{"id":12867,"date":"2012-04-11T09:00:27","date_gmt":"2012-04-11T13:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=12867"},"modified":"2012-04-11T10:40:32","modified_gmt":"2012-04-11T14:40:32","slug":"mr-moderator-charged-with-rock-crime-wife-claims-he-was-%e2%80%9ctoo-cool-for-school%e2%80%9d-when-he-turned-down-second-row-seats-for-1982-rolling-stones-concert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/mr-moderator-charged-with-rock-crime-wife-claims-he-was-%e2%80%9ctoo-cool-for-school%e2%80%9d-when-he-turned-down-second-row-seats-for-1982-rolling-stones-concert\/","title":{"rendered":"Mr. Moderator Charged With Rock Crime: Wife Claims He Was \u201cToo Cool for School\u201d When He Turned Down Second-Row Seats for 1982 Rolling Stones Concert"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/I7zJdM39BXw?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Last week the family and I were in the car for a short trip out for dinner. I switched on the local Classic Rock station and \u00a0&#8220;Waiting on a Friend&#8221; came on the radio.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This song isn&#8217;t up to your high standards, is it?&#8221; my wife asked with a mocking glance from the passenger&#8217;s seat.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Actually, I like this song,&#8221; I said, leaving out the fact that for a good 15 years I did not allow myself to like it. &#8220;It&#8217;s &#8216;Start Me Up&#8217; that is the last straw for me and the Stones.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>With each passing year I really do like &#8220;Waiting on a Friend.&#8221; I like the video even better. I value friendship above just about everything else. It&#8217;s really nice how patient Mick is waiting for Keef to show up and take a walk. In contrast, the guy sitting at the cafe window at the <strong>1:33 mark<\/strong> looks so sad, doesn&#8217;t he? He clearly doesn&#8217;t have a great old friend like Keef who&#8217;s running just a few minutes late. I&#8217;ll stop now before I tear up at the site of Mick and Keef eventually meeting up with Ronnie at the bar, where they swig beer; sashay to the music; lean into each other; and practice multiple means of self-stimulation by running hands through messy hair, playing with a scarf, and taking deep drags off a cigarette.<\/p>\n<p>With each passing year I like &#8220;Start Me Up&#8221; less. I didn&#8217;t like it the day I first heard it, when it was released. I don&#8217;t like it even one bit today. It&#8217;s the musical equivalent of Mick&#8217;s stupid football pants. It&#8217;s a real ass-kisser of a song by a band that made its bones kicking ass. It&#8217;s Mick run wild with his penchant for 17-year-old Brazilian models. It&#8217;s musical Viagra, before there even was such a pill. It&#8217;s Keef doing that stupid knee bend while pulling off one of his patented &#8220;no-hands&#8221; 5-string guitar moves. It&#8217;s the sound of all the wrong people suddenly getting excited over a band that meant a lot to me.<\/p>\n<p>I didn&#8217;t tell my wife any of this stuff that was running through my sick brain, but I did tell her this: &#8220;Did I ever tell you about the time sophomore year when I turned down second-row seats for that Stones tour in Chicago?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Huh?&#8221; My wife has good taste and is a snob in her own right. She knows that Stones were beginning to head downhill at that time, but she doesn&#8217;t read deep meanings into &#8220;Under My Thumb&#8221; and the groove of &#8220;Beast of Burden.&#8221; She can enjoy &#8220;Start Me Up&#8221; for what it probably is: a fun dance song.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yeah, a guy in our frat&#8217;s dad was some kind of union head,&#8221; I explained. &#8220;He got us an entire row of seats, the second row, front and center. I was offered a ticket for $20. I was already certain the band sucked. I turned it down.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You need to turn yourself into Rock Town Hall for one of those Rock Crimes,&#8221; my wife exclaimed. &#8220;You&#8217;re sick! If you don&#8217;t turn yourself in I&#8217;m going to log on and out you. Turn yourself in and see if they find you guilty!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So here I am, Too Cool for School, circa 1982. Was I justified in turning down that second-row ticket\u2014maybe even visionary\u2014or am I guilty of having been <em>Too<\/em> Cool for School?<\/p>\n<div id=\"polls-245\" class=\"wp-polls\">\n\t<form id=\"polls_form_245\" class=\"wp-polls-form\" action=\"\/blogs\/index.php\" method=\"post\">\n\t\t<p style=\"display: none;\"><input type=\"hidden\" id=\"poll_245_nonce\" name=\"wp-polls-nonce\" value=\"8710a05f6c\" \/><\/p>\n\t\t<p style=\"display: none;\"><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"poll_id\" value=\"245\" \/><\/p>\n\t\t<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Is Mr. Moderator innocent or guilty of \"Too Cool for School\" Rock Crimes charges for having turned down second-row seats to the Rolling Stones' 1982 tour?<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"polls-245-ans\" class=\"wp-polls-ans\"><ul class=\"wp-polls-ul\">\n\t\t<li><input type=\"radio\" id=\"poll-answer-900\" name=\"poll_245\" value=\"900\" \/> <label for=\"poll-answer-900\">Guilty, Young Mr. Mod was way too cool for school!<\/label><\/li>\n\t\t<li><input type=\"radio\" id=\"poll-answer-899\" name=\"poll_245\" value=\"899\" \/> <label for=\"poll-answer-899\">Innocent, the man should be lauded for his good taste!<\/label><\/li>\n\t\t<\/ul><p style=\"text-align: center;\"><input type=\"button\" name=\"vote\" value=\"   Vote   \" class=\"Buttons\" onclick=\"poll_vote(245);\" \/><\/p><p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"#ViewPollResults\" onclick=\"poll_result(245); return false;\" title=\"View Results Of This Poll\">View Results<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n\t<\/form>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"polls-245-loading\" class=\"wp-polls-loading\"><img src=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-polls\/images\/loading.gif\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Loading ...\" title=\"Loading ...\" class=\"wp-polls-image\" \/>&nbsp;Loading ...<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week the family and I were in the car for a short trip out for dinner. I switched on the local Classic Rock station and \u00a0&#8220;Waiting on a Friend&#8221; came on the radio. &#8220;This song isn&#8217;t up to your high standards, is it?&#8221; my wife asked with a mocking glance from the passenger&#8217;s seat. <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/mr-moderator-charged-with-rock-crime-wife-claims-he-was-%e2%80%9ctoo-cool-for-school%e2%80%9d-when-he-turned-down-second-row-seats-for-1982-rolling-stones-concert\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342,16,20],"tags":[484,45,155],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12867"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12867\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}