Kill A Tree, Save An Aging Rock Star

Time was, all a rock star had to do to avoid an untimely death and live to old age was to stay away from suspect heroin and chartered planes and to make sure he/she was conscious while throwing up. But now, with so many iconic rock stars pulling social security checks and imbibing Grecian Formula like so many whiskey bottles of yore, new menaces threaten the health of our beloved wild rockers. And before we're faced with seeing Chuck Berry scootching across the stage with the aid of a walker or Mick Jagger strutting his stuff with a four-pronged cane, it's time we all recognize, and do something about, the biggest current threat to the well being of our favorite Johnny B. Goode's: trees. Kill a tree before it kills your idol.

Did you see this story the other day? Seems that Joan Baez fell out of a tree and sustained--thankfully--only minor injuries. Coupled with Keith Richards's more celebrated, and injurious, fall from a coconut tree a few years ago, Baez's arboreal mishap signals a dangerous trend: trees are out to get rock'n'rollers. So, while you're trimming the turkey during these upcoming holidays, think of your once sexy rocker now battling the forces of nature and do your part to save this embattled species by not only trimming, but completely eradicating, a few trees.

Of course, bad things happen in threes, so it's only a matter of time before some other musical god suffers the wrath of a tree. And let's face it, we've been lucky so far: Keef and Joanie are still with us. Unless all trees are felled soon, we might not be so lucky next time. In addition to axing a few dozen trees myself lately, I've also put more sophisticated technology to use in my attempt to save rock stars from a tragic "death by flora." Employing computer programming skills much too esoteric and advanced for most of my audience's sensibilities (trust me) and housing my computer's "works" in a specially-designed cabinet made out of melted down K-Tel tecords, I was able to create an AI/Prognostication tool that came up with the most probable scenarios for various rock stars to meet injury and/or death via a tree in the near future. But technology is not perfect, as we know. So while we should all continue the arduous task of ridding the Earth of trees, we might pay closer attention to the rockers who made the list below and be sure to warn them away from trees. Thanks for doing your part.

• By way of triangulating Keith Richards and Joan Baez, the computer says that Bob Dylan is the most natural would-be next rock star/tree victim. It foresees a scene eerily echoing, to me at least, Don Vito Corleone's last minutes in The Godfather. Romping with a grandchild on a hot summer's day on a farm in Minnesota, Bob's Frisbee gets stuck in a tree. With the kid boosting him up, Bob creakily climbs the tree, but then, what else, either a gust of wind or some hard rain causes Bob to lose his balance and fall from the tree. His first (last?) words to the grandchild: "See, I told you gravity fails."
• Lemmy's fall from a tree elicits this mysterious remark: "Everybody knows the best tasting bark is near the top."
• Tom Waits voluntarily falls from a tree so his son can tape the resultant sound of him hitting the ground so that they can then loop it into a "killer" percussion track.
• John Lydon ventures too far out on a flimsy limb to reach another one with a buzzing chainsaw. While falling, the chainsaw's whining evisceration of him is drowned out by Johnny's cackling, "Oh, bloody perfect, this."
• Aretha Franklin, sitting upright amid a mini-forest of branches and brambles, chuckles, "But that peach looked so tasty. Mmmmm."
• Brian Wilson's last words before ascending the tree: "The sound those leaves make is love. I'm going to get me some."
• Neil Young, tired of the barn and recording during the full moon, conceives an entire trilogy of albums not only about, but recorded in, a huge redwood. Alas, the chunk of the tree he had earlier carved out to construct the guitar to be used througout the venture weakens the tree to the point that it, the tree (dubbed Old Red by Neil himself), cannot support Neil, Crazy Horse, the Stray Gators, the Shocking Pinks, the Bluenotes, the International Harvesters, Pearl Jam, Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills and Nash, the ghost of Rick James, two vocoders, a '58 hearse, a 100+ member church choir, the Canadian Parliament, and three film crews. Not to be outdone, though, Neil really digs the sound of the tree splintering to pieces, mixed in with the yelps of all the assorted band members and crew, and decides to recreate the whole "sonic experience" in Nashville for a "garage opera" which will be available only on diamond-encrusted vinyl, to be released sometime between now and 2143.
• Michael Stipe falls out of a catalpa tree but "it's nobody's business unless I make it their business."
• Sting falls out of a tree (one of the last, mind you) in the Rain Forest while basking in a twenty-eight day tantric navel-gazing exercise. The carnivores seem delighted.
• Pat Benatar falls out of her backyard tree while exercising, bounces right up, perky as ever, and continues doing whatever she's been doing since MTV stopped showing videos.
• All the computer foresaw concerning Ozzy Osbourne and trees was an image of Ozzy hobbling over a hazy, flora-devoid landscape with a smoking flame-thrower. Ah, that's the spirit.

Death to Trees, Long Live Rock.