Thursday, June 19, 2008

Retired Rockers

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Senior Scooters of Saratoga.

When I was a kid, rock stars were young, rebellious, and if not good-looking then at least taut-skinned. It was important that they were the opposite of your parents. No one over 35 was even drumming in a band, much less the front man. Now, Rolling Stones concerts have a large disability section up front for the senior scooter and wheelchair crowd, four of whom are on stage. Keith Richard has enough extra skin on his face to build a puppy. Mick Jagger is beginning to look like my chain-smoking, hard-drinking Aunt Ruby.

As a guy who is well over forty but still incredibly cool, I cheer these wrinkly roll models with one hand and cover my eyes with the other. I hope I'm still rocking it when I'm Jagger's age, but I hope I don't have to swing from the rafters from a bullwhip to get my jollies.

7 comments:

doug nicodemus said...

it was a pretty good movie though, and apparently they have picked Indies replacement. lucky man.

Penny Mitchell said...

I have a great story to tell! But I have to plug my favorite radio station to tell it:

http://www.kcuvradio.com/

Saturday mornings G. Brown has a special show during which he invites local celebs to go on the air and play their favorite songs. One Saturday he had Kevin Fitzgerald from Animal Planet's "Emergency Vets" on. "Fitz" had applied to vet school and didn't get in, and instead went on the road with the Stones. He was a bouncer for them for years. He said he reapplied to vet school because of Keith Richards.

Keith pulled him aside one day and said, "You're an intelligent guy and you need to think about your future. You really should go back to school...after all, we're not going to be doing this when we're all 50."

HollyBerry said...

keith richards looks like yoda in that picture.

@penny-- that's hilarious!

i'm sure these old rockers had no idea they would still be playing into retirement, but all the classic-rock stations just will NOT let them die!

marine_explorer said...

Sure, the Stones are old, but if most 65 year olds had half the energy of Jagger on stage...

That said, much of the entertainment industry subsides on retreads of acts far past their shelf life, like an Andrew Lloyd Webber Cats singing Abba songs in a new Spielberg alien invasion flic.

I'm glad some cartoonists are actually thinking of new ideas, and I hope there will never be a "Bizarro Classic" strip. Unless of course, that makes an AARP discount card unnecessary someday.

groovy girl said...

I had the pleasure(?)of seeing Joe Perry of Aerosmith sans shirt. It was just plain sad and scary. He looked like an anorexic 80 year old. The last words to describe him was sexy.

The Bentwood Rockers said...

Here is another excellent
"Roll Model".

:)

kerrikoo said...

When you read these posts... you almost know what's going to be under the blue link before you click on it.... The Shar Pei was perfect!!!.. (And might I add...A lot cuter than Keith Richards!) Anyone seen Peter Frampton lately?... He used to be all hair.. and now....