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December 19, 2000
The first person I saw as I walked
into the locker room at Crunch yesterday afternoon was a naked white man with
short hair and a shriveled up willie. But this wasn’t just any naked white
man with short hair and a shriveled up willie. This man had been the drummer
for one of the biggest rock’n’roll bands of the 1970s.
Twenty-five years ago, when his hair was long, this
man toweled the sweat off his face as he banged his snares and cymbals in
front of tens of thousands of screaming fans packed into Wembley and Shea
Stadiums on Kleig-lit, hot summer nights. Now he was toweling off from a go on
the Stairmaster. Back then—if you believe VH1’s Behind the Music—he was
doing a different young girl every night of the tour. Now, as I overheard him
speaking into his cell phone, he was calling his wife to tell her he’d be
home within the hour. "I love you too," he smiled into the
mouthpiece before hitting the power off button.
How sweet.
And how strange.
Imagine being a rock star and then
living through it to see middle age. Would every day be a let down? Would all
those lines on your face getting clearer be stinging reminders of better days
gone by? Or would one look back on those times with a warm sense of pride and
wonder. "Did I really do that?" you might smile when you thought
about it.
Maybe one’s priorities change as one gets older. At
25, the love one seeks might be the kind found in the cheers of thousands of
strangers. At 45, a squeeze from your wife’s hand might carry the day.
I wanted to ask the naked drummer this. But it is bad
form in New York to approach a celebrity when they are trying to do ordinary
things. It is bad form anywhere to strike up a conversation with a naked man
in a locker room.
Broadway Jim Sosnicky
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