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Rock and Roll Never Dies and The Music Doesn’t Fade Away
An older, and by older I mean over-60 Sacramento real estate agent gets far more respect from younger people nowadays than an aging rock-and-roll star. Thank goodness I am in the right profession. The motto far back as I can remember was you’re not getting older, you’re getting better. And wiser, hopefully. Nobody tells me that I am too old to sell real estate and lives. But there seems to be a backlash against entertainers who aren’t as spry as they used to be simply because they’re older. It’s enough to make an older person want to whack these little punks across the noggin with a cane.
Some reporter who probably used to have a hard-on for Bruce Springsteen complained that The Boss wasn’t performing like he did at the peak of his career which, according to that guy, was at age 26. LOL. When I read that editorial, I could only imagine the shrieking outrage from fans and even suspected that perhaps the reason for such drivel was to spark an uproar and bump up online hits for the Sacramento Bee. On the other hand, it’s a silly opinion of a person who probably secretly jacks off to Thunder Road. Everybody except that guy apparently is mad for a live Bruce Springsteen concert. Springsteen puts his all into every show. Pure adrenaline.
It’s a big thing now — for Baby Boomers especially, and we are targeted like no tomorrow — to attend concerts headlined by rockstars of our youth. It also provides retirement income to some whose managers ripped them off over the years. It’s not like reliving youth but some memories do return that were long ago buried, and that’s kind of sweet. The Happy Together Tour comes to mind. It’s also a yardstick to use so you can laugh at your goofy self as a teenager / college student and then understand how far you have come. (I don’t have yardsticks known as kids.)
What bothers me somewhat about these shows is how snooty I have become about concerts. It’s almost 50 years later. I still want front row seats. Only now, instead of camping out in front of the theater for hours beforehand or squeezing my way to the front by-hook-or-by-crook through throngs of stoned-out freaks, now I am willing to pay for that privilege. I am not standing in the hot sun (OMG, melanoma) or sleeping on the sidewalk (my aching back), no way, Jose. And, I expect a comfy chair. If I could enjoy concierge, valet and cocktail service, all the better. I wonder what my younger self would have said about this attitude?
Don’t answer that.
Review of the Happy Together Tour at the Crest
What was it Flo and Eddy said last night at the Happy Together Tour at the Crest? Oh, yeah, drugs, man. How everybody in the audience can identify with the pot and the LDS trips, and now we’re all into: the Lipitor and Pepcin and Ibuprofin and Viagra. And then there was Mark Lindsay (from Paul Revere and the Raiders) who rattled on about wishing for the 1960s night after night and year after year only to wake up one morning and realize he had found the ’60s all right — his own 60s. But ya gotta give it to a guy who has not an inch of fat on his face, be it natural or otherwise, and can kick his leg over his head or drop at the waist in a bow to tuck his head into his crotch. Yeah, like he was made out of cardboard and could fold in two.
Show off.
Pfffbbbt.
He also gave the greatest pitch for a CD I’ve ever heard in my life. It was about curing all of your ails and increasing your sexual performance in the bedroom. Go … Mark!
When Gary Lewis (of Gary Lewis and the Playboys) opened, he identified the years when each of his songs were popular. I got a huge kick out of This Diamond Ring, which came out in 1965, singing along and bouncing, when my husband elbowed me and whispered: TWO, I was TWO and still eating strained baby food! But I can forgive him for that comment because guess who will be wheeling me around in my wheelchair down the road?
The show was a rockin’ good time, though. Can’t say much about Gary Puckett and his Las Vegas act. I don’t know what it is I have against Las Vegas acts, I mean, old performers have to go somewhere, but he was a bit too Holiday Innish for me. The Three Dog Night dude was great and a bit closer, my husband admitted, to his era. I loved the Turtles’ songs by Flo and Eddy. I forgot how much fun they could be, but that’s what almost 40 years will do to you — skew your memory.
Going to the Happy Together Tour show at the Crest, however, meant I was still up two hours past my bedtime. Although, even when I was 21, I was never one of those people who could party all night and still get up for work. Hey, that doesn’t mean I didn’t go to work. It means I just didn’t party on a school night.
But today is Sunday, and I will mostly likely spend most of this day color correcting photographs, tweaking, resizing and selecting the best pictures to put into MLS when my listings hit tomorrow. Little is worse for a buyer than to stare at dark, horrid photos in MLS. When home buyers spot photos like that, they have a license to flip right past the listing, and I’d be mortified if they ever did that to my listing.
