Participants:
| Scene Title | Unicorns Are People Too |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | A band gets a new drummer as Magnes meets a newcomer to New York named Adel Starkey. |
| Date | November 16, 2010 |
A comfortable place, located in the basement of 14 East 4th Street. The red brick walls are covered with memorabilia from various icons of rock and places in rock history, creating a feel similar to that of a Hard Rock Cafe.
The left wall has two bars separated by swinging doors which lead to and from the kitchen. Directly across from the entrance is a two foot high stage with all the equipment needed for acts to perform there. The right wall has three doors marked as restrooms: two for use by women and one by men.
Thirty square feet of open space for dancing and standing room is kept between the stage and the comfortable seating placed around tables which fill the remainder of the Cellar.
The lighting here is often kept dim for purposes of ambience, and when performers are onstage the place is loud enough to make conversation difficult. Just inside the door is a podium where location staff check IDs and stamp the hands of those under twenty-one with a substance visible under UV lights at the two bars and by devices the servers carry. On the podium's front is a sign with big black letters that just about explain it all: If You Don't Like Rock 'N' Roll, You're Too Late Now!
It's around 7PM, people are already going home due to curfew coming up soon, so Magnes has choosen this time to meet up with Adel for her audition. He's standing in the middle of the stage, wearing a pair of old black sneakers, blue jeans, and an insane long-sleeved shirt covered in a dramatic scene with a boy riding a robot unicorn and a large explosion behind it. He has his Rickenbacker 4003 strapped around his neck, playing a quick bass solo he's slowly worked his way up to, having a very good pace going, very into it.
He seems to just be having fun at the moment, walking up to the mic so he can sing for the last few people, switching to actually playing a song on pure bass. "I was born a unicorn, I could have sworn you believed in me. Then how come all the other unicorns are dead?" He sways from side to side, but his singing has a nice fast paced energy to it. "We're the unicorns, we're more than horses. We're the unicorns, and we're people too!"
While he's singing and getting into his music, he may not notice right away that someone's not moving to leave— in fact this person had just recently arrived. The phone conversation just revealed her voice, but not her appearance. Deep brown eyes are touched with a smile as she watches the performance, not quite as good as it could be— the song really calls for a drummer. Even then, when he finishes, she's the first to clap, the loudest to clap, as she hurries closer.
"Hi. I— I'm Adel Starkey and I'm here to audition for your new drummer! You must be Magnes Varlane?" After the week (life) he's had, it would be a surprise if people didn't recognize him on sight. Unless they lived under a rock. Then it's more likely.
"Oh, uh, yeah, that's me." Magnes swallows hard when she approaches, shipping his bass around to his back so he can walk closer and offer his hand. "You're Adel? Sable's going to kill me if I bring you into the band, she doesn't date bandmates." he laughs, then nods over to a drumset. "Well, this is an audition, so let's go for something nice and fast. You know Fell in Love With a Girl?"
There's a sudden laugh, not nervous or shy, but genuinely amused. It's as if Adel took what he says for a very funny joke, and one she apparently thinks she got. Maybe she didn't, though. Once she recovers, she pushes long dark hair so that it's behind her shoulder, "I don't date bandmates either, but hopefully we can all be friends. I don't a lot of people in the city, so it'll be good to have some." Looking up at the drumset, her eyes brighten. "I was so excited to see you guys needed a drummer. I mean I can play the guitar too, but there's something so primal about drums." As she says that, she hops up on stage and hurries over to them, to find the sticks so she can make some of that primal music. "I know the song. And I understand if I have to audition again in front of the whole band, too. With everything going on, I know most people are busy picking up after." But this way he can screen for suckage?
"Sable trusts my judgement, but let's blow her away. One, two, three…" Magnes jumps and slams his feet into the floor once, twisting and rocking his body as he sings. "Fell in love with a girl, fell in love once and almost completely. She's in love with the world, but sometimes these feelings can be so misleading!"
He makes his way around the stage, guitar pulled back and forward as he jams hard on the bass to make up for the lack of a guitar. "Can't think of anything to do, yeah my life brain knows that all love is fleeting. She's just looking for something new, and I said it once before but it bears repeating now!" Then, once finally strum, and the song is over.
From where Magnes is, if she were auditioning anything else, it might be difficult to hear how well she's doing, in comparison to his own singing voice and the guitar in his hands— but drums have a way of their own. The vibrations can be felt in the air, on the stage. All around, really. Adel has a smile on her face as the drumsticks dance around. Percussion instruments are, as she said, quite primal. Even monkeys can play the drums. She's no monkey, but she's doing quite well, even twirling the sticks around in her fingers between beats to make a show of it. She seems very much at home in this sphere of influence she has around the drums. The last beat slams into place and she sits back, smile and eyes equally bright.
"You're hired. With absolutely no pay until we hit it big." Magnes grins, turning around to face her. "If you need a new drumset, I can take care of that. We've been trying to find a drummer for months."
