Back in ‘57, I thought I knew...
Back in ‘57, I thought I knew all the words that went with rock ‘n’ roll. Sex and drugs, of course. You’re gonna go deaf , of course. It’ll rot your mind.
Nobody told me about depreciation.
The other day, I showed my daughter my most precious possession--a piece of Elvis’ shirt that I tore off his back at a club in Memphis before he even became Elvis, if you know what I mean--and she sort of sniffed and turned up her nose and said, “Mom, how do I know this isn’t just some old hankie the dog chewed on?”
I pulled out the rest of my collection. The broken bead from one of Janis Joplin’s necklaces looked like any other bead. The Mason jar of genuine Woodstock mud could have come from my own back yard. The Grateful Dead memorial roach clip--well, I couldn’t show her that. The long, blond hair from David Bowie’s head that fell through the spotlighted, pulsating air and landed in my lap one magical night at the Coliseum--suddenly, even to me, it looked like a hair from the Madonna wig I used to wear before she switched back to dark again.
My daughter put her finger on it. “Mom,” she said, “none of this stuff is ID’d. Nothing has a logo. “
She must have seen the tears in my eyes. “Cheer up, Mom,” she said. “Here’s another chance. And you can do some good, too, in the fight against AIDS.”
She’s right. Paintings, sculptures, drawings, lithographs, photographs, signed lyric sheets and other works by Bowie, John Lennon, Jerry Garcia, Mick Jagger, Tom Petty, Ron Wood, John Mellencamp, Santana and more than 50 other entertainers will be on sale through Thursday at the KLSX Classic Rock Art Show at the Directors Guild of America, 7920 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Admission is free.
Rock fans like me can pick up one-of-a-kind products of our idols’ diverse talents--stuff with ID, stuff you can hang on the wall--for prices ranging from $20 to $500,000. Proceeds will benefit the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR).
“Whaddaya say, Mom?” my daughter asked. “What’s the word?’ ‘
Doo-wop.
