The Songs Remain the Same

I spent a lot of time yesterday afternoon reading the reviews about the Led Zeppelin Reunion Concert at the O2 Arena in London on Monday night. It was a charity event that was held in memory of former Atlantic Records boss Ahmet Ertegun, who originally signed Led Zeppelin.

John Bonham’s son, Jason, took his father’s place on the drums for this concert. John’s death (by choking on his vomit) in 1980 caused the group to break up at that time.

Led Zeppelin News
Led Zeppelin was one of my favorite musical groups in the in the 1970’s. I still enjoy their music a much more than most of the Rock music of the last 20 years. But then again, I still enjoy Frank Sinatra more than I do the modern day crooners.

While sitting and waiting to receive a “Divine Inspiration” for a Blog about Led Zeppelin, my worthless brother-in-law (Uncle John) turned on the television. I feel that he does this intentionally to distract me from my writing. He obviously doesn’t care about what he views or he wouldn’t watch the garbage he usually does.

Lo and behold, he put on a program that was of interest to me. It was on VH1, a channel that I rarely, if ever, watch. It was the Woodstock Festival Concert from August 1969; 4 hours long including commercials.

In 1969 I was still in the Army and living off post (Fort Meade) in Laurel, Maryland. My across the hall neighbors were from Pennsylvania and had bought 4 tickets to the Woodstock Festival in New York.

They were planning to take two hot babes to the concert for a weekend of Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll; the babes bailed out, so they offered the tickets to me and my 3 roommates.

We all passed. 24 bucks, plus the cost of the trip, was more than we could afford on our military salaries. Instead we had a Woodstock house party on that weekend (the aforementioned hot Babes attended our party). It was the same Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll, with somewhat better sanitary conditions, yet in a different venue without the cost of the concert and traveling expenses.

To this day I do regret not attending the Concert on Max Yasgur's Farm in Bethel, New York. But when they had a Woodstock Reunion Concert in 1989, I also took a pass. No regrets, this time!

The Beach Bum

Happy Anniversary Baby

Today is the first Anniversary of The Beach Bum Report’s first post. One of my friends, Richard Feder from Fort Lee, had been nagging me for more that a year to start blogging. He told me that I wrote well (questionable, at best) and that I had some good stories. In addition, I could make some pocket change by placing ads on the Blog. This sounded like a good idea.

I set up the account on Blogger in September 2006 but didn’t post my first blog until November 30 (6 month’s after my retirement). In December 2006 I was averaging 12 visitors per day. Before going on a four month leave of absence last July, I was averaging 28 visitors per day. Since I have returned to the Blogosphere on the11th of November it’s been 18 per day. Many of them read my Blog on a regular basis. This makes me happy.

However, I had thought that by now I would have a much larger readership. Therefore I am disappointed. I’m a firm believer in the two to the 10th power philosophy. This is, if 2 people tell 2 people who tell 2 people, ad infinitum (like a pyramid scheme). Allowing for diminishing returns, I should have about 1000 regular readers per week.

Now if only 10% of these 1000 regular weekly readers clicked on my ads (I currently have only one – Amazon.com, but plan to add more as soon as my readership increases), I’d be able to support my bad habits. I might even be able to afford one of those Hoochie-Coochie girls to clean out my pipes.

My plan for my second blogging year is to blog more often (only 175 blogs last year). As Mr. Feder sez, I have the time. I also plan to visit more blogs and add the interesting ones that I find to my blog roll. Three of the four that I currently link to are excellently written provocative blogs. Check them out on the right side bar.

The Beach Bum