The Velvet Underground fanzine, Volume 5, Winter/Spring 1996
©1996 Fierce Pup Productions, courtesy of Sal Mercuri
Sterling was the one who put the bug in Sesnick's head that eventually pulled me into the group. He was the one who wanted me to join the reunion twenty five years later to play the bass. He was a very fair if somewhat cantankerous character that I loved more than I knew. Lou used to call Sterling Stella, sometimes lengthening it to Stella Stardette. The name was chosen, I think, to zero in on Sterling's reluctant need for recognition and the intent, while joking on the surface, was to control and diminish. Sterling never complained about it, never bitched about being kidded. He had a prodigious memory and an ability to analyze a situation while he was in it, and he always argued from a rational perspective, rarely an emotional one. I remember him in bits and pieces, little still-life moments frozen among the long dreary grayness of life on the road. |
Sterling is sitting on the bed, cross-legged, leaning slightly forward with his forearms resting on his knees. The local alternate press is crowded around him, leaning in to catch every word. His eyes sparkle and he wears a sardonic smile; he's in his element. He answers each question as it comes, a note of incredulity lurking constantly in his voice as if to say, I can't believe you people have been fooled by all this bullshit. It is the central issue in his relationship with the leadership of the Velvets. I'm sitting on my bed with the young woman I picked up and shared a bed with but never touched, a rarity on the road but it does happen. I watch Sterling performing the act we have come to call "holding forth". He loves it. He thrives. When Lou or Sesnick is with him, he retreats, becoming quieter and more cautious. Even with them present he will dart forward into the conversation occasionally to correct some inconsistency or misstated fact. Rarely does he get center stage, the place he most wants to be. |
In LA, I discover a little boutique with handmade shirt in trendy, flowered prints. Sesnick comes up with some money and I buy two of them. One is a plain cream colored crepe thing with a squared off collar. When I show it around to the rest of the group, it turns out that Sterling has been into the shop and bought the exact same shirt, only one size bigger. From then on, we consult before each show to see who will wear the shirt that night. The last thing we want is to appear as look-alikes. One hot night in Philadelphia or Baltimore, it is Sterling's turn and he wears the crepe shirt in a show where the stage temperature reaches 100 degrees. Sweat rolls off of all of us. At the end of the set, standing in the dressing room, Sterling holds out his hands, laughing in disbelief. The shirt, dripping wet, has shrunk while he played and the cuffs which used to reach beyond his wrist, now barely clear his elbows. |
Sterling is standing in the airport in Houston, I think it was Houston. Next to him is an empty suitcase, a fact at that moment known only to himself. He stops the progress of the group towards the gate with the announcement that he will not be returning to New York with us, he is going to Austin in a few days to begin a fellowship there, to return to school and complete his education. We are stunned. I am stunned. How could you do this with no warning, this is like a knife in the back. Why did you wait till now to tell us. Why did you bring your suitcase if your not going? He explains, "I always said I would go back to school", as if this is reason enough for deserting. He wears an embarrassed smile, his head bobs about like a rear deck ornament in a full dress chevy. He looks like a six foot tall child caught with his hands full of forbidden cookies. This is the last time I will ever see Sterling. I will not know until he dies twenty five years later that he acquired a degree in Medieval Studies and picked up a tugboat captain's license. This last time together, he is once again in the position that more than anything else has defined his life, or at least the part of it that I have known; torn between the obligations he lives within and the path his heart wants to follow. |
©1996 Fierce Pup Productions, courtesy of Sal Mercuri |
by Olivier Landemaine ©1996-2008 The Velvet Underground Web Page |