Remember the days when we were all amused to discover that Rolling Stones' bass player Bill Wyman had acquired himself a hobby in the form of metal detecting? The thought of a Rock Star supplementing their excessive lifestyle with a mundane past-time seemed faintly ridiculous.
However, those of us that have sat through the recent news coverage regarding collapse of the XL travel group will have witnessed the spectacle of Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson being interviewed in his capacity as commercial airline pilot, describing how he and his employers were about to take part in the global 'air-lift' in bringing the stranded tourists home!
And very smart he looked, in his uniform and cap, and not a skull in sight! Although Bruce describes his second occupation as a hobby, he's wrong, it's a job. A highly qualified, highly paid job with enormous responsibility.
And it doesn't stop there. Remember Skunk Baxter? He's the guy playing lead guitar on Steely Dan's 'Realing in the years' and played on their first three albums before moving to the Doobie Brothers. A virtuoso, and former sidekick of Jimi Hendrix, he built a sterling reputation as a major session axeman from the seventies onwards and was the epitome stoned cool.
Well, how times have changed! These days Skunk is better known as a US government weapons specialist! He got himself a whole other job working for the man!
Meanwhile, over in the beau monde, Red or Dead designer Wayne Hemingway has been moonlighting as an urban planner! Better known as the son of Native American wrestling hero Billy Two Rivers, Hemingway, like Skunk, has become a government advisor, in this case on housing and urban development!
Now, I'm not putting these guys down, they have, after all, gained repute in two careers, whereas I've yet to manage even one, but I'm of the generation that believed in a popular culture that opposed the establishment, and existed to question the status quo (or even Status Quo come to think about it). It may not have been a real rebellion, but it felt like one, and you were reassured that your heroes, when not rocking and cutting a dash, were out there debauching themselves in the decadent underworld of louche living.
I am therefore not equipped for a world where the rebellion's role models have day jobs.
More absinthe Rimbaud?
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