Re: Does Keith still have that cat?
Date: February 18, 2009 23:16
hell yea ... there was an awesome story from around '71.This story has stayed with me since I was 11 !! ... always thought it was a killer name.
... and it's nice to know the Geneva Convention covers our furry friends!!
"Goodbye Great Britain: The Rolling Stones On Tour" -Robert Greenfield (1971)
Contentment positively flows from seat to seat, the engines are about to rev, it's five, four, three, two minutes to takeoff. When down the aisle comes a blue-jacketed airline official, all the way to the back seat where Keith and his dog recline. And the official says: "That dog flies by prior arrangement only sir, you'll have to get off the plane."
"What?"
"I'm sorry, sir, I warned you in the airport. How you managed to slip by me on to the plane I don't know but you'll have to get off now."
"Look, I've flown BEA, TWA, Pan-Am." Keith Richards, singer, composer, lead guitar player, Rolling Stone, is reciting a list of every airline he's ever been on. "To San Francisco, to places you or this airline have never been..."
"You have to supply a box, sir."
"I happen to know that section of the Geneva Convention very well; you have to supply the box. This is ridiculous. It's an emergency. My wife and family are here, we have to get home to take my child to a doctor tomorrow."
"I'm sorry, sir."
"We just want to get home. Is it that important? Just let us leave."
"The rules, sir."
"I know the rules. Get this plane going, we're not moving." Exit the official. Re-enter the official with two large blue Scottish policemen.
"Ere, wot's the law doin' 'ere? Come to arrest us all, have you? Oy, you you, oy." A big Scottish cop is doing his best to ignore Mick Jagger, who is lying flat on his backbone in a seat, naked to the waist save for a blue nylon windbreaker someone has thrown over him after he gave away his sweaty T-shirt on stage.
"Oy, oy," Mick says loudly, a saucy schoolboy trying to get the police to notice. He reaches out to jangle at the cop's sleeve.
"Now, now, chummy," the cop says, leaning over. "No one's done nothin' yet, why should we arrest anyone?"
"He's come to arrest the dog," Keith says.
"Wot you doin' 'ere," Mick demands of the cop, "A little dog like that. A puppy." His face falls. "You should be ashamed."
"Ooo called the law," he wails. "Arrest us."
"Chummy," the cop says, "I wouldn't give you the publicity."
"Chummy?" Mick demands. "Sir...look..."
"Don't curse me, I saw you say f--k, don't go curse me..."
Beautiful, Mick. All they have to do is search the luggage and it's 20 years in the Glasgow jail.
"Anita," Mick says, "Go find the captain."
Beautiful, Mick. Mata Hari Anita, all crocheted stockings and tiger hot pants, sent to seduce the captain of the airplane as it stands on runway in Glasgow.
"Goooo," Mick googles. Marlon, Keith's 18-month-old son, googles back and laughs. The cop is outflanked, bewildered, surrounded by little kids, slinky ladies, rock stars. Mick... beautiful.
"We'll put him in Charlie Watts' orange bag," Marshall Chess, the solution maker says, meaning the dog, "Is that OK?"
"Yes," says the cop.
"No," says the airlines official.
They trundle the dog off and put him in the hold and an hour and a half later, the plane touches down in London. Boogie doesn't freeze to death at all but instead comes spilling and sliding out on to polished airport floor.