Rocking Out

When I got into the rock and roll business, I wasn’t really thinking about grandkids. In fact, I wasn’t thinking about much else besides face-melting guitar solos and the sensuality of highway truck stops. So retirement as a concept was the farthest thing from my mind at the time. I would’ve bet my first record contract (despite the rampant criminality on the part of my skimming-from-the-top ex-brother-in-law and manager) that I’d overdose long before there was any need for sober-minded financial planning. Life on the road is a lot of things, but it’s never cheap.  

Then one day, where do I find myself? In some sterile conference room facing a strip mall, sitting across from a bunch of people in suits explaining to me the particulars of a Roth IRA and why I should trade in power ballads for power of attorney. I guess that’s my punishment as a bona fide rock and roll survivor.

As it happens, years of headbanging have left me with major damage to my sciatic nerve, rendering my trademark crowd pleaser a distant and painful memory. Though to be fair, memories are few and far between ever since that forklift mishap in Rochester ‘81. I can’t mosh without a spotter. I can’t hit the high notes. And I definitely can’t do much else due to seriously degraded sinuses. The hardest thing I drink these days is an ice cold Palmer. 

It’s not to say I have regrets about where I’ve ended up, living out my golden years in the twilight of hair metal stardom. Which, to be fair, hasn’t proved nearly as boring as I initially imagined. I bought this horse farm in the Hudson Valley with the money not blown from one and only single, “Welcome to Jungian Theory 101, my name is Professor Conrad and I'll be your teacher this semester.” I like the sounds of squealing pigs, mooing cows. The crack of dawn’s early buckshot and blood-curdling shrieks from the neighbors’ house. 

I have relatives who like to visit and wear out their welcome at a moment’s notice. But the house is a real beauty. Lovely wraparound porch and a pair of antique rocking chairs prominently adorn it. When the whippoorwills get-a-chirpin’ I start-a-rockin’. Naturally, it’s not easy, given my arthritic knees from years of on-stage theatrics, but I do all right for myself. These chairs weren’t meant to sway slowly by the brittle bones of sleeping geriatrics. 

Rocking chairs were meant to rock out. 

I got this whole big pyrotechnic shebang planned for my grandson’s bris. It won’t be safe or age appropriate. And there’s enough lacquer to turn me and the entire party into kebabs. When someone does yell fire to warn the partygoers of a blazing inferno running from the front door to the garage, I won’t hear it. Too many hours spent up and close to a Marshall stack has left my eardrums a novelty anatomical item. But the thing is, I wouldn’t change one bit.

Rock on.