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hands on. Another gig in another faraway, hard to get to little town that had rocked with the entire American nation several decades prior to the irrepressible and exciting sound of my cherished string of sixties hit records. They had the money. They paid their deposit. And tonight, in the year 2001, I was still, in the minds of this audience, their “star.”
    “Does the smoke bother you?” the young monitor tech asked as we stared toward the stage and watched highly defined white beams of light, filled with slow floating patterns of exhaled carbon monoxide, move silently through the blackness of the auditorium. “No,” I said. “Not anymore.” I laughed, thinking how I wonder every day when those years of pain in my lungs will turn into something sinister and deserved. “No. It’s not as bad as the fog machines. That stuff makes my throat itch. It makes you dry, you know?” I added as I wiped the cold sweat from my plastic bottled water.
    “Do you still get nervous?” he asked, reacting to my irritated pacing, a result of his endless questions. “Yes,” I said, lying, just to get him off my back. But it did make me think. When did I lose that anticipation? At what point did I become so greatly confident in my ability to entertain that I no longer worried about how I was going to do? Or, conversely, when did I stop caring? All those years in so many different altered states, dragging and strip teasing my weaknesses and addictions and failings before myfans, yet, somehow managing to convince most of them they had witnessed my best. In the balance? Performances so shamefully ugly that no one at all wished to recall. Blind and pointless anger over something as insignificant as fading fame.
    I remember. Yes, I remember with great affection the first time I ever took the stage alone in high school. My knees were shaking and I could not open my eyes. I had held the microphone and stand so tightly there were marks in my skin. Then, when I finished singing, that magic moment of stillness and quiet, and finally, applause. In one motion it was both horrible and magnificent.
    Next, of course, came the Village and my run with the Peps, but getting top billing as the solo artist had proven to be much more difficult. The shining star at the Village prior to my solo debut was a man I’ll call Timmy. I had given Timmy’s endorsement of me for top solo billing to management, but only after his exit. That was Timmy way of repaying me.
    The first time I saw Timmy perform I was awestruck. He had complete command of the stage. No matter what was going on anywhere, in any little corner of the Village, all eyes turned toward Timmy when he walked on to perform. Many were frightened by his appearance. Some laughed and made fun. But when he began to sing, all doted upon each little breath, every exaggerated syllable, every perfect note, and he sang and danced and moved about so freely you would think that it should never be, please don’t let it ever be, anything else. His energy dominated the psyche of the other entertainers to the point where nobody would, or could, follow him. He drove his audience, over and over, to ever greater heights of involvement and, mostly unnoticed, slowly disrobed with each subsequent song until finally, exhausted, covered in sweat and overjoyed with his impending triumph he ended his performance with his beloved signature song. Everyone would be drooling in anticipation. Using a drumbeat similar to the one employed by Maurice Ravel in his hypnotic composition “Bolero” he sang the living shit out of “Temptation.”
You came
, ba ba ba bomp, ba ba ba bomp, ba ba ba
I was alone
, ba ba ba bomp, ba ba ba bomp, ba ba ba
I should have known
, ba ba ba bomp, ba ba ba bomp, ba ba ba
You were temp-taaa-tion
    At the very end, just as the song reached its phenomenal climax, Timmy took off his pants. The first time I saw it I burst out laughing. I was in tears. I could not believe that all of the thought and