Never Say No To A Rock Star

by Berger, Glenn

  That night, Mick had nothing better to do, so he asked if there were any good restaurants nearby and would we like to have dinner. We went to our go-to place, Pierre Au Tunnel, the French restaurant on 48th Street between 8th and 9th Avenue, right down the block from the studio.

  It was Mick, Phil, Bob Meyrowitz from King Biscuit, and myself. Mick was impressively cultured and sophisticated, especially to this provincial boy from Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.

  He swallowed his garlicky escargot and sipped on a nice little Bordeaux. In his rich, resonant tones, he entertained us. “When we were in Fraaahnce, you know, doing Exile, we had this brilliant sommelier who provided us with these stellar Lafites. That’s when I really learned what good wine was all about.” Then, after rolling the juice in his mouth, “This one’s not bad.”

  I saw Duke’s imploring eyes in my mind, but, clearly, this also, was not the moment. I simply wanted to get through the dinner without anyone figuring out that I was in so over my head that I felt in a constant state of drowning. I might have pulled it off better if I’d kept the adoring, goofy grin off my face.

  My plan went especially awry when I made the mistake of ordering the french dessert called a Napoleon. For those of you who don’t know, a Napoleon is made of endless layers of very thin puff pastry, alternating with vanilla cream. There’s no way to eat a Napoleon gracefully. When you try to cut through the layers, the cream squirts out the sides. As I tried to negotiate this sweet lasagna, I watched in horror as my hands took on the shape and skill of awkward clam claws. I suddenly couldn’t remember how to hold a fork and knife, as I spastically tried to cut the oozing morsel. Cream shot across the table. Mick glanced at the awkward performance but had the grace to ignore it, barely raising an eyebrow, and chatted on.

  The final night before we would sign the papers and take the boy back to our hotel, Sharon and I whiled away the hours in the hospital. She seemed serene, holding the baby in her lap. I felt too ashamed to reveal that I was still plagued with doubts and insecurities. My mind anxiously raced through the “what ifs.” As a therapist, I often ask, “What is the worst that could happen?” as a way of helping my client gain perspective of what is most often an unreasonable fear. In this case, the answer was, I could fail this child miserably, and he would be forced to endure the scars of my ineptitude for a lifetime. The worst, in this case, was really bad.

  As I bit my fingernails, a very large woman with a mid-western buzz cut and big square glasses slowly strode toward us with a warm smile on her face and an outstretched hand. She introduced herself as Dr. Marcy, our birth-mother’s doctor. It was she who had delivered the child.

  She plopped herself down into a chair. It seemed like she was planning on staying for a while. I was used to doctors coming in late and leaving early. Glove on, cough, glove off, watch your pressure, see you next year. But this woman had a different vibe. She asked us questions about ourselves, and we found ourselves opening up to her, telling her how we fell in love, about our longing for a child, our struggles with infertility, the joy of adopting our daughter, and how we came to be here tonight.

  Dr. Marcy spoke of her family. She told us about her journey of becoming a doctor, how she left the profession and returned back to it again. She shared the story of the discovery that her daughter had a hole in her heart, the way the girl survived this life-threatening condition with a dangerous operation, and how this forever changed her husband’s perspective on life.

  One of the nurses came by to attend to the twin bananas in the hamster-cage-sized incubator that was next to our little boy’s bed. These three-pounders were safe enough to have been moved out of the intensive care unit but they were still pretty tiny. I was astonished at how she handled them with delicacy and ease. She joined in our conversation and told us about her own troubles, and what she went through taking care of her husband’s kids.

  I mentioned how astounding it was to see these premature babies alive and how much I admired the work that these doctors and nurses were doing. Dr. Marcy told us that given the big empty spaces around us, this was the central hospital for many miles, and so it had the biggest and best neonatal intensive care unit in this part of the country. The nurse asked if we’d like to see it.

