Big Man Read online

  This summertime show in 2008 was one of those that fall into the “best ever” category. That subjective list the true fans will argue about forever. The truth is that it is a pointless discussion. “One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.” But by any measure it was an epic show, stretching to three hours and twenty minutes of solid house-rocking, pants-dropping music.

  Judy and I watched the show from on the stage sitting on Clarence’s trap cases. I didn’t think Bruce and this band could blow me away anymore, at least not like back in the day, but tonight I was proven wrong. I said “Wow” so many times even I got sick of hearing it.

  We drove to the stadium with Clarence and Victoria from the city and arrived around five-thirty. A traffic accident delayed the start of the show and it didn’t begin until nine-thirty. I sat to the side and behind the stage before the show and watched the crowd filter in. All the band members had lots of guests. Bruce and Patti had over sixty themselves. There were lots of folks wearing backstage passes and laminates. I sat and watched as people filtered out from behind the stage to find a seat or a place to stand. I saw Javier Bardem, who had been in Barcelona last week. Brian Williams, who seemed to be turning into a groupie, was there, along with Steven Spielberg and his wife. Steven was wearing a jaunty straw fedora that was almost as good as wearing a neon arrow on his head with a sign that read “Look at me!” Jimmy Burroughs and Tim Robbins and various Baldwins dotted the crowd. Mickey Rourke and Darren Aronofsky were up front. (After the show in his dressing room Bruce played Darren a song he’d written for a film Darren made with Mickey, called The Wrestler. So Darren got one more song than anyone else there.) Everybody was excited and seemed to anticipate that something special was about to happen.

  I remember marveling at Nils Lofgren, in need of two new hips, actually doing a somersault during one of his solos. Music seems to possess him and free him from the pain of being human.

  I remember Bruce throwing a bucket of water on the crowd in front and the way it was backlit in the air as he spun back toward the stage.

  I remember the look and feel of the sold-out stadium when the lights came up at the first notes of “Born to Run.” Yes, I’ve seen that many times before, but on this night it had that magic quality and an intensity that matched that of the audiences in Spain.

  I remember seeing the elegant Barbara Carr, of Bruce’s management team, standing on the side of the stage enjoying the show for the millionth time, as if it were the first.

  I remember Bruce turning to Clarence onstage and talking to him about how they had both failed at marriage and Clarence’s impending wedding and how he felt the Big Man had gotten it right this time. I remember the look of genuine affection on Bruce’s face as he talked to his old friend in front of that huge crowd and then sang “Pretty Flamingo” for the first time in a long time. It was a beautiful moment.

  I remember Candy Brown, an old friend of C’s, coming to the Temple of Soul to feed us all.

  I remember saying hello to Bruce as he arrived backstage, walking down the big hallway alone with his knit cap pulled over his head, looking like the world’s hippest homeless person. I remember thinking that he looked somewhat tired. I was wrong. He wasn’t tired. He was waiting.

  I remember George Travis, still placid and smiling that small secret smile as he prowled the backstage area, quietly assuring himself that all was right in his world.

  And I remember watching the assembly of the Big Man.

  The process took well over two and a half hours, and it started with a nap.

  Clarence came into the Temple and immediately laid down on the traveling bed, put on his CPAP mask and went to sleep. Assistants and friends came and went but he didn’t notice. He was in the first stages of the transformation.

  Judy and I left him alone and went up to catering for something to eat. A half hour later he called my cell.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Upstairs,” I said.

  “Get down here,” he said. “Candy Brown is here with the food.”

  What Candy brought was part of this list of things that went into the assembly process at that point in time. Here are a few of the others. This is not an all-inclusive list, but Clarence used, applied, ingested, or injected all of the following during the three-hour period before the show:

  Two beers.

  Glue and duct tape.

  Several artificial joints and a myriad of other medical devices and equipment.

  Two doctors.

  A vitamin B12 shot.

  Three pieces of Candy’s incredible fried chicken.

  A large serving of Candy’s incredible greens.

  A small serving of Candy’s incredible mac and cheese.

  A large bottle of Fiji water.

  Two ginseng tablets.

  A half hour of radiant heat from portable heat lamps.

  Two ice bags.

  Two knee braces.

  Two elaborate back braces.

  One deep tissue massage.

  One Al Green album.

  Two dressers (Lani and Freda).

  Black boots, pants, and shirt. A long black military-style duster coat, a smooth black fedora, and black shades.

  One fiancée (Victoria).

  Lots of well-wishers.

  Several prayers. Clarence prays every night before going onstage for God to let him bring joy to someone that night and to help him make it through the show.

  A golf cart, which drove him right up onto the stage.

  “The hardest part of all,” Clarence told me, “is when I put my arm around Bruce and lean on him as we step onto the stage. I know I’m looking at three hours before I get to play my favorite song, which is the last one.”

  During the show another cigar was smoked and the rest of the Patrón bottle’s contents was consumed.

  After the show Clarence drank three beers in the dressing room while receiving guests.

