« Live Holiday Show! |Main| Girth McDürchstein's Bittersweet Treasures »

December 16, 2007

Bad Influence

I just got off the phone with our publicist, Lacey Greenwood. She did not sound happy, but to my surprise her unhappiness didn’t steam from the leaking of our unfinished album.

“You might hate it, Girth, but it’s actually good publicity,” she snapped. “Much better than cancelling the album. Again. It shows you’ve actually been working on something after all these years, that it was almost complete, and that—well, at the very least, parts of it were good.”

“What about the the illicit recording?” I asked.

“It shows real passion,” Lacey said. “I mean, you’re as vapid as any rock star, but you sound really into the idea. No, I see this whole thing as a boost. What I’m calling you about is Sweet Treasures.”

“Shouldn’t you have that discussion with your gynecologist?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

I quieted myself. Lacey kind of terrifies me.

She said, “Sweet Treasures is in serious trouble. On top of all that stuff you already said about it being a sham, tomorrow the L.A. Times will run an article describing the sudden growth in teen sex, teen pregnancy, and poor moral choices among teen girls in L.A. County schools.”

“So?”

“So they have a map of the supposed spread of information. It looks like one of those pictures of a nuclear bomb going off, with everything radiating from girls who have visited the Den Himmel Clinic on Ventura Boulevard in the past three months. They have their abortions, they get terrible advice, then they go and make worse decisions and either spread this advice to their friends, or other girls pick it up through osmosis.”

“Wow,” I said. “Sounds like Den Himmel needs a more compassionate medical staff, maybe an in-house psychologist—”

“Motherfucker, the girls are coming to see you. And Margo and Renal. You guys are almost solely responsible for everything that’s going wrong in L.A. County high schools. And it’s spreading like so many teenage girls’ legs.”

“Well…” I sighed. “Do they name us?”

“Not yet,” Lacey replied. “So far, people take Sweet Treasures about as seriously as any other rock star’s charity. So far, nobody at Den Himmel has made any kind of comment to the press, but there’s a shitstorm coming, and you guys are going to turn into the fall guys if you don’t nip this shit in the bud.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “I’ve always thought I set good moral examples. I’m always preaching love over violence, the importance of religion—”

“Oh, get off the fucking cross, you asshole!” Lacey shrieked. “You only care about religion because you found one that paints you as the god you think you are. You preach sex, not love, and schoolgirls are too fucking stupid to know that you think girls should be on the pill and guys should use condoms—”

“But condoms ruin the intimacy—”

“Shut your fucking mouth! You have to do something, Girth. If not for your sake, for your daughter’s.”

I hadn’t thought of that.

I nodded, even though Lacey couldn’t see me, and said, “Okay, Lacey. I’ll fix this.”

I hung up the phone and picked up my guitar.

Written by Girth McDürchstein on December 16, 2007 7:39 PM
Permalink |  Don't Call Me Daughter  | Digg It