Street Player

by Danny Seraphine

  I had been putting it off for years, but my baldness couldn’t be ignored any longer. I started feeling tremendously self-conscious about my appearance. Though I tried every method of concealing my hair loss, nothing worked. Nobody was going to be fooled by the traditional comb-over technique. Hats were always an option, but they got annoying after a while. Since the band was the center of attention wherever we went, there was even more stress involved. There were appearances on press tours, photo shoots, and nightly performances in front of packed houses. The world was watching, and whether I liked it or not, I had an image to protect as I grew older.

  One of the most sensible options was hair transplantation, so at one point I tracked down the top Beverly Hills doctor and started the procedure. At first it looked like the process was going to work, but as I continued to lose hair in other areas on my head, the transplanted strands started to look out of place. The other guys in the band occasionally ribbed me about my hair, joking that I looked like a human Ken doll. To tell you the truth, I couldn’t disagree with them. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

  I always needed to wear something while out on tour to cover up the scars left by the hair transplantation process. When I went without anything on my head, there were a lot of odd looks from people since my scalp was heavily rutted from the surgery. Back in the seventies, I took to wearing a turban, of all things. It may have seemed like an odd choice, but it went well with my Fu Manchu mustache. Besides, we all were entertaining some pretty wild fashions in those days. My turban seemed to fit right in.

  After I realized the hair transplants didn’t work, the only option left was investing in a quality hairpiece. Who has the best hairpiece in Hollywood? I asked myself. To me, the obvious answer was Burt Reynolds. I consulted my good friend Marty Derek, a hairdresser in Los Angeles, and he was able to refer me to Burt’s hairpiece maker, a guy named John Evans.

  When I reached out to John, he insisted I come down to his shop. He assured me he had exactly what I was looking for. His clients entered through one door of his hair salon and exited out another in the back of the building. It was like going to an appointment at a psychiatrist’s office. The whole process was very discreet because nobody in Hollywood wanted the word to get out that they wore a hairpiece. It was as if I was becoming a member of a protected Hollywood society. Everyone wanted to be sure their secret was safe.

  John made two hairpieces for me so there would always be one to wear while the other was being cleaned. My jaw hit the floor when I found out the things cost seven hundred dollars apiece! It was a tough pill to swallow, but if they were going to be the answer to my hair dilemma I didn’t have a problem parting with the cash. I routinely left the hairpieces at the back desk of John’s salon like I was dropping off my weekly dry cleaning.

  At first I was relieved, because the hairpieces looked wonderful. People began telling me I looked ten years younger. But my new accessories came with a powerful weight of narcissism. I couldn’t walk by a mirror, or any other reflective surface, without stopping to check myself out. My appearance may have improved, but psychologically nothing had changed. My anxiety was at an all-time high. Once I made the decision to wear a piece, I was a slave to it day in and day out. I couldn’t go out and be seen with a full head of hair in the morning and then be bald in the afternoon. I was horrified to let anyone see me without my hairpiece.

  It took a ridiculous amount of effort to keep up the charade. I kept the hairpieces on plastic styling heads, which I lugged around in large storage cases whenever Chicago was out on the road. It was a hassle dragging them through airports and into hotels. Every time room service came to my door, I scrambled to stash the plastic styling heads out of sight in the bathroom or hide them in the back of the bedroom closet. Quite a workout.

  The hairpieces may have been doing the trick overall, but the situation was a joke on so many levels. Most of the time, I wished I had never started wearing the things in the first place. But once I committed there was no changing my mind. I was stuck.

  Since our prior run with the Beach Boys had been so successful, we did another package tour together in the fall of 1988. We put on some great shows, but some of the outdoor venues proved to be tough. Playing out in the elements didn’t always make for our best performances.

