Meeting Mick
It was late one Saturday night in August 1979. My buddies and I were wandering somewhat aimlessly through Greenwich Village in New York City. Looking for girls? A late-night place to eat? I can’t quite remember.
In time, our gang divided into two groups, separated by 30 feet or so. My group, the one lagging behind, decided to pull one of those silly grade-school pranks by ducking into a dark recessed doorway and seeing how far the front group would get before realizing we were gone. It worked all too well, as our friends walked on cluelessly, not noticing our absence.
Seconds later, a high-end black Mercedes came to a screeching halt directly in front of us, dropping off a scrawny, long-haired fellow who proceeded to walk slowly in our direction. Upon seeing us, he jolted to a halt, apparently wanting to get to the door that the five of us were now blocking. Time seemed to drag as we stood there, him staring at us and us at him, no one saying a word. Then it struck me that this guy looked very familiar— almost too familiar to believe.
After an extended stare-down, he got up the courage to squeeze his way past us to the door, where he pressed an intercom button and announced, without much urgency, “It’s Mick.” What happened next was a blur: the door opening
a crack, a mysterious hand reaching out to yank this “Mick” fellow into the building, and the door slamming shut as quickly as it had opened. Just like that, he was gone.
As we exited the doorway to catch up with our friends (now a full block away and dumbfounded by our absence), I looked up at the front of the building to get some idea of where we had been hiding. That was when I saw the sign for Electric Lady Studios. We were only partway down the block when a group of young women came running toward us. As they rushed by, they asked frantically, “Did you see him? Did you see Mick Jagger?” We all puffed out our chests and calmly responded “Yeah” as we hurried to catch up with our friends—who, of course, refused to believe us.