STARMAN

What a Character! : Official WDC Contest

STARMAN TELLS ALL!
At least that's what the headlines screamed. I tried to be honest. I don't care what they think. My music is the bridge to my fans...no matter what kind of person I am.
When I got the news that June had been aboard the plane that went down. “No survivors.” they said. I remembered her last words. “Just be truthful, Joe. I still love you.”

So I told the interviewer that I hated my name. Wilmont Joseph Leiberberg, Parent's revenge, I called it.
Everything changed my second year of high school when they started a rock band. I became Starman, lead singer for the Bloody Cream. The band was ear-deafening terrible, and faded into senior year memories, but the name stuck. 

After my nineteenth birthday, I moved to Hawaii, married a native Hawaiian girl,  and got lost in the easygoing beach life, rarely rising above a drug-induced stupor. When I did, Lelani was gone.  Her family gave me the airfare and told me to "Go mainland, and never come back!" I did.

I failed miserably at several waiter jobs, finally picking up a gig with a small, up-scale appealing band who were desperate for a guitar player to do a demo recording. Some of the guys heard me goofing around singing when the band's singer-chick was out of the studio. They asked me to join them on a regular basis, and Starman Mainline was born.

Before that year was out, I married the singer-chick. Mrs. Leiberberg had a miscarriage, filed for divorce, and the band had two hit singles in the top 20. I was on a roll. One year later Starman Mainline hit number one for 6 weeks with Alone Again. I wrote the song when she lost the baby. I wailed it onstage. They said it was mournful.
The band did a national tour to promote our second album, and record sales soared. Me, poor Wilmont Joseph Leiberberg, now Starman, came close to becoming a millionaire!

With all that cash I got a new mansion in Santa Monica, and of course came with a live-in girlfriend, followed by two others; never lasting more than six months. Alone Again became my theme song. Women always told me they could feel my pain. What a crock.

I met June when I hit 29, and because of her I became clear-headed sober for the first time in several years. She got me to run with her, made me eat healthy, and generally cleaned up my life with a great deal of love and enthusiasm. Our marriage lasted a little over two years. I truly loved June.

I had just stepped offstage from a huge concert in Amsterdam, when I got the call that June's plane went down somewhere off the coast of Florida. She had been coming to join me in London the next morning. The crowd of 20,000 screaming fans drowned out my desperate screams of grief.  I am alone again.

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