In the Monkees suite

The guys, their half dozen backup musicians, and Chip were slouched around on the floor finishing off their very working class chow down of pizza (delivered by a teenage guy who accepted his c-note tip with bug-eyed gratitude) and the six packs of beer they picked up on the way back from the Cow Palace.

"Okay, here's the plan," Chip told them, "we need a serious check for a couple of the ones you've never done live, like Only Sleeping, Sweet Young Thing, Daydream Believer. A regular check for the regular hits to get the baseline vocal and instrumental highs and lows for I'm A Believer, and I Wanna Be Free..."

"Mike me HIGH for that last one, mate," Davy insisted to a chorus of laughter. It was a running joke, the "intimate" ballad he did for every gig, seated on the edge of the stage with a hand mike... completely drowned out by the hysterical screams.

"That reminds me..." Chip cut in, "A couple of the ones on the album we know just will not work live because it'll be more like mime than music. Like Saginaw..."

"Man!" Peter exclaimed. "I finally get in some mandolin chops and it's trapped like a rat on vinyl."

Mike and Peter's old music buddy Gram Parsons had lent them some prime string band instruments, including a couple of amp-ready fiddles that would be used on Sweet Young Thing, and they'd hoped to give them regular use.

"You know he's right," Mike agreed. "Why waste those sweet strings on deaf ears?"

"Right on,"Chip added,"but I still bet fifty that the arrangement we worked out in the studio, with David on his Martin, Pete on mandolin, no bass at all, and Ralph and Marty on fiddle could make Bonnie break down and cry."

"Sucker bet," Mike drawled. "She's immune to us by now. One-hundred percent bulletproof."

"Yeah well she's got a serious weakness for Saginaw and I say she'll be reduced to a sloppy mess with the right bluegrass backup," Chip continued with rock-solid confidence. "And you didn't let me finish. Like I said, there's the serious check, the regular check, and then there's those girls that won that contest. That part's the playground."

Micky looked uncertain. "I dunno man, I don't think Bonnie or Pam are gonna go for that."

Davy sat up and shook his head in disgust. "You bloody paedophile," he said, dragging out the "eee" sound in the first part of the word. "He means the music bit."

"Fine one to talk, Davy 'lock-up-your-daughters' Jones," grumbled an embarrassed Micky.

Chip hauled himself up off the floor. "I mean why not add the stuff we know won't play live for the nice small audience, just to see how it sounds? Saginaw, maybe even Don't Call on Me? It's a cinch that little lounge song'll never see the outside of a studio otherwise."

"Ha, ha," Mike smirked, "I'll have the last laugh when you're all outta work and I am a professional lounge crooner."

"Great, I'll bring my mom to see you at the Holiday Inn," Micky promised. "Okay, we'll figure it out, right men?" The others, including the backup guys, nodded energetically.

As they trooped out the door to meet the limo downstairs Mike reminded Chip, "I heard you got a little action going on with Morris. You think these contest winners are gonna be too clam-up-and-die with Monkee-awe to make noise during the check. She told me she has fifty says you're wrong."

Chip laughed out loud. "C'mon, you know this won't be anything like a gig for them. They're not gonna be surrounded by thousands of girls screaming and all of them feeding off each other... totally different scene."

"We'll see..." Mike slipped on his shades and smiled knowingly.


Later, at the Cow Palace

The stage was set up at one end of the huge arena, the small crescent behind being roped/barred/otherwise sealed off for exits and entrances with areas set aside for quick costume change-ups (jackets off/sweaters on) and props like the "James Brown" cape Mike would be draping on Micky for his blues solo.

In the center of the second row Pam Saunders had herded her six contest winners, now being more-or-less enthralled by Bonnie's rundown of what would be happening. As Bonnie delivered her very casual spiel from in front of the first row she smiled to see the girls watching the stage like six little hawks, hoping to catch the first glimpse of a Monkee.

"Relax ladies, the roadies are all there is to see for a little while longer," Bonnie laughed. "As I was saying, this isn't a concert, really. There could be some long pauses between the music and sometimes they may stop right in the middle so Chip can adjust things." She pointed to the area stage left where Chip ran madly between cable connections, amps, and his board, pausing to slap his headphones on as he checked levels. The headphones were tethered by an impossibly long series of patched together cables, allowing him to move even as far as the front row so he could visually place equipment as the instrument crew played a few basic chords to sort out the inputs. During one of his laps by the front row, Bonnie grabbed him.

"This is Chip Douglas. He works a lot of the magic that takes a bunch of guys on different instruments and turns them into the records you hear."

