Standing in the Shadows

Have you seen your mother, baby, in her little something-something from The Rolling Stones Store for Mother's Day? The band your parents love to hate has a gift shop at the 'official' website and they've got gift ideas for Some Girls and more, or so it seems. I love the irony of all of this, it's exhilarating!

Forty five years ago, Brian Epstein was getting The Beatles slapped on the sides of lunch boxes and thermoses around the world to the deep and abiding chagrin of John Lennon, who nevertheless cashed the royalty checks. And now look, a short lifetime later, da Stonz are hitting the cash register because there's just not enough money left in the world for the World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band. Put that in your Saturday morning cartoons, Sir Paul, and smoke it. Oh, you have? My bad.

The generation who came of age with Rock and Roll is starting to tap their 401-K's and the Keogh accounts. Rollovers aren't for dogs anymore, and as the commercial for the hair coloring says, don't trust anyone over ninety. We took our kids to all the rock shows when they were small, hauling the diaper bag, the formula bottle and the diaper rash cream and now thirty-three-and-a-third revolutions later, they're returning the favor.

That's actually a bad play on words since most of our children have no idea what a vinyl record even looks like or how it worked. My two children do because they have a fossil for a father with over 5,000 albums and, just in case the technology leaves me in the lurch, three turntables and cartridges to make sure I can still hear my tunes when I'm legally deaf. I even have a turntable that hooks up to the computer so I can take vinyl music and transfer it to the hard drive and from there to infinity and beyond!!!!

Of course, I need a degree in computer science to actually do this so you can already guess how often I have accomplished a transfer but it's reassuring to know if I wanted to I could, maybe. Gotta tell ya, not sure if Mom wants the "Women's Washed Black T-shirt with Cut Out Tongue" from the 2003 tour, or the "Women's A Bigger Bang T-Shirt." Go ahead, you pick for me but remember to hurry as there's no chance of a back order in time for Sunday. Remember, You Can't Always Get What You Want but if you try some time, life takes Visa.
-bill kenny