Hollywood parties are not all they're cracked up to be. Big names turn up to the hot spots and paparazzi camp outside and it all looks like it's glamorous. Nobody ever believes you when you say that they can be dull as all hell. I don't know why, enough celebrities say it is and the idea that we're conspiring to pretend our jobs are hard is much fucking dumber than the idea that maybe work parties and schmoozing are not the same as going out with friends, but whatever. The fact remains that sometimes these shindigs are cool and sometimes they make you want to stab sharp objects through your eardrums because deafness is preferable to that fucking bullshit being spouted at you.

Tonight, so far, is kind of a mixed bag. Trace and I only came to this show to support Elena Suarez and see if we could talk her into doing a small diffusion line for William Rast, and we managed to make contact with her and talk shop a little. Groundwork has been laid and this is good; we weaselled a promise out of her that we can set up a meeting to discuss the possibility. She's a nice lady and her people seem cool, so that's all fine. The problem is that we also had to do the press line and every moron who wants a better shot at their picture making the cut has been sidling up to me with a photographer hot on their heels and it's really fucking irritating. I did my work, I'm now trying to relax and have a drink with my buddy. Leave me the fuck alone.

Oh, and also, if one more person asks me about Alicia Whatshername I'm going to smack a bitch. This is what I get for agreeing to take one fucking picture with somebody at a premiere.

"So how seriously did she really take that diffusion idea?" I yell in Trace's ear over the insanely loud music. "Honestly?"

I ask him because he's so much more hands on with this side of things than I am; he's a little more fluent in the language. "Well her PA actually handed me her business card."

"Which means?" In taking things easier, my involvement in William Rast has been scaled back down to a point where I'm pretty much only approving shit and doing promotion. I wasn't that heavily into the business stuff (aside from overseeing and just making sure I know what people are doing with my name and brand) to begin with but now I'm pretty far back out of it. Once the album's done with I'll push back into it a little more.

"If they weren't willing to at least hear our pitch, she'd have smiled and said we'd set something up but never given us any way to contact them to do it. We'd be looking them up in the fucking phone book," Trace says with a laugh.

I let out a chuckle and take a sip of my whiskey. Usually I'm more of a beer or shots man at these events but I needed hard liquor tonight. "Cool. Just try and set it up for some day when I'm in the state this time."

"Fuck, man, it's time to let that go already."

"Why would I do that when it's results guaranteed?"

"Asshole."

"Munchkin."

"Fuck you."

Trace is such an easy mark. All these years later you'd think he'd work out that the fastest way to make me drop a cheap shot is to stop reacting but he still hasn't got there yet. It's awesome, he just looks so irritated and he gets so whiny. Maybe I'm a bad friend, but he's funny when he's pissed. He's so short he looks like a sulky twelve year old.

"You know, they reckon Alicia Warren's showing up soon. If you need me to get you a room…" Yeah. The problem with baiting Trace is that sometimes he swipes right back. I guess I can't complain since I provoked him and all - but he's still an irritating little hobbit.

"Thanks, I'll pass."

"You know, you really need to…"

"Get laid, I know," I interrupt him. "So you keep telling me."

"Seriously, isn't your hand tired yet?"

Trust Trace to lower the tone. Best thing to do is refuse to take the line. "Doing fine, thanks."

"How can you not have had sex in so long? It's been, like, since you broke up with Nicole."

Heh… no it hasn't. I haven't had sex since I waved Addy off at the apartments but I haven't mentioned that to Trace yet. He knows that I was friendly with some locals and that some of them were girls, he has heard her name before, but the whole sexing it up thing never got mentioned. Mostly because I didn't need the inevitable shit he'd give me about it.

"Really, it's not a big deal," I tell him with a shrug. "I hate to admit it but the females might have a point about sex not being everything."

"Who are you and when did you lose your balls?" Trace responds in mock disgust - or at least I think it's mock.

"Quit worrying. When I meet a suitable attractive female I'll be back in the game."

"Good, 'cause I was worrying. I was starting to think maybe you had something you wanted to tell me about Lance."