That’s why I use a big ol’ honkin’ Nikon digital camera with an expensive 18 / 24 wide-angle lens and still spend hours fixing my photographs. As a Sacramento real estate agent, my clients can rely on my photographs to get a buyer into the house. You can bet my professional ability on it. Right after I take an after-breakfast nap.
Happy Together Tour at the Crest Theatre in Sacramento
When I first laid eyes on the groovy poster for the Happy Together Tour, the show coming to the Crest Theatre on July 6th, I was hesitant. Because the first band listed was The Turtles, and while they are an OK group from my teen years, they weren’t all that fabulous to me. I read down the list and my eyes landed on the guy from Three Dog Night, yawn, yeah. Followed by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap. OK, Young Girl get out of my mind. What? Is he a pervert, lusting after jailbait? Might be silliness. But then I saw Mark Lindsay, whom you may recall from Paul Revere and the Raiders, and hey, maybe this would be a fun show in a goofy sort of way. The clincher was Gary Lewis and the Playboys. Everybody loves a clown, so why don’t you?
I suggested the show to my husband, who immediately pooh-poohed it. He muttered something about John Lennon and the rattles of jewelry in the balcony, and then he started coughing, wheezing and singing like Tom Waits, telling me there will be nothing but 70-year-old people hobbling about in the lobby. See what I put up with? What he really means is now I will owe him one. I might have to do something dreadful like go the grocery store or eat stir-fried weeds for dinner and not moan about it.
It seemed like a perfect evening out to invite my friend, Barbara, and her husband. Sure why not, the four of us could go to the show. That way Barbara and I can bond in sisterly solidarity belting out This Diamond Ring Doesn’t Shine for Me Anymore while our husbands roll eyes and acknowledge each other’s boredom through those all-knowing glances.
I had a listing appointment yesterday over at Woodside, but I pushed it back by 15 minutes so I would have ample time to go online and buy advance tickets, prior to the public offering. I have ticket buying down to a science. I open the seating chart in one browser and starting a few minutes before the opening time, I begin clicking refresh over and over in another browser. Often, the Crest is off by a few minutes, but luck was on my side yesterday.
Bank of America had just sent me a revised counter for a Cooperative Short Sale, moving a few fees around when I realized, OMG, it was 9:59. Time to go to the secret link to buy tickets. Darn. The website said tickets were not on sale. Like a person with a psychological disorder, I drooled and clicked refresh again and again and again, and whoa, I was in. Just like that. I entered the code, and the website took me to a page to select tickets. I could not believe my eyes. Front row and center seats, four tickets were mine! That almost never happens. My heart raced. My eyebrows got stuck together.
I clicked buy and the website took me to a new page, one that I had not seen before. Oh, no, something new. It wanted my user name and password. Did I have a user name? I quickly tried to open a vault where I store passwords. It did not immediately respond. That’s because emails were hitting my email account at the same time an update was about to take place from Adobe Reader. Everything slowed. If I had a dog, I would have kicked it. No, not really, I would never kick a dog. I might kick a Republican, though.
I looked through possible user names and could not find a name for that website. It was then that I noticed the continue button. I clicked. Now it wanted my credit card information, which I threw on the page from memory. I could not believe we got front row and center seats. My eyes were spinning in circles. Breathing became difficult. My fingers trembled.
I clicked BUY.
The screen returned to my credit card information. What the? I know I put the code in the box. I entered it again. The screen returned to the page with my credit card information and missing 3-digit code. I entered a completely new card and a new code. The screen returned to the page with my credit card information. Was this like the movie Groundhog Day? Do I have to listen to Sonny and Cher over and over? Oh, I see, it had unchecked the box that I checked NO to whether I wanted insurance. I clicked BUY again fully confident that now the sale was complete.
Big red letters: Your Time Has Expired. Start Over.
Ahhhhhhh. I unleashed a string of unpublishable words. My cats ran for cover, paws over their little kitty ears. And just like that, I ended up with Row 2 tickets. Row 2, where I will have to sit and stare at the people who are sitting in Row 1, IN MY SEATS.
Yes, I realize how petty and shallow these thoughts are, and how I should be strung up my toenails because female babies in China are being murdered and we broke the planet and honeybees are dying and the air is so bad over Mauna Loa that it will never be safe to breathe again, while I am spending my valuable time left on earth griping about having to stare at the back of the heads of those people who will be in my seats at the Crest Theatre for the Happy Together show.
