"I don't need to be forgiven"

We saw The Who (or at least Pete and Roger, with some help from Ringo's boy Zak and noted Brit bassist Pino Palladino) in concert last night. Great show, at least to my biased eyes and ears. So much good music, plus some applicable and entertaining visuals (i.e. clips from "Quadrophenia," various other projections). Wish we could've seen Keith and John as well, but what are you going to do, eh? Booze and blow are tricky pals, especially when you live with them. Anyway, I know that most legacy bands such as The Who are far past their rebel-rebel days, but it's still good to experience that music again.

But here's the rub: What's one to do when he has to wade through the muck and mire of America's capitalism, v5.0, to access the rebellion of formative rock music? You can't see a band like The Who (or anyone else who's sold more than a milk crate full of records) these days without feeding piles of cash to Ticketmaster, Clear Channel, Budweiser, Ford and friends. While we're watching and listening as Daltrey and Townshend wail about teenage wastelands and substitutes and not getting fooled again, I'm drinking an $8 beer. Jennifer and I couldn't help but notice all the fat bastards from various marketing and advertising departments across the Tampa Bay area, teetering back trying to look cool while while trophy wives (or diversionary girlfriends) mangle the lyrics. ("Oooooh, I just LOVE 'Wasted Teenager'!")

During one of my trips to the piss trough, I overheard one dude exhorting his peers to "piss fast" so they could get back to the show. I bet he doesn't know how right he was: I know there's music out there worth hearing, with more stuff coming out every day, thanks to the the further digitalization of the artform, but the rebellion seems dead. I guess that's been a common lament since the rebellion started, but tell that to the douchebags speeding through the parking lot in their luxury SUVs, ignoring the parking dudes and nearly running down pedestrians, or the jackasses hawking "blinky toys" on the walk to the amphtitheater, urging people to "get 'em while they can." (What, did Congress outlaw cheap, crappy, overpriced LED toys from China? Is that the new front in the war on terror: plastic light-up junk from Asia? Bah!)

Better piss fast, folks. The show's almost over, and we're all wasted.