  We disinfected again, and Doc and the nurse took my wife and me into a vast room lined with rows and rows of incubators. Each one held a tiny, fragile human life. Some had just been born, right on the edge of viability, maybe little more than a pound. They were hooked to tubes and machines and looked like thumbs. Their actual thumbs were smaller than pencil erasers. Others were getting closer to moving on into the great, big world. They had gained weight and grown outside their mother’s bodies where they should have been. The technology was extraordinary, but it was through the ministrations of these devoted women that these preemies lived and took in life and turned that love into brains and bones, muscle, flesh, and heart.

  They had little hands that one day would hold someone else’s hand; mouths that would one day smile. They had eyes that would one day look into a mother’s eyes. Through seeing themselves reflected in that love they would come to know that they existed, that they deserved to be loved, and would love others themselves. They would have the chance to do this beautiful thing called life.

  We left the unit and went back to our station. We all looked at our little fella snoring contentedly. He suddenly looked huge. Not wanting to wake him, my wife and I silently smiled to each other, our hands together held tight.

  Mick would be coming in on Saturday so we could finish up. As the assistant engineer, I always came into the studio first and, having cleaned up after the party, left last. It was my job to get everything ready so the big boys could play. This quiet weekend morning, the midtown streets were strewn with garbage and a few straggling late-working hookers. Every storefront was covered with metal grates.

  I was thrilled to open up the studio, the only one there.

  It was a sacred ritual to unbox the thick, warm, multi-track tapes with their iron-oxide filings dancing so pretty. I slid the big two-inch reel over the large shaft on the bulky tape machine. I threaded the tape through the metal guides and over the tape heads and swiftly twirled the end of the tape to catch hold on the take-up reel. I hit the rewind button, and the tape swooshed across the heads until it emptied one reel and filled the other. I hit the fast-forward button to put a break on the speeding tape, and the machine slowed to a near halt when I hit stop.

  I walked over to the console and hit play on the multitrack’s remote. I started to set some basic levels. I was just getting into the track when Mick walked in. I hit the stop button and stood up.

  Mick and I alone, Saturday morning, 1974, New York City. Yes! Here was my chance to have that real conversation with the Midnight Rambler. I heard my friend’s voices in my head. This would be the only moment in my life that this would happen. What to say? I couldn’t just leap into my question. I puttered around the control room, patching in limiters, as we talked.

  We talked about the lyrics to the song, “Dancin’ with Mr. D” from the Stones latest album, Goat’s Head Soup. We talked about how weird we thought Dylan was. I could feel our connection building, but I wanted to see if I could impress him in some way before I popped the big one.

  I had an inspiration.

  I thought of my endless nights at New York’s repertory film houses, The Elgin, Bleecker Street, Thalia, or Theatre 80 where I had repeatedly watched that movie Performance that starred my new friend Mick Jagger as a washed-up pop star.

  Watching that movie a dozen times when I was sixteen years old taught me how to really see films. Nicholas Roeg, the cinematographer and the guy who supervised the editing, had a radical approach to cutting: playing with time, place, and point-of-view in non-linear ways. Unless you knew how to really focus, you couldn’t follow what was going on. It was the first time I was motivated to really concentrate, which was to help me later on in making art and making love.

  My friends a
nd I were passionate about this wild film. It was hot, with great nude sex scenes with the voluptuous Anita Pallenberg, Keith’s real-life girlfriend; androgynous Mick; a child-like French actress named Michèle Breton; and kinky-masculine James Fox, who played a sadistic gangster. It had a super-tasty soundtrack by Jack Nietzsche that peaked with a Jagger composition called “Memo from Turner,” performed by Mick in slicked-back hair and a suit. The story was full of drug-laced allusions to hip literature and other esoteric cultural references. Its plot and dialogue, centered on the tension and love in the relationship of the gangster and the rocker, were stoned-cool.

  In an era when movies were just starting to break out of the orchestral, straight mold, it was a groundbreaking, pioneer rock and roll movie. I’d studied the movie frame-by-frame and knew all the great lines and its subtle nuances.

  I also knew the film had been a flop. I figured this was my way in.

  “You know, I think Performance is an amazing film.”

  Mick seemed genuinely pleased.

