I know this has happened to most of us who are big city dwellers – in saloons, clubs and airport bars, on train platforms, on the high street, in greasy spoons, a few times in likely places, but more often than not in the most outlandish and unexpected of circumstances. I’m talking about what the paparazzi refer to as celebrity sightings. The paparazzi actively seek these out, but we don’t. We experience these instances usually through sheer chance. Fame in our world today is not necessarily earned or deserved. Notoriety might be more of an apt description. And for convenience’s sake, I will dedicate this article to incidents from the music world… well, mostly.
So, after that preamble, of course let me start with a story about a non-musician famous person. This is for location purposes. My memory was tweaked when the 103-year-old film actor Kirk Douglas passed away earlier this month. For decades, Welsh Nicholas Downey (RIP) was my next-building neighbor at 85 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. One of our most well-traveled paths was from our respective apartment buildings to the local Yemeni-owned bodega around the corner on Underhill Avenue. Nick and I once tried to calculate how much cash we had spent there over the years on smokes and beer. It was enough to put entire generations of young Arab kids through college. All we ever got in return was an annual Yemen Airlines calendar.
Nick called me excitedly at work. He had been taking the dog for his daily limp when he saw Kirk Douglas with a young assistant scouting out the neighborhood. “I’m about to go down to the Yemenis to pick up a six-pack, should I say something to him?” I egged Nick on. Twenty minutes later, he was back on the line.
“Well… and?” I asked.
“I said ‘Good afternoon, Mr. Douglas.’ To which Kirk Douglas replied, ‘Good afternoon.’” And that was that.
So on to the business of the rockers. This one happened in London, 1978, and it’s a visual. I worked in a small sandwich emporium then in Hammersmith called “The Big Cheese.” There was nothing big about the Big Cheese – the shop was about the size of a large shoe box. But it was extremely popular and all day long we would be slicing the Gruyere, slapping the mackerel paté on the French bread, and generally satisfying the needs of an altogether hungry and pasty English clientele. It was the most exhausting job I ever had because their appetites were insatiable, their numbers endless. By closing time each day, I was done in. I would always enjoy a cig outside of the store before we locked up the Stilton in the safe for the night.
The Big Cheese was within spitting distance of the Hammersmith Odeon, a venerated West London concert hall and film palace. That summer, Bob Marley and the Wailers held court there for an entire week. This was when Marley was living in London, after he had been shot in Jamaica in late 1976 during the whole Michael Manley versus Edward Seaga kerfuffle.
Puffing away on the evening Rothmans, I scoped out the traffic on the narrow street. It was always jammed up running into the circle. I first noticed the white E-Type Jaguar, perhaps the prettiest sports car ever manufactured, hard to miss since it was smack dab in front of me. I next saw the spliff, a gigantic one. Seated beside the smoker was a gorgeous blond woman, the kind that dated center forwards for Manchester United. Then I recognized the driver. It was none other than Ras Bob Marley himself on his way to the gig. For a split second our eyes met. I gave him the nod, which he politely returned. I was about to offer him some Red Gloucester cheese on the house when the light changed and the Jag roared away into the concrete jungle.
This leads me to another London tale, involving my sister Jen. Jen has been a Londoner since late 1971. She knows many of its nooks and crannies. Jen told me of going to a music pub in Brixton, South London to see the elder reggae singer Desmond Dekker play. No surprise that she had a Desmond Dekker sighting, but it was of a different sort. The audience was already hooting aloud for “The Israelites,” his big hit. The club had a small stage with a drawn curtain. There was a gap, and through that Jen saw Desmond Dekker sitting at a table alone with his head between his hands. He had a half-empty bottle of Gilbey’s gin facing him. He looked altogether miserable. Desmond Dekker had probably performed “The Israelites” live thousands of times. This was a celebrity sighting of sorts, one of the tortured-artist variety.
Here’s another backstage episode. My friend Tom tells of the following. Tom is the only person I know who has personally witnessed a Chuck Berry negotiation between the duck walker himself and a couple of music promoter hustlers. It occurred at the Stony Brook campus on Long Island, and it was right before a scheduled Chuck Berry show. Tom happened upon it in a back classroom, while searching for the can. He heard quotes like this, “You are obligated by contract” from the suits, followed by a vehement “No” from Chuck. There were plenty more of those negations. Chuck Berry wasn’t going on stage until he got paid. For Tom was viewing Chuck Berry outgaming his opposition. Not too many people have seen this first hand, as well-known as it is. Tom has. No particular place to go, indeed.
Clermont Ferrand of Les Sans Culottes adds this. His wife Margie, then a waitress down at the South Street Seaport, once served arugula to Flavor Flav, the clock-wearing clown prince of Public Enemy. Margie exacted an autograph for Bill (Clermont), despite Flav demanding anonymity. This was in the early days of mobile phones, and Flav spent the rest of the evening yelling into his enormous one, as large as the shoe box otherwise known as the Big Cheese. “Yo cuz, this is Flav!” It wasn’t the arugula salad or the hired help that gave him away.
There used to be a vibrant country bar in the West Village called City Limits. My old comrade and former roommate Joe was a huge country music fan. We would visit the venue occasionally on Mondays. That was the audition night when admission was gratis and the place wasn’t packed to the gills. Joe was convinced we would see the next John Prine or Merle Haggard. We never did.
Situated in the City Limits one rainy Monday evening with a Swedish woman who pronounced the word bonus as “boonus,” we were entertained by an ex-vet who had grown tired of cleaning latrines. He sang about it instead. His stuff was kind of shit-swabbing country swing. We liked him, considering him to be a real boonus. All of a sudden, there was a ruckus at the door. In the center of this pandemonium swayed a wiry, leopard skin vest-clad skeletal weasel-looking chap with a cigarette dangling from his lips, surrounded by muscle men and pretty women. Enter Keith Richards, co-captain of the Rolling Stones.
The poor bloke on stage lost it and essentially dried up. Meanwhile, Joe took it upon himself to approach Keith Richards in pursuit of some fundraising on behalf of the South African liberation cause. That effort got about as far as the first bodyguard and came to an abrupt end. Luckily, there was no bloodshed. The Swedish gal set off autograph hunting but came back complaining of no boonus. She stormed off in a huff. The price of cheap beer immediately increased. All in all, Keith Richards had managed to spoil a perfectly agreeable evening. So rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous can have its downside. Let it bleed instead.
It is said that there are a million stories in the naked city. And at least this time around, I managed to find space for the Kirk Douglas one, besides those about the musicians. After all, Kirk Douglas was Spartacus.
