12.20.12
Geezer rock
Isn’t it appalling?
Although every bit of the stuff I do drips classic rock, I never watch geezer rock anymore. As with WhiteManistan, I’m embarrassed to be related, if only faintly, to the tribe.
When you’re old you oughta be able to rock. To be good at it you have to be willing to be taken for a fool. However, there’s no point in making it harder. And some things you must let go because they’ll sink your ship immediately. (It’s also why I never go out to hear middle and upper-middle aged white guys in blues bands.) Increasing entropy isn’t something money can opt you out of.
I was oblivious to the 12-12-12 concert but the New York Times does a good dissection of embarrassing-looking old rockers.
“I will donate $1,000 to #121212Concert if Roger Daltry buttons his shirt,??? tweeted Alan Zweibel, 62, a comedy writer …
With his shirt thrown open during a rousing rendition of “Baba O’Riley??? Mr. Daltrey — a specimen for his age, to be sure — unfortunately invited comparisons to his groupie-magnet self from the “Tommy??? era. In doing so, he violated an obvious dictum for seniors: keep your clothes on in public.
Then the piece gets to Iggy Pop, a tremendous physical specimen, endurance wise, at 65. He does not, as the New York Times piece insists, look like a Joffrey dancer.
For Raw Power he looked like this. That was in 1973.
Today, he still hasn’t an ounce of flab on him. Do Joffrey dancers now look like a couple twisted strands of gnawed cartilage and gristle, though?
You really don’t wanna see it.
Up close, a fine mesh of varicosity covers a shoulder.
And, often, he looks like he’s had a couple hernias repaired.
Study at risk of having to reach for the Tums.
Spare the style. Let the tunes and the imagination take the audience.
