Getting Old

A Blog by Mick Anger #2

Getting Old

If you are among the majority of us that are quickly gaining on the time of life euphemistically referred to as “the golden years” you might agree that that description is  blatantly bland and misleading. I believe that most of us are pretty unhappy with the advance of years and many of the ensuing changes that it brings.

Things like being upset when you see a teenager with their pants hanging around their ass so far they have to use one hand to hold them up when they walk or, they assume that wide legged gait that looks like there is a load in their shorts. I mean, What's up with that?

We ( the hippies ) dressed in a manner that, true to our youth and rebellious stance, put off our parents and their generation, but it really never threatened to take us down if we had to sprint across an intersection to avoid being hit by a car. OK, maybe an extreme headband could have been dangerous if you worked in a textile mill or a factory, but, who worked? I mean, at a real job?

And don’t get me started about the course that popular music has taken since the 80’s when I pretty much stopped listening to anything that wasn’t Punk or New Wave. Rap and Hip Hop escaped me, I tried at first, but it was futile. The stuff just sounded bad to me and eventually it could upset me just to hear it if I couldn’t get away from it.

And how about the misery of getting old with all the aches and pains? Remember laughing at “old people” when you were young because all they ever talked about was their pains, their meds, and the deads? 

Boy, talk about fucking irony, how about that one?

I could go on, but maybe that was enough for now.

Naw’ I’m just getting started!

Retail, what about that, huh? Remember when you walked into a store and were accosted by personnel fawning over you and offering help with anything you needed? Remember that?

Remember that next time you have to use one of those red phones at a Target store to get some crumb of information about something you want to spend your money on!

Another fashion note, “hooker wear” for little girls. I mean, it isn’t just the Toddlers and Tiaras girls who look like they are all ready for some deviant fun, mothers in the real world emulate what they see as a “Hot” look for their little princess. Can this lead to anything but more child molestation? These girls and the show are an open invitation to seriously demented people to let their fantasies run wild. Does the world need this? I think not.

I am not trying to say that my way is the only way, only a fool would do that. What I am really asking is “is this the world we imagine for ourselves”? Do you want 6 year old girls that look like they are 19? What good can come from that? Aren’t there better things to teach your daughter? 

What I do like is the proliferation of my kind of shows on TV. Two History channels are much better than one, twice as much, actually. And the amount of documentary programming is growing all the time. And I don’t mean “Reality Shows” when I say documentary. 

What I feel about “Reality Shows” is another subject, entirely! I’m sure I’ll get to it another time.

That’s it for now, talk to me in the comments.


© 2012 Mick Anger - All Rights Reserved

Who are you?

A Blog by Mick Anger #1

Who are you?

This is the first installment of my new blog about how I feel about the things that make up my (and by association, your ) world.

Like it says up there, who cares? Well, I hope someone does and that is the most important thing when it comes to this blogging thing, at least it is if your first goal isn’t to make money. The internet is littered with unsuccessful attempts at self publishing. You don’t have to look far. I have a couple myself.

Why do I think I have a chance would be a better question. And to elucidate that I offer a brief Bio.

I’m a white male, 61 and I confess to being of liberal persuasion. I was brought up a catholic in Phoenix, Arizona. I was a hippie in the mid sixties, into drugs like pot and acid and went to all the love-ins at Encanto park, if only to score. I was into music and the equipment to play it from the age of about 12 and ended up dropping out in my junior year of high school to end up in 1969 working for a band as a roadie, one of the people who takes care of the gear and the musicians, or musos as they are affectionately known. That band was “The Beans” eventually known as “The Tubes”.

I got lucky and made the “big-time” going pro in 1973 with a gig taking care of the back line and Carlos for Santana from’73 to ’77. 

After that I tried a brief stint as a graphic artist from ’77 to ’80, with a fabulous side trip into the field of concert video projection in 1978, years before it took the touring world by storm. After a summer with the Kool Jazz Festival I knew that the video business was the place I wanted to be from that day on, but it would take a few years for the world to catch up. That’s when (1980) I took a job with Nightmare Inc, the management company for Journey. 

With Journey I was the receptionist and the main go-between for the entire industry and their manager, Herbie Herbert at a time when they were rapidly becoming the the hottest act ever seen in the arena rock world. As the gatekeeper I met a lot of new and influential people who had to get past me to get to Herbie or even to his secretary. I learned a lot in those days about how the business really ran. A not especially fragrant vision.

Then in 1982 the management made me a proposition. They were going to invest in a new division of their production company for large screen video reinforcement and their first client would be Journey, guaranteeing a paying client from day one.

I talked it over with my wife, Nicki, and told them I was in, even though it meant I could not go back to the old job if it didn’t work out. We never looked back.

Read more about my history here: http://www.totaldanger.com/td_pages/resumepages/resume.html

I continued to tour in the music business with some of the biggest names for more than 30 years until recently when the brutal physical nature of the work finally disabled me to the point where it got to be difficult to do the job, at least the more physical aspects of it.

I am currently recovering from total knee replacement and find myself with the time for other projects, including this blog.

I hope you’ll find it interesting to read and that you may occasionally agree with me, or even more interesting potentially, disagree with me. 

Like it says, “Who Cares?”

Let me know how you feel in the comments.


© 2012 Mick Anger - All Rights Reserved