Six pairs of eyes stared at him... after all he was almost a Monkee!

"I heard Mike produced some of the new album," commented one of the "older" (aka seventeen years old) girls. She was determined to be seen as more than just a teeny-bopper.

"True," Chip told her and her companions. "And Pam must have told you by now, Davy, Peter, Micky and Mike do play their instruments. And I play some of them too, and some other guys you'll see onstage. Because, like, nobody has more than two hands, right?" Before he took off, he eyed Bonnie and added, "Now remember girls, we're working up there to get everything right for the show tomorrow. So we need to hear ourselves work, you dig? Save your excitement for the gig." He took off before Bonnie could reply.

Winking at the girls Pam yelled after him, "They know how to act, Chip, they're not barbarians!" Inside, though, she was laughing her ass off. Chip Douglas may have known the music inside and out but Pam knew the fans, and Bonnie had told her about the bet that Chip was guaranteed to lose. Pam hadn't told the girls about it, but she didn't have to. She and Bonnie had even decided between them when the kids would lose it, even if it were only once. They knew because Bonnie had enlisted Mike's help, and he knew exactly what to do and when. They'd never know what hit 'em.


The onstage activity was so constant that the guys came out and plugged in, incredibly, almost unnoticed by the "16 girls". It wasn't until Micky yelled "Welcome ladies, try to control yourselves when I bust loose on the skins!" that they sort of gasped and paid close attention. There was a little bit of chatter but they held it together as the tuning up began. They almost lost it again after things were set but fell silent as if hypnotized when Davy stepped up to the mike, one hand full of maracas and a tambourine hanging from the other, to flip on his thousand-watt charm.

"Welcome, ladies. We're sorry we couldn't get together for dinner as planned, but hope this'll make up for it. Bonnie may have told you it's not going to be as exciting as tomorrow night, but you'll hear some things from us that we won't be doing on the tour."

"Which ones?" a blonde pixie-like teen managed to ask.

Davy tapped a finger to his nose. "You'll have to wait to tomorrow to figure that 'un out. Til then it's our secret." And with a wink that triggered a more than a few sighs, he returned his attention to the others for the count-in.

Bonnie snickered under her breath. Damn he was shameless. Then she had to focus on the notebook and the clipboard in her lap, checking off the various load-in inventory checklists as the roadies, instrument handlers, and other techies brought them to her one by one. She'd organize them later, since they wouldn't be breaking down until tomorrow night. When it came to load in and load out check and breakdown Bonnie's checklists and inventories were organized with maniacal detail, each in its subsection of a separate loose-leaf binder for every city, each matched with the crew lists provided at load in and breakdown/load out. And even God couldn't help anyone if everything didn't match up perfectly.

As the band played through their opening check of You Told Me, Bonnie glanced up and smiled widely at Peter who was in the upper levels of heaven as he tore it up on his Wildwood. She could have set up backstage and done her thing, but being able to actually hear every note, to be able to shift her hearing from the banjo riffs to backup guy Ron's badass bass, to Micky's precise back-beat, it never got old. And this was the only chance she ever got to do it. Listening to a rough mix in the studio didn't come close.

Onstage the guys were completely absorbed in their music, adjusting the arrangement as they went. For them, too, this would be their only chance to actually hear how they sounded. This is where the groove descended, and they didn't waste a minute of it. Chip moved to the center front again, standing just to Bonnie's right, headphones slung around his neck.

Bonnie was taking lists with her left hand as the crew came by and handed them off, checking off with her right in her notebook, paying less attention to the stage as she went. Until...

times have made me shy of girls and all the games they are playing...

...ahh

As if on cue, at least four of the six girls in the row behind Bonnie lost control in a collection of combined squeals and sighs... and Bonnie's open hand shot out toward Chip.

"Pay up, Douglas." She didn't even look up from her record keeping.

Nor did Chip look down from his technical study of the stage as he dug a fifty out of his pocket and handed it back to her.

"Bitch," he whispered.

"Sucker," she replied.

Both were smiling. Bonnie waved the fifty at Mike and Pam in turn. The sound check continued.


Davy serenaded the girls with I Wanna Be Free, and after a brief consult with the band threw in the (diametrically opposed) I'll Be True To You for good measure. He offered a couple of (usually) swoon-inducing phrases directly to Bonnie who, unseen by the teenagers behind her, rolled her eyes and faked a yawn.

