American Mensch

It is no secret that I am a Stooges devotee, that I wrote like 90 blogs about Iggy and the Stooges, that I feel some sort of Jungian, Joseph Campbell connection to these men because they were born in Michigan like me, and that they expressed a sorrow and anarchy in their music that I felt many times staring out at the flat Michigan tundra, or the existential void of a frozen Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. Their music is pure Midwestern existentialism, and their contribution is unspeakably invaluable to the rock n’ roll canon. Dig my hyperbole! But they truly deserve it.

So anyhoos, as you know I had the rare opportunity of interviewing Ron and Scott Asheton as well as Iggy in the backyard of Iggy’s modest and funky “workhouse” in Miami. I had an hour with each of these men, and I was so absolutely on fire with fear and awe in meeting them that I thought I was going to burn up and disappear ala Spinal Tap drummers.

Let me say that my encounter with the Stooges made such an impression that I think I cried for a full 45 minutes when I heard that Ron Asheton died. I am in so much acceptance of the reality of death now, that when I hear of a celebrity death, I have a moment of deep grey sadness, and then I move on. Not in this case.

People have written a lot about Ron’s incredible guitar playing, and since I am not really a musician I can’t write about it any way you haven’t read some place else better, like my friend Dan’s blog on La Vie En Robe, which describes the power of his playing perfectly. All I can say is that you know Ron’s playing when you hear it immediately. No one else has his tone or feel or progressions. What I can probably comment better on is my impressions of Ron as a human being, and how I grasped how important he and his brother were in the formation of “Iggy” as an institution. Iggy is your typical delusional rock n’ roll vampire, bless his heart. Ron and Scott are not, and yet they are the heart and soul of the most insidious and reptilian rock band of them all. This to me is one of the beautiful paradoxes of being an artist, and what made Ron so impressive to me. That he made this incredibly dark mesmerizing sound and that he was truly an unselfconscious guy who talked about his cats. He had no stake in creating a myth or an image for my benefit to uphold his “legend” or any of that shit. He was content to talk to me as another person just trying to get by in this fucked up world. And to me that puts him in the highly rare “mensch” category.

And when a mensch dies, it’s a really shitty thing. Just living can knock the mensch right out of ya. Not with Ron, and he had a hard road. Let me put it this way, I think years of a Midwestern poverty diet probably took its toll on Ron’s heart. He had one pair of shoes for five years. He used to wear “member’s only” jackets without irony. He was one of those people who just wanted to play music. It was not about drugs or fucking or escape for him, it was just about the music. When Scott and Jim were fucked up on heroin, Ron was living with his girlfriend in an apartment and cooking for himself. He was known as “the mother” in the group, basically because someone had to be, and he was the only one sober enough to have any concept of the “big picture”. When I interviewed them, both Iggy and Scott complained that Ron was always in their business when they were young. And as Ron rhapsodized about his cats and the fact that he would feed them before he would himself, it was not a hard thing to imagine.

What impressed me too was Ron’s absolutely lack of reverence for Iggy, who he called Jim. He made fun of Iggy’s self-seriousness constantly, the need for a Stooges “uniform” and the like. All of it amused him, and to be frank I think Ron’s presence made Iggy a better artist. Iggy was so insecure and inflated that he needed someone to take the piss out of him, and Ron did that brilliantly. He was the provider of perspective and humor in the whole affair, two elements that are absolutely germane to survival and to really great music. To be frank, Iggy never ever reached the greatness on his own that he did with the Stooges. And I’m sure to music geeks, this is a clichéd statement, but you know what they say about clichés. Let me add that no man is an island, which can be applied in this case as well. Iggy was seduced by his own ego, and that is a concept that I don’t think Ron could ever imagine for himself. Ron told me at the end of the interview to look him up and call him when I was in Ann Arbor. I never did.

Lastly, I wanted to say that the Stooges remained brilliant live. There was no aging process that brought a softness to the music in this situation. Seeing them five years ago exceeded all my expectations. It was an enema, a baptism, a fist fight, a great fuck all in one. (More hyperbole!) Also let me add that Ron and Scott had not spoken for twenty years when the Stooges got together this time. As a sibling myself, it brings great peace to my heart that they got to be brothers again before he died. I read that Iggy called Ron his “best friend” and I think it’s true.

Rest in peace Ron!