Strange things happen: a life with the Police, polo, and pygmies

by Stewart Copeland

  It actually takes us two more glorious mornings before we are able to line up the giraffes, horse, and camera. We end up with twenty-three seconds of wild ride on film. It doesn’t look much like a traveling shot, so we’ll have to think up another dubious plot point to explain the Rhythmatist’s relationship with the galloping giraffes. Maybe something to do with rhythm and the herding instinct…gimme a minute.

  Another of the Khashoggi toys is a pride of lion who live in a large compound surrounded by fourteen-foot-high chain-link fencing. The whole animal thing is a little distracting for us since the Rhythmatist is a musicologist not a biologist, but we are broad-minded when it comes to dumb plot turns that put our hero next to photogenic stuff. Lions? Um…OK, he’s got to commune with the lions who are the last mammals to have seen the girl who has disappeared (or has been kidnapped, or who has gone on a spiritual quest, or…something).

  Polo logo

  Young Khalid also has, in one of the air-conditioned sheds at the ranch, a full set of band equipment—guitars, amps, PA system, and drums. Those Saudi kids love to jam! The drums are a little obvious, but what the heck. We load them up, drag them out to the lions, and set up a shot.

  Now lions are best avoided but aren’t usually a problem out in the bush. For some reason they regard humans as superior predators, or at least one or two rungs up the food chain. If you are in a vehicle they pay no attention at all, but if you are on foot they will generally move away with majestic caution, unless you surprise or corner them. Cubs are less cautious, more playful, and way scarier than the adults. Lions actually become more dangerous when they have greater contact with humans because they lose their fear. Perhaps they start noticing ours.

  Within the lion’s enclosure is another area sectioned off with a ten-foot-high wall of chain-link. In this area a chicken wire cage has been constructed in which my drums are set for me to serenade the lions. I’m sure JP actually thinks that we’re going to get the lions grooving to the beat. We have both studiously avoided any talk of what relevance any of this might have to our film.

  I notice that there is no top to my little chicken wire cage. This amuses both our crew and the Khashoggi ranchers.

  “Show no fear!” they chortle.

  I insist that I want full chicken wire coverage, and they start rigging while still snickering about the scaredy-cat black-clad guy. The wranglers are dubious that the big cats will come anywhere near the noisy drums, so the feed truck arrives full of fresh kill with which to festoon the cage. It is hoped that the meat show will inspire the beasts to enjoy the music. Or at least to get close enough for us to get our shot.

  As soon as the lions get a whiff of the meat truck they are over the ten-foot fence in a twinkling. They have to be shouted at and coaxed to back off while I climb into my cage and the wranglers festoon it with fresh gazelle. The lions retreat snarling as the guys wave sticks and throw rocks at them. As the ranchers finish their set dressing and clear the shot, the lions come right up for dinner. But when I hit my drums they stop dead in their tracks. They do not like my music. JP can shout “Action!” till he’s blue in the face but Simba ain’t coming anywhere near my racket. Their ears are back, and they’re cowering. So I have to stop hitting the drums and just pretend to play. The deep culture of this transports me. Just like a Britney Spears video. After waving my arms for a while in the direction of my drums, being very careful not to hit them, the wild beasts pluck up courage and begin to approach the cage. Soon they are swiping at the treats and JP has the cameras rolling happily.

  One lion has discovered that he can reach under the cage. In fact, as his forearm advances under the chicken wire toward my bass drum the whole side of the cage is coming adrift! Just as the consequence of this is dawning on me there is a huge crash next to my head where one of the tawny brutes is climbing onto the roof! The totally inadequate-to-bear-the-weight-of-a-lion roof of my chicken wire cage is just beginning to sag when, faster than thought I’m the loudest drummer on the planet blazing away with terrified fury on the Khashoggi drums. I think it’s the only drum solo that I’ve ever played in my life—can’t stand drum solos—but I’m hammering now! The lions back off with an expression on their faces that reminds me of a certain singer that I know….

  I’ll have to tell the Maasai about this trick. All they have to do is carry a chrome snare drum with them when out in the bush protecting (or rustling) the cattle. For myself, I’m relieved at the lions’ poor taste in music.

