I Fucked Up But I Didn't Burn Down A Playboy Mansion

I should simply resign from blogging. I should have my follower status of Keith Richards on Facebook revoked. I should bow my head in shame. I should grovel and beg forgiveness. I should be sentenced to having to inventory down to the tuning pegs of his supposedly three thousand guitars. I should be forced to reread "Life" for the fourth or fifth time. 

Or better yet, forced to read aloud along with the audio version as I read the read the words on the pages of the book.
Hmmmmm....

Or to write him a personal letter of apology and offer to make him a shepherd's pie every month for the rest of my life. 
Or something. 
Because I absolutely thought that yesterday was Keith's birthday while in reality, it is today. 
Now. Do I know the actual birth date of the man? 
Well yes. I do. 

Hell, it's on my calendar. 
Did this stop me from making that grievous error? 
No. No it did not. 
Am I losing my mind at an uncomfortable rate? 
Oh, honey. You bet. 

Hell, I was signing dated documents at the bank yesterday. I knew what day of the month it was and yet, somehow, I had convinced myself that it was December 18th. I am such an idiot. 

Okay. I'm done berating myself. La-di-dah. Life will go on. Keith will never know, and although I will forever be deeply embarrassed, it won't kill me. And besides, this small mix-up of dates would probably not upset Keith in the least. He's the man who, with his best friend and birthday twin, the horn player Bobby Keys, came close to burning down the Chicago Playboy mansion doing drugs in a bathroom there. 

It was 1972. Come on. Things happened. 

Since today is the actual day, I don't feel bad about saying a few more words about the Old Boy. One of the things I loved most about his book is that he tells SO many stories of things that happened to him, with him, because of him, and with the Rolling Stones in general. Also many other musicians and assorted saints and sinners. Some of the stories are hysterical, some of them are frightening, some of them are romantic, some of them are extremely painful, and all of them, I believe, are honest. From his experiences traveling in the south in the US in the sixties, to falling in love with Ronnie Spector (nee, Ronnie Bennet), to meeting his idols, to the deepest depths of his addictions, to the loss of a son through crib death, to his reuniting with his father and bringing him into his life to tour with the band and become part of the family, to writing the basic bones of "Satisfaction" in his sleep, to his mother and aunties, to his grandfather and the guitar he gave him, to the women he loved, to the tragedy at Altamont, and mostly to the music. 
Always the music. 
Oh god. There is so much more. One chapter of his book can hold more experiences than most lives. 

He should have died at least a hundred times and yet, did not. He is still with the same band he began with over sixty years ago and has the same personal manager he's had since the seventies, a woman named Jane Rose. Can you imagine the book SHE could write? He's had the same guitar wrangler for over 35 years. Pierre de Beauport. And as noted before, has been married to the same woman for 42 years. 

So I guess that was my real Keith birthday post. 

It's been raining again all day but so lightly you can almost count the drops as they fall. There was a short hiatus at sunset and the air became a strange and eery shade of pink and red and orange. 

I'm going to go bake some bread and cook some greens. Mr. Moon is home. 

One last picture.

The most bad boy of all of rock and roll's bad boys, holding his band mate's twin daughters. 

Love...Ms. Moon