A Failure to Comprehend

After Charles had left my house, I don't think I really believed what I had just heard. I couldn't believe that Charles would walk away from a band that he had a three year investment with...a band that had four albums of killer original material ready to go...a band with $75,000.00 worth of concert stage gear..a band of close friends with a great reputation and unlimited potential...not to mention the support of a dozen prominent radio stations and the public...to play in a local band with no equipment, no original music, and playing strictly cover songs in small bars, and with no chance for a recording contract or a shot at the level Avalanche was already at...it was like taking twenty steps backwards...and it was so completely senseless that I couldn't comprehend Charles would actually stick by this decision. I thought he was either drunk or hungover, and in a day or two he would come to his senses. I wondered how to break this news to the eight other people whose lives would also be profoundly affected by this ludicrous choice, if Charles was actually serious. I knew he had seemed serious when he had told me, and I knew that Charles could be incredibly stubborn and inflexible if he made up his mind about something. But this was so counterproductive to his own goals and aspirations that I thought it was a momentary lapse of reason. I called Mark, Barry, Bruce and Mark Brett, and told them to come to my house. When they got there I told them what had happened. There was stunned silence, and the air was thick with disbelief. I knew that a lot of what was happening was because Charles was reacting to me...so I asked all of them to make an effort to talk to Charles, to see if they might have more luck in getting through to him than I was having...after all his decision affected their lives, too. I hoped they would be able to appeal to Charles' sense of friendship and loyalty, because facts and logic hadn't done the job when I had tried. A few hours later they all checked in with me by phone, and one by one, they all told me the same thing...Charles wasn't changing his mind. There was no ultimatum, no apology, no wiggle room, and no opening to even negotiate a different outcome...and I knew that Avalanche as we had known it...was history.