Will getting a harp help get me into heaven?

(695 words)

Because I believe it’ll increase my chances of getting into heaven, I’m thinking of acquiring a good used harp.

Being an skillful harp player might convince Pearly Gate keepers to overlook my sloth, my gluttony and all that chronic flatulence to help me make the heavenly cut.

Swanson Harps in Boston has a Lyon & Healy 6161-23 for $16,900, a far better bargain than the $44,900 Swanson Art Nouveau.

The website is worth a browse. It talks about used harps with the same loving descriptions you see on some of the “who-wants-to-date-a-stranger!” sites.

“We may be prejudiced, but we believe this may be the most beautiful harp ever made! It was commissioned by a harpist in Boston and designed and hand carved by master woodcarver Will Neptune. It is the only one that was made and so is totally unique.”

Experienced cynics would likely respond to that puffery with, “Well, sure she’s a lovely harp, but what they don’t tell you is when you go to pick her up for dinner you find out she has five bratty harp kids.”

We took the kids to see “Young Frankenstein: The Musical,” last week. Loved it.

But I was distracted by the enormous harp rising from the orchestra pit. It was nearly as big as the monster. Yet the woman who plucked it looked a better match for the flute. How’d she lug that thing around?

I don’t know why I’m surprised harpists are often dainty. It is, after all, the angel’s instrument.

“If there’s a rock ’n’ roll heaven, you know they got a helluva a band.” 

That’s what the Righteous Brothers sang in 1974. 

That may be, but if you believe the Bible all the band is playing are horns and harps.  No Stratocasters, bass, keyboards or other instruments I consider essential to rock ’n’ roll heaven. No cowbell.

And no harps! I’m talking about your standard mouth organ which somehow became known as a harp, French harp or blues harp. The unnecessary confusion infuriates me.

I remember when I was a kid hearing Keith Richards say, “An’ ‘en Mick pulls out the ol’ harp anna place goes wild.”

I couldn’t picture Jagger plucking harp chords for some baroque version of  “Sympathy for the Devil.” Then I learned the English bluesmen (and American) all call the harmonica the harp.

It’s odd that there’ll be harps-a-plenty in rock ’n’ roll heaven, but I can name more great rock songs featuring bagpipes, three, (Steve Earle’s “Copperhead Road,” and AC/DC’s “Thunderstuck” and “It’s a Long Way To The Top”), than I can great rock harp songs, one, even though it’s the kind of “rock” song that sounds like it were composed by Franz Schubert.

It’s “She’s Leaving Home,” from Sgt. Pepper, one of just a handful of songs in which none of the Beatles plays any instruments.

It’s an entirely stringed arrangement led by harpist Sheila Bromberg.

I found her e-mail address and was tempted to get in touch. It’d be very cool for me to say I’ve corresponded with the woman who played harp on “She’s Leaving Home,” but it would be very disappointing for her, I’m sure, because she’d initially think I was a legitimate writer and then I’d have to explain the stupid blog name all over again.

She said the “She’s Leaving Home” session was very rushed and the only Beatle present was Paul.

"In actual fact he was quite difficult to work with because he wasn't too sure what he actually wanted. He said ‘No, I don't want that, I want something…' but he couldn't describe what he wanted and I tried it all every which way.”

I’m sure she’s speaking on a purely professional level and so I forgive the harpist for sounding like a harpy, which according to Greek mythology is a nasty monster with a woman’s face and body and a bird’s wings and claws, which sounds more like Yoko than Bromberg (pictured above).

And that’s all I’ll say about that. On the topic of harps, I'll harp no more.

I have some running around to do.

All together now: “‘e’s leaving home!”

Bye, bye.

Related . . .

America’s Got Talent . . . Not!

Listening to classic rock with my senile mom

How old will you be in heaven?

RIP Bobby Keys: Is this his last song?

Raising hell or lowering heaven? Our idiomatic afterlives

My facial procedure & aversion to big ass needles

(735 words)

The unbidden gusher of tears came squirting out of my face the instant the dermatologist stuck the needle into the soft skin one half inch below my left eye.

I felt an instantaneous wooziness that usually takes about three hours, two cigars and a half a bottle of bourbon to acquire more organically.

I’d gone to the doctor to have a small growth removed. I’d had it removed once before in 2009. It grew back. If friends said they didn’t notice it, I think they were just being polite.

My 8-year-old, an unflinching accountant of fatherly flaws, enjoys pressing it when I’m laying down until I say, “Doooot!”

