What We Do For Love

After a somewhat stumbling start to my week, I’m happy to let Slim Randles entertain us all today with a bit of levity. 

First I’m in great need of chocolate. How about you? Want to join me in some decadence? Help yourself and enjoy…

When you have a teenage relative, and the minimum age is 21 to go to a certain rock concert, and this relative has to go to the concert or die. Seriously. Die. Because life isn’t worth living if she misses it. And, if someone under 21 can go to the concert only if an adult accompanies them. And … if the only adult who will listen to the begging and the crying and the gnashing of teeth happens to be a semi-old cowboy, well … say hello to Starving Chickens.

I figured, with a name like Starving Chickens, this band probably wouldn’t have the strength to do more than a few numbers before breaking for burgers and fries.

Well, that was just about as wrong a job of figuring as was the rest of my figuring. You see, I also figured the music wouldn’t really hurt your ears, because they would want it to be a pleasant experience. I also figured that with three electric guitars on the stage at one time, at least one guitar player would hit the right chords.

Furthermore, I figured there would be some friendly banter between the group’s leader and the audience. You know, “Hi, how are you, having fun tonight? Now here’s one of our most-requested tunes,” things like that.

The older I get, the wronger I get.

Oh, the head screamer of Starving Chickens (I call him Tattoo Boy) came out to say something to all the impressionable minds waiting for his droplets of wisdom, friendship, and gratitude for coughing up admission. He looked around and then told them to do something quite rude, as well as anatomically impossible.

This brought down the house.

Impressionable Teen looked up at me with the stars of the universe in her eyes and yelled, “Oh wow! Did you hear what he said? And he looked right at me when he said it!”

Then it was two hours of throbbing before we got better. When it was over, we asked each other in sign language if we’d had fun. One thumbs up, one thumbs down.

Sometimes you have to work to stay current with what’s going on in life.

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You can join me now in saying, “Poor Slim.” And he did change the name of the rock band. Just to save you an unnecessary Google search, I did it for you. There were some pretty sad stories about actual chickens starving. ICK!!

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Brought to you by Merrick Petcare  in Hereford, Texas. “We know it’s not just food in that bowl, it’s love. And that’s why it has to be the best.”

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Check out all of Slim’s award-winning books at www.slimrandles.com, and in better bookstores and bunkhouses throughout the free world.

All of the posts here are from his syndicated column, Home Country that is read in hundreds of newspapers across the country. I am always happy to have him share his wit and wisdom here.

Slim Randles is a veteran newspaperman, hunting guide, cowboy and dog musher. He was a feature writer and columnist for The Anchorage Daily News for 10 years and guided hunters in the Alaska Range and the Talkeetna Mountains. A resident of New Mexico now for more than 30 years, Randles is the prize-winning author of a dozen books, and is host of two podcasts and a television program.