A Stray Cat Struts (26 page)

I had managed to cajole another true pal into taking this trip with me. Garrie Renucci is a former Scottish Professional Football League player turned business tycoon and one of my best pals ever. In the 1980s, he was a rising star in pro soccer, and through the classic combination of booze and anger, he got himself kicked out of the league after an incident involving swearing at the coach and referee, removing his shirt, and storming off the field, all on national TV. I could relate. With some perseverance, a little luck, and sobriety, he turned his luck around and is now a partner in an international building and construction company that does everything from shopping malls in Dubai to hotels in Hawaii, the New York Times Building, and all the Topshops, to name a few. I met Garrie at a gig through longtime mutual friend Clem Burke, the rock-solid drummer from the great Blondie. We've always stayed very close. I have visited and stayed with him in Glasgow and London, and he's in LA a lot on business. I talked him into leaving his comfort zone in Knightsbridge, London, SW1, to join me on this crazy adventure. His company also made a very healthy donation to the charity. Garrie and I would share a room and a tent for the next few weeks. I hadn't shared a room with anyone since Lee and I shared one on the first Cats tour. He hadn't shared one since his playing days with Dundee United. Garrie was cool, and we didn't have a problem.

Mike had found the only recording studio in Nepal. We went in and recorded an on-the-fly version of a song Mike had written for the event—a cool little anthem called “Give Me Love Hope and Strength.” The others strummed, and I banged a little, and we all sang the chorus. It's a very catchy number. The next day, we all were introduced and left from the hotel in buses. Everyone was all loaded up with brand-new, top-of-the-line camping and climbing gear, provided by Nike, North Face, and Marmot. James and Shannon had worked long and hard and had gotten all this gear through sponsorship and endorsements. Mike's lovely wife, Jules, was along too and was very helpful with everything. I left most of it behind and took only the bare essentials to make my backpack as light as possible. I did bring a top-shelf pair of hiking boots, which I can now say was the most important part of the whole thing. There would be the real stars, the amazing Sherpas, to help with the big items, but each person was responsible for his or her own basics. We were headed to the Kathmandu airport to take shuttle planes to Lukla Airport, from where we would set off on the trek.

At the airport in Kathmandu, there was a ceremony where we were all draped with the local flower necklace and prayer scarf, and everyone had a red thumbprint applied by a local woman. This whole thing reminded me of a Nepalese version of the Hawaiian tourist send-off and greeting. It was the first of five thousand times I would hear “
Nah mas te,
” the Nepalese version of “Aloha.” For all the similarities, this place was literally ten thousand miles away and five miles higher in the sky than Maui—no beach, either. I would later deduce that this was more of a “good luck landing in Lukla” than a “good luck on Everest” ceremony. Lukla is among the world's most dangerous airports. There is some technical info about how altitude and air pressure meet the steepness angle of the landing strip, but it's just plain terrifying. I'm not a bad flier, and I long ago accepted that it's part of my life, but this one was different. The first giveaway was the duct tape stuck on the wings, and the second was overhearing the story of how Everest conqueror and history's most famous mountaineer, Sir Edmund Hillary, had lost his wife and daughter in a crash at this airport. This man is officially the first Westerner to summit Everest, and he continued to go back there his whole life, building schools and trying to help the locals. His name is everywhere in Nepal. If this guy couldn't get a break from the mountain, no one could.

We flew in shifts of about ten at a time, and there was the usual gallows humor from those who were nervous and talked on airplanes. I think Garrie and I just kept quiet. It was truly scary; everyone has been on a bad flight and can relate on some level, and nobody likes turbulence, but this one was magnified by the rickety plane, desolate location, and knowing that you wouldn't be landing at LAX when it was over.

I can't fully express how difficult this climb was. Imagine walking straight uphill over loose gravel for twelve hours a day with a pack on your back, while every molecule in your body hurts, you can't breathe, and every thought you have is telling you to quit. The only real thing preventing you from stopping is the overwhelming but basic knowledge that if you stop, you die. There is nowhere to go but to the next lodge. You must carry on.

