The suspension of the F Hole tour does not mean Jackie is on vacation: Arthag wants to rush a second single from their first album onto the market while 'California Uber Alles' is still hot, and of course a new single requires a new video. How is F Hole supposed to shoot a video if their guitarist is in hiding? Not to worry, Arthag, insists. A chick rocker doesn't need her male bandmates to do a video. In fact, they just drag everything down: the studio has excellent male dancers to back her up & they're much more telegenic than Matt & their skinny, ugly junkie guitarist. Jackie has contract obligations to fulfill and she shows up for the shoot & does her thing in the ridiculous costume they've dressed her in, with the hired dancing goonie twins right behind her. It will be a smash hit, they promise her. But she is very glad her dressing room is well supplied with her favorite whiskey, it keeps her from truly realizing how ridiculous it is to be lip synching a punk song while jumping around with a microphone, wearing a costume straight out of the big hair band era.

After filming that ridiculous travesty of a video, Jackie confronts Arthag....why can't they do a video with the whole band? Why does she have to be dressed like Lita Ford? And who wants to look at those overgrown Hansons they had jumping around behind her, anyway? Arthag has no real answers, he just tells her she should start considering a solo career, she'd get much farther, much faster, unencumbered by her band. Jackie knows where this is heading: there was never a record company that didn't try to extricate the chick singer away from her band & make her a soloist, it is a veritable cliche of the music industry. But Jackie doesn't want to go that way, she doesn't want to end up just a singer with an anonymous orchestra backing her up. She's a musician & she wants to play in a band, & she doesn't care if that impedes her fame or not. "Listen," Bill says, "I've got this new guitarist I'm looking at signing. He's not attached to any band right now, but he's up for the lead role in the 'Pirates' musical Pantages is putting on...I'm auditioning him now, why don't you give him a listen & maybe we can get a new F Hole on the road"

As usual, Arthag has heard none of what she said & is all about pushing his own agenda. While she's not ready yet to give up on her own guitarist, despite his disappearance, she's not unwilling to hear this new guy, if Bill insists. But she is suprised & taken aback to find the 'guitarist' Bill wants her to hear is Ben...Jackie knows Ben from quite a ways back. In fact, he had been the vocalist of the band Nico was playing in when she first met him. Only someone as talentless as Bill Arthag could call Ben a 'guitarist': he can barely strum a few chords competently. She can't believe he's getting a role in a Pantages production, or that Arthag would be willing to give him the time of day. Jackie decides it's time to visit her dressing room & that bottle of whiskey waiting there for her.

(patch to make the Maxis guitar actually playable *gasp* in Studio Town & DT by LaphelotSimSolutions yahoo group.)

Having a little time to rest & have a drink puts a new perspective on things. Though she still thinks Ben is a shitty guitarist & kind of a jerk if she remembers correctly, when she runs into him at the commissary, she greets him like an old friend. After all, he was in a band with Nico for quite some time...maybe he knows more about what the sexy Italian thinks than Jackie can figure out for herself. And indeed, it turns out Ben knows a lot of stuff about Nico that Jackie never imagined. Ben starts the ball rolling by commenting on seeing Nico on the Late Night show. "Why would someone as hot & famous as you need a cheap gigolo like him when you could get the best for free?" Ben asks her bluntly, already high on his new found status, with stardom in his grasp.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Jackie asks, a little too loudly as she shoves Ben a little to hard. The paparazzi jump into gear. No doubt she'll be reading about this in tomorrow's tabloid....Ben takes the shoving pretty well, probably because it's being photographed: he's 'in' now. "You're not the only woman to pay Nico for his 'favors', Jackie. It's how he makes his living...but don't feel too bad, most of the women he screws are old bags, you are far & away the hottest thing he's ever done." Like that is some kind of compliment....Jackie can't believe what she's hearing & she considers for a moment telling Ben she never paid Nico anything....but why should Ben believe her, considering Nico's past? And of course it shouldn't be any of his business either, except that Jackie's life & loves have become everbody's business now that she's a rock star. "You should get with me now, Jackie," Ben continues, "I'm going somewhere & we'd look good together. Nico is nobody & he always will be." Jackie would love to slap Ben hard, but this whole encounter is alreay being too well documented. Instead she storms off to her limo & cries for the whole ride back to Malibu.

All Jackie ever wanted was to play music professionally, without it wrecking her life the way it did her father's & his whole family's. Why does fame have to be such a bitch?