"Gypsy" Fleetwood Mac-Mirage

I always feel as though most of these songs I write about pertain to women...

...however it always struck me that most all of the songs in the cannon that are about love were written by men. Are women just not the song writers that men are? Or as much as we think of them being beings that are more concerned about love and matters of the heart while men are more engaged in sex; could that possible be wrong?

As a man I can't answer that objectively.

The facts speak for themselves. In the old days there was Ida and George Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart. Then there came the slow, heartbreakingly sad country boys of the southern United States: George Jones, Hank Williams. Followed by Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, hell even Jimmy Buffett dedicated most of his albums to a woman he spent decades trying to land. The Stones, Beatles, Clapton, the amount of men who write about women leaving them, being by them, smelling them. It is epic in scope.

But then there is Stevie Nicks and my obsession with her. Possibly the reason for my obsession for her and this song is that this song is "The Song" that I lost my virginity to. While for a man not a sacred as a woman and more of something to get out of the way and from what I heard certainly not as painful or scary, I guess it is a big event to say the least. How did it happen? Well like many things in my fortunate life it was a great story. Not just a great story to me because of "losing it" but rather because it was a great story.

I was barely eighteen. I went to a small little strip club called "Hot 22" on route 22 in New Jersey. I went with friends as we usually did. I had sixty dollars in my pocket that my father had given me for the weekend. I went with two other friends who actually had jobs in high school and always had cash. We paid the fifteen dollar cover and sat down next to the stage. There was no booze and it was full nude.

At the time I had about zero experience with women so whenever we went what I was viewing in front of my face was a total revelation to me. I had seen it in magazines and on video but for the most part, actually not for the most part but outside of a strip club I have never seen those parts before in my entire life. So we sat there with out singles folded in half, length-wise on the bar and watched as women picked them up in strange and exotic ways. As usual one of them came up to me and asked me for a dance. Having only forty five dollars in my pocket I always had to be selective but made the decision that this one was worth the twenty.

We went in the back room and did what you do.

I came back to my seat after tucking a certain body part under my belt with a rouge face and a little embarrassment, sat down in the chair next to my two boys who asked me how it was with a smile on their faces when another woman came by, put her hand on my shoulder and spoke.

"You are cheating on me."
"Uh, really? What are you talking about?"
"I wanted to have a dance with you."
"Well I am sorry but..."
"Let's have a dance."
"Well, I only, I mean I, just let me sit for a while..."
"No, let's go now."

One of my boys slipped me two twenties before I left and we headed back into the room together.

When we got there I assumed the position: hands under the seat, legs somewhat spread and watched her take off her thong. She straddled me and told me I was the cutest thing she had ever seen. We made small talk, well, she made small talk as I was always terribly shy and with little to say. I was intimidated constantly in that back room and felt more ashamed by the fact that at this point I have never even gotten to third base.

She asked me if I had an older brother, which I felt was terribly strange. She asked me if I had ever made love to a woman. I said no. She asked if I had ever, ahem, been down there on a woman. I said no. She told me that this was something I should certainly learn as no woman would want to be with a man who had no idea what he was doing. In stuttering speech I somehow had the presence of mind to say "Well would you like to teach me?" wondering just how she would react and how embarrassing it was going to be when she laughed it off. This was about four songs into the dance and beyond the amount of money I had in my pocket. She came back as she had her back to me, with it arched and threw her long, dirty blond hair over her should and said: "Of course I can show you sweetie." At that point I was frozen, I had no idea what the hell just happened and what the words both her and I just said meant. She turned around and straddled me again, whispered in my ear and said: "When you leave here I'll be on stage again, write your phone number on a dollar and tip me, I'll give you a call."

And I did it as stunned as I was. A week later I received the call. She said to meet her at her place which was in the next town over from where I lived with my parents. She answered the door in sweat pants and a tight wife beater. She smiled. I was very nervous, I was more nervous than I have ever been in my life. She undressed me and took me under her wing. From that second on I felt entirely comfortable for the rest of the night. There was no nervousness, no strange feelings or awkwardness. It was natural and pure. She was sweet, loving and understanding. And when it all started this song was playing.

I wouldn't say I left as a changed man. Certainly I had a new insight into the world and finally felt like a man. However I had a story no one would believe so it was impossible to tell most of the friends I had. It also was a little terrifying to know that this 29 year old woman took her clothes off and showed what I just had first hand, free looks and feels at for a living.

Many years later I moved to San Diego. One of the first weeks I was there a buddy and I met these two women in a bar in the Gaslamp district. They had the same name actually and they were about as much fun as women could be with their clothes on. We met them on a Friday and while they didn't give in that first night they did (or at least mine did) on the second. It was on the floor of one of her friend's place in Pacific Beach.