To me, it was huge and ugly. My vanity would not abide it.

The doctor told me he was going to biopsy the mass to determine whether or not it was cancerous.

I told him not to bother.

It’s not cancerous.

I have foreseen my death and won’t be in some sterile hospital bed. It will be out of doors and it will be violent.

It’ll be in the year 2055 on my 91st birthday. I have a vision of me stumbling out of a local bar and right into the path of a speeding bus. Witnesses will swear they saw my soul shoot straight up to heaven and that my soul wasn’t wearing pants.

My death will make news all around the world because the bus will just miss striking Keith Richards, too. 

I believe Keith will one day hear about what a great drinking buddy I can be and will venture to Latrobe to see for himself. And then Keith’ll never leave.

Or die.

Moments before the doctor had been starting at my face and intermittently speaking a language that was either Latin or gibberish. His pretty assistant was taking notes and nodding like she understood and cared deeply about my pending disfigurement.

He told me I had nice skin.

I asked if he was hitting on me.

He pretended he didn’t hear me and just kept staring like he was trying to hypnotize me, which I’d be fine with if it’d save me a buck or two on anesthesia.

I view my body the way I view my utilitarian vehicle. I don’t love or pamper it. I demand it be mobile in all conditions and take without complaint the necessary beating it requires to travel with reckless abandon through all life’s obstacles.

I like that my body has a high pain tolerance and has survived some hangovers so severe they equate, I believe, to the female birth ordeal, but am baffled why it so weakens whenever a needle pierces the skin.

Of course, I like to think even John Wayne would wobble seeing a big needle coming straight for his eyeball.

What’s funny is right after the needle prick began my foreseen slide into oblivion is right when the doctor started feeling chatty. He began asking me a bunch of questions while he chiseled away chunks of my face.

“So what do you do?”

I’m a writer.

“What do you write?”

I told him about the crayon book and slurred some examples. He liked the one about telling friends you’re going to open an art gallery and have them enter a room with nothing on the walls and be greeted by 40 guys who say nothing but, “Hi, I’m Art!”

“You know, I should write a book about being a dermatologist. I have some great stories.”

I told him I thought he was onto something. A book about a skin doctor would be a huge hit because none of the nudity would be forced or gratuitous. Throw in a little exam room bondage and maybe make the doctor a vampire and he’d have a bestseller: “Fifty Shades of Flesh.”

The whole procedure took about 6 minutes. They let me lay there with a cool towel on my forehead for about 20 minutes before I could resume mobility.

So in order to get rid of a small blemish no one really noticed, I’m now walking around with a huge navel-sized bandage on my face everyone notices.

People have been very considerate. They ask concerned questions and tell me they hope I’ll be all right. No one’s been jagging me.

It’s very comforting and more prudent than cruel mockery.

You don’t want to see what happens when a guy like me gets needled.

Related . . .

Save health care: Dock doc pay!

Save health care: Cure hypochondria!

Doc says Mom’s not crazy

Mom’s hip nipples & Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Zsa Zsa & when it’s time to go

Re-run: Enough already! Awash in staples

From 2009. I'm almost four years older and I'll bet I've used maybe 40 of the staples from the 5,000 pack that inspired this one. If I could change one thing about this, I'd eliminate the part about Bruce Springsteen. I love his 2012 album "Wrecking Ball," and it makes me eager for his next release. I guess  you can't have too much Springsteen.

Unlike staples.

It dawned on me at the cash register that the $4.29 I paid for 5,000 staples will be the last money I’ll ever spend on staples in this mortal coil. It was the smallest quantity they had in the mega office supply store store named, coincidentally, Staples.

I’m 46 and lead a reasonably healthy and risk-free life. The actuarial tables indicate I ought to make it another good 30 years or so.

But I’ll need to go on a crazy stapling binge to use 5,000 staples during that anticipated spread. I just don’t see it happening. And it’s doubtful someone’s going to come along with a revolutionary new item that will render my vast staple empire obsolete.

So one day in, say, the year 2038, one or the other of my darling daughters will be clearing out the detritus of my spent life and they’ll find the little box of staples about the size of kid’s toy tractor trailer. It’s doubtful it’ll register to either of them that I bought them way back in 2009 and that the tiny unsung office soldiers in the war on disorderliness triggered an odd moment of melancholy.

Who knows? Maybe finding the staples will trigger in one of the girls a flash of fury because if things keep going the way they are, the staples will be the only thing their impoverished father’s going leave behind for either of them.

