Over the years, with tact and good timing, professional autograph collector Mike Wehrmann has built professional relationships that are both solid and surreal. "When Keith Richards signs, he always tells me, you know, raspy voice: 'Keep the prices up,'" and "Andy Warhol used to stop and talk for, literally, a half hour on the street. He wanted to know everything—who's nice, who's not nice." Still, Mike has no illusions about the depth of these connections. He invoked the inevitable analogy: "It's sort of like hunting," he explained. "People hunting. You're out there for your prey."
Which is to say, Mick Jagger didn't have a chance.
One January afternoon, Mike got a tip that Mick Jagger would be leaving on the four-thirty American Airlines flight to New York. We left Mike's apartment at two-forty-five and pulled into a spot in an LAX parking garage one level above the arrival area at about three-twenty. From this vantage point, Mike could keep an eye on the curbside check-in without being spotted, either by other collectors (who would know that if Mike is there, it's a big one), or by the greeters who escort VIPs to their gates. He spent the next half hour pulling photos of Mick Jagger from his trunk, peeling protective plastic off the guitars, testing pens on an old copy of The Hollywood Reporter, peeking down at the curb every few minutes, and calling "an associate" in New York (another collector, who, on a tip from Mike, would drive to JFK and catch Mick upon arrival).
Then he handed me a folder full of eight-by-tens and we walked to the check-in area. Mike is a good-looking guy, nicely built, with thick brown hair parted down the middle and feathered back. In denim shorts, a baggy printed t-shirt and beat-up white leather Asics, he had the casual vitality of a laid-back Little League coach—except for the three bright red electric guitars he was carrying.
At three-fifty, as a Lincoln Town Car with tinted windows pulled over, Mike Wehrmann got on his game face: his neutral expression softened, his close-set brown eyes widened and the little worry wrinkle next to his left eyebrow almost disappeared. His mouth formed the mild, close-lipped smile of a happy child. You wouldn't want to let him down.
Mike thrust a guitar at me as we walked outside ("Just hold it like this. I'll do the talking"), and there was no time to object because the car door opened and Mick Jagger unfolded himself onto the sidewalk, bodyguard close behind. Mike pulled me over the line, into the position that he occupies every day—a position that I remembered well—standing in front of a star, hamstrung, weirdly, between supplication and demand.
"Hey Mick!" he said sweetly. "Hey Mick can you sign two today? 'Cause it's Sunday? And we've been real good?" Mick, sour and grey, took the pen and made a bunch of vertical slashes on one of the guitars. ($2000 retail.)
"Mick, since it's Sunday, and we've been real good, could you sign two?" he said, and pointed the rock star towards my guitar. ($2000 again.)
"How about—" but Mick, in silver thick-framed sunglasses, turned his face away: "That's all, boys. Bon Voyage," he said, with a weary French inflection, drifting past us through the door.
Mike's game face lasted most of the way home. This was a good afternoon, he admitted, but he said it was nothing like the old days: "In the 80s Mick would come over and sign 10 things no problem. He'd joke around, talk to you. Was real nice."
Copyright © 2004/2005 Michael Joseph Gross. All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication or distribution is prohibited.