Led Zeppelin, Evel Knievel and the search for the missing elderly

When I was growing up, elderly men — that was, anyone over 40 — wore suits, didn’t swear and bored you to death prattling on about Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Dean Martin.

Did you see the geniuses coming out of the Led Zeppelin reunion concert at the O2 Stadium in London?

They looked like Hell’s Angels!

Are these the modern elderly? Bikers coming out of a Led Zeppelin concert and telling anyone prepared to listen to their garbage that this noise, for that is what Led Zeppelin is, constitutes the greatest rock band of all time.

My eyeballs were bleeding: “Go home, you old goat — get yourself into a fecking rocker and put on your Matt Monroe greatest-hits collection.”

I mean, what is the point of helping these people to reach old age if they’re going to run around like Duracell bunnies on crack?

What happened to the dignified old codgers with walking sticks, rambling on about when they were lads and how Pangea had just begun to split up into the continents that we kids know today?

Ageism?

You’d better believe it. Why do you think I smoke like a dog?

I’m not having my children and grandchildren pitching up at Shady Pines Retirement Home for the Partially Insane to watch me drool while they shove amendments to my will under my nose!

“You’re looking marvellous today, granddad! Nurse Gladys says she had you on the lawn yesterday fetching a stick! She promises that you won’t have to do it again until the end of next month when they need to use your tongue to lick the stamps and envelopes!”

And if you think these geniuses have lost the plot (something relatives do after the will has been finalised), then have a look at this all-time wenner.

Yes, Evel Knievel has died.

Shame!

Just read through his obituary: jumped over rattlesnakes and lions on his motorbike!

Why?!

Were the Led Zeppelin concerts all sold out?

Then he started jumping over more and more vehicles on his motorbike because it brought him fame, fortune and women!

The fact that this genius kept wiping out in pursuit of the above doesn’t strike you as odd?

I mean, what goes through the mind of a wenner like this (besides his butt) as he ramps off the platform?

“Right! If I can just make it this time, it’s back to the Holiday Inn for soup through a strainer [what else do you think he could manage?], then it’s a decent leg over with that blonde from number six; hope the pin through that split pin over the mechano joint keeping my groin together holds!”

And when he got bored with that, he tried to do a motorbike jump over the fountains outside Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas!

Which put him in a coma for 29 days.

The media loved it — the women must have gone mad; pity he missed all of it.

He reminds me of the Coyote in The Roadrunner. No matter how badly he gets totalled, he comes up with a stunt more bizarre than the one before.

So, strapping himself to a rocket-powered bike, he attempted to leap the Snake River Canyon in Idaho. His parachute opened prematurely and he plunged to the river below.

He escaped with minor injuries.

Beep beep, he was back trying to ramp 13 buses at Wembley Stadium in London.

He crashed again when his back wheel hit the last bus and flipped him. Concussed, he announced his retirement over the stadium PA. I would have loved to have heard that. Probably along the lines of: “Um, I … er would like to … um … er … is that the number 13? Does it stop at Belgravia?”

Which the crowd probably assumed was a clear signal that he wouldn’t be allowed out again.

But he bounced back to ramp 14 buses in Ontario, a world record, before mercifully calling it a day.

Incredibly he lived to the ripe old age of 69.

Between the fans at the Led Zeppelin concert and Evel Knievel I have decided to spare the next generation and forgo old age.

It’s the least I can do.