  In the limo on the way home he ate a small jar of caviar with crackers and drank most of a bottle of Dom Perignon.

  By the time we got back to the hotel, which was well after two in the morning, Clarence was feeling as good as he can feel. He had done an amazing show. But, perhaps more amazing, he had survived another day as the Big Man.

  Clearly nobody could do this every night and expect to function for long. Fortunately the shows are spaced luxuriously, and the Big Man has recovery time. And some nights the pain is not as bad as others, and certain ingredients of the formula can be eliminated. But Clarence is an old-school rock-and-roll animal and he’s not going to change now. He’s never even expressed a desire to change. He is a man in charge of his own life. Where most of us would be put on the floor if we consumed the way Clarence consumes, he remains steady and functions at a very high level.

  I will remember that show at Giants Stadium for a long time. I’m getting out of the “best ever” business, but this show is connected in my mind to a show at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in 1974 and a private party at the Troubadour Club about the same time. It is linked to several shows at the Roxy Theatre and several more at the LA Sports Arena when the horns joined the band in the late ’70s. There are others like the night in Arizona when the “video” of “Rosalita” was filmed, and several outstanding performances in New York in the ’80s along with memorable performances in Italy and Spain, but again, all of this is in the eye of the beholder. We fans all have a desire, a strong desire, to say we just saw the greatest show we’ve ever seen. That may always be true. Sometimes it’s just truer than others.

  But the most enduring image I’ll carry from that show is of what I saw when I was walking off the stage. It was dark in the cavernous area backstage, where the crew waits for the last note to fade so they can begin the job of tearing this thing down, loading it all onto trucks, and setting it back up in the next town. As I was leaving to walk down the ramp and back to the Temple of Soul I noticed a big metal trap case sitting by itself. It was dark green and there were two
words stenciled on it in white. The larger one was FEDERICI and below it in smaller type was the word FRAGILE.

  The Legend of Peahi (Dates Unknown)

  Most of Clarence’s stories are only partially bullshit. It’s only fair to tell you that I think the next one is complete bullshit. —D.R.

  The plane was extraordinarily luxurious. It was a festival of Connolly leather, cashmere, and crystal. It was a Gulfstream V. She had spent over three million dollars on the interior alone.

  They were cruising at 550 miles an hour at an altitude of 42,000 feet. Their destination was the island of Maui, and they were both simultaneously confident and terrified. What waited for them was a defining moment, which would alter or end their lives.

  The trip began when he appeared on her show. They challenged each other. Both fiercely independent and both very, very smart. It started as a joke. “What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?” led quickly to “What’s the craziest thing you’d ever do?” and then the one-upmanship began. Then it became serious. Then it became about life and death. Then it became about something beyond both of those things. Something more elusive.

  They had been preparing for this trip both separately and together for more than a year. Both could swim a little at first, and both had a major fear of the ocean. They’d started doing laps both at his pool in Florida and hers in Montecito. They’d done most of their water work on the West Coast. Her estate there was set up for guests and trainers, so that was where they based their efforts at first. It was just a short hop to the beach when they graduated to ocean swimming.

  But before any of that came the mental work. Preparing the mind for something the mind could not accept. They had spent a lot of time with Eckhart Tolle. Clarence was sure that this guy was full of shit, with his stupid accent and his stupid philosophy, but gradually he changed his mind. Tolle talked a lot about positivity and Clarence liked that. First of all he liked the word itself… positivity. It was a good word. It was rhythmic and percussive. It was a Chuck Berry word. Positivity. Accent on the tiv. Yes. It all started to make sense. If you could imagine it, you could become it.

  The Hollister Ranch is a 15,000-acre enclave on the California coast north of Santa Barbara. Because beach access there is limited to ranch residents, it possesses some of the most undersurfed quality waves in the state. If you’re not on the ranch, the only way to surf Razors or Big Drakes or Rights and Lefts is to boat in and out.

  She had used her power to entice Laird to help them.

  Laird had arranged ranch access for them through his old running buddy Dr. Brad Johnson, who had lived there for more than twenty-five years. Laird met the two of them, both in amazing shape, at the St. Augustine cabana, then drove them down onto the beach in an old restored Ford Bronco he bought from Bob Dylan. Dave Kalama followed in a Range Rover that carried all the gear.

  They drove up to Johns Pond at the far western edge of the ranch and went to work.

  Laird stressed hard physical training and breath control. On Maui they would be tested to their limits and beyond.

  They had been running daily for over a year. They had been weight training for almost as long and deep diving for the last six months. A magician who had held his breath for more than seventeen minutes on her show had inspired her. He had worked with them on technique in the pool and then in the ocean off East Beach, where they had used one of Paul Allen’s yachts as an extravagant base camp, far from prying eyes.

  It is fair to say that when they began water work at Hollister, that is to say board work, they were both in the best physical shape of their lives.

  They were the two most unlikely big-wave surfers in history.

  They worked and worked and worked, and after months of falling their balance began to come around and they became competent. Then they became good. Then they became very good. They could more than hold their own in decent-sized surf. It was drop, turn, and set up for the glide stuff—no cutbacks or aerials, but those things wouldn’t be needed where they were going.