We had a memorable standoff with a horse on a rope bridge at about five thousand feet. There wasn't enough room for both sides to pass, so we were waiting and negotiating while the bridge was swinging, high up over a gorge, with the nerve-racking overriding idea of us being dashed onto the rocks below. I began thinking about how many people and animals had crossed this bridge since it was last repaired. We squeezed past after careful calculation, and I think Garrie got a slight mule kick on the way around.

There were a few professional mountain climbers who were very helpful. Jake Norton is a dashing pro climber who has summited Everest and was a big help in getting me up that mountain and patched up when I had a yak-induced fall into some sharp rocks. His wife, Wende Valentine, works for Water for People, an important charity I've done quite a bit of work with in the past. They help local communities build water purification facilities and dig wells. Jake and Wende are both genuine charitable people and a great couple. Alan Hobson is a Canadian cancer survivor turned mountain guide and motivational speaker. He was the biggest help to getting Garrie and me up that hill. We stuck together the whole time, and we owe a debt of gratitude to him.

We stopped at all the lodges and camping grounds along the well-mapped and historic route. The Sherpas were somehow always ahead of us, and when we reached the next stopping points, the tents were already set up. These are the most efficient, skilled high-altitude workers in the world, and without them, none of this would ever happen. One of the stops was at a monument of piled rocks that was in memorial of the Sherpas and climbers who died on this quest. Those guys got quiet, and it was clear that it was a sacred place for them. All along the entire route, there are thousands of colorful prayer scarves tied to just about everything. How I understand it, the idea is to say a prayer for a specific person and tie the scarf around an object, and with this, the memory of any pain is taken over by the mountain and is continually blown away in the wind. I'm unreligious and uncomfortable with all ceremony on most accounts, but this is a positive action, and it makes for a brilliant, moving, multicolored art installation. The locals sell the scarves, and it's a little cottage industry. I'm all for local economies. It's a nice thought. Some religions light candles. It's hard to light a match up there.

We stopped at the highest monastery in the world. The grounds were very stark but impressive. It was carved out of the mountain, with Tibetan mastiff guard dogs roaming everywhere, while acolytes and monks did the daily chores and routines of a monastery in a completely relaxed and chilled way. We met the guy second down from the Dalai Lama and had an audience in his private, dark chambers. A little funny detail is that in his room, he had exercise equipment from the 1950s, complete with Indian clubs, dumbbells, and one of those old-fashioned reducing machines where a belt goes around the waist and a little motor jiggles you to fitness. It looked like a small gymnasium where Jack Dempsey would have trained. I kept thinking of a
Three Stooges
sketch the whole time I was in there. He seemed like a serious man and would be very helpful with advice and wise words, but I'm sure he didn't know who we were or what we were doing. I envy the way these guys must be able to tune out and meditate. I've never been able to slow my head down long enough to give it a good try; maybe it's in my New York DNA. If I haven't done it by now, after this exceptional opportunity, I probably never will.

We started each day with a song. We would all take turns singing and playing every time we stopped. I believe there is a definite healing and unifying quality to music. The trekkers looked forward to the music and seemed to get some strength from it. It's the best distraction and mood changer ever invented. Personally, watching Glenn Tilbrook shredding on an acoustic version of “Goodbye Girl” with his pants around his ankles at daybreak made setting out on a ten-hour uphill hike almost seem like the right thing to do. A real treat and head changer to see one of the most talented cats I'd ever known to be acting the court jester, lightening everyone's mood before the brutal yet majestic day of climbing ahead of us. We played around campfires, and when we stopped for lunch on the trails, I had a pair of drumsticks in my backpack, and I played on water bottles, logs, and rocks. It always worked, and I've now confirmed that I can do a show on anything. The performance really is in the spirit and soul.

