Tomorrow’s Hero

“Miguel, I get that you can’t teach, but try, man! We’re running out of time!”

“I’m Megl. That’s the name on both my plaques at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”

“Yeah, but your birth certificate says Miguel, right?”

“My legal name is Megl.”

“Whatever. Look we don’t have time to argue about your name. I’m gonna be on The Ellen Show in two weeks and my spot has to be perfect. It’s got to be p-e-r-f-e-c-t. Do you understand?!”

Megl Sanchez looked at the frustrated half-done man-child bellowing at him with the softest eyes that he could manage. He wanted to show none of the anger and hatred that he felt towards America’s high-profile tech billionaire; Megl’s personal stake was too high for soul-cleansing anger.

“Have you done the practice exercises? Have you done the warm-ups? Did you get a metronome? Did you get the paradiddle down?” Megl asked in the smoothest voice he could manage.

“Look! I don’t have time for any of that. I’m trying to run the world’s hottest tech company. Don’t you get it?”

“Of course. But how do you expect to make a pitch perfect reproduction of John Bonham’s drum solo from ‘Moby Dick’ if you don’t practice?”

“I’ve been paying the world’s greatest living rock and roll drummer to teach me!”

“But Caine, I showed you how to hold drum sticks two weeks ago, and you had that down when I left, but when I came back again, you had forgotten how to hold them because you didn’t practice.”

“I didn’t get to be the world’s youngest multi-billionaire by failing, and building Twadanza into the world’s fastest growing tech company takes a lot of time,” said Caine, standing up from behind his giant glass desk. “So, let’s get to it, ok?”

“You’ve got to understand that teaching someone who doesn’t know how to play the drums at all how to play one of the world’s hardest drum solos as well as one of the world’s greatest drummers in just a five weeks is kind of a tall order.”

“Well, I don’t know about that. Some top guitarist like Julian Bream taught Larry Ellison to play a nearly perfect version of 'Granada' or maybe it was something by Beethoven. Anyway, it’s the only song he knows how to play - but he does it perfectly. That’s what I want, but with John Bonham’s drum solo from ‘Moby Dick’.”

“Look, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, man, but you’ve got absolutely no sense of rhythm. You clench the sticks like they’re hammers that you’re trying to pound through concrete. And I don’t think you can ... like hear … or really notice … most of the things I point out. Are you really sure you want to do this? Do you really need to do this?”

“I told you when we first met: I’m going on The Ellen Show. I must be brilliant and likeable – I need to beat Gates’ spot on the show. I paid Saul Rosen a pile of money to write some great jokes for me and then teach me how to deliver them as well as he does on his show, and I’ve got this great story worked out about how I almost became a professional musician with my high school buddies but went into tech instead and became the most amazing success Silicon Valley has ever seen, changing the way the world communicates and shops.”

“But, Caine, the drums?”

“Ellison and Gates did the guitar already, and I know I can’t sing. At a keyboard I would look like a computer nerd at a computer keyboard – wrong image. Bass players look like stoners. Any instrument from an orchestra – too nerdy. The drums are high energy and the only thing left.”

“Do you have to say you almost went pro? Did your band even exist?”

“My lawyers covered it for me with some guys I used to hang out with. We also found some old photos that fit.”

“Tell me again why you want to do ‘Moby Dick’?”

“My mom and dad met at Led Zeppelin’s Madison Square Garden in 1973 – a concert where Bonham soloed on ‘Moby Dick’.”

“Is that a true story?”

“Oh, god, yes. That was like the greatest event in my dad’s life – not meeting mom – but hearing Bonham’s solo. I must have heard that story a thousand times. My dad died a long time ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We weren’t close, really.”

“So, you grew up hearing Bonham’s solo on ‘Moby Dick’?”

“No. I grew up hearing dad’s story about the solo. I listened to it on YouTube for the first time about 30 minutes before you showed up for the first lesson. Oh, I’ve got this great photo of laying a pair of drumsticks with my dad’s name scratched on them at Bonham’s grave in Worcestershire. Someone told me that’s what his fans do.”

“So, you flew to England for to put sticks on Bonham’s grave?”

“God no! I don’t have time for that. The hand in the photo is someone else’s but it looks like mine.”

Megl softened his eyes again, trying hard not to show his true thoughts. But he unconsciously tilted his head towards his left shoulder, which revealed something like incredulity to Caine.

“Look. There’s a thing among tech billionaires. We’re expected to be superheroes. Our PR people use these stupid pet tricks to justify all the money we rake in. For a growing company like Twadanza, this can also be great for business growth. The more the CEO looks like a supersized version of a regular person, the more regular people will want to use our product. Get it? Everyone does it. I’m just one in a long line of guys to do this – Gates, Ellison, Zuckerberg, and even non-tech guys like Buffett with his stupid ukulele.”

“Caine, I think there’s a way to do this. But, man, you’ve got to practice. It won’t work if you don’t practice.”

“Yeah, okay. I get it. I’m just nervous. It’s really high stakes – not only for me – but for you, too.”

“Yes, Caine, I know. When you open The Megl Channel on Twadanza, I’ll become the first billionaire drummer. I’m already well-off, but yeah, this would be something way beyond that.”

“Exactly. We both have skin in the game, as your generation likes to say.”

“Look, after the last practice, I asked your secretary if I could have one of your engineers. I was going to show you what we came up with when I walked in the door, but you started yelling at me.”

“Ok. Show me.”

Megl opened Caine’s office door and asked for “it” to be brought in. Four Twadanza engineers brought in a drum set and a small computer and set up the equipment in an open space next to one of Caine’s oversized leather couches.

“Ok. You can find things like this on the market, but this one is leagues ahead of anything else. Each piece of the kit has little lights now that go on in a succession of colors. Imagine it as a really elaborate version of Guitar Hero for drums. If you follow the lights, you will play Bonham’s solo from ‘Moby Dick’ perfectly. If you practice this and practice this, you just might memorize it before The Ellen Show. But don’t worry, we’ve come up with a pair of headphones that delivers the same audio queues. If you practice with the lights and the audio queues, then you’ll probably get along fine with just the audio queues for The Ellen Show.”

“Ok. That’s smart. I won’t have to explain headphones. People kind of expect you to wear them.”

“That’s what we thought.”

“Alright. Now show me how to hold the sticks again.”