  I certainly experienced a “wardrobe malfunction” or two along the way. Anyone who has ever worn a hairpiece will tell you that, above all, the wind is your worst enemy. In the pecking order of toupee hazards, it comes right before exposure to water and crazed lovers wanting to run their fingers through your hair. Typically, double-sided tape was enough to hold my hairpiece down, but on a few rare occasions I had to break out super-strength glue. It was supposed to be made especially for use on skin, but it was a real pain in the ass to remove. At the end of the day, I had to use acetone on my scalp to get the damned thing off.

  I wasn’t too happy when I found out we were set to play an outdoor show at a racetrack in Nebraska. The weather forecast said there were going to be gale-force winds and terrible thunderstorms. Once we got to the venue, outside Omaha, our management sent word that the storms were going to be on top of us before we knew it. They wanted both bands to do short sets, then get off the stage. In other words, take the money and run.

  The Beach Boys hurried through their performance and left. By the time Chicago was halfway through our first song, the weather was atrocious. Darker storm clouds rolled in and the wind began violently whipping around. The stacks of sound columns teetered back and forth, threatening to collapse at any minute. Our stage crew did their best to keep them steady, but the gusts were becoming too strong. The rows of lights above swayed precariously over our heads, clanging against the supporting trusses.

  I looked out over the faces of the crowd as they held anything over their heads for protection against the driving rain. The skies had opened up and it was a full-on downpour. Thunder clapped and lightning flashed over the audience.

  Suddenly I felt a fluttering sensation coming from the front of my scalp. Earlier that day, I had decided to go with the tape and not the glue. Well, the double-sided tape was beginning to lose its hold and detach from my hairpiece. An almost debilitating fear came over me. I tried to throw a hand up to my head during a drum fill to press the tape back down, but I couldn’t do it. I tried a second time, but still didn’t solve the problem.

  Alert the control tower, I thought. My beloved hairpiece is preparing for takeoff.

  It got to the point where I was basically playing drums one-handed with the other hand holding my hair in place. I envisioned the nightmare of my hairpiece flying off of my head in slow motion and being carried out into the audience by the wind. I imagined the stunned faces of the crowd, people pointing up as it hovered overhead. I could hear someone asking, “What the hell is that up there?” right before it was whisked away by a burst of wind and disappeared up into the storm clouds.

  I couldn’t deal with it anymore. Right in the middle of “Saturday in the Park,” I suddenly put my drumsticks down, stood up from my stool, and jogged off the stage. Without hesitation, the other guys turned and trotted off after me. Apparently we were on the same wavelength, but nobody wanted to be the first one to make a move. What a relief. We hopped on our tour bus and barely made it out of the racetrack, because there was zero visibility.

  The next morning, we found out from our stage crew that most of our equipment had been destroyed by the storm. Even worse, a few minutes after I left one of the lighting trusses came loose and collapsed onto my drum set, completely crushing it.

  I never once was concerned about my safety. The only thing I cared about was how embarrassed I would have been to have my hair go flying off into the air. I wasn’t mature enough to realize that I should have just been who I really was. There aren’t many things in my life I regret, but deciding to become a slave to those things is definitely one of them.

  Thinking back, I should have framed the hairpiece I wore that day and hung it up
on a wall somewhere with the caption, “The hairpiece that saved my life.” Thank God I wasn’t still sitting at my drums when the lights fell. Without a doubt, it would have been the last show I ever played.

  20

  The Beginning of the End

  There was a phrase I heard my buddy Pete Schivarelli utter many times over the years: “Lose your head and your ass will follow.” I never put much thought to it, but eventually I understood how right he was.

  On the last leg of our tour with the Beach Boys, I invited my mother; my sister, Rosemary; my niece, Colleen; and my two nephews, Michael and Bryan, to a gig the band played at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana. My son, J.D., was out on tour with me for a few dates as well, so it was a nice opportunity for all of us to spend time together. Typically, friends and family were ushered into the backstage area of the venues in the time between the final song of the set and the encore. My family stood off to the side of the stage watching the band wind down our performance for the night.