I may not have a lot of money, but if life’s wealth can be measured in staples then I’m rich beyond measure.

Mr. Staples behind the register asked, “Will there be anything else?”

“No,” I told him. “I have all I need.”

And, truly, I do. At least in regards to staples and guys like Bruce Springsteen.

A friend of mine, a huge Boss fan, said he, like me, immediately bought the new Springsteen album, ‘Working on a Dream,’ when it came out in February.

“I like it, but I just know I’ll never listen to it,” Dave said. “It’s like U2. I listen to their new album and think, ‘Ah, this reminds me of some of the post-industrial grunge of ‘Achtung Baby’ from 1991.’ So why would I listen to it when I can listen to the better and more original album? With Bruce, I like the new album but when I’m in the mood to listen to Bruce, I’ll just listen to ‘Darkness’ or ‘The River’.”

He’s right. I’ve been finding myself saying no to artists I used to reflexively buy. So when new music from artists like U2, Lyle Lovett, Elton John, or Eric Clapton pops up, I just pass.

(I’ll still buy anything from Bob Dylan, Mark Knopfler, Joe Ely, Todd Snider, and the peerless Van Morrison. And, taunt if you will, but The Rolling Stones still kick ass; I’ll argue till I’m hoarse that 2005’s ‘A Bigger Bang’ is a classic).

But I have 7,578 songs in my iTunes library. I’d need to rock for 20.8 straight days to listen to it all, and not even a booze- and drug-fueled Keith Richards can stay awake for that long.

Enough already!

I’ve never bought any music by the techno-pop artist Moby, although I once whooped it up at a swanky private NYC party with him, Gwyneth Paltrow and Madonna, and when I say that -- and I often do -- it winks at the idea that the four of us were giggling and spilling champagne all over one another’s topless bodies. And that may have happened, but if it did it happened after one of us split the party to watch the Mets v. Yankees in the 2000 World Series in a Chelsea dive.

Guess which of us A-listers did that?

But Moby was asked in the current issue of New York magazine if he could, as scientists are doing with mice, erase memories, would he? His answer is brilliant:

“If I erased the memories of embarrassing things I’ve done, it would increase the likelihood I’d do all these incredibly stupid things again. The only memories that might make sense to erase would be the good ones so that way you could experience things for the first time again, you know?”

Perfect.

Once you get past 40, much of life is like the past two seasons of the relentlessly baffling ABC show, “Lost.” It’s an often bewildering story that seems to deliberately go nowhere and is chock full of tedious reruns that fail to shed light on any of the nonsense that’s gone before.

If this all sounds depressing, I certainly don’t mean it to be.

It just makes it more challenging and makes each fresh adventure, friendship or discovery more satisfying.

We need to find creative and exciting ways to use all the staples before we die.

I think I’m going to spend the rest of the day jotting down a quixotic list of all things I want to avoid ever doing again -- taxes! -- and a list of some of the things I want to try and get around to doing -- party once more with Moby!

Then I’ll stack the papers together and affix them with one of my shiny brand new staples.

Just 4,999 to go!

Keith's bio: Warts 'n' warts

Today is a momentous day in my life: I'm about to admit I made a mistake.

My first.

And it’s one of those whoppers that will for better or worse forever alter perceptions of me.

Ready? Here goes.

I read the Keith Richards book, “Life.”

I spent a week learning about his decades-long incapacitations so thorough he needed teams of flunkies just to keep mopping up the vomit and changing his soiled bell bottoms.

I learned how he reacted to the death of his 2-month-old son Tara with the same nonchalance as he did critical slams of “Emotional Rescue.”

It’s tarnishing all my enjoyment of my favorite band.

Of course, it could be worse. I could have written the Keith Richards book “Life.”

Talk about career-killing mistakes. Keith may have killed the only thing he loves more than himself: The Rolling Stones.

He violated the number one rule of the warts ‘n’ all autobiography genre: He actually makes himself look worse than the public perception of him.

His book is warts ‘n’ warts.

I know it makes zero sense for me to be disappointed when a man I’ve always admired for his defiant excesses writes a book defiantly celebrating those excesses, but that’s how I feel.

I might feel differently if he was even the least bit deferential to Mick Jagger, only the greatest performer the world’s ever known.

He devotes four pages to how he wrote the riff for “Satisfaction,” and barely credits Mick as the song’s lyricist

“Satisfaction” is maybe the most important song in rock history. But “Brown Sugar” is a better song.

