I didn’t mention who I was or that we’d met before because I didn’t expect you’d remember or recognize me. You didn’t. So I expressed my admiration as a fan.
I’m pretty sure it was a postpremiere party for a film and I’m certain it was at El Teddy’s or El Internacionale. I don’t recall what incarnation the joint was at the time. You were standing at one of the floor-length urinals in the men’s room. After following you in (I know), I stood and peed—with an empty drain between us to be polite.
Looking straight ahead at the white-tiled wall, I said: “I was listening to you this afternoon. ‘Magic and Loss.’ It’s a masterpiece.”
You glanced over for a little second and after assessing if I posed any threat, you turned back to the wall and said kindly: “That’s pretty cool.” Then you zipped up and walked away.
A little while later I watched you drinking a can of Tecate at the bar. This surprised me because word on the street was that you were anonymously sober. Standing next to my recovering friend whose guest I was that evening, I pointed out the beer. He shrugged and said: “Junkies, man. They have a sobriety all their own.”
I didn’t understand what he meant.
By then you were a long way from junk or speed or whatever it was that possessed you way back when. And to reduce you to junkie, like, Once a junkie, always a junkie—well, for my friend I apologize.
I was happy to see you sip the beer. It made me see clear the fluid and idiosyncratic possibilities in our lives, or maybe more accurately: the fluidity and idiosyncrasy that is our lives. It made me see that there are escape routes out of hell and if we are fortunate we can make a clean getaway and survive.
We survived the fires that started when we kicked the candles in our sleep, too fucked up to remember to blow them out. We survived the fights at dawn when there was nothing left to say but curses, low-blow insults, and the revelations of harbored desires to inflict violence and pain. We survived falling down the stone stairs backward, literally head over heels, because we were so drunk and the last cigarette made us so dizzy. Yes, we were lucky and earned that sip of beer at the bar.
The next time I saw you was ten years after the men’s-room encounter. You were performing at the second permutation of the Knitting Factory. It was the first April of the new millennium and you had just released a new album. Four decades in and your work was as potent, relevant, and necessary as anyone’s, if not more so. I remember thinking as you walked onstage that you were the same age my father would have been; just about sixty. It would be the only time I would ever see you perform live and the last time I would ever be in your presence.
What I proceeded to behold that evening was the living embodiment of rock and roll itself. Its essence distilled and offered up with generosity and benevolence for all those who gathered to bear witness to the passion; to the majesty, ferocity, and might. The power and the glory. Transmitted through vibration, gesture, and mind (mantra, mudra, and meditation), from you to us with love and compassion. For we know not what we do.
And more than anything else, it was punk. Which should come as no surprise since you were its creator. I don’t care what Detroit says, you were doing it when Iggy was a mere Osterberg and Kramer was trying to figure out who the other four would be. As for the lads from my neck of the woods (famous for their “One, two, three, four” count-off and three power chords) who are considered by some as the progenitors of the movement . . . well, that just makes no sense chronologically or otherwise. Not to mention (but I will) that they basically wrote the same song over and over again. And however great a song it may be, it renders deep catalog cuts redundant. Sorry, kids, I guess you had to be there—on the Bowery when it happened. But I wasn’t.
And the same goes for the little London boy. Just the first few sentences you speak to the audience on Take No Prisoners relegates John-John to a corner with some crayons and a finger up his nose. The revolution you started was one of art and intellect. It inspired the defeat of tyranny in Czechoslovakia, for Christ’s sake. God save the queen, indeed.
* * *
The song ends and the tears stop as suddenly as they started. Another song of yours begins to play. It’s the one that got me into all the trouble. You played it that night at the Knitting Factory, a miracle really, because I loved it so much and it was rarely included in your live repertoire. It was sheer delight that evening and maybe even more thrilling tonight.
It opens with a wail (your guitar), then it churns and rumbles (bass and drums), then melts euphoric (more guitar), then you shout. It is heroic and brave. Transcendent and holy.
And it doesn’t look like the rain will stop.
I hit the gas hard and head into the West.
Acknowledgments
I am forever grateful to: my dear parents Dan and Claire, my brother John, Ryszard and Raisa Chlebowski, His Eminence Garchen Rinpoche, Elijah Amitin, Laurie Anderson, Sharon Angela, Jean-Claude Baker, Norena Barbella, Valerie Baugh, Jack Cacamis, Seymour Cassel, Bruno de Almeida, John Frey, Roger Haber, Tom Gilroy, Fernando Gomes, Ti Jean, Joe Laurita, Richard Lewis, Gary Lippman, Steven P. Morrissey, Joyce Carol Oates, Nick Sandow, Joe Scarpinito, Steve Schirripa, Richard Sottosanti, Johnny Temple and Akashic Books, Tina Thor and TMT Entertainment, Olmo Tighe, Mark Turgeon, John Ventimiglia, Francine Volpe, my
