Shine an embarrassing light

A couple of nights ago I watched Martin Scorsese's 2008 documentary film "Shine a Light" about the Rolling Stones and featuring a 2006 performance at the Beacon Theatre in New York. While some of the music was okay, the Stones' oeuvre is so inferior to that of the Beatles, their early rivals, that it's amazing, really, how they lasted so long. I think their public longevity must owe to their having become symbols of rebellion. There was the famous incident, for example, of their peeing against a wall in public. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ron Wood, and Charlie Watts are legendary rebels—and multi-millionaires to boot. A part of your average Joe (particularly your average Republican Joe) wants to be able to pee in public and get away with it. Being your own man and wealthy to boot might be the contemporary version of the "American dream." It keeps Americans ambivalent about taxing the rich. "Hey, I could be rich someday myself; do I want to be taxed more because of it?" The picture of men about my own age (sixty-two in Wood's case to sixty-eight in Watts's) cavorting about the stage seemed self-parody. Jagger's trompings and finger stabbings and lip poutings just didn't have the insouciant swagger of youth. Not sexy.
    Yet, there was something nostalgic about the spectacle, something touching about the four guys' comradery and love for one another. Maybe they've become symbols of keeping on keeping on together. We too lose our youth and hope our friends and family survive.