My friends wanted to be Policemen, Firemen, Major League Baseball players and Teachers.
For the most part they did though some became drug addicts, Prostitutes, Attorneys and ... a surprisingly large number of Car Salesmen.
I never wavered though ... I was gonna be a rock star.
Focusing on the art of being a rock star rather than the music ... I excelled.
I was often in trouble for my outrageous antics ... like locking the announcers out of the booth at Groves High Stadium so Gene Prevatt and I could broadcast the game and, as our beloved teacher Gretchen Johnson was a celebrity cheerleader on the field ... we warned everyone in attendance that if they'd had any personal contact with her ... there's a "Free Clinic" in Savannah that can help.
It was hilarious ... right up until the busted the door open and hauled Gene Prevatt and I out for punishment.
In College though I got more serious about the music and hung around Rick Hudson who can really play and made me look more like the rock star I really am.
Rick and I were "Big Time" regularly playing at "Lum's Hot Dogs" in the Oglethorpe Mall, at the White Bluff United Methodist Church and our famous "Free Concerts" in Sweetheart Circle at Georgia Southern College.
Then Rick regained his senses and the band broke up.
Rick's now famous as a member of "Fried Okra" in Delaware or South Dakota or someplace like that.
We did stage a famous reunion when he showed up at Bar Church and we sang together on stage but then his wife came in and drug him out killing all hope of putting the band back together again.
These days I hang around aging rock stars ... just like me ... having weathered the storms of making others suffer for our music.
We meet on Tuesday Nights at Doc's Bar because Monty Parks needs a place to play on Tuesday Nights.
It's a free concert because ... on Tuesday Nights ... you can't give it away.
But we have lots of fun.
And according to a recent interview in the not-so-mainstream media, fellow rock star Thomas Oliver says, "It changed my life."
Thomas was a newspaper reporter before becoming a rock star so the bar was pretty low.
Anyway, the Monty Park's Tybee Island Tuesday Night Acoustic Jam is becoming legend for what we do to songs.
You don't need to play records backwards to understand us!
Yeah and we got "Groupies" ... well ... John Iacovini's got them ... but the rest of us are pretty close to them which is almost the same as having them.
I'm appreciative of being part of this amazing group of aging rockers.
I'm typing with one hand because I've lit a Bic Lighter paying homage to my rock-and-roll journey.
Because, as our peer Neil Young says, "We'd rather rust out than burn away" ... or something like that.
