They're Dead But They Don't Know It: Cruising With the Fossils of Rock

I have nothing left to say
But I'm gonna say it anyway
Thirty years upon a stage
And I hear the people say
Why won't he go away?
--Randy Newman, "I'm Dead (But I Don't Know It)"

Surely you've noticed how some things go very well with other things. Like peanut butter with jelly. Ice and bourbon. Tracy and Hepburn (modern reference...). Maverick and Goose. Maple syrup and bacon with everything (there exists no food that cannot be improved by the addition of either bacon or syrup). Some pairings, however, don't go so well. Like thongs and fat guys. Cigarettes and lungs. Ashlee Simpson and music.

Rock and roll, the dying 20th century musical genre once favored by wastoids, angry teens, and substance abusers, is one of those things that "go well" with certain other things. But not other things. In the "combines well" category, we have sex and drugs, obvi. Dancing. Flashy outfits. Cars, girls, surfing, beer ("nothing else matters here!").  In the "combines poorly" column would be getting old, investing your money wisely, living a healthy lifestyle...and cruises.

Yeah, cruises.

You know. Cruises. Spending a week or two on some disease-riddled prison scow, replete with a North Vegas casino 3 a.m. shift change buffet, ADD kids riding boredom into a murderous rage, their unsupervising obese parents working on their pre-carcinogenic tans, and 50 year old legal secretaries from Quad Cities looking to cut loose when the ship reaches Mazatlan. Cruises.

"Rock and roll" and "cruises" don't exactly scream out "match made in Heaven." Its not like "Texas" and "football." Or "Lindsay Lohan" and "shoplifting to support a coke habit." But, unbelievably, in Rock's death throes, our Rock Gods have opened a new front in their attempt to keep the money flowing. Not content with going on oldies tours, judging karaoke shows (shout out Steven Tyler, call me!), or playing casinos all across this great land, the scourge of Rock Theme Cruises has now descended upon our culture. And like drug-resistant STD strains, I'm afraid there ain't no stopping it now.

Pony up enough of your hard-earned cash, and you can spend a week or two trapped at sea with the likes of Kid Rock, a band that somehow legally can use the name "Lynyrd Skynyrd," Matchbox Twenty, or Kiss. Or how about ZZ Top, Bret Michaels (no word on whether the Love Bus will make an appearance), Rick Springfield, or the Backstreet Boys. There's a Goth Cruise, a Rock Legends (II) Cruise (with Foreigner, Kansas, BTO, Blue Oyster Cult, 38 Special, and Molly Hatchet, among many other "legends"). There's even a prog rock cruise, Cruise to the Edge, with the rotting corpses of Yes, UK, Tangerine Dream, and other vets of the genre like Steve Hackett and Carl Palmer.

OK, I'm probably the only one that cares about this, but, like, DAMN! What's next, Johnny Rotten doing Cialis ads ("sometimes backstage I need some extra help with the groupies")? Pete Townshend's line of special hearing aids? Dave Grohl guest hosting Chelsea Lately? Oh, wait, that's actually a thing. Isn't it bad enough that we've got "rock stars" hosting dating shows, judging American Idol, or hanging out with the UN? What happened to "rage against the machine," and "let your freak flag fly," and "hope I die before I get old," and "I was so much older then I'm younger than that now"?  Well, I know exactly what happened. Those guys got paid, and they liked it. Signed, the Who starting a concert tour four days after John Entwistle died.

So, if you shell out the thousands it will cost, you too can spend time with your favorite rock stars. The relevant question, of course, is why would anyone want to do so? You know, its not like you're gonna see 1973 Yes, or any of these guys in their creative prime. No, you're committing yourself to what will eventually seem like an eternity at sea trapped with the drug wizened, bankrupt, bloated husks of those guys, many of whom had as much as three hit records, 30-40 years ago. Lovely.

Why would you want to hang around them at all? So they can be your new best friend, and tell you all their stories about that one time in 1971 backstage in Seattle when those two blonde twins did this thing with their toes? Or how they spend most of their time now playing towns like Abilene or Sioux Falls, at shopping mall openings or casinos? Chances are you'll just find out exactly how boring they've become. 55 year old men are pretty much all the same. They need you to speak up when you talk, listen to how they saved a bundle on their capital gains taxes, and force you to agree that Mike Renfro absolutely caught that ball in bounds against the Steelers (ok, that's just me). Former rock stars are no different. Other than maybe Mick Jagger or David Bowie (sadly, more on those two later), most of these guys now have more in common with Milt from Accounting than the Rock God they were 30 years ago. You can ask them about their favorite vitamin brands, or alimony payments, or kids' soccer games. It would be just like the Chris Farley Show: "so you know that one time, when you recorded 'She's Got Legs'?" "Yeah." "Was that cool?" "Yeah, it was cool." "Awesome!" Or, even worse, you find out they're exactly the same as they were, only without the talent or fame that led people to excuse their antics back then. 6o year old dudes trying to squeeze their size 42 front porch into size 32 leather pants (except for Iggy, who can still pull it off), croaking out something that sounds vaguely like "We're An American Band" or "Flirting With Disaster" or some such between bong rips and Nexium pills. Fat, drunk, and stupid does work when you're world famous and the cash is rolling in. Think Anna Nicole Smith (what? too soon?). But once you're a has been, people really don't much overlook you throwing up on yourself, or slurring all your words, or having eight DWIs, or hitting on their wives. Its just kind of pathetic.

