Birthday Magic
Sue and I were driving through Massachusetts last night at 10:30 when she dug a college-ruled notebook out of her backpack and asked for my flashlight. It was time for our weekly recap of Saturday Night Live using her notes as our guide.
“I know you said that you barely remember the episode,” Sue began.
“The immediacy of the memories is buried under layers of pot,” I replied about how I smoked a dispensary-grade joint right before watching the episode.
After we both dismissed the opening sketch, Sue praised Billie Eilish’s monologue.
“It’s her birthday tomorrow,” I said, “which means it’s also Keith Richards’s birthday.”
I’ve long remembered Keef’s birthday because it precedes my best friend’s birthday by twenty-four hours. Earlier in the day, Sue and I visited our favorite Maine bakery prior to a trip to Congress Street in Portland. While she went in Renys to search for discounted needhams, I entered a store that sells both vintage clothing and pre-owned vinyl. Flipping through their Rolling Stones selection — something I do in all stores I visit — I spotted a copy of Exile on Main St., an album I’ve long regarded as “the greatest album in the history of ears.” Original copies included twelve postcards featuring black and white photos of the band sporting costumes. Despite owning nine copies of the album on vinyl, including a promotional copy, Japanese first pressing, and a multicolored Czech version, I’m uncomfortable looking at the postcards because the dozen are perforated together and my fear of accidentally separating them (and subsequently chastising myself until death) forces me to keep them sealed in a folder beside the nonet.
“What’dja find?” Sue asked about the folded brown paper bag under my armpit.
“It was bothering me that I had an odd number of copies,” I told her, a person who has never listened to Exile — although she knows far more about it than she should — but who also conveniently distrusts odd numbers, as I revealed the cover. “And it has the postcards separated into groups of two so I can look at them!”
“Maine Magic,” Sue said, our phrase for fortuitous happenings when we’re in the state. “And Christmas Magic.”
“Plus, Stones Magic,” I offered.
How little we knew then.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Scheduled for an 11 a.m. shift at The Outlet today, I told Gary on Wednesday that I was bringing in the Stones’ Hampton Coliseum show to play in Keef’s honor. It’s my favorite Stones live recording and it was the first concert aired live on pay-per-view, which happened to be forty years ago today. (It’s also known for Keef, amid a sea of balloons, smashing his axe on a stage-crashing fan to save Mick from imminent bodily harm.) There’s even a mid-set break where Mick leads the band and crowd in a singalong to acknowledge The Human Riff’s departure from his mother’s five-string vagina (one assumes that’s how he inherited the technique).
As “Time Is on My Side” played in the store, a first-time visitor named Brian asked which live album we had spinning.
“It’s the famous Hampton show from ’81,” I told him.
“You mean Syracuse?”
“No. The Hampton Coliseum in Virginia.”
“Ohhh! I was at this show,” he said while reading the cardboard CD case. “My mother almost got arrested for scalping tickets.”
“ARE YOU SERIOUS?!”
“I’m pretty sure. I just got a new phone, so I don’t have my Excel spreadsheet with the list of every show I’ve attended on it to confirm. Let me call her.”
Unfortunately, she didn’t pick up, but he explained how they traveled from New Jersey to see a few Stones shows in December ’81 then went to the Carrier Dome in Syracuse for a Who concert in December ’82 (hence his confusion).
“Is your mother a huge Stones fan?”
“Yeah, she’s known as Jan the Fan. Let me try her again.”
Jan answered this time, and I heard Brian say things like, “I don’t remember the rental car’s wipers not working” and “You did a U-turn on that bridge because we thought it wasn’t a completed bridge” to The Fan. He clarified that the guy who offered to buy the extra tickets was an undercover cop, but the man apparently didn’t arrest her because Brian was a thirteen-year-old at the time.
“I can’t believe you were at this show,” I told him while flipping through the CD booklet. “They were so thin at the time. You should watch the DVD. They’re all pouring sweat and visibly high on cocaine. Mick’s wearing his stupid football uniform.”
“It was cool back then,” Brian said. “They were doing that arty French concept thing [Still Life, the name of the 1982 live album documenting the tour; I uncannily bought a picture disc vinyl copy up north on Thursday]. We wanted to go to their show in Atlanta last month, but my mother wasn’t well enough to attend. I did make sure that she was okay with missing what could be their last ever tour before I stopped trying to convince her.”
“How old is your mom?”
“In her late sixties.”
Quickly doing the math, I realized Jan gave birth to Brian at no later than age sixteen. I wondered if she’d brought him in a stroller to an early ’70s show or waited until she’d converted him into a Stones fan by his teens to bring him on tour with her. How cool was this lady? Was her son too afraid to begin telling stories out of fear that I’d become obsessed with his mom? Though there’s no way he knew I was into older women, my fascination was strictly limited to Jan and I sharing a love of The World’s Greatest Rock ’n’ Roll Band.
When Brian cashed out — conveniently buying a Stones live disc, among other items — he told me he’d be sure to have the Excel file on his phone during his next visit. The only problem is that all I want to see is a photo of Jan, changing a diaper with a lit cigarette dangling from her lips, while a carefree Brian holds a couple of Exile postcards as his legs hang in the air. Sure, such a timeline would embarrassingly confirm that Brian pissed and shat in his pants until age four, but when it’s Keef’s birthday anything is not just possible, but probable.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
A Quick Update (12/21/21)
Back at the store for another go-round this afternoon, a regular named Matt walked in. He’d purchased a few records on Saturday fifteen or so minutes before Brian’s visit. While Brian was shopping, he spotted Matt’s book on the wall and asked how often Matt stopped in, learned they’d just missed one another, and asked what he’d bought.
“Your buddy Brian was in after you left on Saturday,” I told Matt.
“He texted me asking how the Meat Loaf album was!”
“That was me. I couldn’t resist helping him fuck with you.”
I explained the Stones synchronicity before inquiring about Jan the Fan.
“She should really be called Jan the Nut,” Matt told me. “That woman’s got photos with Carmine Appice and Ozzy. She knows so many of those guys. Hell, one of the Stones could be Brian’s dad.”
Busy laughing, Matt interrupted my reaction to add to the story.
“Brian keeps an Excel file on his phone of all the shows he sees. He’ll go to six a week. Sometimes he forgets he bought tickets and buys tickets to another show on the same night. Anyway. One time he took me to a meet and greet with Gene Simmons. I’m not kidding you, he told Gene Simmons, ‘So, uh, Jan the Fan says hi.’ Gene said that he’s met a lot of women in his life, but there’s no doubt in my mind that that woman slept with Gene Simmons.”
And so, I daydreamed: When Brian conveniently returned to his Hampton hotel room alone in the wee hours on 12/19/81, did he catch Jan belatedly celebrating Keef’s birthday in the flesh with…his own father?