Mitch Mitchell, the last surviving member of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, died in a Portland hotel room this week. He was 61 - only 11 years older than me! Eleven years is nothing. I hope he left a big, unpaid minibar bill.
Sixty-one is old for a rock star. The actuarial tables are against you if you're in rock. The job-related health hazards are up there with coal miner, asbestos worker and suicide bomber.
A 2007 study by the John Moore University Center for Public Health in Liverpool, England found - to the surprise of virtually no one - that rock stardom shaves years off of your life.
The study compared the lives and deaths of rock stars with the rest of the population - i.e., the fat people you see gasping for breath while waiting in the Cinnabon line at the mall.
In the first five years after chart success, the mortality rate of performers climbs to three times that of the rest of us. The average age at the time of death for the 100 stars in the study was 42 for the North American rockers and just 35 in Europe. Drug and alcohol problems killed one quarter of the rockers.
The study suggested that performers are learning to take better care of themselves. People who became rock stars after 1980 died at half the rate during the first five years of their success compared to the before 1980 crowd.
The ultimate rock and roll death is dying on stage in the middle of a performance. It happens. Country Dick Montana, drummer and lead singer for cowpunk band The Beat Farmers, dropped dead on stage in Canada on Nov. 8th, 1995 while singing "The Girl I Almost Married." Heart attack. He was 48.
Of course, KDOG harmonica player and dynamic male vocalist Nick Ciani underwent an emergency triple bypass after not feeling well after one of our gigs. He came close to the ultimate rock and roll death - one of his coronary arteries was 99 percent blocked. Sex and drugs aren't part of Nick's lifestyle. His problem is lousy genes.
Cranky rock critics and other cultural kibitzers like it when rock stars die young.
"There is nothing sadder than an old rock star," according to British music writer Steven Wells. "We have far too many middle-aged rock stars hanging around, clogging things up. It is a microcosm of the way baby boomers have dragged youth culture into the grave with them."
Dying rock stars don't make me feel old. What's really crushing is realizing that the next president of the United States is younger than I am. It never occurred to me that this could happen. I was just getting used the fact that my doctor looks like a teenager. Every appointment is like a scene from Doogie Houser. I'm also working with people who weren't even born when I started my advertising career.
I like to tell them stories about what life was like in the "old days."
"You have no idea how difficult and embarrassing it was to consume porn in those days," I tell them. "You had to actually go to the local dirty movie theater - a public place! You could run into people you knew!"
"They showed porn in theaters?" the Young Persons gasp. "Gosh, I never though about that."
"Sure," I tell them. "Guys used to masturbate in there. Those weren't black Juji Fruits sticking to your shoes."
"Gross!"
"The worst part was that after risking your reputation and having to buy a ticket, you spent most of the movie sitting through someone else's porn! There might only be one or two scenes that you thought were erotic. Of course, now days you kids and your fancy Internet can download exactly the kind of porn you want to see for free in the privacy of your own home. You're all spoiled and weak!"
©2008 Edward Dean Chance. All Rights Reserved. (Like anyone's going to rip off this crap.)
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