Here’s all Keith had to say about that one: “‘All Down the Line’ came directly out of ‘Brown Sugar,’ which Mick wrote.”

That’s it. Five words.

He writes about Jagger as if he were the bass player, not the man without whom he’d be nothing.

Keith makes it seem like he did all the writing, all the performing and he’s the reason we keep showing up to see the band perform.

They aren’t true brothers so any Freudian interpretations must be shelved. This isn’t a sibling rivalry.

It’s a sniveling one.

He accuses Jagger of diva-like behavior. He says he acts entitled. He insists on posh frivolities. He demands perfection of those performing with him.

Good heavens. Who does he think he is? Mick Jagger?

Jagger performed a Solomon Burke tribute at last year’s Grammies. It was mesmerizing.

He is electrifying. He is lithe. He moves like quicksilver across polished marble.

He is 68.

There are 1,000 guys like Keith who make great, memorable music that stay true to the roots of rock ‘n’ roll that will forever inspire.

But, c’mon, there’s only one Mick Jagger.

Today Mick is making forgettable music with disposable musicians. Keith is re-forming the solid, but unremarkable X-Pensive Winos.

I wonder if they’ll ever write or perform together again. Jagger hasn’t said a word of graceless rebuttal about the tawdry book, proving he’s truly a man of wealth and taste.

I used to believe Keith was the swashbuckling heart and soul of the Stones, the one who kept them blues-based and more about the music than the giant inflatable hookers Mick liked to bounce around in on stage.

Now I’ve come to believe Mick’s the heart.

Keith’s more like the sole.

With this book, he’s certainly proven himself to be a real heel.

Random thoughts from NYC

News reports say stranded cruise passengers survived on nothing but spam, mayo sandwiches and booze! Booze! Booze! Sounds like my diet from 1985-89.

I’m confident I could write a decent and semi-coherent blog post about the whole incident, but I’m lacking the motivation.

As previously reported, I’m in the midst of a splendid NYC frolic. My every instinct is to completely blow off the blog until I feel the urge to write something Thanksgivingy.

But after blogging about three times a week for more than two years I feel compelled to post something. Anything.

This is a mild form of insanity. It’s not like the blog police will come along and revoke my license to blog or make me take a blogging pay cut.

So here are some random thoughts from the past couple of days mingled with a tweet or two.

• Critics saying Bush's "Decision Points" is no "War & Peace." Had he been true to history, he'd have named his book, "War & War.” The release of books by two of my favorite topics for vastly different reasons -- Bush and Keith Richards -- should have spurred thousands of words of comment for me. But all I could manage about Bush was the “War & War” line. I just didn’t want to pile on. As for Keith, I’m couldn’t be more thrilled that by writing his life story he and I are now colleagues. 

• If coral is a stony ocean rock and corral is a pony pen, can corrral be a rocky ocean enclosure to keep seahorses?

• If the Shaws had a son and they named him Rick, would Rick Shaw be destined to go into the ground transportation business?

• Yesterday our group had a really great driver who full times as a decorated NYPD officer. He honored me by inviting me to ride shotgun in the big luxury van so we could yap without interference. We talked all day about our favorite foods. He’d recently driven his family to Pittsburgh just to enjoy a Primanti’s sandwich. How cool is that? We talked about America’s great heirloom sandwiches from muffaletta, to cheese steaks, to lobster rolls. He told me some great cop stories, too, about his involvement in the Times Square bomber case, which celebs are cool (Dan Ackroyd) and which are jerks (Alex Rodriguez and Beyonce). And he told mea about an incident from just the other day where he held a victim’s bloody, dangling eyeball in his hand while awaiting the ambulance. We’re going to meet for cigars next time I’m in town. All I bring to the table in this friendship is a lot of questions. He’s got the stories. I’ve got the questions. I could ask guys like this questions until out of boredom he tases my chest just to get me to shut up.

• How about a half-hour antiquing show where former Happy Days star Erin Moran seeks interesting items. Call it "Joannie Loves Tchotchke!”

• In all my years of visiting New York, I’ve rarely gone to Broadway shows. It just seems too prohibitive with costs, time and other concerns when there are so many other wonderful options. That’s going to change. Last night our gracious hosts took us to see “Memphis.” It’ll go down as one of the best times I’ve ever had in New York. It was absolutely enchanting and I was blown away by the joy and the talent up on stage. I wish I had the dough to tell my wife and the kids to meet me at the airport on Monday so I could fly them right back here to see “Memphis” again. I want to share it with loved ones and cranky strangers. Everyone’s life would be better if everyone went to see “Memphis.”

