Rock On
I SAW THIS PICTURE POSTED ON FACEBOOK the other day – Bill Murray and Keith Richards. My first reaction was, “Dang, these guys have gotten old.” Then reality slapped me a good one right across my face. I am four years older than Bill Murray. At least Keith Richards is older than me. Of course, in that three year head start on me he has crammed in about 700 years of hard living.
I remember when the Rolling Stones first boogied into our collective consciousness – about 1963 or so – and back then Keith Richards was “The Cute One.” It didn’t take long for him to become “The Already Dead One.” At around that same time there was all sorts of hoo-haw that “Paul is Dead!” and a lot people believed that, but I’ll bet nobody ever bothered to check Keith Richards’ pulse.”
Bill Murray isn’t looking too frisky either. According to the long dead British Actor Edmund Keene (1787 – 1833),”Dying is Easy, Comedy is Hard.” Murray is looking like proof of that. I suppose I should give him the benefit of the doubt. Anyone who hung around with John Belushi and his friends for very long lived some Hard Times. And now he is choosing to hang around with Keith Richards. He is pushing his luck.
Keith Richards looks like he fell into a wood chipper, but he keeps on rockin’. The man just fathered a set of twins with his most recent wife. I think that he has, somehow, transformed himself into a physically indestructible being. A few years ago, when he was about 70 years old, he was playing with another of his young children, slipped, and fell out of a tree. I’m not surprised that he survived the fall. No, I’m just amazed that a 70 year old man is still climbing trees.
I dug up a few pictures of these two gents – a “”Then And Now” or maybe a “Before And After.”
A life in Rock and Roll with all of its most destructive aspects took Keith Richards from a pale working class lad and turned him into an even paler, immensely wealthy, Gargoyle. When he dies, which I assume he will someday, there will be no need to embalm him. He got that taken care of back in the late 70s.
Bill Murray 1979 “Saturday Night Live” Press Photo
Looking at the Bill Murray “Then And Now” I see some of the Monsters of Comedy Side Effects.
They are a lot like Rock and Roll, but harder to dance to. There are the Late nights, Stimulants and Depressives of all sorts and way too much free time.
Mick Jagger may be slowing down (Remember when he had to sit down while singing during the Super Bowl Show?), but Keith Richards shows no such deterioration. He may be showing plenty of visual deterioration – dry rot even – but his skeletal structure must be made of pure Titanium. Is Keith Richards a Terminator?
Hmmm, maybe Bill Murray knows for sure.
Down the Hall on Your Left 