  Copyright © 2009 Jean-Pierre Dutilleux

  WE SQUABBLE ENDLESSLY OVER the finer points of the plot as we cross Africa but we are of one mind as we grab every opportunity to interact with the music that is everywhere. Africans apply rhythm to life as if it were flavoring. Any physical activity has a groove, particularly if it’s a coordinated team activity like handling a boat, loading a truck, or enjoying life.

  My theory is that I should be able to find the antecedents of American music here on this continent. By American music I mean modern popular music that is in four-four rhythm with a backbeat and uses the flattened seventh, or “blue note.” I’m looking for the ingredients of our music that don’t come from Mozart. It’s a useful thing for me to know about since I make a living as a purveyor of this uniquely American mix of Africa and Mozart and which we Americans export all over the world. It’s my (far from unique) Out of Africa theory of why American music rules.

  We generally steer clear of the cities in our quest, mostly because JP is too cheap (with my money) to pay city prices. Air-conditioning is for pussies. For JP drinkable water is for pussies. Out in the villages there is music everywhere. The first thing about Africa is that it’s not one place. It’s a giant continent with huge diversity and many different places. The urgently tight polyrhythms of the coastal Giriama, the throaty war music of the Maasai, the heavy drums of Burundi, and the transcendental chanting of the Pygmies are just some of the wildly contrasting styles that cross our path as we follow the equator from east to west. But none of them sound like Chuck Berry.

  One city that we can’t avoid is Kinshasa, Zaire. This town is the wildest rodeo in Africa. There is a splendid dictator holding the country together while his cohorts help themselves to everything in sight. The guys with guns are running everything, that is, if anything is being run at all. Getting into Zaire is easy. Just pay the Man and keep walking. Getting out is more of a problem.

  We’re on our way to Gabon, where JP knows a guy who is tight with President Bongo. Before us is the Congo River, fast flowing and croc-infested. On the other side is the sleepy little Belgian-flavored Brazzaville. On this side is bedlam at the quayside. A large riverboat—more like a city on a raft—is disembarking, and the men with guns are in charge of threatening, herding, obstructing, and abusing the river people. This entrepôt is where the wealth of the hinterland comes down the river to the capital and the goons get to tax it. The multitudes are heaving this way and that under the lash of the bosses.

  We manage to thread the throng and get aboard the crowded ferry. As the ship pulls out into the current we can see a chain gang of criminals being off-loaded from the river raft. They are herded onto trucks, and we shudder at their fate for a moment before turning our gaze to the approaching shore. Brazzaville. We can see tree-lined boulevards and cheerful-looking citizens as the vessel nears the quiet little harbor.

  With glad hearts we’re soon down the ramp and JP is head-to-head with the customs guy. But it’s not going well. For some reason he’s not responding to our blandishments. Soon there are several uniforms leaning over our passports with furrowed disapproval on their brows. This is bad because now any bribery has to be public, which totally takes the savoir faire out of it. You just don’t know how the group will respond. So we learn, with heavy hearts, that we must cross back to Kinshasa and get proper Zairian exit visas.

  And the ship is now casting off. We need to be aboard, so JP zips up his silver tongue, and we’re on our way back to crazy Kinshasa. Around us t
he river air is thickening and with equatorial speed, night is falling in darkest Congo. This is the last boat before the crocodiles take over. We’ll spend the night in Zaire.

  At the customs shed the last of the river people are being processed, scolded, and fleeced as we get to our turn with the Man. He’s just plain pissed off. His has not been a good day. Our documents are just the final and worst insult after a day of river scum.

  We have just come from Brazza? But we couldn’t enter Brazza? What was our problem in Brazza? As he considers the weight of our implausible story, other passports and documents are being thrust at him from every angle. The African customs official is a multitasker. Standing in line must be a European invention because you don’t see it much here. Any dealing with officialdom is shared with other supplicants who are weaker than you. Stronger ones are ahead of you. When the official hits a problem document, he merely bats it away and plucks another from the multitude that bobs before him.