• I asked my cop friend if there’s ever been a show that even glancingly captures the day-to-day life a New York City police officer. Never, he said. Not even close. I discreetly refrained from telling him about my “NYPD Pink” idea.

• Spent a few hours at the Guggenheim Museum yesterday. It had me dreaming of opening my own art gallery. Patrons will enter and find four bare walls and a roomful of regular guys who do nothing but say, “Hello, I’m Art.”

• The toes on my left foot are getting so spread out I might be the first person in history to be able to give someone the finger with a foot.

• Visiting a really great museum gives me such a happy and peaceful feeling, yet if anyone knew all the moronic thoughts going on in my head security would hustle me out the door and forever ban my re-entry. One example: I saw a bunch of statues of nude men and was repeatedly struck by the bronzed examples of what Keith Richards would call their “tiny todgers.” Either men have evolved in ways that must be satisfying to women or else artists back then were intent on insulting their models. Maybe size didn’t matter in what was known as the age of enlightenment. Of course, what the hell do I know? Maybe next time I go to the Guggenheim, I’ll hire a hooker to comment on the scale of all the art.

• Like many great cities, New York is struggling for revenue. I’ll bet the city could earn nearly $1 billion if it sold for development just about six or seven prime acres of Central Park. Of course they’d never do that, nor should they. That Manhattan island, maybe the priciest chunk of land on the planet, reserves a whopping 843 acres for recreation is a tribute to the priorities of New Yorkers.

• Now, I hope you have a peaceful and relaxing Sunday in the warm embrace of loved ones. On my last day in New York City, I’ll be doing the complete opposite.

When Sprawl-o-ween eats October

Only four more shopping days to Halloween. That means our Halloween tree has been up for three weeks.

As Halloween trees go, ours is modest. It’s about 4-feet tall, is decorated with tiny rubber bats, some Jack-O-Lantern tinsel and has funereal black boughs to match my mood as we enter the Halloween home stretch.

Growing up, I never knew Halloween was anything but a single day, B-list holiday. It didn’t mean as much to me as Christmas, Easter or any of the other candy-plus-vacation holidays.

I’d dress up like a cowboy or an astronaut and go out and haul candy home in an old pillow case.

I dressed up purely for the candy. I didn’t harbor any childish ambitions to actually become a cowboy or astronaut. Back then, my only ambition was to become a boy who didn’t have to go to school.

Times change. Today, Halloween has become a month-long Caligulian candy fest. It has me wondering if the American Dental Association isn’t behind the whole spread.

Of course, the kids love it. Sprawl-o-ween means all of October is studded with adults handing out cheap candy at banks, drive-thrus and at parties in grocery stores and even church basements where you’d think a pagan holiday that tips its hat to Satan would be tsk-tsked by the holy folk.

No sign of that. Halloween is harmless to all but the dour fundamentalists who view it as another unholy assault on all that’s decent in America.

So I’m all for that.

But I just don’t get how this of all holidays became so super-sized. How in this age of childhood obesity, wanton candy distribution has yet to be demonized is a mystery.

I suspect many adults revel in the holiday for escapist opportunities. There’s nothing wrong with that. Life can be such a slog.

Me, I need less escape and more normal. With the glaring exception of near-zero income, man, I’ve got it made. I enjoy ample bar time, have a wonderful and understanding wife, and the kids are still at a tender age where a single glare will cease their sass.

That’s hardly all. The Pittsburgh Steelers are 5-1, author Keith Richards and I are now colleagues, and no matter what happens on election day, not a single vote for Bush/Cheney will be tallied.

Given the way my life is turning out, I’m surprised I don’t see kids shuffling up my sidewalk dressed as me. You’d think being me would be more aspirational to many aimless youth than, say, dressing up as a fireman.

My seasonal grouchiness is in direct contrast to that of my ‘weenie lovin’ wife -- and that’s as dangerous a line as you’ll find in a family-friendly blog.

She loves Halloween. The tree was her idea.

I guess much of my pique has to do with bats.

Not the rodent kind, mind you.

The Louisville Slugger kind.

For the past few years the monster that has become Halloween has devoured my precious post-season.

There are just too many Halloween-related events when baseball is at its most sublime. And with each passing game, I’m one day closer to the baseball Siberia that coincides with the cruelest months of the year.

