Soon to be released book

Sting in the Shower        

 My red headed Italian friend Sandy and I were on our way to San Diego Stadium. Sandy had gotten a last minute call that Sting needed a massage. She was happy to see him, but this was normal for her, I was gleeful, overflowing and excited to finally meet him. I was being given the opportunity to work on Sting’s band and make some money.
Sting wanted me to give Dominic Miller a massage. Dominic was long lanky red head. He had a chest of someone who had spent his whole life wrapped around a guitar, which had made him a fine guitar player but gave him a chest that spooned. [I saw him at the end of that 10 month tour and the required yoga for the band on the tour had changed that] This was his first major tour and he was shy to receive his first massage.

He jumped on the table in his jeans. I started to laugh. In his nervousness he had found a great excuse to leave his pants on. “Two birds with one stone” he said. “I need to get the wrinkles out of my jeans so I’ll just lay here in them while you do your massage”.

I made a deal with him that he would modestly draped at all times, and if he would give me the jeans, I’d steam out the wrinkles in the shower.

They had me set up in the team shower room, a vacuous cave of echoing tile with long banks of shower stalls with no doors. I turned on one entire bank of shower heads and hung up his jeans to steam them.  The steam started to build a little calm atmosphere in this cold sterile room.  I was trying to settle into some balance and I had zero ambiance and none of my usual props, a quiet cozy room, music, candles and robe.

Dominic had given up his jeans and lay down in his boxers, face down. I respectfully draped him under sheet and blanket. It took at least a half hour before the rigidness of “what to expect” nervousness left him. I was going down easy street now; he trusted me and his nervous system was beginning to unwind. It’s the “drop in” point where a client relaxes and real therapeutic work begins. I was confident that with a good introduction to massage, he would be a massage addict after this.  

I looked up and noticed Sting looking through the porthole window of the door. He signaled to be quiet. I was calm but mystified when Sting crept into the room and stood right up next to me, so close that the hair on the back of my arms stood up. He started mimicking my massage strokes and when he got my rhythm he motioned for me to move aside. He started effleurage strokes up the back of Dominic’s legs and back. Sting was surprising me with his professional massage technique. Poor Dominic had no idea we had switched. Sting continued massaging Dominic for a couple minutes, and then with an ear to ear grin, he grabbed the elastic of Dominic underwear and in one motion ripped them down off his gluteus. Dominic came straight up off the table, grabbing the sheet, “Wha the foock !” He thought I was molesting him.

Sting ran gleefully out to tell the boys in the band the great prank he’s just pulled off.

I was left to deal with the fallout. I was trying to salvage the rest of the massage and somehow I had gotten Dominic back on the table for the rest of his massage, he was just relaxing when Sting strolled back in.

"I can’t believe you did that.” I scolded Sting. “Sorry Suzanne, but I’m sure you’ve seen worse.” “Not really, Sting.” I said flatly. “I just want to know why he couldn’t tell we had switched.”  Sting put his hand up next to mine, and we compared our hands, he had strong energy.

Sting said “I have to warm up my voice and take a shower.”

At that, he walked over to the shower with no door and directly in front of me dropped his pants, stepped into the steam completely naked and started singing.

How to finish this massage as a professional under Sting’s newly imposed impossible challenge?  I continued doing my work steadily as Sting sang naked in the shower and I let my long hair fall across my face to cover my eyes because this was overwhelming me. I have an image to this day of Sting's voice and a perfect pair of butt cheeks visible through the steam.

This story was one Sting told through out that tour. Now that Dominic has been on the road for 20 years with Sting I’m sure he’s gotten him back by now.

Let’s just say this massage ranks in the top of unforgettable, incredulous and challenging of my career.

Journal 1971, Santa Fe, New Mexico, St. John’s College, Laundry Room

Dennis was sitting on the washing machine waiting for all the clothes he owned to dry, with the exception of his underwear, which he was wearing.

I was doing my laundry.  He pulled out a pouch of tobacco and some cigarette papers and rolled his own cigarette.  Unusual, but I had seen too many things in New Mexico that summer to be surprised.

He kept pushing his long brown hair out of his eyes, as he concentrated on the rolling.  His face weathered, leathered, he was maybe twenty-five years old, maybe thirty. He had been living out in the southwestern desert sun for awhile.

The only thing to brighten his face was his blue eyes, his smile was not flashy, and it had more of a sneaky, scoundrel twitch to it.

We began to talk.  Was he from Santa Fe I asked, No.? Tucson? I went on, “Are you visiting?”  In a sense, he drawled.  He was in a hurry to answer my questions.” Tough interview,” I thought. I saw his sleeping bag in the corner, so I asked him if he was camping.  Finally, a question he felt like answering.  He lit his smoke, cleared his throat and said, “Yeah, in a manner of speaking, I’ve been camping about six months now”, his voice trailed off as he was thinking.

“Wow, six months!” I emphasized. 

“You know the horses outback in the corral are ours.  We rode from Tucson to here.  It took six months.  We made quite a few stops along the way.  You know, we’d find a nice place and hang out there for awhile.”  He got all those words out.

My mind was clicking as he talked.  All this summer in Santa Fe, while taking sculpting at St. John’s College and hiking and riding these mountains, I’d been dreaming of a long trip on a horse.

Racing deep in sand up arroyo washes, dodging cactus on quarter horses, I would stop on top of knolls and look out at the red earth of the Sangre de Cristo ridges and dream of riding through them for days.  I guess that dream had originated in my childhood with a Davey Crockett crush and riding and training horses growing up.

This was good riding country.  Open spaces, arroyos, mountains, New Mexico, the Red River Valley, Santa Fe Trail; the hub of westward travel.  Cowboys, settlers, outlaws, all traveled west through here, it was full of old romantic western lore.  Now, hippies.  I liked that idea, retracing their footsteps, but as new age travelers looking for a more meaningful life than the suburbs, and not armed with guns; but psychedelics.
    Before I could take off I needed a horse, and before that, I needed to go back to California.  So, I drove my ’67 green VW bug west on Route 66 to the cliff side Pacific Ocean house and convinced my parents I had to do this.  I sold my Vdub for $300.00, and then went to my father’s office to talk to him man-to-man so to speak.  I gave him my terms; I was going to do this ride alone, or with these guys.  It would be better with these guys, and with or without my Dad’s blessing (or his money).  Standing next to his endless boardroom table with pictures of John Wayne, Richard Nixon, celebrities, and Heads of State, all shaking hands with my Dad; my Republican, Conservative, Italian father said yes.  He gave me some money and told me he’d pray for me.