Doing the Crazy, On, and On...

I JUST COMPLETED a swing through Kanas City,of Count Basie fame, where I saw my beloved New York Yankees take three of four from a very good team,the Kansas City Royals. Only a blown save in the ninth of game four preventd a clean sweep. Its a tradition I've been maintaining for sixty years; hop up to K.C. to see the Bronx Bombers. Impresseive,what a good ball club three hundred million dollars will buy. Impresssive,and crazy, from my perspective. Next up on the crazy to do "bucket list" (I hate that much overused expression), the Rolling stones, in the Las Vegas of the Ozarks, Branson, Mmissouri. Impressive, what a billion dollars worth of eighty year old musicians can do to remove a few hundred dollars from the pockets of a senior citizen latter day hippie, or two. Musicians never retire. Frank Sinatra sang his way into his eighties, until the self described "saloon singer" finally met his match with vertigo and gravity by falling off a bar stool or two, while completely sober. Mick Jagger stays in shape by running in place before he hits the stage, staying away from drugs, and by never sitting down, on or off stage. How Keith Ricahrds gets it done is among the greatest mysteries of science and insanity in all of recorded, and unrecorded history. Maybe its the whole body blood transfusions in Switzerland, maybe the cigarette perpetually dangling from snarling lips while hitting his licks. Whatever, it works. There is no law against a famous musician padding hiw podket book and ego until he or she drops. Nor evidently, is there any law, even though there ought to be, against digging big hole in what should have remained a bucolic Ozark mountain hill side and filing it back in with concrete, steel,plastic,and bleachers for the adoring fans of strolling bones. But the question, as it always is when dealing with human affairs, aka capitalism and entertainment,is: where do we draw the line? Exactly what are our limits? How much fun can we possibly have, and survive the adrenalin rush to tell about it? How many bucolic hill sides, how many billions of dollars, how many eighty year old slowed but not stopped rock icons does it take to satiate our bottomless appetites for escape? When we reach the point where we all agreee, with fingers crosssed behind our broad butts, that the Stones are "better than ever", have we approached our limit of fantasy and denial? Speaking of fantasy, denial, and ancient old age, Donald J.Trump, yes, THAT Donald J.Trump, turns seventy eight today. Add politicains to the list of never say retire profesionals. We are thus given a choice between two fossils for the next president of these dis United States. The "winner" will govern for the next generation, which should be governing for itself. As Jefferson warned, we do not want to be governed by our ancestors. Or do we? Seemingly we do, just as we seemingly want to be entertained by them. We cling to our outdated constitution, we cling to our political leaders who should be long since put out to pasture, and we cling, tenaciously, to entertainers who are, quite bluntly,no longer in their prime, despite our fervant desires and pretenses to the contrary Nostalgia is over rated. We pay big bucks to see rock stars who barely exist in the present, who exist essentially in the past, in our fondest memories. Retirement, with dignity and grace, is vastly under rated. Why not give it a try, Mick, Keith, Donald, Joe, et al, et al, et al.....I did. It works great!