I was a pretty hip kid. My wife and sons would laugh at me for saying that but they didn't know me as a kid so how would they know? I am the acknowledged expert in our family for art and music and pop culture in general of the Sixties through the Eighties ( a to a lesser degree the Fifties) so just because I'm not up on the latest Boy Bands or video games doesn't mean I wasn't hip as a kid.
I recently checked in to the possibility of going to a Rock & Roll Autograph Fest, a fan convention where "rock stars" will be to sign autographs. They listed some big bands but the actual musicians attending the event are side men who in many cases weren't even original band members. Howard Leese from Heart was one of the bigger names. Heard of him? I have but that's because I'm hip.
I was thinking of attending because I occasionally like to paint musicians and it's cool to have them sign the paintings. I thought I could bring some blank canvasses and get them signed then paint around the signatures later. Then I read the small print and learned that although the admission fee for the event was only $20.00 the autographs are charged by whatever the individual musician wants to charge at the time.
I told my wife the guys I would want to have sign my canvases would be Mickey Dolenz from The Monkees, Chuck Negron from Three Dog Night and Mark Lindsay from Paul Revere and the Raiders. To me those are the biggest names appearing at this event. My wife said that no one remembers any of those guys. She does of course but she doubts the population at large does. I disagreed and said the kids remember The Monkees because MTV reran the series in the 80s so today I got an email from her that said she was at lunch with her coworkers from a bank and none of them have ever heard of Mickey Donlenz OR The Monkees! I asked her to ask if they've ever heard of Mark Lindsey and if not, have they ever heard the name Paul Revere. If they've never heard of Paul Revere they're not just not pop fans, they're unAmerican.
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