Trust me, just because a person is over is 50 is no reason to sign up for AARP. I don’t know what it is that I dislike about the organization, but I don’t trust it -- aside from the fact that membership is for people over 50. I’m not over 50, even though the year I was born was the same year Eisenhower was first elected. But then I read that Grace Slick recently said, “Don’t trust anybody under 30.” I wish I had said that. But I didn't.Nonetheless, when I read that the Jefferson Starship, which some of you know as the Jefferson Airplane, was going to play this July at the 40th anniversary at the Monterey Pop Festival, it sparked my interest. Well, maybe not as much as the fact that Moby Grape had signed to the bill.
The last time I saw Grace Slick was in 1968. I was standing on front row seats, screaming, clapping and drooling on the joint being passed around because, well, because that’s what you did back then. She stumbled on to the stage, grabbed the mike and yelled, “You paid HOW MUCH to get in here? $8? I got news for you. You got ripped OFF.” I don’t care what anybody says about Dom Perignon and Grace Slick, I love her.
Anyway, Slick is no longer appearing with the Jefferson-anything. But that comes later.
Last week I was working on an article about Active Adults and Retirement Communities for my site at homebuying.about.com. I’ve toured a few of those communities, conducted a lot of research for my article, and even toyed with the idea of moving into such a place one day myself. Well, except for the fact that all the homes look identical to each other and my husband would prefer stabbing himself in the eye with a sharp object than considering a retirement community. Since he’s many years younger than me, he gets a bigger vote, but what the hey – it’s not like the neighbors would be the same retirement home inmates found in the book Jimi Hendrix Turns 80.
It started me thinking about the kinds of people who will populate those communities over the next ten years. Will they be the type of people I grew to admire and emulate during the 1960s, my former buddies and friends? Or will they be drill sergeants, perhaps retired DEA agents? Hard to say. Where did everybody from the ‘60s go? Are they dead?
Well, yes, many are dead, or else they got into such a legal entanglement with their record producers that they’re peddling pens from plastic cups on the streets of Seattle with a one-eyed dog at their side.
So when I read about the 40th anniversary at the Monterey Pop Festival, I asked my husband if he would accompany me, conditioned on the premise I could get box seats. (My condition, not his.) Imagine my astonishment when I finally found the link to order seats and discovered not that the cost was $200 per person, but that I wouldn’t be assured of exactly WHERE the seats were located until after I purchased them. This raised a question in my mind: do the promoters assume its target audience is stoned on acid?’ Why would I buy tickets to an event when I’m not assured of premiere seats for a premiere price? I can hear the mantra now, “Man, music is supposed to be free, man,” as this creepy long-haired bum collapses in my $200 paid-for seat.
But, wait, the bonus prize is if you hold a membership card to the AARP, you get in free! Which is not such a hot deal when you realize general seating costs $20.
Nonetheless, I quickly scanned through the line-up for July 28 and 29th. Holy crap! Moby Grape pulled out? There’s only two guys from The Doors, not like anybody can yank Morrison out of his grave in Paris; and there’s one surviving dude from It’s a Beautiful Day. It will also feature Jefferson Starship with a Grace Slick sing-a-like, on top of a bunch of faux acts impersonating Hendrix and Joplin. Like I want to hear somebody belt out a song pretending to be Janis when she’s wouldn’t know pain from a bottle of Jim Beam if it jumped up and bit her on the ass. Who buys these tickets? Teenagers nostalgic for their grandparent's music?
All I can say is the active adult retirement communities are sounding better all the time, which gnaws at my very soul. Sigh. I’m not buying into this fake pop festival. The ‘60s are over, man.
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