

"You alright? Need some aspirin?"

"Nah. Would be good to sleep though."

" 'fyou want I can get up and let you lie down."

"Really?"

"Anything for you."

"Thanks."

"And I'll see if I can get Otto to turn down the noise a bit."

"You're great."

Brian opened the curtains and stood up. He saw Lisa's legs stick out from the seat.

"Hey Otto-man, could you crank down the tunes a titch? Lisa's trying to sleep."

"Huh!"

"Could you please turn it down?"

"Oh, sure thing, man."

He turned the volume down.

"Thanks."

"No problem…killjoy."

Brian went to see what the others were doing. He sat and talked with Jessica, Burke, and Allison, who were playing a game of Egyptian War. Brian joined in, and proceeded to lose each time for the next three games he played.

Brian went and sat by himself for a while, reading a novel he had picked up for the trip. It was Timothy Zahn's "Star Wars: Survivor's Quest". He didn't like it much, but it kept him busy. Though he was quite a bit of a fan of 'Star Wars', and even managed to watch all three prequels, he still was disappointed with the poor quality of the writing. He used the same phrase two pages ago, and used the same description of Luke's lightsaber in the very same flippin' chapter! He set it down after a few chapters. He went over to see what movie Bart and the others were watching. Old School..never did like it.

They arrived in Los Angeles just in time to be stuck in morning-rush traffic. After another hour, they escaped from the freeway and were in the city. Another half hour and they were finally at the recording studio.

They gathered their instruments and piled off. They rushed in, ignoring the frustrated managers and studio operators.

"Is Elfman here already?" Bart asked one of the managers.

"He's been here for half an hour!"

"Good, he's had time to prepare himself."

They found Mr. Elfman waiting outside the recording room, having a coffee and danish.

"Hey guys," he said, washing down a mouthful with bad coffee, "Took you so freakin' long?"

"Traffic. Plus our bus driver kept getting pulled over. I've never had to bribe so many cops!"

"You had Otto drive you all the way from Springfield?"

"What can I say? I'm a risk taker. Okay, just let us get tuned up a bit and we'll be ready to go. Is the horns section here yet?"

"I guess. They showed up early. They nearly left, but then they heard you were just pulling in to the parking lot."

"Okay, you heard him, let's get ready people!"

After a few minutes to tune up their instruments and apologize to the horns section they had hired, they were ready.

"Okay guys, since Elfman's here, we're gonna' make use of him. 'Dead Man's Party', take one!"

They had lots of fun with the song, playing with different versions of it until they came to one that they agreed was original enough but remained true to the spirit of it. They moved on to 'Mary', and then 'Noise Machine', an original that Brian and Bart had co-wrote (meaning Brian wrote it while Bart rambled on about how cool it would be if there would be more explosions in it) as a tribute to Oingo-Boingo. Elfman stayed for a while, but had to leave. He stayed to hear them play 'Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace', which Bart and Lisa had based on their childhood nightmares. He told them it was pretty good, but had to leave before he could hear any more.

The group recorded a few more tracks, including 'Black Crow', and the companion song, 'White Crow', before they broke for lunch. They drove around for a while before finding Palermo's, and little longer before they found a parking place the bus could fit in.

It was a Tuesday, and Palermo's was usually closed on Tuesdays. But, as they had called in, they decided to open just for them.

They were greeted graciously at the door, and escorted to a banquet table they had laid out for them. They ordered a pizza, and Lisa and Brian ordered pasta, as the rest of the group would not consent to vegetarian pizza. They laughed, and ate and drank and had a grand old time. Steve noticed that they had only ten minutes to get back to the studio, so they handed the owner a few hundred dollar bills, thanked him swiftly, then raced back to the bus.

They barely made it back to the studio. They had to wait because Mac needed to use the restroom. They set back to recording. They did 'Night on Bald Mountain' which Brian Mac had rewritten slightly for the group's style, then 'Damnation of a Nation', the title track for their spooky-themed album due for October. They took a break while they waited for the strings section to arrive, then worked on 'Requiem for a Sinner' and 'Mother', which Brian had wrote himself. They then did 'I Saw It' a chilling spoken-word track that Lisa had written, then launched into a re-tooled version of 'Welcome to My Nightmare', and then 'Super Freak'. Lisa took over playing the bass for Brian while he sang. She loved the way he sang the song. He had told her once that it was one of his 'all-time favourites'. His facial expressions as he sang were nearly made her break out in laughter for the first three takes. Though he didn't mind (she had confided to him once his over-the-top faces and actions while singing were one of the many little things she liked about him) the others sure did. Knowing the others were getting annoyed was enough to keep her from laughing while they finally got the track recorded. Their session ended on a cheery note with rousing playing of 'Ghostbusters'.

After their session was over, the group wanted to go shopping at Circuit City Plaza. Lisa asked if Otto could drop Brian and her off at Cedar-Sinai first.

"Okay."

"Good luck!"

"Heh, thanks…" Lisa chuckled. She walked off with Brian into the hospital.