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Sunday, April 11. 2010
Like a Rolling Stone
The other day I got an issue of Rolling Stone in the mail. Huh … About ten years ago, maybe less, my subscription lapsed and I never renewed. The magazine was no longer relevant in my life, the music and pop culture it covered so out of touch with a working stiff about to turn 50, it was a waste of the yearly subscription.So out of the blue comes this issue, dated April 15, 2010: Issue 1102. It’s the one with the cast of Glee on the cover. I’ve never seen that show, even though it gets high accolades. Many TV shows with critical and commercial success don’t interest me. I’ve never seen an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, even though it featured two of my favorite actors, Peter Boyle and Doris Roberts. I hear it was a fine show, but who really wants to watch another sitcom with a standup comic as the star? Even if it has a great ensemble cast? Well, maybe I’ll start watching it in syndication. Peter Boyle’s da bomb!
Thirty years ago … naaa … it was longer than that — I was a devoted fan of the Bob Newhart Show. Now there was a show for stoners! Well, stoners thought so, although it was a hit with just about everyone else who watched television in the 70’s. I watched The Bob Newhart Show for nearly a decade after that, stoned and laughing every time a character said, “Bob?” Couldn’t be Dr. Hartley, it had to be “Bob”? Or “Hi Bob,” in the case of their next-door neighbor, Howard Borden, played by Bill Daily. And a few other characters as well.Before this gets off on a rant about sitcoms, which is always a good topic, I’ll say this: I watched four episodes of Friends just because everyone I know insists it’s a funny show. It isn’t. Well, maybe it is, Friends remains one of the most popular TV shows of all time. I actually watched the pilot when it first aired to see Courtney Cox. She was a babe then and still is now. Maybe I’ll watch Cougar Town if it’s still on the air.
Friends just never amused me, although I like most of the actors in it.
Did you ever notice: men, heterosexual men anyway, will watch a TV show just for some hot babe who might be a cast member? My friend watched Star Trek: Voyager primarily because it featured Jeri Ryan as … wait, let me look it up on the Internets … Seven of Nine, a Borg who looks really HOT in those skintight costumes ever so popular in the Star Trek pantheon. Seven of Nine’s breasts were so prominently featured! But I never watched it.
Back to the Rolling Stone. Remember back in the day when Dr, Hook and the Medicine Show sang “Cover of the RollingStone”? They got on the cover, in caricature, shortly after that song made the Top 10. It was actually written by humorist, songwriter, poet and author Shel Silverstein, possibly the last renaissance man of our time.Today’s story subjects rarely interest me. Hip-hop isn’t my thing; wayward young men living the rock star dream don’t interest me, RollingStone has covered that story now for … wait, let me look it up on the Internets … since November, 1967. The comings and goings — and cummings — of the younger TV and movie stars rarely interest, unless it’s Britney flashing her kootchie for the cameras. The pictures of the young women of music, film and television are sweet, but really, I can see those for free on the Internets.
And this is really “funny:” 40 years ago Led Zeppelin was persona non grata in Rolling Stone, but now, they are one of the greatest rock bands ever, as are the Beatles and Beach Boys, both 1960’s icons brushed off by the magazine back in the day.
RollingStone still has great investigative reporting, with such great journalists as Matt Taibbi, but, reading Rolling Stone for the political coverage is like reading Playboy for the articles. It ain’t its bread and butter.
Okay, I like the political and hard news of RollingStone and read Playboy for the articles. Both offer some of the best journalism in print, but it’s primary content, well, you can get WAY HOTTER pics of women nude for free on the Internets and Playboy.com has way hotter photos of it’s Playmates than you’ll find in the print magazine; and if I want great photos of scantily-clad women artists, the Internets fill that need as well. One of the benefits of getting the centerfolds online is that with programs like PhotoShop, you can easily do things to the photos to enhance the images to your liking! Not that I ever would …
The mystery is, how and why did I get a subscription to Rolling Stone? Like Playboy, I let that subscription die a long time ago. The woman at the UPS Store (where I keep a box) and I discussed this at length and figured it was one of two scenarios: someone got me the subscription as a gift and I forgot, due to old age, or, I ordered it myself and forgot — due to old age. I’m not that old, am I?
They say, after major surgery with your body being under a heavy anesthesia such as is used for open heart surgery, some of the brain cells in the frontal lobe especially are killed while under, affecting your short-term memory in particular. It can also change your personality; sometimes for the better, sometimes not. Better to let my friends and family judge that, I mean, just ask me, I may not be much, but I’m all I think about!
So, in this issue of Rolling Stone that has a photo of the cast of a TV show I’ve never seen, were a few tidbits of interesting information. Famed rock’n’roll photographer Jim Marshall passed away at the age of 70 and Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh turned 70. Dang! Really? Two icons of rock, one dies and the other celebrates a birthday (March 15).
August 9th will mark the 15th anniversary of Jerry Garcia’s death. Hard to wrap my head around that too, but Phil Lesh is 70? Hard to believe. He doesn’t look it either. It’s all that hippie-dippy clean vegan lifestyle of his. Actually, I have no idea what his lifestyle is, but he had a liver transplant in 1998 and survived prostate cancer (and surgery) in 2006, the same disease that took the life of Frank Zappa over 15 years ago. FZ would be turning 70 this year, were he still alive.Beware the Ides of March, for it will bring The Dead! Lesh is a founding member of the Grateful Dead. Jerry Garcia may have been the front man, but as the old saying went, “If Phil’s on, the band is on.” And Phil was so often on! Years ago, back in the 1980’s when covering a Dead show at Alpine Valley Music Theater for the Shepherd Express — well, for me mainly — I had a photo pass that allowed me access to the very front of the stage for the first three songs so I stood in front of Phil for half a song — about 10 minutes — mesmerized by his playing. Wish I had those photos somewhere.
Also in this issue of RollingStone, the news that Alex Chilton died. “Who dat,” you ask? He was the front man for the cult band Big Star. “Who?”
Big Star. All the post punk, pre grunge indie bands loved Alex Chilton and Big Star and patterned their music after them. Still doesn’t ring a bell? Before Big Star Chilton was in the Box Tops and sang the #1 hit, “The Letter.”
“Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane, ain’t got time to take a fast train. Lonely days are gone, I’m a-goin’ home, ’Cause my baby just a-wrote me a letter.”
Chilton was only 59 when he died, just a few days away from headlining the final night of the South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin, TX. That’s only a few years older than me. Heart attack got Chilton, which is probably how I will go. Well, if I could bet on it, I would choose heart attack. My friends would probably bet on a bicycle accident, which isn’t a bad bet either. As a testament to Rolling Stone’s lack of vision and forward thinking, this was the first year the magazine sponsored a stage at the legendary showcase festival. It’s been going on now for nearly 30 years.
Anyway, I’m keeping my subscription to Rolling Stone. It appears they’ve brought back topics relevant to me, even the newer music. And maybe I’ll start watching Glee.
Who knows, maybe I’ll subscribe to Playboy again. I miss reading the articles.
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