Zak and the Hair Attack
"Well, I'll never forget you. That's for sure," Zak Starkey, (aka, amazing drummer for The Who and son of Beatle Ringo Starr), and our Tree Audio client, told me.
Cut to an hour later: My husband Ian and I were sitting at Duke's in Malibu. A huge wave rolled in hit the rocks, and then splashed on our ocean-view window.
Ian looked at me. “Seriously, what happened? How do these things only happen to you?”
I sipped my tropical drink with a pink parasol and shrugged.
My moment with Zak, the reason he said he’d never forget me, played back in my head.
Ian walked down the golden wood, curved staircase. I followed, taking my time, in awe of the view before me. The Pacific Ocean filled the modernist pod-shaped, wood-framed two-story windows in front of me. It looked as if I could step down into the sparkling water below.
Zak sat on the floor, wearing neon purple shorts (the exact color as the tights I was wearing) and a gray t-shirt. Ian walked down the stairs toward him. Zak jumped up and the two hugged. Next, Zak's arms opened up and he came toward me to give me a massive hug. His head was buried in my hair. Then he came up sputtering. "Phttt phttt phttt... a hair. Your hair is in my mouth."
I didn’t know what to say or do. "Oh no. Uhhh," is all I could blather.
He reached inside his mouth to find and remove the distracting hair. Feeling helpless, I tried to look in his mouth to see if I could find it. He was still sputtering. I made gestures like I was going to reach in and help. He batted my hands away. We looked like two demented kittens in neon purple, swatting at each other.
Tired of all the hair nonsense, Zak sat back down and explained what had been going on at the studio he was working at, and talked about his recording gear and touring with The Who. Somehow after all the hair business we managed to have a nice conversation.
Five minutes later, he said, "I've got it. The hair!" He slowly pulled it out from the back of his mouth.
For some reason, I reached out to take it. He batted my hands away again and let the distracting hair drift to the ground.
Ian said to me, "What are you going to do, sell it on eBay?"
After all that, and Zak saying he’d never forget me, I didn't want to remind him we met years ago in Las Vegas and talked over cocktails while we went to see Ian's old bandmate, Burton Cummings, play with him (Zak) and his dad, Ringo, in Ringo's All Starr Band, see video below. (*My husband, Ian Gardiner, used to play bass with Burton Cummings during Burton’s post-Guess Who days.)
But that night Zak wasn't sputtering on my hair, batting me away in a blur of purple.
*Video: Burton Cummings with Ringo’s All-Starr band, around the first time I met Zak... he forgot about.
For more stories, here’s my recently published book, “Craving Normal.”
The Guess Who were so good. Randy Bachman was probably my first guitar hero. How cool that your husband played with Burton Cummings.