No one would believe me.
Which is why you have to tell us anyway. 
I'm sorry.
I meant to came back to this right away and tell the hole story.
I was listening to an argument, but it really does need more of the story.
I can't rememmemebr the year exactly, but Doc Severenson already had the band leader job on Carson. Problem was that he had a yearrs's worth of label contracts to finish up, still. he was in south Texxas, in July, traveling with Roger Williams and his orchestra as the solo trumpetist.
I was listening to him blow up on Roger Williams, during the afternoon set-up, abbout every fucking thing! He said it was TOO hot (fucking July in South Texxas, of course it's fucking HOT!!), But it WAS Texas and only about four days past the fourth of July. These ricjh rednecks were expecting their 1812 Overture.
Doc had been playing it for two weeks and was tired, like really TIRED of playying it. He was the soloist and HIS thousand dollar sequined jacket "sticks to me and looks like a dead squid!"
Anyone who knows Doc Severenson, knows his stage personna to be extremely mellow and accommodating, but this Doc was being a whiny brat in so many ways. There was no fucking way he was playing "that fucking chart again today!" His llip was swollen, he had riped up the make up guy for being too rough on his lip, because he did NOT want people to see that he could NOT play. "No way I do this tinight!" he said, ... unless "I can shoot the cannon."
The cannion was a shotgun, loaded with blank shells, that the percussionist would shoot fire into a huge barrel of sand, located in the back of the auditorium, at precisely the right moment in the performannce. Doc was insisting that the ONLY FUCKING WAY that he would do this chart again (about four days past the Independence Day nonsense) was if HE could shoot fire the cannon HIMSELF!!
Roger objected, because he would be out of position for his solo. "FUCK THE GOD DAMN SOLO! I CAN'T FUCKING PLAY A GOD DAMN THING ANY WAY!!," he said in response. "MY LIP IS THE SIZE OF MY ASS! I CAN'T FUCKING PLAY, BUT I CAN SHOOT!!"
Roger finally agreed to let him shoot the shotgun into the barrel, as long as he played his trumpet solo from that position. (of course, this meant that I was required to bring a certain microphone and set it up for his solo "from the back of the stage"
).
There is so much more to this in my book, but i never realized that I had a hard copy of the actual argument, until recently. I have listened to it about five times since i discovered it and surprisingly, my original account which was written about ten years after the fact, was amazingly accurate.
This was my third time to work with Doc and my first (of seven total) time to work with Roger. They had been together for over two months and were behaving like a maarid couple in some ways!!
See, I told you would not believe me.
The funny part is that when the part in the 1812 Overture cam to the cannon fire, Doc started shooting the shotgun, off meter and just fucking shooting the fucking thing. I could her him re-cocking and firing away durign the performance not following the sheet music at all!!
