“Running Over the Same Old Ground”

Last night’s 12.12.12 Mega-Concert of AARP-eligible Rockers raising money for Superstorm Sandy victims had slipped my mind. Instead, I voluntarily bore witness to middle school students performing holiday classics.

The string ensemble killed. Not in the showbiz sense of wowing the audience into a dropped-jaw state of awe but in the Biblical sense of “… and Yahtzblob slew Kincadia with jawbone of an ass then danced the tarantella through the bloody entrails.” Why more parents of public school violin players aren’t throwing themselves in front of commuter buses remains a testament to the high quality of our nation’s antidepressant supply.

Then there was the chorus of which Li’l Diva. The girl loves to sing. Just not what teachers want her to sing. If it’s not One Direction or Ke$ha or the Beibster, it ain’t worth expelling the breath. She faked her way through most of her four songs. She’s more than ready for next year’s scheduled bout of teenage angst.

When the show ended, I took my kids for frozen yogurt. It wasn’t reward for the girl’s performance so much as it was for her little brother, Excitable, who I forced to visit the cat-declawing factory with me.

As I waited for them to overfill their cups with self-serve marshmallow sauce and (actual name) “chocolate rocks,” a TV near the cash register showed a wailing Roger Waters, the still rangy and muscular prog rock mastermind.

While I like a touch of Pink Floyd now and again, I’m by no means a rabid fan. I long ago overdosed stone-sober on The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall being blasted throughout my college dorm. Maybe if the wacky tobacky didn’t make me so paranoid that my “experimental” phase and vision of indestructible youth ended at 19, I’d feel differently. Nonetheless, I appreciate the man’s talent and drive.

And watching him last night, I developed a new appreciation for the nearly 70-year-old bassist’s thick mane of slush gray hair.

Right about then, he and his backing band kicked into “Another Brick in the Wall.” A previously befuddled gaggle of teen girls standing next to me starting buzzing.

“Oh oh OH!” I know this song! Oh, my God!”

“He sings this? Oh, my God.”

“This song is old. So old. SO. OOOOOLD.”

I paid for my kids’ fro yo. Traffic getting through the intersection in front of the store was pleasantly light.

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