  After one super session on a double-overhead day they sat on the sand in front of the Bronco and stared out at the water. It was late afternoon, and except for a brief lunch break they’d been surfing since seven a.m. Laird was loading the boards and wet suits into the Range Rover with Dave.

  “Nobody would believe this shit,” said Clarence.

  “I don’t believe this shit,” she said, laughing.

  “I wish I’d starting doing this when I was young,” he said.

  “You are young, Clarence. It’s all in your mind.”

  “Tell that to my knees.”

  “You’re going to be fine,” she said. “Just believe.”

  “I do,” he said. “I didn’t for a long time, but I do now.”

  She turned and looked at him. She was glowing with good health. The sun warmed her face. Her eyes were brilliant. Gulls danced behind her in the distance on the sands of the Laughing Cowboy Ranch, which used to be called the Western Gate, the place where Native Americans believed the Earth connected to Heaven.

  “Are you happy?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “I love what you said about the composition of happiness. The two ingredients of happiness.”

  “Gratitude and forgiveness,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s all you need.”

  Laird closed up the tailgate on the Range Rover and started back toward the Bronco. The sun was sinking, and the sky was beginning to turn a soft pink.

  “So tell me again why we’re going over there to risk our lives,” said Clarence.

  “That I have not figured out,” she said. Then she laughed that deep-throated laugh. He called it her dirty laugh. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  They landed and went to the massive oceanfront estate she had leased in Paia. She owned property up-country and in Hana, but for this trip they needed to be closer to the action. She stayed in the big house while Clarence took the guesthouse, which was located right down on the sand. Clarence thought that if this were his property he’d live in this house and knock the big one down.

  That night they met Laird and Gabrielle at Charlie’s for dinner. Laird said the swell was big. Very big. He’d been studying weather charts and satellite photos for days. He’d alerted them a week ago and had put them on notice to jump on the plane the moment he said go.

  Gabby was very supportive.

  “You’ll do great,” she said to them. “With Laird and Dave out there with you nothing can go wrong.”

  “Something can always go wrong,” said Laird with a small smile. “But it won’t tomorrow.”

  Willie Nelson came by and sang a few songs. Clarence got up and sang “Moonlight in Vermont” with him. Willie introduced the song as the only classic standard that didn’t contain a single rhyme.

  Clarence had never thought of bringing his horn.

  They turned in early and awakened early. Neither of them could remember dreaming.

  Laird and Dave arrived well before dawn and drove them to the landing. It was too dark to see the waves, but they could hear them. They could feel them.

  “Sounds big,” said Clarence.

  “It’s big,” said Laird.

  “How big?” she asked.

  “Sixty plus,” he said. He searched their faces for any sign of hesitation. He saw fear, but he expected that. Hesitation out there was synonymous with death. He didn’t see any.

  “Let’s ride,” said Clarence.

  “Go!” Laird shouted, then turned the Jet Ski hard to the right and disappeared from her vision.

  She was aware of being alone. There was a clarity to this aloneness she had never experienced before. She could not have imagined this feeling. It was just her and the wave, and there was nothing else that mattered.

  She leaned forward slightly and let gravity and God take over. She looked over the edge and dropped in, skipping down the face with a gathering speed that took her breath away. The enormous
moving wall of water, which appeared to be smooth from the cliff onshore, was actually made up of jagged ledges, which seemed to be climbing upward toward the spitting lip, which was now some twenty-five feet above her.

  For a moment she was sure she’d be pulled up by this lethal escalator and pitched screaming over the falls, followed by a million tons of falling water. But instead she shot off the edge of a huge shelf, sailed out into the air, reconnected with the surface a full ten feet below, and rocketed down into the pit.

  She leaned hard on the inner rail and carved a deep and beautiful bottom turn, sending up a rooster tail of water.

  As she began to climb, looking for her line, she became aware of the presence of the wave. It loomed above her and behind her. It was everything, filling all her senses with an absolute nowness. She was present.

  She picked a line and set it. In front of her and far above, the wave began to pitch forward. She had no idea if she could make it, but in truth she didn’t really care. If she died today so be it. This moment, she said to herself, is perfect.

  Behind her time and space began to explode. As she raced across the face of the giant wave, chaos followed, closing fast.

  * * *

  Clarence dropped the towrope and glided slightly to his left, the wave lifting him up and propelling him forward. His speed was perfect, and when he found himself on the lip he looked down, seven stories down, smiled, leaned forward, and took the drop.

  He extended his arms out and up for balance and looked like a great, black, winged bird flying down the face of a giant monster wave, both of them moving with majesty and grace and awesome, otherworldly power.

  It seemed impossibly steep, and he felt like he was falling forever. He almost lost his position on the board and pitched forward, but the straps saved him and he leaned back, shifted ever so slightly, and hit the bottom of the wave angled a little to his right.

  He could feel the g-force of the turn as he crouched down into it, using all the strength he’d built up in his massive legs to pull it off.