‘American Woman’ creator really does’t care about Lenny Kravitz’s wardrobe malfunction

We're living in the fastest times ever, because this summer, Lenny Kravitz's

pants broke open on stage, his manhood popped out, a fan uploaded video

of that moment, it went viral, but life moves so quick, we all forgot about it

by the sundown.

I am here to remind you of Lenny Kravitz's poke-y-man moment, since I

have a good tie-in: During that incident, he was playing his cover of

"American Woman."

This Saturday, the band the Guess Who rocks the Cannery hotel. The Guess

Who invented "American Woman" in 1970.

So I got ahold of Garry Peterson, the original Guess Who drummer (while

his brother was looking to buy a house in Vegas), and Peterson basically

shrugged off Kravitz's accidental flashing moment, just like everyone else

has on the Internet Autobahn.

"I guess we're becoming blase," Peterson said and laughed. "Nothing is

sacred with the Internet around."

I asked Peterson how different his life would have been if phone cameras

and the Internet had been in fans' hands to chronicle rock star lifestyles in

the 1960s and 1970s.

"Oh my god," he exclaimed twice, "oh my god, I can't imagine that."

Peterson had quite the crazy rock star life.

He began drumming at age 2, and he was so good, he was playing on stage

with superstar Peggy Lee at age 7. That's not a typo. By the time he was 11,

he was touring the world with other famous musicians of the day.

"I started performing when I was 4 years old professionally," he said, "So I

got exposed to a lot of stuff in life."

He wouldn't tell me any insane stories from his childhood, though, only

this: "I had a lot of experiences, and some things I shouldn't have seen."

Naked groupies? Yes.

"I grew up very fast."

But not drugs, "because it wasn't open-use yet."

Peterson never was much into drugs, or for that matter, musical druggies.

"A lot of these guys did so much drugs, they'd say, 'This song is so far out.'

But how do you know? Haha. You can't judge what it's like" if you're blotto,

he said.

Then Peterson and I talked about the similarities of the world today to a

few things from the 1960s and '70s, specifically that it's cool again to act

out more sexually free, smoke weed, be gay, and rock a beard or mustache.

Peterson thinks this is because the hippies finally became more in charge of

things.

"I'm 70 now," Peterson said. "There's a lot of older people who remember

those years, and liked those years."

And many hippies surely passed down those lifestyle preferences to their

children, who themselves would be in positions of power, in their 40s, 50s,

and 60s, he said.

"My son is 38 and he loves to smoke weed," Peterson said.

And yet, Peterson himself is high on life.

"I never did drugs very much, because I found too many things in the world

that I really loved that were like drugs for me without taking drugs," he

said.

Like what?

"I love football like crazy. I love to play golf. I love banzai gardening."

(Banzai gardening? Where do I sign up for that?)

Peterson said he recently had a psychedelic experience on tour while

completely sober, making the acquaintance of coy fish in front of a hotel in

Vancouver, Wash.

"They had a coy pond with a waterfall, and canoe, and it was delightful,"

Peterson said. "I'd go to look at the fish, and these coy are huge, and they

are so used to being fed, they would come up within inches of your face. It

was just, like, crazy."

So Peterson, the boy who played with Peggy Lee, drums on the original

"American Woman," and keeps pounding those sticks from coast to coast,

found existentialism nose-to-nose with a fish he'd just met.

"Man," he said. "With all those trees, those beautiful firs in Oregon, man

that's a high moment, are you kidding me? That's the kind of moment I

look for in the day," he said. "As many as possible."