Maybe I'm just slow (or drunk), but it took me a minute or so to get that he was implying I'm homosexual. It wasn't up to his usual standard, he's normally much wittier. Seriously, people don't look at Trace and think he's a wit (probably because, let's face it, he is an irritating little hobbit) but he can be seriously hilarious when he puts his mind to it. I guess because he's worked out that all these years later I'm not going anywhere he's quit making the effort.

"You know, homophobia is just fear of your own latent sexuality."

Heh. Now it's taking him a minute or so to realise that I'm implying he's homosexual. I enjoy abusing him right back.

***

I am a stupid, stupid man. I should know better than to get hammered the night before a nine am meeting. My head is no longer killing me but still kind of delicate, and no matter how much liquid I pour down my throat I cannot rid myself of that cotton mouth feeling. It's not really a hangover, I'm in no danger of tossing my cookies, but I'm not exactly at my brightest best. My IQ is probably temporarily missing ten or fifteen points. Which is awkward given that I'm meeting Barry Weiss to argue… I mean, uhh, discuss which songs will go on the album.

The problem is that I'm having a really hard time listening to him right now. We're slouched back on the comfortable leather couches in his office and to be honest I'm more inclined to sleep than sit up straight and pay attention. It doesn't help that he's on a spiel right now, yammering on about promo schedules and how excited they are and blah blah blah. I'm grateful that they're excited and I should be taking a keener interest in this promo plan considering I'm the one who's going to have to follow it, but I really want to go back to bed. For a week if possible but I'd settle for a few hours. I almost wish I had that concealer stick my make up artist uses to get rid of the circles under my eyes.

"So… shall we get to the track list?"

"Yeah, sure." Reluctantly I pull myself upright so my body language is more attentive and less lazy bastard. This I need to actually concentrate for.

Barry opens up the slim leather folder he's been holding on his lap and pulls out a piece of paper and a pen from it. I can see it's got scribbled notes all over it. "Right," he says setting it on his knee. "If we start with the songs we're keen to get on the record?"

"Go ahead," I acquiesce as agreeably as I can manage.

"Okay… we're definitely thinking Rewind, Turn Me Out, Knock Knock, Taking It Back, Do You Remember Now."

This may be the best start to one of these negotiations ever. Three of those five I definitely wanted and the other two I'm pretty okay with depending on how the rest of it shapes up.

"I'm a definite on Remember, Taking It Back and Rewind," I tell him, "and the other two are definite possibilities."

"Excellent." Barry smiles as he ticks three and puts question marks next to the others. I can just tell he was thinking the same as me on the whole good start thing. "Twenty five percent right off the bat ain't bad."

"Probably a record for us." A grin spreads on my tired face and he chuckles back.

"Speaking to the big wigs…"

"Big wigs? Because you ain't important," I say sarcastically to the head of my label. That makes him laugh again. It just amuses me that he still doesn't place himself in that category half the time even though he's one of the most high powered men around here.

"No matter how high you get, there's always some ass higher up who could squash you like a bug."

"Ain't that the truth," I groan. "Sorry, you were saying?"

"Right, back to the list… rest of it's all looking pretty negotiable, which is a good situation to be in where we got lots of choice. I figure if we take a look at the three we definitely want and try to come up with whatever concept or theme that you want running through and we'll narrow it down from there?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," I nod. This is why I like Barry, he always knows what he's doing and it limits the need for me to know what I'm doing.

"Only songs the opinion polls weren't so hot on…" He glances down the list, tapping his pen against the name as he reels it off. "Mirror…"

"Nah, me neither." I scrunch up my nose. "If you need a b side it's fine but not the album. That was kind of an experiment that didn't come off."

"Nix Mirror," Barry agrees while striking a line through it on the page. "We thought Stand Trial sounds a little too much like What Goes Around."

"Uhh…" I'll agree on striking it from the record (excuse the pun) but it does not sound like What Goes Around. I do not make the same record twice… and I was about to argue that point with him until I realised that if I don't want it on the CD anyway it is so not worth it. But that song is so not like What Goes Around, anybody with ears knows that. Or at least they would if they heard them both to compare. "Yeah, okay, we can ditch that one."