There is a natural, majestic beauty to a mountain, and every now and again someone would point out that the peak of Everest could be seen in the distance. There are plenty of other peaks to astonish on the way up. The air was crisp and thin, and it was hard, but I could manage. Every person's body reacts to high altitude differently. Some people's oxygen levels in their blood get low, and they feel more fatigue. I was fortunate my blood produces oxygen nearly the same as at sea level. I was lucky my blood oxygen level never got too low. The footing was very difficult, and it was hard to get into a groove because every step was different and needed to be measured. The whole trek can't be done without two walking sticks, which become extensions of your body. Sometimes you'd be going on for a few hours and never be able to look up to see the magnificent surroundings and scenery.

We had a great day in Namche Bazaar, an ancient trading post where we shopped for Nepalese trinkets and small gifts. I brought home Nepalese prayer scarves in every color. We met in a local tavern and played an impromptu gig that ended in a conga line around the village where the locals and visiting tourists got an extra treat. We slept in a lodge with actual walls that night. There was a cold-water shower in the room, and Garrie and I dared each other to go in, lather up, rinse, and repeat. We howled so loud during the ice-cold bracer that the other trekkers came out of their rooms to make sure someone wasn't getting killed by a yeti. We formed an on-the-spot Himalayan polar bear club, anything to keep you going. It was a real luxurious treat. How many memorable cold showers do you have in one lifetime?

A week or so into it, we reached the goal of the base camp. There were a few international expeditions waiting for the all clear to do the summit. To summit requires a different skill set and equipment needs. We had done the extreme hiking trek to base camp, but some other crazies were going to climb the peak. Our own form of insanity was the other part of the mission, to play and record the world's highest gig and get into the
Guinness Book of World Records
. So we took a little rest at base camp and then headed up one thousand feet more, straight up the side of the mountain to Kalapathar. My memory is that it was a ledge sticking out of the side of the steeper mountainside and that we somehow got some guitars, thirty fans, and a drum kit up there and played a few songs. It was very cold and windy; the gusts chilled you to the bone and knocked over the snare drum stand. The whole trek was filmed by a cool young pro cameraman named Stash Slionski, who was, in true small-world fashion, from Massapequa. His uncle had seen the Cats play in bars back on Long Island. He did the same trek as we did, but he did it walking backward to film us. He's a good guy, and we're close friends now. CNN International had a satellite flying over, and ten seconds of it went out on the air, live. We were playing “Rock This Town” when it went on the airwaves.

We climbed back down to base camp afterward. We had done the highest-altitude rock show in history. Some wiseasses did a gig in an airplane a year later and technically overtook us, but I personally don't count it. We did it for real with no loopholes.

The whole week, Garrie and I had been planning a side adventure and an easier way back down the mountain. We had heard a rumor that there was a helicopter service that went from base camp all the way back to Kathmandu. One of the Sherpas was a real fixer. There is one of these guys in every community and walk of life, and I can usually find them. If you wanted to buy a Cadillac or score a little weed in Nepal, this would be the guy who could hook it up for you. We had been asking him the whole time we were climbing about the rumored helicopter. After the trek up, the achievement of the gig and conquest of the hardest part of the trip, the idea of going back down through the same yak muck for three days was unappealing and anticlimactic. We were sitting around a picnic table in the big tent back at base camp when the fixer told us it was possible to get a helicopter back to Kathmandu the next morning, in a small village about four hours' walk from base camp. We would need to set out at dawn and be prepared to give the pilot $1,500 that could be charged on Visa. Miraculously, I had my wallet in my backpack. We agreed, and it was set.

At that point, we got a new player on the team. A woman, a friend of Chippendale's from the Dallas contingent who was on the trek the whole time and we had seen but had not gotten to know that well, approached us and said she couldn't help but overhear us and that if we're doing the copter ride, she was in for one-third. This true gal pal was Rini Andres, and I think of her now like a sister. Rini is a successful businesswoman in her hometown of Dallas, a mother, wife, and all-around cool person. The next morning at dawn, the three of us set off to meet a helicopter in an unknown village with a Sherpa guide leading the way.