  When we had finished the show, I walked backstage to towel off and was confronted by our stage manager, Jimmy J. Together, he and Jack always made sure everything went smoothly at our shows, but on this night he looked concerned. I noticed he had trouble holding eye contact with me.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked him.

  “I had a little misunderstanding with your family, but I straightened it out and everything is cool,” he told me. There was no reason for me to think everything wasn’t all right, so I left it at that.

  When I came out of the dressing room to say hello to my family, my mom’s face was flushed with color and I could see she was upset. She was already talking to me before I reached her.

  “How dare that man speak to us that way!” she said.

  “Wait, Ma. Slow down,” I told her.

  She went on to tell me that Jimmy J. had run up like a maniac to where they were standing during the last song. For some reason, he swore at them and demanded to know not only who they were, but also what they were doing on the side of the stage. When my mom explained they were with me, Jimmy J. told them to get out of the way and find some other place to stand. Scared by the commotion, my young niece, Colleen, started to wander away. My mother said Jimmy J. grabbed Colleen by the arm and yanked her in the direction he wanted her to go.

  “How were we supposed to know where to stand? He doesn’t have to swear at us like that, Danny!” my mother concluded.

  I had regained my breath after our performance, but I sensed my heart rate steadily increasing again. There had to be a logical explanation for what had happened, but my mother was talking so fast that I had trouble understanding the details. However, soon it didn’t matter to me anymore. My sense of reasoning went out the window the moment she lifted my little niece’s sleeve and showed me her arm. There were dark, blotchy red marks from where Jimmy J. had grabbed ahold of her.

  “I need to take care of something,” I calmly said to my mom. “I’ll be right back.”

  Without another word, I tore off to find Jimmy J. How dare he manhandle my young niece? Someone said he was in the main dressing room with the rest of the band, so I made a bee line through the crowd. I was overcome with uncontrollable rage. Although I knew what was going to happen, I couldn’t do anything to avoid it. I flew in through the dressing room door and absolutely unloaded. I grabbed him by the hair and started punching him in the face. I did everything I could to inflict pain. By the time the guys pulled me away, Jimmy J.’s shirt was torn to shreds and there was blood coming out of his nose and ears. Everyone in the room looked on in complete shock. The band knew a violent side of me existed, but they had never been around to see it rear its ugly head. When I realized the scene I had made, I backpedaled sheepishly from the room.

  I rode in silence to the airport with my young son, J.D., and boarded the flight that was to take us to the next leg of our tour. I brought him into the front of the plane and tried my best to keep out of sight. It was important to give everyone a chance to relax and calm down.

  A long table was set up in the middle of the plane with a full spread of food for everyone during the flight. After the rest of the guys had run through the line, I made my way up to grab a couple of sandwiches for my son and me. A sinking feeling set in the moment I noticed Jack approaching. It wasn’t as if we had ever been the best of buddies on the road. There had always been an undercurrent of animosity between us, but we had learned to live with it. It wasn’t a problem keeping my dislike for him beneath the surface because our time with one another was usually limited to touring.

  Given what had gone down backstage earlier, Jack should have left everything alone. I hoped he was going to fix himself a plate of food and go back to hang out with the others. If there was something he wanted to say, he could have vented somewhere else. But Jack was set on confronting me then and there.

  “You know, Danny, Jimmy J. didn’t curse at your mother,” he suddenly piped up. “I saw the whole thing and he didn’t say anything like that.”

  Our eyes met. “After eighteen years together, you’re going to stand there and tell me to my face that my mom’s a liar?”

  “I was right there, and it didn’t happen that way,” Jack answered.

  He was starting to piss me off. “Why are you sticking up for someone who’s been with the band for two seconds?” I asked.

  Apparently Jack was convinced I was going to swing on him, because all of a sudden he lunged forward and sucker-punched me. His fist felt like a sledgehammer, and I thought I might have broken my jaw.