"I know," Adel says quietly, with a mysteriousness about her smile. A moment later she blinks and fills what she meant. "I mean, I saw the ads up, and someone said they were up for a long time, and they thought you must have found someone in that time. But when I called you hadn't, so to me I got lucky. And you too, I guess!" Twirling the sticks around again between her fingers, she slides them together and then puts them down, hopping up off the chair. "I do need a drum set. I'm afraid I didn't bring one with me, but I wasn't expecting to get paid— " But that doesn't mean she doesn't want a job. "Think this place is hiring? I could serve drinks or something when we're not playing."
"I'm sure they are, or if you know how to bake, there's my friend Abby's, uh… cake bar, or something, I'm not sure what exactly it is." Magnes scratches the back of his head, looking just a tad awkward when she gets closer. No amount of having a band is going to rip the awkward out of him completely. "Oh, uh, I have a girlfriend." He points out completely unprovoked. "I'll take care of the drum set."
"I'm not so great with baking… I mean, I can learn! But… no, baking so not my thing," Adel admits, even waving her hands around a bit as if to explain it, without having to explain it. Cooking so not her thing. "I think I'll stick to serving tables." There's some confusion at his awkwardness, even a odd tilt of her head, as if that part she doesn't get. "Well— I'm guessing she's not a member of the band?"
"Oh, no, she just hangs out with us." Magnes clears his throat, shaking his head apologetically. "I'm sorry, you're talking to a bonified geek. I could probably tell you the square root of a chicken. Sable is basically the band's leader, I still haven't really grown into, well, a hardcore band guy who doesn't turn into pudding the second he sees a pretty girl."
"So you're a geek? What kind of geek? I'm afraid I don't know much about… I mean I know a lot of music. My mom was a huge music fan, and some geek stuff, but not really geek— Like I don't have any idea what the square root of a chicken is," Adel says, seeming to ramble off as she talks, as if she's a little nervous. "The only thing I really know about you is— " She waves her hands around again, as if gestures are easier to communicate with than words. "What was on television."
"Oh, right, I keep forgetting that people know me without me knowing them. That's still… kind of strange. But I guess, considering my TV history, it's not a surprise that I'm a comic book geek, and a math geek, and a science geek… I make costumes for conventions too." Magnes' cheeks are flushed as he explains all of this, eyes staring up at the ceiling as he oh-so-obviously avoids eye contact.
"The media usually exaggerates things and makes people look worse than they are," Adel says, looking genuinely interested and wide eyed at him. Almost like meeting a celebirty for the first time. "But I'd be interested in getting to know you beyond what people say about you— what kind of costumes? Like— costume parties? I thought once you got out of school that was kind of… kid stuff. The dressing up thing. Except I guess some bands dress up too. KISS, Lady Gaga…"
"Ah, uh, well people older than me do it, at conventions, wear superhero costumes and stuff…" Magnes' eyes shift down to his shoes now, practically stammering over his words as he explains. "See, uh, man this is embarassing. It's just fun, I guess. I make regular clothes and band costumes too."
"You should do that then, make clothes for us to wear," Adel says, a grin on her face that seems a little young even for her age. He's not that much older than her, but somehow she seems younger with her flaily motioning and style of speech. "I don't think it's embarassing, though. Maybe you could take me to one of those things someday and show me. Worst that'll happen is I'll crack up and point and laugh at them in public." That's the worst that could happen, right?
"That, or the entire world ends and Dracula rips out my still-beating heart, but I guess it might stop at laughing." Magnes smiles slightly, then reaches into his pocket for a piece of paper he's already written his number on, offering it to her. "This is my number, the other was forwarded to me because of all the stuff on the 8th. And uh, since I guess I'm a public figure and all, you can feel free to ask me to clear up anything that may have been said about me."
"Okay!" Adel says with a strange kind of excitement. Strange perhaps, because he's not the type of public figure most people get excited about. Taking the number, she looks it over and then tucks it away, before turning those brown eyes and that bright smile back on him. It's like she has no idea how pretty she is at all— "I guess the first thing I can think of, before we have to go, that whole stupid curfew thing… are you really banned from going to Japan? Like— ever?"
"That's true. I'm banned from Japan, I got all foreign Evolved banned from going to Japan. People forget that I'm not the one who caused all the damage, I fought the guy. But I'm the only one with the name, the only one who keeps showing up in the media over and over, so people are more prone to remembering me than the other guy." Magnes shrugs, shaking his head with a slight frown. "He was trying to kidnap me after kidnapping my friend, he has one of the few abilities that can cancel out mine, but the media is always twisting the story."
"That happens with the media. They gotta sell a story. I got a friend involved in that stuff," Adel explains, though seems a little dismissive of it, as if that's really a distant kind of friend. Perhaps maybe an acquiantance. Like one of those creepy newspaper guys. "But that sounds like a cool story. You should tell me about it— from your point of view." A glance is made at her watch and she squints at it. "I should get going— When do you want me to meet the rest of the band? I'm really looking forward to meeting Sable especially."
"Oh, maybe a week or so, they're all very busy with the aftermath of the 8th, but I promise to call you." Magnes clears his throat, as if a frog's just crawled back up in there. "You can call me whenever, we could have a jam session, or talk more, whatever…"
"Well I do want to hear about Japan, so I'll probably call you before next week!" Adel says, before she makes her way to the door, waving once before she slips outside. There's a bounce to her step as she moves, as if she's particularly pleased with the way things went. Pleased and a little excited.