It took something like a hundred people to put Small World together (counting all the extra musicians, drum technicians, accountants, lawyers - who are all, thanked), but this actually adds to the CD's theme of community and it doesn't clutter the record - it makes it a more joyous experience. With this CD and the four previous ones behind it, Huey Lewis and the News prove that if this really is a small world, then these guys are the best American band of the 1980s on this or any other continent - and it has with it Huey Lewis, a vocalist, musician and writer who just can't be topped.
In Bed with Courtney
I'm in Courtney's bed. Luis is in Atlanta. Courtney shivers, presses against me, relaxes. I roll off her onto my back, landing on something hard and covered with fur. I reach under myself to find a stuffed black cat with blue jewels for eyes that I think I spotted at F.A.O. Schwarz when I was doing some early Christmas shopping. I'm at a loss as to what to say, so I stammer, "Tiffany lamps... are making a comeback." I can barely see her face in the darkness but hear the sigh, painful and low, the sound of a prescription bottle snapping open, her body shifting in the bed. I drop the cat on the floor, get up, take a shower. On The Patty Winters Show this morning the topic was Beautiful Teenage Lesbians, which I found so erotic I had to stay home, miss a meeting, jerk off twice. Aimless, I spent an inordinate amount of the day at Sotheby's, bored and confused. Last night, dinner with Jeanette at Deck Chairs, she seemed tired and ordered little. We split a pizza that cost ninety dollars. After toweling my hair dry I put on a Ralph Lauren robe and walk back into the bedroom, start to dress. Courtney is smoking a cigarette, watching Late Night with David Letterman, the sound turned down low.
"Will you call me before Thanksgiving?' she asks.
"Maybe." I button up the front of my shirt, wondering why I even came here in the first place.
"What are you doing?" she asks, speaking slowly.
My response is predictably cool. "Dinner at the River Cafe. Afterwards Au Bar, maybe."
"That's nice," she murmurs.
"You and... Luis?" I ask.
"We were supposed to have dinner at Tad and Maura's," she sighs. "But I don't think we're going to anymore."
"Why not?" I slip on my vest, black cashmere from Polo, thinking: I am really interested.
"Oh you know how Luis is about the Japanese," she starts, her eyes already glazed over.
When she fails to continue I ask, annoyed, "You're making sense. Go on."
"Luis refused to play Trivial Pursuit at Tad and Maura's last Sunday because they have an Akita." She takes a drag off her cigarette.
"So, like..." I pause. "What happened?"