"Uhh…" he scans his eyes through the rest of the names. "Wow, another good run, only three to nix. This bodes well for the album." Barry smiles encouragingly, tapping his pen against the folder. "Last objection is Here's To You."

"That I want on the record."

He shifts in his seat and tries to explain their thinking. "What people said about it was that they thought it was a little too far out of your niche."

"Which would mean it's different and shows off my versatility."

"General consensus was that there's enough potential amongst the rest of the songs and that they're more cohesive together as a whole, we're not sure where Here's To You would fit."

"I want it on the record. That one's non-negotiable for me."

"Okay…" Barry says slowly, tapping his pen and trying not to let a fight brew. "What are you thinking about it, I mean, what to you makes this song so important?"

Hmm. I can't tell Barry that I wrote it about some chick nobody knows about and I really want to put it on the CD as a personal tribute. Well, I could if I wanted to be laughed out of his office. That's by no means my only reason, the song rocks if I do say so myself and screw this not stepping out of your niche shit, but even though it is a dirty club song I do have some sentimental value invested in it. You'd think that if you were going to get attached to a song it'd be a ballad and not some dance beat, but it holds a memory for me.

Also, more than anything, it's a kick ass song that I think I can make another SexyBack out of with the right promo attack. I'm not sentimental - or stupid - enough to put a piece of shit on my album because some girl was cute.

Playing with my watch, swivelling it around my wrist, I try to put this in as convincing and professional a way that I can. "I just think that it's the standout track. I mean, you guys have picked it out as being different and to the left of everything else on the list, and that's what I need. I want to keep showing off versatility and bringing something new and unexpected in; I don't want an album of twelve songs that all sound the same, and that track will kill in the clubs."

"I can see what you're saying and true enough there could be a club market, but we need tracks to kill radio more," Barry points out.

"Yeah, I know. But you guys thought SexyBack was too club oriented too and that turned out okay." That was a serious side swipe, but I'm playing hard ball on this one. I'm more than happy to negotiate the rest of them since they already agreed to all my other must haves, but this album is not hitting stores without this song on it even if I have to beat these guys into submission. Metaphorically, obviously, I'm not about to bite the hand that feeds.

Thankfully he took that little jibe with grace and lifts his hands up as if in surrender. "Fair point. Okay, if we leave it on the maybe list for now you can have your chance to change people's minds, but you'll have to be prepared to plead your case. People really weren't convinced on it."

"There's precedent for that." I shrug. "It always grows on them."

"Great. Well…" Barry looks down his list again to sum things up. "We're agreed that Remember, Taking It Back and Rewind are on there for sure, Mirror and Stand Trial are definitely out, and everything else is absolutely negotiable. I already mentioned we're looking to get Knock Knock and Turn Me Out on it, is there anything else you feel particularly strongly about one way or the other before I finalise the maybe list?"

"No." I shake my head at him. "Just the three we're already agreed on and Here's To You I want on there, everything else I'll take opinions on."

"Great. All in all that looks pretty promising to me, gives us a good foundation of definites and a lot of great maybes. In which case I'll get a time set up for you to come back in and sit down with everyone instead of just me, and we'll hash it out then."

"Can you try and get Tim there, if we can find a schedule window?" I ask. "I kind of feel like this one isn't going to be as obvious as FutureSex/LoveSounds and I'd like his take on it, if we can."

"Sure." He scribbles a note on his pad. "I'll try to get that set up for the next couple of weeks, sooner the better so we can start planning the advertising. Have you thought any more about a title?"

The title to this album has eluded me. I mean, with the group and then solo albums the titles haven't always been my personal idea, but I've always had ultimate say. Well, not so much in the group, I had a fifth of the ultimate say, but you get me. None of the song titles I've got really makes sense to me to sum up what this album is, though I guess maybe that could change once we finalise the track list. I don't know… you'd think that you just make twelve songs and that's it, album done, but this shit is more complex than you think. Or at least it is if you care about getting a good cohesive record together and not just churning it out as fast as possible.

With a smirk I think to myself that maybe banking is less complicated.