Rod Rumor Update!
Redd Kross's Jeff McDonald offers up HIS version of the seminal Rod Stewart urban legend
Happy February, Jagged Time Lapsers!
So, I’ve been hard at work trying to drag the manuscript of the forthcoming Redd Kross book to the finish line, scanning my voluminous transcripts of interviews with band co-founders Jeff and Steven McDonald to make sure I haven’t overlooked any key anecdotes.
Earlier this week, I stumbled upon part of a conversation with Jeff that I’d completely forgotten about. And while it’s far too tangential to make the cut for inclusion in a book that’s already bursting at the seams with hilarious and outrageous stories, I figured it would be something my paid subscribers would enjoy reading — specifically because it involves a certain widespread rumor about Rod Stewart…
Now, if you’re new here (Welcome!), you may not be aware that this particular rumor — you probably know the one — and its many absurd variations have fascinated me since high school. Or was it grade school?
As I wrote last summer in the above JTL piece,
I’ve always found the rumor especially fascinating and, well, extremely amusing. It was spread among my friends as absolute gospel, and over the years I’ve learned from so many other acquaintances around my age — many of whom grew up in completely different parts of the country than I did — that they’d also heard the rumor and been absolutely convinced of its veracity at the time. But unlike with the other urban myths mentioned above, the details of this one changed drastically from telling to telling.
For the record, Rod — who was recently in the news promoting something that will surely rid your mouth of any lingering unpleasant tastes — makes it clear in his autobiography that he’s as amused by this persistent rumor as I am, and my occasional forays into this topic are in no way intended to be judgmental, defamatory or mean-spirited. If anything, I’d probably be an even bigger fan of his if the legend were actually true.
In any case, it turns out that Jeff McDonald has heard a variation on this rumor that was new to me — and his recollection of when he first heard it seems to contradict Rod’s claim that the tale had been planted around 1981 by a vengeful ex-publicist…
(Am I becoming a Rod Stewart Rumor truther? Oh, well. I suppose it’s somewhat healthier — and certainly a lot more fun — than posting incoherent rants about how the Kansas City Chiefs’ upcoming trip to the Super Bowl is the result of some kind of “deep state” psy-op involving Taylor Swift...)
And because Jeff and his brother have a long and creative history of being pranksters — much of which will be detailed in our forthcoming book — I took our conversation as an opportunity to bring up an unbelievable (and unbelievably gross) yet utterly hilarious rumor about Neil Diamond that was allegedly cooked up by the McDonalds back in the nineties.
As with my earlier Rod Stewart piece, this one’s for my paid subscribers, whose support I deeply appreciate… and once again, I caution you not to read any further if you’re a) easily disturbed by the mention of certain bodily excretions, b) uncomfortable associating the above artists with said excretions, c) too mature for such unabashedly puerile discourse, or d) eating.
Everyone else, please read on!