And its not like you're gonna get to cruise with the biggest stars of that era either. Its not like Led Zeppelin or U2 or Bruce Springsteen or the Rolling Stones will be cruising any time soon. No, its Kiss and Foreigner and Styx and Foghat and .38 Special for you. No intimate Jimmy Page night concerts or dinners with The Boss. Actually, I could see Mick "Squeeze Every Last Nickel (and 19 year old Brazilian model)" Jagger starting a Rolling Stones cruise to milk even more money off the legend. He wouldn't actually show up, of course, except maybe at the end when the band would play a 20 minute concert (for which seagoers would have to pay a substantial upgrade price). No, most of the time it would be Charlie "Chatty Cathy" Watts and Ian "Who's He" Stewart (longtime keyboard player) hanging out at the sundae bar and talking about waiting for Keith to regain feeling in his hands before shows. Yes, your $50,000 ticket will let you see the crew wearing too tight t-shirts with the Stones' tongue logo (Capt. Stubing too), hear Stones songs blaring over the boat's PA system every minute of every day, and watch videos of "Gimme Shelter" and "Performance" every night. Or, the worst video in the history of the world (which is saying a lot), the Bowie/Jagger "Dancing in the Streets" video. "Two Girls/One Cup" thinks that video is hard to watch. By the end, you'll be praying for icebergs. No, mostly its the retreads and mid-tier bands from that era, except for Kiss, although they were always more of an act than a band. And you'll catch them 30 years after the last time they did anything even remotely interesting. Kind of like the Eagles now, only below them in stature, and at sea. Those young '70s rebels, after decades of the rock and roll lifestyle, now have all the charm and charisma of the victims on CSI: Miami.

But even if it was back then and even if you could hang out with Diamond Dave or Eddie Vedder in their heydays, why would you want to? OK, just seeing the line of women wanting to throw themselves at those guys could be entertaining. And the never-ending party could be fun under certain circumstances. But if you talked to them, nine chances out of 10 you'd find them enormous pricks and hate them within 10 seconds. And in the 10th instance, you'd find out they were just as normal and ordinary as you are (think of the Alice Cooper scene in Wayne's World..."actually it's pronounced 'Meel-ee-waw-kay'"). Which is why I say, "never meet your heroes." Or it would be totally gone to hell and back bizarre, with huge mounds of coke and chain saws and strippers and 7 foot bouncers everywhere, and you're five seconds away from doing two to 20 in Huntsville if the cops show up. Imagine a night with Keith Moon, Ozzy Osbourne, and Nikki Sixx, and what are your odds of survival? Not good, especially if you've spent your life up to that point reviewing purchase orders or making sales calls.

Even worse than everything I've just described would be the experience of being trapped on a boat with hundreds of people having nothing in common with you except that you like the same kinds of music. Christ Almighty! Can you imagine the parade of misfits on that Cruise to the Edge ship? Filled with people who make and give mix tapes to demonstrate their love ("track four just really captures how I truly feel about you!"). Imagine a cruise filled with nightly dungeons and dragons and live action role playing games, before the night's show. Klingon lessons. Guys dressed up as Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek characters. Pube 'staches. Not a belt to be seen on board. Or a woman. And everyone complaining about the wi-fi service.  I wouldn't even want to think about the mutants on board a Kiss cruise. In the words of Brian Beckner, the Gay Army is 1,000 times cooler than the Kiss Army. And less gay. Talk about your Voyage of the Damned. After a couple of days you should be praying for sweet death.

I guess, as you can probably tell, my real problem is with cruises in general. Cruises are basically floating disease zones, where the passengers binge drink, gorge, tan, gamble, and sleep their time away while waiting for the next 8 hour dash through the next port town. You lie around all day, and at night you eat your weight in lard and high fructose corn syrup while talking to a plumber from Wichita Falls and his leopard print wearing botoxed wife, as you enjoy "entertainment" by the Six Flags amusement parks' theme shows actor refugees. Or Artie Lange (our generation's Jackie Mason). You stop in these tourist trap port towns, carefully keeping your distance from anything that reeks of the native culture or lifestyle, throwing money away on "bargains" as you look for a Chili's to have a margarita. I'm sure not all cruises are like that, but no matter how you fancy it up, its still spending time with strangers on a boat. NOT the Rock and Roll Lifestyle. And NOT the Baller Lifestyle.

So, what have we learned? Probably nothing. But if you were paying attention, you'd beware of rock theme cruises, theme cruises, and cruises in general. You'd stop trying to meet rock stars. You'd spend your time more productively. Like working on your blog, or paying your taxes early so you can get your refund more quickly, or beginning a walking program and trying to cut down on saturated fats and artificial ingredients. Basically, you'd be more like me. Or you'd try to be more like me. But as the Lord said, "many are called but few are chosen." That's true of my dating history, and true of my readership.

I don't know what any of that means. But have a great day! Stay on land.

NEXT-either college football or a Win a Dream Trip to Ector County