In my short life, there is one thing that I have learned very, very well: You can insult a person’s sense of self, their personality, but Carson-help-you if you tell them they look old or fat, especially in America.

…And now, brought back by popular dimensia… GRAND FUNK RAILROAD!

You laugh, but I’m geared up for a reunion of this great band, going on tour again with the likes of The Knack and a reformed Milli Vanilli. I can’t be the only one who has noticed that a lot of these beloved old bands are getting back together now as they creep over the threshold of assisted-walking age.

With rumors of a world tour of Led Zeppelin in the works, this whole brilliant mess of a situation has finally reached critical mass. The Doors lost a singer, and they still managed to get back together, but Led Zeppelin lost a drummer, a person that few in any audience pay much attention to unless they’ve got a funny hat on. (I mean, no offense to the little drummer boys and girls, I swear.)

My question is, is there even a point to all this? Following the break-up of the Beatles, John Lennon put it about as well as anyone possibly can. He said, “It’s only a rock group; it’s nothing important. You have all the old records there if you want to reminisce.”

You’ve got aging baby boomers on one side who, even if they sold out their beliefs, are still willing to pay a pretty penny to recapture their fading youth. Then you’ve got their kids on the other side, who feel as if they have somehow been cheated out of something because Band X broke up before they had a chance to see them live.

I really hate to knock this practice of reunion world tours because even I probably would at least consider paying to see some of these bands play, (we’re all hypocrites at heart,) but this whole thing literally stinks of greed as well as others’ preying on the emotional distress of band members at the prospect of getting older.

In my short life, there is one thing that I have learned very, very well: You can insult a person’s sense of self, their personality, but Carson-help-you if you tell them they look old or fat, especially in America.

What so many appear to have forgotten is that getting older is a part of life. You can pump yourself with enough Botox to kill 50 cows; it won’t make a lick of difference in the end.

The same applies to these bands: it doesn’t matter how many times someone plays “Get Up Stand Up” as they rebel by smoking pot. It’s still a dated piece of music whose message has been lost because the context is no longer the same.

What is the point in dragging these old dinosaurs from the river? So we may rock one final time? I’m willing to take exception to the Rolling Stones...they have been more or less a fixture on the music scene since they first came out, and there was no 25-year break before they came back. The same goes for the Grateful Dead.

The thing with these other bands is that there was a break and they drifted apart. If John and George had never died and the four Beatles suddenly decided, “Hey, let’s put on a reunion show,” it would not be the Beatles standing up on stage, no matter how hard you imagined. It would be four guys who used to play in a band called the Beatles.

Let’s be clear: My issue is with people being true to themselves. If you are content in your age and are going for the sake of a good time, fantastic. However, I have seen and heard way too many people make the horrific remark that it ‘makes them feel young again.’

Hate to break it to you, but you’re not anymore, and you should be working to do the best with what you’ve got instead of trying to go back to the glory days when you still had all your hair and could see your toes.

If these bands were really reuniting for that one last hurrah, I’d advise them not to bother – people really don’t need it. They had their shot – time moves forward. If these bands are really uniting for the money, (which some of them, such as the remaining Doors, probably really need,) then to hell with ‘em.

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