The girls seemed impressed by Micky's Moog and the eerie vocals and percussion in Love is Only Sleeping, a song that Bonnie had been convinced would turn them off as totally "not-Monkees". The "Monkees sound" was recovered by the bouncy percussion of The Kind of Girl I Could Love, while I'm A Believer was greeted with wild applause and fairly controlled exclamations, as were the other "hits". Bonnie was surprised when they added Clarksville, a thing they tried to avoid until absolutely necessary, but this got a rave response from the girls.

By nine-thirty it was winding down, having taken less time than a real concert but quite a bit longer than the standard sound check.

"This one's gonna sound a little different," Peter was explaining as he strapped on a flatiron mandolin. "It's on the new album, but we're giving it a more country-bluegrass feel here that might surprise our fans. A friend of ours has kind of a soft spot for it." Peter winked at Bonnie, which did not go unnoticed and Bonnie answered the whispers behind her with, "Trust me, it's a keeper."

When Bonnie saw Ralph and Marty step out with their fiddles and Davy test a few light, bending notes on the Martin, she sat up straighter. She'd always thought the song was begging for fiddles, but never mentioned it because she tried not to step too deeply into the guys' territory. At the moment, she shut her eyes and bent forward, elbows on knees, chin resting in her hands, in full Listening Trance. Shutting out everything except the vocals and music. She'd never heard David play that way... then Peter's first mandolin line made her breath catch. And at the end of the first line of the second verse came the fiddles, and she was lost.

As the fade played out, Bonnie sat up again and looked up at the stage, blinking rapidly, smiling like a fool.

"Guys... holy shit." She didn't care who was giggling behind her.

Chip came to the edge of the stage and peered down at Bonnie, then stood and wheeled on Mike.

"Pay up, Nesmith... she's bawlin' like an orphan."

Bonnie glared at the two of them through slightly runny eyes.

"You bet on me you shifty bastards?"

One of the girls noted, apparently in Mike's defense, "Well you bet on us!"

Bonnie turned and protested." Hey,that was different!" She balled Chip's fifty and tossed it to Pam. "That's gonna buy your dinner before the concert tomorrow!"

"Aw relax, Morris, you know we'll make it back offa somebody before we hit New York!" Mike assured her from the stage.

Then Micky called down from his perch at the drums, "Okay kids, now when anybody asks you what it's like behind the scenes on a Monkees tour, you can tell em... it's one long floating crap game!"


They didn't get much time to visit afterward, but Bonnie had a chance to exchange some "mad huggery" with Pam, and the guys graciously came by for brief hello's and to sign the girls' backstage passes.

"We all read Pam's article about your show in Paris," one of the teenagers found the courage to say. "She's right, I had no idea how hard you work!"

Micky being Micky, he dropped to his knees at her feet. "You are a fan to die for," he declared as she nearly passed out cold.


12:10 am San Francisco Hilton, Bonnie Morris's suite

Bonnie finished up the last of the load-in inventory lists, snapping the binder rings shut, and dropped her head forward on the desk. It could have waited until tomorrow but, "It's done, one more thing done..." she congratulated herself.

She hadn't heard the door to the suite open and close, but the scent of Ivory Soap, fancy after shave, and a soupcon of performance funk announced Mike's approach. Still, she didn't move, waiting instead to feel him crouch next to her and nuzzle the back of her neck. She loved when he did that.

"Yep, all done, and ready to start all over again tomorrow," he said next to her ear before giving it a nibble. "But right now... you owe me fifty bucks."

"Huh? Oh, right. Well it's your own damn fault you guys made me cry, kinda stupid to blame me." She stood and stared up at him. His later-than-five-o'clock shadow lent that dusky quality to his face that somehow made those dark eyes darker, the lashes longer and his mouth...

"Stop looking like that."

Mike stepped back and looked himself up and down, then down at Bonnie. "Like what?"

"Like that," she grabbed his collar and pulled him down to her, scattering kisses in his short scruff. "And like that," she repeated, pulling him over to the bed to sit him down and kiss his gorgeously shaded eyelids, brushing his lashes with her lips.

"Oh. Well if it bothers you that much," he teased as she unbuttoned his shirt, "I'll stop." He was rewarded by her pushing him over backward and climbing on top of him.

"Don't you dare."

He lay there smiling as she managed to get him mostly undressed, and finally rolled her onto her back and leaned over her on one elbow, sliding his other hand inside her plush bathrobe and expertly loosening the sash.

"So, mama, I guess this means I'll be takin' that fifty out in trade?" He dropped down to run his open mouth over her neck and shoulders and then worked his way lower, his hands running elsewhere at their leisure.

"Oh honey make no mistake," she promised in a husky voice as she pulled him down hard. "You're gonna earn it."