Take last Halloween. Val was invited one of those over-the-top theatrical Halloweens where every room is decorated and all the guests look like extras from a movie where everyone gets slain.

It sure killed me because it was held during Game 4 of the World Series between the Phillies and Yankees.

Val -- and I told you she was understanding -- knew my aversion to dressing up as anything but an underemployed blogger and went easy on me.

She got out some old cat whiskers, tail, ears and the like.

While she was a come-hither kitty, and I wound up being a real sour puss.

I tried to be nice, but was furrious, er, furious to learn people who are into Halloween are cruelly judgmental of people who are not.

They looked at us like we didn’t belong. They made us feel inferior. They wondered who’d let us in.

For the first time in my life, me, a white man with cat whiskers, knew what it was like to be oppressed.

The sting of discrimination stuck in my paw, er, craw.

Sort of like the Halloween that ate October.

Roll on, Stones

The most important nugget I gleaned during four years of incidental education at Ohio University had more to do with philosophy than journalism.

It was bestowed not by an illustrious professor in an august hall, but by a boisterous bartender in a dingy tavern.

I still repeat it word-for-word to youths who seek my wisdoms about how to navigate this cruel practical joke we all call life.

It is eight words long and I now share it with you to enhance your lives and the lives of the needy. Here goes:

“You can’t have a party without The Stones.”

That’s it. It’s all you need to know.

The Golden Rule, fortune cookie Confuciusisms and myriad self-help books all come up wanting next to that nimble little guidepost.

I’ve been to parties without the Stones and they invariably suck. A really good party needs the Stones.

And so does a really good life.

As the band hits the publicity circuit to celebrate the release of the “Exile on Mainstreet,” I’ve been immersed in the Rolling Stones. But, really, I’ve been immersed in them since I learned how to use my ears.

I love country music, listen to jazz, classical and bluegrass. My playlists are crowded with Dylan, Springsteen, Kinks, Petty, Van Morrison and the sublime Mark Knopfler. I can find something to appreciate in all forms of music -- and I don’t count rap, Celine Dion or anything Ryan Seacrest listens to as music.

So, you see, I’m not a music snob.

But nothing hits me on the testicular level the way The Rolling Stones always have.

One thing that I’ve always loved about the Stones is that they’d be nothing without each other. Mick Jagger would be a banker, Charlie Watts would be a famous jazz drummer (famous to about 400 people), Bill Wyman would be a gynecologist, and Keith Richards would be a bum.

Even as a bum, Keith would still be the most interesting of the bunch and the one I’d sit on the sidewalk to listen to.

In fact, the only member of the original Stones whose life trajectory would not be altered would be Brian Jones who would still have died young.

I love the Beatles but their dynamic was the exact opposite. Each of the Beatles would have become famous without the others. John, Paul and George each had genius that would have led to musical fame and without the others Ringo would have become a dandy game show host.

And this is more complicated than it sounds, but The Stones have always been about the music. They would still be together and making great music if all the fame vanished.

The money, the girls, the excess has always been secondary to the music.

With the exception of guys like Steve Earle, you don’t see that kind of authenticity much anymore.

Mick was on Larry King the other night and, as always, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. His every expression is riveting. I was struck by how watching the 76-year-old King interview Jagger, 67, made Jagger seem 35 and King seem about 98.

The men are basically contemporaries.

It’s impossible to think of anything on earth that’s been as consistently outstanding as The Stones have been since 1964.

The Catholic Church? C’mon. Even America, the greatest country on earth, has had to endure Vietnam, Watergate and Kate Gosselin.

Compared to those institutions, the only smudge on the Stones during that same time, “Dirty Work” in 1986, is small potatoes.

“Exile on Main Street” was made in 1972 and it’s hard to argue that it isn’t their best. It came on the heels of “Beggar’s Banquet” ‘(68), “Let it Bleed” (’69) and Sticky Fingers (’71), a rock ‘n’ roll Rushmore that only The Beatles can equal during the same epoch.

Music in general’s been going downhill ever since, but the Stones still move the needle, even if they don’t use it anymore.

People who mock them and say they should have hung it up after “Some Girls” in 1978 just must not like music.

“What do they expect us to do?” Keith’s asked. “Set down our guitars and sign up for plumbing school? We’re musicians. This is what we do.”

And nobody’s ever done it better. Still. I could make raging rock fans out of primitive tribesmen by shoving earbuds into their heads and playing overlooked gems “Steel Wheels” (’89) and “Voodoo Lounge” (’94).

