(...Or 2 degrees of Deborah D....)
Long time no write. Well, I hope you feel this was worth the wait...
In my early twenties, I worked in radio. It was a great way to catch close-up glimpses of the hottest acts, score freebee tickets to concerts, and if I were lucky, a backstage pass, too.
My BFF was in a different part of the music industry. Deborah D worked for a record company. For sure, her bennies included all of the above, along with an album collection that rivaled the one in the radio stations I worked for. If a band she liked wasn't on her label, she'd swap demo LPs or concert tickets with grunts at other labels for the coveted vinyl.
Deb collected her boyfriends that way, too. Bass players were her favorites, but drummers ran a close second. Rarely did she date "civilians."
It was on one of those few occasions that I met my hubby: he lived next (to her revolving) door and swung in one night when she'd just traded an album or two for four free tickets to a movie. My arm charm, (believe it or not, straight) male model. Since Hubby was more into symphonies than Springsteen -- they soon parted ways.
But the spark the was kindled that night, between him and me, flashed even hotter the next time we saw each other: Deborah D's New Years Eve par-tay, which was always a who's who of music industry celebs, pros, hangers-on, has-beens, up-and-comers . . .
And a usual galaxy of long-legged, straight-haired groupies.
To my delight, Hubby was oblivious to everyone but me.
Then again, the poor guy didn't know that the Allman Brothers were Georgia's official band. So what were the odds he'd recognize the guy whose foot he just stepped onto belonged to Cher's talented, sloe-eyed ex?
Warp speed a couple of maritally blissful decades later --
Recently 60 Minutes was interviewing the Eagles who, now in their sixties, have reunited after more than a decade for one more album. Despite a few sags, bags, and wrinkles, to the most part they've held onto the visages of their youths.
So successfully, in fact, that one tweaked a long-dormant brain cell. "If I remember right, Deborah D dated that dude. The one on the left there," I said to Martin.
He snorted at my quaint euphemism for balls-to-the-wall sex. "There were so many, so yeah, that could have been..." He stopped mid-swallow. "Hey! That means I've actually made it with someone who's made it with--with HIM." He stared up at the screen in awe.
"Yep. Him, and about a dozen or so other guys who have hit the Billboard Rock Chart with a bullet at least once."
He stared at me as if I were speaking Greek. "Don't you get it? That's only two degrees of separation."
Which, considering the time and place, could have translated into one degree of the clap, I thought to myself as he strummed his air guitar.
Whatever he was playing, I could only imagine it was off-key.
Rock on . . .
