The Rolling Stones—Thru and Thru
From my memoir, The Rise & Fall of the HoneyBun Empire:
[At a memorial service for my friend Greg Jones]
I met Greg’s old friend, Jim Gable, who had gone to the CalArts Institute, the exclusive art school in Santa Clarita, California, with him in the late seventies. I had heard many stories about Jim over the years. It was nice to finally meet him in person. He told me a very funny story about Keith Richards and Mick Jagger.
Jim had built a very successful business in the years since art school directing the movies to be projected on huge screens behind huge rock bands at their stadium concerts as they played. He had been working with The Rolling Stones for their upcoming Voodoo Lounge tour in the mid-nineties.
Jim and Keith and Mick were discussing the part of the show where Keith gets to be the singer while Mick takes a break offstage. Jim suggested that they have a movie that would begin as Mick walked off the stage and Keith began started his first song. The movie would show Mick winding his way through the labyrinthine backstage area, then making his way down a staircase and along a hallway to
a boardroom underneath the stage, where seventeen serious men in suits were seated around a massive table. At this point, Mick would do a Powerpoint presentation, gesticulating madly at the suits, as Keith would be singing his mysterious song, “Thru and Thru,”
You know that we do take away
We deliver too
Open twenty-four hours babe
Just waiting on a call from you
Waiting on a call from you
And you know this heart is constant
I’m your lover, baby, through and through
According to Jim, Mick didn’t find the idea funny at all. I imagine Keith did. I was grateful for the moment of levity. I always think about the story when I watch one of the videos.
You may have seen this. It is so dark. Just put the Trump family in there.
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