And it’ll sound sacrilegious even to many other Stones fans, but “A Bigger Bang” from 2005 ranks among their very best, including the revered “Exile.”

I defy anyone to listen to the songs, “Rough Justice,” “Driving Too Fast,” “Biggest Mistake” and the sublime Keith song, “This Place is Empty” and not be as moved as they are by the rock, country and balladry from their hallowed years.

I once, just for the fun of it, tried to compose the most depressing true statement about this riddle of life. Here’s what I came up with:

“Life is an endless series of disappointments, each one greater than the last, leading inexorably to the grave.”

Ha!

Of course, I don’t believe anything of the sort. But life is short and life is hard. You need to crowd it up with all the love and laughter you can find before it’s all taken away.

Really, life is a party.

And you just can’t have a party without The Stones.

Enough already! Awash in staples

It dawned on me at the cash register that the $4.29 I paid for 5,000 staples will be the last money I’ll ever spend on staples in this mortal coil. It was the smallest quantity they had in the mega office supply store store named, coincidentally, Staples.

I’m 46 and lead a reasonably healthy and risk-free life. The actuarial tables indicate I ought to make it another good 30 years or so.

But I’ll need to go on a crazy stapling binge to use 5,000 staples during that anticipated spread. I just don’t see it happening. And it’s doubtful someone’s going to come along with a revolutionary new item that will render my vast staple empire obsolete.

So one day in, say, the year 2038, one or the other of my darling daughters will be clearing out the detritus of my spent life and they’ll find the little box of staples about the size of kid’s toy tractor trailer. It’s doubtful it’ll register to either of them that I bought them way back in 2009 and that the tiny unsung office soldiers in the war on disorderliness triggered an odd moment of melancholy.

Who knows? Maybe finding the staples will trigger in one of the girls a flash of fury because if things keep going the way they are, the staples will be the only thing their impoverished father’s going leave behind for either of them.

I may not have a lot of money, but if life’s wealth can be measured in staples then I’m rich beyond measure.

Mr. Staples behind the register asked, “Will there be anything else?”

“No,” I told him. “I have all I need.”

And, truly, I do. At least in regards to staples and guys like Bruce Springsteen.

A friend of mine, a huge Boss fan, said he, like me, immediately bought the new Springsteen album, ‘Working on a Dream,’ when it came out in February.

“I like it, but I just know I’ll never listen to it,” Dave said. “It’s like U2. I listen to their new album and think, ‘Ah, this reminds me of some of the post-industrial grunge of ‘Achtung Baby’ from 1991.’ So why would I listen to it when I can listen to the better and more original album? With Bruce, I like the new album but when I’m in the mood to listen to Bruce, I’ll just listen to ‘Darkness’ or ‘The River’.”

He’s right. I’ve been finding myself saying no to artists I used to reflexively buy. So when new music from artists like U2, Lyle Lovett, Elton John, or Eric Clapton pops up, I just pass.

(I’ll still buy anything from Bob Dylan, Mark Knopfler, Joe Ely, Todd Snider, and the peerless Van Morrison. And, taunt if you will, but The Rolling Stones still kick ass; I’ll argue till I’m hoarse that 2005’s ‘A Bigger Bang’ is a classic).

But I have 7,578 songs in my iTunes library. I’d need to rock for 20.8 straight days to listen to it all, and not even a booze- and drug-fueled Keith Richards can stay awake for that long.

Enough already!

I’ve never bought any music by the techno-pop artist Moby, although I once whooped it up at a swanky private NYC party with him, Gwyneth Paltrow and Madonna, and when I say that -- and I often do -- it winks at the idea that the four of us were giggling and spilling champagne all over one another’s topless bodies. And that may have happened, but if it did it happened after one of us split the party to watch the Mets v. Yankees in the 2000 World Series in a Chelsea dive.

Guess which of us A-listers did that?

But Moby was asked in the current issue of New York magazine if he could, as scientists are doing with mice, erase memories, would he? His answer is brilliant:

“If I erased the memories of embarrassing things I’ve done, it would increase the likelihood I’d do all these incredibly stupid things again. The only memories that might make sense to erase would be the good ones so that way you could experience things for the first time again, you know?”

Perfect.

Once you get past 40, much of life is like the past two seasons of the relentlessly baffling ABC show, “Lost.” It’s an often bewildering story that seems to deliberately go nowhere and is chock full of tedious reruns that fail to shed light on any of the nonsense that’s gone before.