The next day I remember driving on the five back to Coronado and as I passed the airport on the right with the harbour shining in the Cali sun in all its splendor this song came on the radio. I was in my old Range Rover with the sunroof open. I was still a little drunk and high from the night before and with that warm sun beating on my head and shoulders I turned up the volume and started singing. Life was amazing and there was no way it could get any better. I rode this song onto the Coronado bridge back to my room at the BOQ at NAB Coronado with the SEALs running and getting the shit kicked out of them as I passed through the gate.

Later that day I was jogging on the beach back when I could do so with no shirt on and people would stare in awe rather than disgust. The cold currents of the Cortez Bank were washing ashore and under my bare feet, there were planes landing on 29 across the beach and over the Dell and Springsteen was keeping me company on my CD player (shows you how times have changed).

I thought at the time how beautiful life was, how that woman from last night was willing to give herself to me and how she looked in the shadows reflecting into that window of that street off of Garnett. How eight years earlier that woman gave herself and an education to me and how everyone sitting on that beach I was running on had some type of similar story.

I have no idea where either of those two woman are to this day. But I know at least a little bit of them are always with me just as all of the rest. Some more than others, and I hope that they in some way remember the nights I had with them because I certainly do. Some may think it is sleazy or dirty to have so many but I believe the opposite. They were all beautiful and I was madly in love with all of them at that time in which we consummated our night together. In a world with so much hatred and meanness, well, all we can ask for is such kindness and love. I know Stevie would agree and I would love to show her my appreciation.

"La Vie en Rose" Marlene Dietrich-Marlene Dietrich Live in London

For the past few nights I've been spending after midnight at a small bistro after hours, when the chairs are on the table, the light are on and the door is locked. There's two women I've spent my time with drinking Bordeaux and smoking strong cigarettes infused with conversation in a tongue not my own. One woman was born in Brasil, lived in LA via Miami and is now here in New York, the other is straight up French, born in Burgundy and moved here after years and years of travel throughout the hotspots of the globe. Just two nights ago we were talking about Carla Bruni and how she used to spend hours in the corner table at said restaurant, how she was a known party girl and had been with everyone from musicians to financiers, and actors. I sat there at the corner table smoking Reds, drinking wine and discussing all the important ant things in life, well, to the French the only important thing in life; love.

There's something terribly entrancing to an American man listening to such women speak with such beautiful accents. There's something entrancing dealing with such women who are not concerned with what the Kardashians are doing, nor how tan The Situation is and just how absurd his life and persona actually is, whether it be on screen or in Belmar.

So we sat there like characters in a film noir speaking about our lives and our loves without pretense, without jealously, for in the end that is simply the way love and lovers live there life. An idea so foreign to American men and women who find themselves caught up in the grind and superficiality of what this county and its pop culture has become. Beautiful nights they have been, beautiful nights speaking about menage a trois with lovers while never implying such an event would ever transpire between the three of us seated at the peasant like table cleaned of and ready with pure white linens for the next day of new patrons.

And for that there is the cliche of that lifestyle, of a people who really don't care what the next day holds, because why would one live for tomorrow when there is so much living to be done today. You want a drink; drink it. Your want a cigarette; smoke it. What could be holding you back from enjoying the pleasures that life could bring at this very moment?

Marlene Dietrich is probably the sexiest woman who ever roamed the planet. Born in Germany, witch a penchant for those not only of the opposite sex but of the same, a woman who was steadfast in her principles and revolted against her motherland of Germany during the Nazi era. In short a woman who not only had the female assets to ensure her place in society but the balls to run up against any takers who came into combat against her beliefs. In a word the perfect iconoclast.

And whether it was that iconoclastic beliefs, her sexuality or those terribly red lips in a black dress busting out into the world letting all know she was for real, whatever the reason why she maintains the title of perfect femininity in a world that at this current time lacks it in great measure; whatever the reasons that may be she has carved out a niche in the world that can never be replaced.

A wold that has fallen by the wayside, a world that loves to hold said persons as legends but not for the right reasons, in short she was the female version of Sinatra. She did what she did and never asked questions, and on nights such as these when I am drunk on martinis and red wine, nights such as these when I am searching for someone to come home to be tender with, to drink wine until the sun comes up and listen to everything she has to say...I wonder whether or not there are such amazing women out there ready to lay down with me and tell me their dreams. It might be an unrealistic dream but I am confident there are a multitude of Marlenes out there wandering around the cold streets of New York searching for a man. I only hope I run into their lives somewhere along the road.