  He has batted ours away several times now, and the throng around us can smell our weakness. They clamor over and around us. JP is raging through his repertoire of Gallic persuasions, temptations, and damnations. But Kinshasa Man is not having it. Suddenly his eyes slacken and he hunches forward.

  “Go sit over there!” he commands.

  Foolishly, we’re not having it either, dammit. We’re still talking.

  “Over THERE!” he shouts. Then he’s standing up and shouting as he bangs the desk with his power stick. Now we are dancing cheek to cheek with the men with guns as they drag us over to the side of the room. Our buddy is still shouting orders, so the heavies take us outside and handcuff us to a bench. Just like that, we are fucked. Chained to a bench pending further review, at the pleasure of our new friend. The soldiers wander off, but we’re still chained to the bench. The crowds have begun to thin, and the dimly lit quayside is slowing down.

  The human traffic is just a trickle when we spy a skinny white man and manage to catch his attention. He nods but keeps moving. Not much he can do on his own. JP is shouting “Belgique!” to the back of his head as the stranger fades off into the night.

  Soon it’s just JP and me, chained to a bench and deep into our usual “story conference.” He’s got me convinced that ours is an “elliptical” film, whatever that means. The evening around us has become dark and quiet. But not completely quiet. During a pause in our debate, while I consider the magnitude of his concept, I hear music.

  It’s a lilting, throbbing, bouncing, laughing, dancing, and romancing kind of music. It’s nothing like the stuff we have been hearing out in the bush; this is city music. It has those ingredients that I have been looking for. Of course it does, because it’s the return voyage of Chuck Berry. I’m hearing guitar, bass, and drums—American instruments, rhythms, and harmony—having traveled back to Africa.

  It’s coming from a radio inside the building. It dawns on us that we’ve actually been forgotten. About an hour ago there was a changing of the guard, with a lowering of flags and a clanging of gates. Our friend never came for us. Heck, he’s probably got people who pissed him off chained up all over town. The night shift probably doesn’t even know we’re here.

  In our most dulcet tones we start shouting out to the guys in the building.

  “Hel-LO, oh,” we call, with friendly charm.

  Soon the night guys are peering at us from behind their flashlights. It seems boorish to go into details of our misunderstanding with the day shift. With these guys we feel that we can make a fresh start. What’s that music? I inquire in my lame French.

  “Ahh, Franco Franco!” they reply, and one of them goes back inside to turn it up.

  Swinging through the trees with my Pygmy friends.

  Copyright © 2009 Jean-Pierre Dutilleux

  Just when we have the Bantu chiefs more or less mollified, we get a welcome visitor. The Belgian embassy was contacted by the passing stranger, and this is the ambassador himself coming over to investigate the report of two of his compatriots chained by goons down at the dock. The guards are impressed by his stature as he drops names of the most senior and most heinous thugs in government. Best of all, he brought beer.

  Soon we are all grooving to the Lingala music. The party has moved inside the building and we are unleashed, with cheerful apologies all around.

  Things are a lot more comfy, and we’re out of bondage, but the soldiers can’t exactly let us go. If Ahab locked us up, he had better see us there in the morning or the night guys might get trouble. Regretfully, we must stay.

  Well, we’re here among friends now, and the hotels we stay at generally aren’t much better than this anyway, so sure, this is good. And I could listen to this music all night.

  Next morning the ambassador returns. Phone calls have been made, and now Ahab is all smiles as he stamps our passports and waves us on. Once more our hearts are glad as we pull into Brazzaville, although JP is sniffing with disapproval as I drag him straight to the Sofitel Hotel and, for the first time in weeks, slap out my plastic. After our night with the mosquitoes in the shed I need a shower, hard liquor, and soft sheets.

  JP, the mad Belgian explorer, is already down at the bar. He has sidled up to some guy who’s got a plane flying upcountry to bring supplies to the logging companies near Ouésso. That’s right in the middle of Pygmy country….

  CHAPTER 11

  HORSES

  JUNE 1987

  Ten years after scraping the streets of London as a starving musician, things are looking up.

