CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
For those here that have an interest, I have posted Part Three of "Shooting Stars".
http://www.forum.exscn.net/showpost.php?p=526692&postcount=16
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Because of football today, this was largely overlooked.
here it is, where it will be seen.
There is a thin line between tragedy and comedy.
“Yeuh kneuh, of keurs, I meant to that?!” Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers)
I spent—we all spent—years and thousands upon thousands of hours, Dollars and energy “Buying” El Ron’s construct. I have spent years and thousands upon thousands of hours, Dollars and energy “dismantling” the construct I bought into…and am still not done. I’ve reached the point where I don’t regret a minute of it. There were some dark days…tortured, desperate and dark days; days that, now, I don’t regret. My times with El Ron used to haunt me; now they are the arrows in my quiver and ESMB is my bow.
For me there has been no Silver Bullet, no Red Pill or Blue Pill, no one singular “Moment”. For me it has simply been pushing forward, never stopping—always forward—one foot in front of the other, one step at a time.
Part Three
L. Ron Clouseau
“The Major Target”
El Ron was frustrated...Hisself (H) now had the bestess of best Whips but those RPB’s don’t just let everyone that asks for an appointment into their palatial, Studio Quality Sound System equipped offices to make “The Pitch”. You had to be “somebody” or know “somebody”.
Although there were a handful of Music Industry Scns—from recording session musicians all the way up to Chick Corea and Stanly Clarke—sprinkled around Hisself’s (H’s) Planet, El Ron, expressly, did not want any of them to know about POS at that time. Over my years in service to El Ron, I always found it odd that (H) intentionally remained isolated, or at least arms length away, from Scn’s that were actually real experts and professionals. H’s modus was to “learn” something H’s way, run it through the bowels between H’s ears and, “Presto Chango”; regurgitate yet another “Tech Breakthrough” and pontificate as an “expert” on yet another subject. El Ron then “Packaged” up all H’s “hard won knowledge” and sold “It” to all of Us.
Unfortunately, to those RPB’s, Source Records and its’ Executing Vassals (EV’s) were “nobodies” and, believe it not, El Ron didn’t want H’s name, or Scn’s, mentioned until H’s minions were inside the “Corral” and could properly apply “The Whip”—and there were, of course, were "R" instructions as to how to precisely do that.
“The Vital Target”
In Hollywood there are two things that get you access to “The Players”; “Talent”—whether it be “casting couch” talent or more—you had to have to some Talent; Money—Hollywood loves money and views it as a form of “Talent”. And, El Ron had access to tons of long tons of money.
Laced in to the fabric of Hollywood are Talent Agents. Higher up the Talent Agent food chain are the Lawyer/Agents and, at the top, are Lawyer/Agents that not only know what they are doing, they are specialized in specific niches of the Entertainment Industry. A Niche Lawyer/Agent (NLA) has a reputation and a track record that yields instant phone access to all the Players in their Industry niche. If you’ve got the bucks, you got yourself one helluva gunslinger.
El Ron had selected the EV’s well and H’s Action Aide Son-in-Law was a bright, savvy and sophisticated guy from a well to do, refined and successful family. A plan was cooked up, the Action Aide made the pitch to “Daddy” (an act that always required consummate skill and gambler’s guts and luck) and H bought it—the purse was opened wide and deep to find and hire the “Paladin” of Hollywood NLA’s. The EV’s snapped-to and, within the flash of a Rock Slam, the baddest MFer in the Valley saddled-up to bust open those RPB’s corral doors for Source Music.
“The Valuable Final Product”
Paladin was very, very impressed…with the fact that POS had been Mastered by a Legendary Mastering Engineer and had been manufactured by the finest “Boutique” Pressing Plant in the Industry. As for the rest of Paladin’s assessment of the POS held in his hand and listened to on his Studio Quality Sound system? Second verse, same as the first; the Master Tape recording was an amateur mess, some of the mikes were inferior and others were the wrong type for that instrument; the room was too Live and the engineer did not correct for it, the music was a sort of “Jazz Fusion” which usually doesn’t sell well even if expertly recorded by top artists and engineers; the ensemble was poorly put together with some mediocre musicians, some good ones and some were good enough to back up top talent; I’m confident you’ve been told all this by the Legendary Mastering Engineer, who happens to also be a first rate Jazz Composer, Arranger, Director and Musician; I understand what El Ron’s trying to do but H needs to let some folks that know what they’re doing—have spent their whole careers trying to “Capture Live Sound”—help H out…all it takes is money, lots of it and H obviously has no shortage of that; and oh—just curious—who’s the juvenile that came up with the album covers? Paladin also said that unless he could reveal just who and what "Source Music" was to the RPB's he contacted he would go forward and El Ron agreed.