  “I’ve thought about this movie a lot.” I was digging deep. I mentioned an obscure moment in the film. “The book. It is Borges, isn’t it?”

  “Right …” I had grabbed his attention. I could see his feathers fluff.

  “The thing about Turner losing his ‘demon,’” I went on, “it’s like genius is the freedom to say yes to yourself, and that requires a lack of self-consciousness. If you looked in the mirror, that is, if you became self-aware, it was gone. And Chaz had that lack of self-consciousness which allowed him to be the best at what he does, even though it was pure evil. And that’s what Turner wanted from him. But the irony was, Chaz had lost it too. It’s like when Moody says, ‘He’s an old fashioned boy,’ and then Harry Flowers, ‘An out-of-date boy.’ Chaz symbolizes the world before the ‘60s, which can’t work anymore. Maybe what the film is trying to say is that there’s no room for that un-self-conscious genius in the world anymore. No one can do anything, because we know too much, and that leaves us filled with paralyzing self-doubt.”

  I felt a flush of embarrassment. Had I sounded like a pretentious idiot?

  “Brilliant!” Mick said, his eyes bright with surprise. “Yeah. I never thought of it that way. It’s nice to know that someone got it.” Then the feathers went down. His face grew dark. “I was just really disappointed that it was so misunderstood. The critics ripped it apart. After that debacle, no one wants to put me in a movie.”

  “That’s crazy! You were amazing!”

  Mick shrugged, almost humbly.

  Oh my God, I thought, I did it. I’m having a real conversation with Mick Jagger, alone, and I’ve got him! The time was fast approaching. Was it now? The words were in my head.

  But before I could speak, Mick asked, “What track do you have up?” Shit. I missed the opening.

  Dr. Marcy eased herself back into the chair and looked at us as if we had known each other since she had delivered us herself. She’d been hanging out with us now for four hours. Not your typical New York doctor’s appointment. I never revealed my fears, but by her presence I was beginning to sense the vague outlines of the message that I was desperate to receive. I started feeling weak, as we had not had much to eat that day and it was now approaching 10 p.m. I asked her if there was a place to eat nearby. She told us the best burger joint in town was right across the street. She said that she needed to see a few other patients, but she’d probably still be at the hospital when we got back.

  We stumbled out into the warm Kansas air, crossed the road, and sat outdoors at Billy’s Burgers, which looked like something right out of American Graffiti.

  We had been through so much on this adoption journey. The pain and disappointment of infertility, the miracle of our daughter, the extraordinary gift we were receiving right now.

  Sitting at this plastic table on the patio, as we ordered our burgers, fries, and shakes, I felt like I was on the lip of something profound. Hanging with Dr. Marcy and the nurses, I knew I’d learned something of immense importance but it had not yet turned into words. The stars in the sky glittered with numinous brightness.

  Old rock and soul songs played through the restaurant speakers. I knew that I was in an altered state, as each title seemed to be sending me a personal message. First, “Do You Believe in Magic” by The Lovin’ Spoonful. Then “It’s Alright” by Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions.

  And then, the miracle occurred. The next hit on the radio was by the Rolling Stones. I heard the signature cowbell intro, and then the unforgettable beat, presaging one of their biggest hit singles, circa 1969. A song everyone alive at the time knew. Like Dorothy picked up by the tornado, I instantly swirled backwards through time, landing in a magical land.

  I told Mick that I had “Honky Tonk Women” as the next song on our list to mix. He asked me to play it for him. He sat next to me while I rode the levels and put myself into making it sound as hot as I could. He listened seriously.

  “Ach, I don’t like the vocal. Let’s do a new one. Set up an SM-57 for me, will ya?”

  As I walked out into the studio, the realization of what was about to happen suddenly dawned on me. Mick Jagger was going to perform “Honky Tonk Women” and I would be the only person in the audience! I set up the mike and walked into the control room.

  I turned the mike on, adjusted the preamp level, turned up the attenuator, and clicked the talk back to make sure it was working. I placed a set of headphones on my ears and set up a mix for the cans. I ran back into the studio to make sure the headphones worked, dashed back into the control room and told him we were ready. We ambled out into the studio together. He said he wanted to hold the mike, so I took it out of its stand and handed it to him. Then I flew back to the control room.

