to prevent their hiring a new singer, then he had to go back on tour immediately to allow them to continue earning a living. That’s what Joey had wanted at the very beginning, of course, but everyone had forgotten about that by then—including Joey.
Fortunately, Mitch was able to remind him before yet another court date was set.
Meanwhile, Honeyload knew nothing about Joey’s interviews for Project Icon (he’d denied all rumors)—and if they had, they would have almost certainly done everything possible to kill the deal. After all, Joey couldn’t exactly appear on a twice-weekly TV show and play a gig with Honeyload in a different city every night. Being a judge on Project Icon would render all his promises about touring meaningless.
The day Rabbit finally approved Joey’s appointment, Honeyload was booked to play a gig at the Freaky-Cola Amphitheater in San Bernardino. I was in the room when Len and Ed tried to make the call to Joey personally, but he was already on the road and wasn’t answering. So instead they called Mitch, who was still in LA. He knew exactly what was coming, of course—thanks to the story that had gone up a few moments earlier on the ShowBiz website:
HOUSTON, WE HAVE AN OFFER!
(A CHAZ CHIPFORD EXCLUSIVE)
BUNNY NET DANGLES FIVE-MILLION-DOLLAR CARROT IN FRONT OF YOUTUBE POOPER’S NOSE —
SEEN AS LEVERAGE, REHABILITATION FOR TROUBLED HONEYLOAD FRONTMAN
“I’m going down to meet Joey at the show tonight—if the rest of the band haven’t killed him before then,” said Mitch. “I’ll see what he thinks of the terms.”
“Great,” Len replied. “Bill will go with you.”
Actually, I was supposed to be having a video chat with Brock at seven o’clock.
Not anymore.
Mitch didn’t put up a fight—which was just as well, otherwise the three-hour Town Car ride that followed might have been a bit awkward. Maybe he wanted the company, I thought. Or a witness, in case things got nasty backstage.
When we finally got to the amphitheater, Blade Morgan was waiting just beyond the crew entrance, looking about as unhappy as it is possible for a human being to look. Holding up his BlackBerry—on which the headline from the ShowBiz website was displayed—he said, “Tell Joey to go fuck himself up the ass with a razor blade. Actually, don’t: He’d probably enjoy that. Tell him I hope he drops dead, so I can skullfuck his eye sockets.”
“One word, Blade,” Mitch replied, pushing the screen away from his face. “Franjoopta.”
“That was different,” Blade steamed. “That was fuckin’ different, you asshole!”
Mitch just raised his eyebrows and walked away. Franjoopta was of course the worst contestant in Project Icon’s history. Indeed, when he was voted into the season eight finale as a result of an ironic “Save Franjoopta” campaign, the nation was so outraged, questions were raised in Congress. The point being: Franjoopta’s final song on the show (before Sir Harold ordered his elimination “by any means necessary”) was a spectacularly misguided light reggae affair, supposedly based upon The Beatles’ “Helter Skelter.” And Len, in a desperate effort to add credibility to the proceedings, had invited a “rock ’n’ roll icon” to play George Harrison’s riff as a special guest. Unfortunately for Blade, that icon was him. He’d never heard of Franjoopta. This changed soon enough. The ridicule from Honeyload’s fan base was so overwhelming, he couldn’t go out in public again for a year.
For the next three hours, I sat on a giraffe-skin couch in Joey’s trailer, listening to Mitch being subjected to a meandering, tearful lecture outlining the many, many ways in which he was a failure as a representative, and how, if Joey Lovecraft were a manager—“li’l old me, who doesn’t know shit and belongs in the crazy house”—he would never, ever have allowed his client to be humiliated with such a pathetic, insulting sum as five million dollars. For a moment I wondered if all this were for my benefit: a negotiating tactic. But no. I doubted Joey could remember my name, never mind who I worked for.
“Did you even do any research on these Rabbit clowns?” he asked Mitch, loading up a DVD of an old episode of Cannon Jump. It was a TV show from the eighties about a nine-year-old kid who takes a job as a human cannonball, only to find that every time he gets shot up in the air, he goes back in time. “I mean, hello?” he yelled, waving at the image paused on his giant flatscreen. “The kid. Ring any bells?”
“Not really,” shrugged Mitch.
“Look again.”
Mitch studied