Paladin was not an English Butler…he was a Bounty Hunter. Paladin gave the EV’s the “lay of the land” as he saw it, to be relayed to H sans sugarcoating. If El Ron was insisted that POS was “It” then he’d go with it—under the proviso that H understood that the only interest those RPB’s would have in Distributing this particular POS Album (double entendre intended) was the fact that El Ron had a “ready made market” that would buy anything H put out.
“The Implementation”
Paladin’s message to El Ron rolled off H like water on a duck. Paladin was being paid a fee that would have fed all of PAC SO plentiful and very good food for weeks and weeks. “All we need and want from this Bird is to deliver the goods,” H huffed. Within a few days, Paladin sent another message to El Ron; he had 4 Major Record Companies that would let the EV’s in their corral and one of them was H’s best hope to cut a deal. Paladin’s advice was to take on the three less likely RPB’s first and for him to go with the EV’s so that they could get some experience “under fire”, he would personally groom the EV’s and show them “the ropes”. Once that was done, they’d take on the target of most opportunity. El Ron agreed and, straightaway, the EV’s and Paladin were inside one and then, shortly thereafter, a second and then a third RPB corral.
The third, fourth and fifth verse was also the same as the first. “Target’s” 1-3 were impervious to “The Whip”. Unless H was willing to let them help redo the POS Album, soup-to-nuts, they had no interest at all in having their name associated with “It” and if El Ron would foot the bill to properly redo POS then they would be interested in trying to put a deal together, knowing that the only chance there was of them making any money was that Scns would buy the Power of Source. And, in order to even talk about trying put that deal together, they’d need some “Hard Numbers” on the true Scn Membership, the geographic distribution and any other Demographics that could be put together. El Ron ordered the EV’s to proceed to target 4.
“The ‘Truth’ Revealed”
Target 4 was a very successfuland renowned Major Record Company of some very bright contrarians. These RPB’s had made a lot of money taking well calculated risks on new sounds and timely different “twists”. They’d had their share of losers but some of there winners were, and still are, cash cows. The “Big Dog” in the Corral that day would be one of the “Founders”—today he is in every Music Industry Hall of Fame of any note.
El Ron had “them” where H wanted ‘em. Afterall, this wasn’t gonna be Buckeroo El Ron's first Shootout at the OK Corral. Paladin had served H’s purpose and was told "step aside" and Buckarro El Ron would take it from here. El Ron carefully selected a “Special” Missionaire—a proven Big League Reg—briefed him, outfitted him and fired him off to the Source Music International Headquarters in Hollywood, California. The plan was for Missionaire “Special” was to accompany the EV’s to the standoff and once they had cowed these RPB’s with “The Whip”, Special would reveal himself as El Ron’s personal emissary to them and H's personal "Negotiator".
Final verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse. After sitting through the same meeting the EV’s had been through before, The Negotiator revealed just who and what he was and went for the jugular. He understood they were just using tactics, but, they could dispense with all that…he was here to cut to the chase and to put the “Deal” together!
“Okay son,” laughed Big Dog, “I can see why El Ron sent you…you’re good... you’re real good. Okay, here’s the "Deal". We’ll put POS out just like it is. El Ron pays all hard and soft costs, guarantees the profit we want and agrees that Scn can’t sell one record, or anything related to POS or the Stars through the Church or to its’ Members and, as you speak for H, I’ll shake on it right now and we can start putting things on paper tomorrow.” Special said he wasn't authorized to do that, continued to ‘negotiate” for a few more minutes and then he and the EV’s were handed their hats. Special was oredered back to Flag the next to be debriefed by, personally, by El Ron…what a luck guy.
Several days later the EV’s received the word from El Ron that they had done a "fantastic job, Very Highly Commended, Very Well Done"…new Mission orders were on their way.
In the new “Mission Information” Packet L. Ron Clouseau explained what really was going on. H had been conduction “Research” into the “Existing Scene” of the Hollywood Music Industry.
LRC’s intention all along was for POS to be a “Pilot Project” to “test” how well Pubs US could release, handle and market a new El Ron product.
In a few days or so,
Part Four
The Power of Source Unleashed
Peace.
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I've heard of rare occasions like this where the PC was lonely afterwards. 

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