Exile to the Shuffle/One Heck of a Senior Discount

In Lou Schuler’s blog this morning, he made mention of a Rolling Stones album, Exile on Main Street. That album has long been one of my favorite Stones albums, and according to the Wikepedia article linked on Lou’s blog, it’s widely considered the best Rolling Stones album ever recorded. What I didn’t know was that the album was recorded while Keith Richards was becoming mired in heroin addiction. And, the entire recording process, it seems, was marked by friction and uncertainty. A fair portion of Exile on Main Street was recorded at Richards’ villa in France, and during the sessions, a rift grew between Richards and Mick Jagger. Keith, it seems, along with hangers-on such as Gram Parsons, preferred to approach the sessions as an excuse for a prolonged drug orgy, while Mick Jagger, Bill Wyman, and Charlie Watts stayed relatively clear-headed. (Gram Parsons, who's widely considered the father of "country rock," would soon die at the age of twenty-six, felled by his own perennial overindulgence.)

It’s amazing those guys stayed together through the seventies. Hell, it’s amazing they’re all still alive. (Of course, founding member Brian Jones isn’t. He died in his swimming pool in July, 1969.)

I was ready, after making my morning blog cruise, to head off for the gym, but now I feel compelled to load Exile on Main Street onto my shuffle.

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If you're hosting a party, and some guests are staying too long, what do you do? Here's what: put on Pat Boone's CD In a Metal Mood. Nothing clears out a room faster than Pat Boone singing Deep Purple, Metallica, and AC/DC covers. (Although Golden Throats: The Great Celebrity Sing Off comes close.)

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If you're an older guy living in Germany, here’s something to cheer you up. According to a Reuters article, a brothel in Germany is offering a sizeable discount for patrons over the age of 66. The brothel tried a test run of sorts by offering half-price services to seniors one day a week. The test run ended up being so successful that the brothel extended its “Senior Afternoon” offer to every afternoon, every day. Proof of age is required.

My guess is that the “if a cat can scratch it” test won’t be accepted for proof of age.