It was a big event, and playing Madison Square Garden, for even the most jaded, is always a big event. Backstage was insanity and it was tough speaking with everyone and going from person to person, great fun and a great feeling of accomplishment.

This amazing team had pulled something off, and pulled it off big. This tremendously talented young lady, less than a year ago, was playing coffee houses, and here she was the talk of the town, literally. It felt amazing and was a moment of pride that is hard to come by in this business. As I said, India was very shy and not one to go mingle, so even bringing her over to meet N’Sync was tough, let alone the horde of others who all wanted to talk with her.

It was a wonderful moment for all that included some odd ones as well. Of course, the Fellini like grip of the absurd on my world couldn’t just dissipate, could it? There was a quizzical moment for some of the Universal top brass as they asked me, “Who is the guy is the flowing outfit with the laminate?”, my response was, “That is the spiritual advisor, the psychic.”

The responses were interesting, yet there he was, all aglow and ready to spew forth his typical genius observations, like when India said she was hungry and he would respond, “I was sensing you had a stomach ache.” Complete moron, who was looking to ride the rocket. A great moment was when he, yes the psychic, gave me a demo.

A demo of his songs well not really songs. They were him hitting a fucking bell over and over, but they were titled as individual songs. This was an amazing moment for me in a long and storied career, being given a demo of a bell being hit by a guy who pretended to be in touch with another dimension. Fuck me.

During India’s show another interesting thing happened. Here at Madison Square Garden, her mom came out, took the microphone from India and proceeded to sing the song, while India played along. Then to make matters worse, at the end of the song she said into the mike, “I love you Jack Ponti.” And walked off the stage, as yet again Universal brass stared at me.

I had no idea that was going to happen and I assume it did because India’s mom used to sing and I guess this was a dream to sing at MSG, and so be it. India’s mom loved me and then hated me. It was a journey unto itself. We were very close in the beginning and she would call me constantly, she also had a nickname of “Jack A Roony”, which she would exclusively refer to me as. She was a terrific lady in many ways.

She was eventually put on as her daughter’s designer and wardrobe person, but it was further than that. She owned the merchandise and that was interesting. Well get deeper into that later.

After the show, we had our little backstage soiree, which wasn’t much of a soiree and India left early, with the psychic, my sister, my daughter and me, leaving Joey to drive back to NJ alone, but not after making sure his presence was felt by everyone. I think by the end of the night everyone assumed they knew Joey, and I could hear him saying to N’Sync, “Fellas, good to see you, keep doing good.” Joey is remarkable!

Joey was still schmoozing with all of his new friends, while we left to drop India and the psychic off in Harlem for some advanced reading of some sort.

I really applaud her spirituality but it caused some issues and near disasters, like the night she called me and said she was leaving the tour to go to Africa. It took hours to convince her not to and then hours smoothing away issues with the consulate who had set up the whole thing and now had people at the airport awaiting her arrival, or so I was told.

This of course was suggested by one of the many spiritual advisors now circling the camp. Genius idea, go to Africa, now, cancel the Sade tour, the spirit world says you have to. She was a perfect target as she was deeply spiritual, incredibly sincere, wonderfully forgiving and had a general concept that people were as honest and real as she was. I don’t care what she thinks; these clowns were all full of shit and played into everything for one reason and one reason only; to get a paycheck.

Everyone now wanted a paycheck and everyone got one.