  “You wanna throw hands with me? Then come on!” Jack yelled.

  The rest of the band must have heard the commotion from the lounge, because when I lunged for Jack, Lee and Robert were already there to grab me.

  “You’ve done enough damage for today,” Robert told me. “Go out back and cool out.”

  “What is it with you fucking guys?” I shouted at everyone. “Don’t you ever back anybody up?”

  After Jack and I were separated from each other, I spent the rest of the flight in the back with J.D. There was no excuse for violence, but Jack had taunted me at a time when he should have let it go and avoided a confrontation. He had worked for the band for eighteen years, and in my mind he should have known better. Why did he have to go and push my buttons?

  The band gave me the deluxe silent treatment for the last ten days of the tour. It was like I was invisible. They blamed me for everything that happened that day backstage and on the airplane. Meanwhile, Jack didn’t take heat from anyone. Overall, I felt a deep and painful sense of betrayal. How dare Jimmy J manhandle my young niece and treat my family like that? Who was Jack to call my mom a liar? What had happened to the tight-knit brotherhood of our band? Nobody had taken my side or tried to console me during any of it.

  I attempted to explain the situation to J.D., but it was difficult. He knew I was troubled and upset. “What’s wrong, Daddy?” he kept asking me for the rest of the tour. I didn’t have a good answer for him.

  Not long after we arrived back in Los Angeles, the band called for a meeting at my house. We needed to drag everything out into the open in order to move on in the right direction. They were just as worried about what had happened.

  “Are you okay, Danny?” Walt asked me. “The guys and I are concerned.”

  “What’s going on with you?” Lee added.

  I wasn’t going to let the conversation center around me. There were other issues on my mind. I sat down at the table and explained that Jimmy J. had to be let go. There was no way he was ever going to have any connection with the band again. They didn’t like what I was telling them, but none of the guys had a problem with it. Aside from that issue, there was one more thing to get off my chest. I cleared my throat and took a deep breath.

  “I’m sorry, guys, but Jack has to go too,” I said. “There’s no way around it.”

  The guys’ faces dropped. There was no way they saw a bomb like that coming. Sure, Jack h
ad been with the band since the beginning, but there was no excuse for him to sucker-punch me. I had already talked the whole matter over with Howard and he had agreed to back me in my push to get rid of Jack. In principle, there was no way we could let an employee, no matter how valued, hit a member of the band and still keep his job. The guys knew it was the right thing to do, but they didn’t like being put on the spot. They were shell-shocked and sat around my kitchen table trading glances for what seemed like forever. Walt was especially stunned because Jack was his brother-inlaw—it wasn’t only a business decision for him. He would have to answer to his wife. Everyone pleaded with me to reconsider, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Hindsight being twenty-twenty, I should have given Jack another chance, but in that moment I was determined to make a power play on someone who had over the years gotten on my bad side. I saw my shot and I took it. In the end, the guys reluctantly agreed and we handed Jack his walking papers.

  As the guys filed out of the room, I saw Bill turn to Jason and mutter something along the lines of, “I guess violence got its way today.” Not that I cared. I had gotten what I wanted.

  Six months after the band fired Jack, we received some bad news. We were told he had suffered a major heart attack and died. Nobody came right out and said anything, but I got the feeling some of them placed a large part of the blame for his passing on me. Some people, particularly his sister Jackie, believed being fired from the group had brought a high level of stress and anxiety into his life. Apparently they disregarded the fact that Jack, who was in his early forties, wasn’t exactly in the best of shape. He was a type A personality who often drank to excess and constantly smoked cigarettes. That being said, some of the resentment was warranted. I never argued that the firing didn’t add more stress and strain on his life, but it was heavy-handed to place a large part of the blame on me for his passing. Because of his family’s bitterness, they wouldn’t allow me to attend Jack’s funeral service. No matter what had gone down between us, Jack and I had known each other for twenty years. I should have at least been given a chance to pay him my final respects.