  H

  ey, Rock Star!” a large voice is booming across the polo field. I look up from my pony inspection to see a pin-striped, extravagantly mustachioed Sikh striding across the grass toward me. “I have a team for you,” he announces. This must be Kuldip “Collin” Singh Dhillon, about whom I have heard jealous rumors. In person, he is the most affably energized person that I’ve met in the polo world: big smile, easy laugh, and a jaunty style. Butter wouldn’t melt in his fangs.

  I’VE BEEN HOLED UP on my country estate for several years now. This place seemed like the obligatory destination of my success in music. Apart from basic financial security, this was the best I could come up with as a dream to realize. It contains the recording studio of my dreams and every musical instrument that I ever dreamed of owning. It even has a couple of horses.

  I had almost forgotten about horses. At Millfield I learned to ride the hard way—hours of cantering around a paddock without stirrups. We also played polo. I was never much good at the game, but did seem to have a good seat on a horse. The riding program was so enveloping, with the cantering, tack maintenance, horse maintenance, and mucking out the stables, that riders tended to exist in a world that was removed from the rest of the school. For a while, horses even crowded out my obsession with music.

  Copyright © 2009 Jean-Pierre Dutilleux

  Music just came into my life and dragged me into its world. Since there was no room in the wretched struggle of my music career for horses, I forgot about them. Years later, when I got the country estate I was excited to rekindle the horse thing. Now there would be no one barking at me, and I would be able to play with my own horses without having to shovel their shit.

  The only problem was that after I cantered around my fields a few times and clopped along the country lanes around my village, I pretty quickly ran out of things to do on my horses.

  ON AN INVITATION OF an old friend to attend a polo game at the Guards Polo Club in Windsor, I am reminded of the most fun thing of all to do on horses. With the riders uttering strangely familiar cries as the horses gallop past me on the emerald expanse of the Windsor polo ground, the bulb blinks on in my head, and I am striding up to the clubhouse with a whole new hobby hatching.

  The first person I see inside is a swooning young woman, who points me to the back office where I must talk to the boss, a Major Ronald Ferguson. This is still in the height of The Police ascendancy, and I’m wearing leather pants and a violent shirt. My hair looks like I’m bei
ng electrocuted.

  The major is mystified by my presence in his office. “Are you a member of the HPA?” he asks, squinting suspiciously beneath his outthrust eyebrows. “USPA?” he ventures, upon hearing my American accent. As a nonmember of any known polo association, he tells me regretfully that I am an unknown quantity and therefore am presumed to be unsafe on the polo field. The horses are moving fast out there, and there is very real danger if a player is not qualified. Also this, by the way, is an ancient military club; it is the apex of the polo ziggurat, with a membership waiting list of generations.

  So with a little research I find the Kirtlington Park Polo Club in Oxfordshire, about forty minutes away from my house. I arrive as quietly as possible, but Rupert, the club manager, erupts with enthusiasm. In a twinkling he has rustled me up a horse and helmet and has thrust me out onto the field for a chukka. Well, it’s like a pillow fight in the harem. At this entry level of play, hardly anyone can hit the ball and some of the players are kind of loose in the saddle. So there is much swinging of mallets and cursing at horses but not much galloping. If the ball goes through the goalmouth, a horse probably kicked it. By some strange miracle, however, all I can think about when it’s over is how to get more of it.

  It doesn’t take long to scare up some horses (horse dealing is the second-oldest profession), and soon I’m out there every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, with thoughts of nothing else for the remainder of the week. In England, summer afternoons last forever. The late sun catches the greens and golds of the fields in a particular way that lights up the Saxon heart.

  Sometimes my teenage son Sven rides out to the games with me, bringing along some of his suave boarding school friends. Sometimes my smaller boys, Patrick, Jordan, and Scott, pile into the car and swarm the horse box while I play. None of the lads seem interested in the horses, but they all love the truck that they travel in. So do I, for that matter; it’s my favorite vehicle. I can load six horses in the back, Margaret Churchill, who runs my horses, and her crew drive up front, and in the middle is my little traveling clubhouse. For a great view of the game I can climb up on the roof with deck chairs. The boys are all over that truck, although they don’t spend much time in the deck chairs watching Daddy’s game.