Why Old Guys Do It Better

It’s been 40 years since these old buddies got together.

When they last worked as a team they had achieved fame and fortune beyond their wildest dreams. Even though their “corporation” only lasted three years.

No, it wasn’t about some super geeks in the Silicon Valley creating a new PC. Bill Gates was 13. Michael Dell was 3 years old. The internet wouldn’t arrive on the scene until much later, thanks to Al Gore.

You might say they were the cream of the crop of young talented executives plying their skills in the marketplace of the incredible 60’s. Now these old men who are literally in their personal 60’s decided to have a little reunion in May of 2005.

Their names? Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton. Their business? Music. Their company name? Cream. Their goal? The reunion concert. Four incredible nights at Royal Albert Hall in London.

A huge success.Now most young people have heard of the Beatles. In fact my daughter as a teenager knew the words to all of the Beatles songs by heart. But when you mention Cream to a young person, they go, “who?” No, that’s Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey.

Cream actually retired a year before Woodstock. I mean the real Woodstock in the Catskill Mountains of Upstate New York, 1969. Not those two phony Woodstock disasters that came later. I was just 17 years old and barely out of high school when I rode in a car with my older brother and his two pals from Rochester to Woodstock. We got soaked by the thunderstorms. But that’s another story.

Back to these old guys. They’ve got a lot of nerve after all these years to think that people would be interested in, let alone respect these retired old geezers. Yet, these legends of rock played their classic tunes to four excited, grateful sold out crowds all in the same week.

In October, they again packed out Madison Square Garden for three shows in a row. As one reviewer put it, “the Garden more closely resembled an AARP convention than a classic rock concert.”

Even David Letterman with ticket in hand made his way in the gate.Another New York reviewer and rock musician himself put it this way, “Health-wise, I didn’t know what to expect as I’d read about Jack Bruce’s liver transplant and over the years the pictures I’ve seen of Ginger Baker have made Keith Richards look spry.”

In the words of Gomer Pyle, “Surprise, surprise, surprise!”

These guys were absolutely incredible. During one performance, Eric Clapton exclaimed amidst the massive applause, “Thanks for waiting all these years. We’re going to do I think every song we know. We didn’t go for very long. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune cut us off in our prime.”

At that point Jack Bruce burst in, “This is our prime, what do you mean?”

They went on to prove it with perfect renditions of a couple of dozen great songs.

I have met some people who have turned 40 and think they are “over the hill.” Or on the slippery sliding slope sending them into gray hair and old age. I’ve seen relatives who walk in slow, calculated steps, bent over, full of stress, wrinkled and weary looking as if they were 90 and they’re barely 50.

Compare that to Paul McCartney, who turned 67 in June. Yet he played tunes for almost three hours straight Thanksgiving weekend at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. And had energy to spare.

You didn’t see Sir Paul being rolled off the stage in a wheelchair.

Is it guitars and drums that keep people young or what? Not necessarily. My mother turned 84 this January and I’ve never seen her play a lick on a Stratocaster or a Rickenbacker. She’s still driving her little green Honda, playing cards with her friends and very active in her church.

Well then, is it clean living? No, George Burns smoked cigars and was performing right up to age 100. “I smoke ten to fifteen cigars a day. At my age I have to hold on to something.”George said, “I don't believe in dying. It's been done. I'm working on a new exit. Besides, I can't die now - I'm booked.” and “Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed.”

Here’s a couple more Burns-isms. “I look to the future because that's where I'm going to spend the rest of my life,” and “Retirement at sixty-five is ridiculous. When I was sixty-five I still had pimples.”

“I'd rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate."

Get it?

Despite of your age, you have a choice to make. Are you going to make 2009 the best year ever in your life regardless of what happens to you or how “old” you are?

Are you looking forward to the future or stuck in the past? Are you passionate about your mission in life? Or do you need a career change? Is your sense of humor diminishing or increasing?

Are you aging like the Dead Sea or gracefully like a bottle of fine wine? What's got to change in you? Here’s the deal. It’s all about choices. What’s yours? Make it great.