If this all sounds depressing, I certainly don’t mean it to be.

It just makes it more challenging and makes each fresh adventure, friendship or discovery more satisfying.

We need to find creative and exciting ways to use all the staples before we die.

I think I’m going to spend the rest of the day jotting down a quixotic list of all things I want to avoid ever doing again -- taxes! -- and a list of some of the things I want to try and get around to doing -- party once more with Moby!

Then I’ll stack the papers together and affix them with one of my shiny brand new staples.

Just 4,999 to go!

The "rock stars" of the financial media

For anyone who reads this blog in hopes of comedic diversion, this one could be a doozy. I’m about to opine on the economy.

This ought to be funny because through dint of my historically underpaid profession combined with my god-given laziness, I’ve rarely had ample funds. I’ve never earned much and have endured many years when my idea of a splurge was getting a pizza with pepperoni and sausage.

So maybe I should be the last guy to assess the economic recovery, but here goes: I believe it’s going to happen sooner and cause less widespread hardship than any of the experts are so gloomily predicting.

Why should anyone believe me?

Because for years I’ve been doing exactly what everyone agrees the entire country needs to be doing to return to fiscal solvency.

I’ve lived responsibly.

I’ve paid off all my bills down to zero. I haven’t lived extravagantly. The four cars I’ve owned have all been paid off and driven a minimum of -- sorry Detroit -- five years. My wife and I paid off our first house in 12 years. My credit cards rarely carry a balance.

I did this in spite of tempting news reports that hinted I could be doing more with my money by embracing the schemes now being blamed for our current mess.

And that’s because I’ve never trusted the celebrated big shots of the financial media.

Financial reporters used to be uniformly dour and gloomy as the agate type on the stock pages, and that’s as it should be. I’ve never believed in any get-rich-quick schemes, preferring to get my financial advice from penny pinching wisemen like Benjamin Franklin.

Then around about 1995 irrational exuberance began sweeping the country. Bartenders started sharing stock tips. Desperate housewives without more cuddly pool boy options started forming investing clubs. Brash hosts on cable financial news shows started acting like carnival barkers.

People started calling them the “rock stars” of the financial world.

Let’s get this straight. To call anyone in any field that doesn’t involve drugs, groupies and ear-blistering electric guitars a rock star is a blazing insult to historic excessives like Keith Richards, Tommy Lee and Keith Moon.

You’re either a rock star or just some dork with a schtick.

Take Rick Santelli, for instance. He’s the big mouth from CNBC who made waves last week declaring it’s time to revolt against the Obama stimulus package. The rant elevated him from sub-cable purgatory to the major news networks and even earned him a tut-tutting from White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.

Once again it left me wondering if that’s what it takes enjoy national notoriety but the only equivalent way for me to ape that sort of shrill idiocy is to start typing my posts in OBNOXIOUS ALL-CAPITAL LETTERS. But that hurts my eyes and I’m not about to start doing that.

Most of the financial experts I see commenting on TV today look like they’re in way over their heads. Without fat portfolios to substantiate their genius and videotaped warnings proving they saw it all coming, the blustery guys look feckless and their fresh young female counterparts look like girls who stayed too long at the frat party.

The best and only financial advice I’ve ever heeded came from my brother, the -- ta!da! -- financial advisor. He told me about 20 years ago: “Always pay yourself 10 percent of every paycheck first, and then pay off your bills.”

Simply put, that means if I get a check for $1,000 -- and this is a wild hypothetical because that hasn’t happened in months -- take $100 and put it in a savings account that generates compound interest. Then take the remaining money and pay off what you owe. If you have any leftover, use it to splurge on something like a pizza with pepperoni and sausage.

It’s that simple. The advice has given me a sound foundation upon which to weather difficult times, and I'm optimistic that's what's in store for America.

(By the way, the other great piece of advice I received and share without fail to dewey-eyed newlyweds is: Always argue naked.)

So there it is. I think before you know it, we’re all going to be fine. We’re going to have some difficult times, but it’ll be more cleansing than painful.

We just need to help each other whenever we can and focus on little things to get us through the day.

And if you struggle today to find something hopeful to help you carry on, I offer this: In the next day or so, I’m going to write about why after five years I decided to change my head shot for my various on-line endeavors.

I don’t know why, but for some reason I think that’s going to pull one or two of you through whatever tumult the next day or so is bound to bring. I hope something does.