You're All I Need

I rolled off the sofa and walked over to Nikki, who was so pale that you'd think he was working in a flour factory.

"It hurts so fucking bad." He muttered through clenched teeth.

Tommy laughed and pushed him over, running into the kitchen to hide. Nikki groaned in anguish and kicked some random chair. Mick and I helped him up and handed him his pain pills that the doctor prescribed.

Vince was still on the couch, smiling at us stupidly.

"Fatass, get over here and help!" Nikki yelled.

"I'm not fat! I'm pleasantly plump." His smile faded and he walked over to us.

Nikki continued to complain throughout the night about how hard it would be to finish recording the album with his injury. We were all wondering the same thing. How would we finish it if the bass player was down?

"The bass is stupid. Anyone could play it." Vince shrugged.

"And anyone could yell lyrics into a god-damn microphone, Vince. So I suggest you shut the fuck up and do something productive around here." Nikki snapped. Vince backed off at that comment and kept his mouth shut.

"Imogene could play the bass." Tommy suggested, nodding towards me.

"Or she could whine into the microphone like Vince does." Nikki laughed at his own joke. Vince stood up angrily.

"Shut up, cripple."

"Let's take this outside-- we don't have earthquake insurance." Nikki stood up too and looked down at Vince cause he was so short.

My mouth dropped open. Earthquake insurance?

"He's not fat, Nikki. He's just right."

"Thank you, Imogene." Vince smiled at me.

"Pussy sucking bastard." Nikki wasn't finished yet. Vince moved forward and we all tried to keep them apart.

"You guys are both important, so shut the hell up and let's figure this out!" Tommy screamed over the commotion.

"No one asked you!" Nikki said, looking at him. "And what do you do? You just sit down and hit cans with sticks."

Tommy bit his lip. "We don't need the bass because I happen to have a bass drum, which does your job better anyway!"

I looked at Mick, who just stared ahead as if nothing was happening.

"And Mr. Personality over there..." Vince began, shooting a look towards Mick.

"Well if none of us are significant to the band, why don't we just call it quits right now?" Nikki spat.

"You guys, be quiet!" I stepped in between all of them. "You guys are all important, you are getting this album finished, you will not break up, and you are gonna hug it out right now." I demanded. They all sighed and gave each other those weird one-arm things. "No, the real thing." I made them give real bear-hugs and Nikki was writhing in pain once it was all over.

The party finished nicely and Nikki only tried to punch Vince once.

ALBUM RELEASE!

The album was finished. Nikki was able to suck it up and do the bass parts for the remaining tracks, though he took about ten pain pills per day.

With the album finished, the next step was filming music videos for the singles. "Too Young Too Fall In Love," and "Looks That Kill." I read the script for "Too Young To Fall In Love," and laughed so hard I cried. It was obviously Tommy's idea. Cue ninjas, eat rice... stuff like that. And in the end, Tommy's rice was supposed to be disgusting so he spits it at someone.

What was the meaning of that? I didn't know. Perhaps it wasn't his idea-- but it had the whole I'm-gonna-put-some-ninja-action-and-rice-into-a-song-about-being-too-young-to-fall-in-love-and-no-one's-gonna-stop-me thing going on.

But "Looks That Kill" was pretty okay-- involving strippers in cages and one random chick who manages to escape much to their dismay. And I had to be the escaping one. Nikki's orders.