Pop’s senior rage

Old age has tamed Iggy Pop, said Rob Magnuson Smith in Playboy. The punk rocker became famous in the 1970s for his drug-fueled live shows, where he’d cut himself with glass, start fights with the crowd, and smear his body with peanut butter. Pop, 66, says his only indulgences these days are red wine and coffee. “I have two or three espressos in the afternoon before [a show],” he says. “That gets me awake enough to care.” He wishes that his parents could see him now, drug free and—thanks to recent appearances in advertisements for Chrysler, a British insurance firm, and other staid clients—financially successful. “I feel I didn’t do well enough for them,” he sighs. “That bothers me. My mother passed away in the mid-1990s, when I was still one of those obscure American figures. I’d show up on TV and go, ‘Motherf---er! Motherf---er.’ She’d say to my dad, ‘Oh, I wish Jimmy wouldn’t say, “Motherf---er.’” Still, Pop hasn’t entirely surrendered his punk credentials. “My business manager has been trying for 16 years to get me to join AARP. Every year, he sends me a pamphlet with a little note: ‘You should really look into this. You get some great discounts.’ And it goes straight in the trash, every year. AARP? I don’t want to hear about the AARP!”

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