| I went to Hollywood for a week vacation. I had booked my tickets 3 months in
advance, and a week before I left for Hollywood I found out the pumpkins were
going to be on the jay leno show. I went to try to get tickets the day before
the pumpkins were going to be on the show. I was told people had been waiting
in line for a day already, so I got inline. There were 260 tickets on reserve
and studio capacity was 300, that means they were only giving out 40 tickets,
"I ended up being #36" every one else got stand by tickets, meaning that any
reserve tickets that the people did not show up, the next person in line
would get the ticket "a fucked up system they had, it seemed to me, people
that waited in line over night did not get to go in, because some other
people were friends of friends, shit like that". After waiting in line from
500pm Thursday till 400pm Friday finally started to go into the studio "buy
the way, people held each others spots so that every one could go for food,
and home for showers, things like that". I ended up sitting in the second
row, seats "next to the guy that striped" it was great even though the
pumpkins were on for only 4 minutes," I waited in line for 24 hours, and it
was worth it".
I had to leave the very next day, and I was running late. When I got to the
gate that was departing for Chicago from L.A everyone was boarding "I was
afraid I was going to miss my flight ". As I was boarding the line was long,
I was near the end of the line, I stepped onto the plain, and the line
stopped again. Now am standing in front of the first seat wanting to be
seated, leave ground and get this 5 and a half hour flight over with. I look
to my left, 2 seats down, sitting in the window seat of first class, I see
this guy in a black trench coat, black winter hat with a ball on top of it. 2
seconds is how long it took me to realize I was looking at Billy Corgan.
As I am slowly walking buy him I say in a quiet voice "excuse me sir" and he
looks up to me, I put my hand out and Billy shakes it. In a quiet tone not to
cause any attention I then said "I was on the jay leno show last night", he
nods his head. "When I went on vacation I brought a bunch of my favorite cds
Billy's home demos, mellon acoustic songs, airplane fly's high, mellow jolly
and the infinite madness, live London show, etc." I unzip my cd case and hand
it to him; he looks through it and says, "Oh cool". I then told him that I
was not really into him, I said "its about the music, the radio, I love the
music". I asked him if I could take a picture of him "I still had my
disposable camera in my pocket" and he said "no, I don't like to take
pictures, but I will sign something for you". I start digging through my
pockets knowing I have no pen or nothing to write with for that matter. Billy
then says, "I have nothing to sign but this news paper", I knew what I wanted
him to sign, one of my favorite cds, but had nothing to write with. He then
says "just meet me when we get off the plane" and I asked, "where should we
meet" he replies "baggage clam".
So now here I am thinking I have to be on this plain with Billy and pretend
that this is just one more regular day of my life, first thing I did when the
attendant came by was order a jack and coke "double". Billy was a few rows up
a head of me, so by the time I got off the plane Billy had been off for 5
minutes or so, "I was so scared that he was going to leave without letting me
talk to him for a few moments". I ran to the baggage clam, and standing with
his back to me was glass. As I'm walking towards him he looks at me and nods
his head and extends his hand for me to shake, I did and said "thanks" he
then starts talking to some one and I look over and its jimmy! I'm 6'1 and
had to look up to talk to him, he asked me what I wanted him to sigh. I had
brought a cartoon map of L.A on the plane with me that I did not want to get
crushed in my bag, and I handed it to him and he laughed. I pulled a black
crayon out of my pocket that I got from a woman on the plane, that her
daughter was drawing with, "she must have thought I was nuts asking her for
one of her kids crayons, and never giving it back" I tried to get ink pen
from people around me or flight attendant, crazy enough, no one had a ink
pen! Billy takes the crayon and map, scratches out GREATER LOS ANGELES and
renamed it SATANLAND, puts an arrow pointing to one of the peers with his
name, then writes my name "Jeremy" near long beach. As I say hi to jimmy and
jimmy asks me where 'im from I look down and Billy is drawing on the poster a
round face with "Xs" for eyes and nose, ears and dark horns, a body that is
just a line going down, with 3 lines going across.
First thing I said was "your not going to tell me about machina are you?" he
said "maybe". He told me that he read all of the theories and a lot were
good, but that many people went over board and got lost in the "crap". I
asked him if he would sign a cd for me and he said "sure" my Bill's home
demos cd now says Billy Corgan on it in black crayon with the SP symbol.
There were waiting for there baggage and I calmly asked them if I could stay
and talk as they waited for their baggage, the said "sure". So we talked
about stuff for a few minutes. Jimmy signed my mellow jolly infinite madness
cd "ALL MY LOVE", "JC'. At this time they were getting their bags "they had a
lot of stuff with them, way more than myself and I was in L.A for 8 days". I
thanked them for there time and asked them for a quote "its always darker in
the nigh, than it is at sunrise" "BC" and jimmy's was "he who laughs last,
laughs loudest" JC. I walked with them over to the door and asked Billy one
last question, "could I have something personal" he says "no" with a smile on
his face as he reaches into his pocket and takes something out "here take
this he says", I took it from his hand, it was his plane ticket stub, he says
"my name is on it" as they walked out the door and started back inside to
wait for my next plane to depart for GR Michigan jimmy said "it was nice to
meet you Jeremy" and Billy said "see ya later" I then said "I will listen to
your music for years to come".
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