Every kid grows up thinking they’ll be a star.
It seems inevitable when you’re coming up, when all the parents clap wildly after the school play, when you sink that three-pointer in the last quarter, when you strap on your first guitar.
But at some point you do the math. You realize that every little high school has a few contenders, that there’s already somebody better than you in your homeroom. There are a million girls gyrating on TikTok but only one Cardi B.
So what are the odds? Eventually, somewhere between graduation and that first kid crying away in the crib, you hang it up. Take a break, you say, while the dream fades away.
But I’ve got a special place in my heart for the also-rans, the ones that kept at it, who were content to do the work and push on, eventually discovering that there’s joy to be had sans fame and fast fortune.
A few examples have come up recently. GQ had an interesting article on The Sultans, the greatest rock-n-rollers that you’ve never heard of. They’re the East Coast’s premier wedding band, playing big-dollar nuptial bashes for Obamas and Trumps and Bushes and the vain offspring of Wall Street titans.
The Sultans got their start like any bar band usually does, with a few friends getting together, stars-in-eyes, beers-in-hand, hoping to make the leap from grinding dives to headlining tours. But of course, that never happened. Instead they started making a nice wad doing weddings, saw a future in it, and recruited a roster of studio aces and up-and-comers to multiply their efforts. Thirty years later, The Sultans is not just a greying combo, but a collective of 150 or so musicians who can play any hit that the kids — or the deep-pocketed parents — want to hear once the bubbly’s been popped. If you’ve got five-figures for matrimonial entertainment, you can book them too. And you might just end of up with a former American Idol mini-celebrity coaching grandma’s hips through the Electric Slide.
Because again, for every big star out there, there are thousands of crazy talented folks that never got their shot, or came oh-so-close until the deal fell through. And when that happens there are two ways to go: call it quits or find joy in the craft. The guys in The Sultans think the later approach is a lot more fun. And I think they’re more than right about that.
Example two is another guy you’ve never heard of, but made enough of a splash to find himself the subject of a recent feature-length documentary: Michael Des Barres. He’s an English-born French Marquis, musician, actor, and 72-year-old still-aspiring rock star. This is a guy who bounced off of household-name-level-fame a hundred times since landing a bit part in To Sir, with Love as a cockney-copping school kid.
In his various bands, he’s shared the stage with the boys from Led Zep and everyone else you can think of during that first wave of glammy 70s rock. He filled in for Robert Palmer at Live Aid, penned the 80s new-wave classic “Obsession,” popped up in Miami Vice, The Gilmore Girls, and had a recurring role as MacGyver’s scheming nemesis. And sure, in-between he turned some tricks and moved some illicit product. You gotta do what you gotta do! A hereditary title won’t pay the bills without a little side hustle. Ed Begley Jr. sobered him up and he’s never lost the zeal for performing, still the happiest seducing an audience as a sinewy septuagenarian.
So I’m learning contentment in my middle-age. Nah, stardom’s not on the docket, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t songs to sing and supple words to spin. There’s satisfaction to be found in doing the work. Every day. And who knows? We’ll see where it goes.