  We stood about eight feet apart, separated by a thick piece of glass. I pressed play and “record” on the massive multi-track.

  The song began with Keith’s rhythm guitar: Baaah-dep. Bah-bah dee-dep; Charlie’s drums: Boom, pow. Boom, boom, pow; then the signature guitar lick that told us Mick’s vocal was about to enter.

  And then, looking straight into my eyes, with a glorious, Dionysian smile on his face, the greatest rock and roll singer the world has ever known or ever will know opened the most famous mouth alive and sang the lyrics of this quintessential Rolling Stones hit single — the very song that would be playing all those years later at Billy’s Burgers.

  Mick’s dancer’s body writhed in his signature style, his hair falling on his face, his arm slithering like a snake, his finger pointing in the air as the entire band burst into the chorus. And he, pouring his heart out, growled the notorious refrain of this signature hit.

  I looked straight back at him, while making sure the vocal was going down on tape at the right level. I breathed and tried to take it in, almost knocked over by the intensity of the feeling but staying upright, knowing this was, and would forever remain, the glory of my short but precious life.

  He sang the second verse, then the second chorus hit, with Mick Taylor wailing on his fluid axe. The band rollicked through Keith’s solo, then Mick kicked it over the top on the balls-out final chorus.

  I prayed that the track would never end, but all too quickly, at just over three minutes, the coda hit, and it did. The crowd of thousands burst into rapturous cheers and applause. I wanted to join them.

  I hit stop on the multi. I pressed the talkback button and said, “Great!”

  Mick, out in the studio, took a small bow, looked up, pointed his finger at me, and wailed, “That one’s for you, Gin-jah!”

  Mick Jagger had just performed “Honky Tonk Women” for me!

  With his vocal done, he slowly walked into the control room for a playback. With every cell in my body vibrating, it took all of my will to act nonchalant, cool. He sat next to me as we listened back.

  He was satisfied. So was I.

  This was it. Now was the time. I tried to summon the courage to ask the question. I dug deep. My heart hurt, my breath was sh
ort. I hesitated. I looked at the superstar next to me. Seconds passed. I told myself to say the words, but they wouldn’t emerge.

  Then the door opened and Phil and Meyrowitz burst in and began chatting it up with Mick. It was over. I had lost my chance.

  As Sharon and I sat at Billy’s Burgers that warm September night, my heart filled with emotion, the final chords of “Honky Tonk Women” ringing through the air, the memory of my missed opportunity stinging still, it all became clear.

  I could hear the command of the universe blaring in my head. I remembered my favorite adoption story, “What Men Live By,” by Leo Tolstoy. In this story, he tells us that it is not given to us to know what is good for ourselves. Instead, what is given to us is to know what is good for each other. In this way, the universe insures that we are bound by care. We do not live by bread alone, we live by love.

  I looked at Sharon, radiant in the light of the soft Kansas night. I said, “I’ve been thinking about all this the wrong way. It’s not about whether I can do this, you know, be a great dad for our son; it’s about whether I will do it. It’s not a question of whether I am capable. It’s about, do I have the courage?”

  She said, “I know. Taking on this responsibility is huge. I feel the enormity of it, too. But there is nobody else in the world that I would rather do this with than you. I know you can do this, I know we can do this, together.”

  I looked off into the distant horizon, to the end of Wichita, the edge of the world, and felt certainty pervade my being. Everything I had learned, everything I had struggled with, all the work I had done on myself, cohered. The same message rang out everywhere.

  Whether we follow the dictum of “living according to God’s will” as Christians might put it, or find the “central harmony” by aligning to the Tao, as the Confucians would say, all wisdom traditions tell us that we find our greatest fulfillment by surrendering to something bigger than ourselves. It comes from using our will to become willing. It comes from learning how to say yes to life and what it demands of us at each moment, whatever the personal consequences. It comes from asking the question: What does the universe want from me now, rather than what do I want from the universe?