To Steven, With Love
Oh, Steven Tyler, how I still could watch you on stage every night of the week until the end of time.
And I can accept you still wearing spandex or skin-tight jeans, even as you receive mail from the AARP.
And I don’t care that you wear a banana-sling bathing suit when you go to the beach.
And I can forgive your questionable taste in women, giving wedding rings to two women when I know, in my heart, that we would be a fantastic couple, especially because I have no taste for drugs or alcohol.
And I don’t care about the Hep-C, because you are, well, you, and I’m just thankful that it isn’t something worse.
And I can forgive the song “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”, even though it made me cringe because it was so Top 40.
If Hoveround Is Sending You Mail, Maybe You Shouldn't Be Doing THIS.
But when you’re 61 and Aerosmith is touring as the Greatest Rock Show Ever (because you just ARE) and you’ve hung your scarves on a microphone at Sturgis, the biggest, baddest Harley-Davidson rally there is, couldn’t you please just WATCH YOUR STEP?
The YouTube video of your fall was painful to watch. Seconds ticked by, feeling like hours, as I waited for you to be picked up. And then, proving my theory that you are somehow superhuman, you actually got up (with assistance, of course) and walked. With a broken shoulder.
Are you kidding me?
This tour is cursed. The only thing that has gone right is that no one has OD’d. How many broken bones and bursting blood vessels and surgeries have to happen in a 12-month period for you to see that the gods are telling you to relax? Sit at a piano with Joe Perry right nearby and write songs like you wrote in the 70s, but without the crippling drug addiction.
None of us want more “Falling In Love”, Steven. We want more of your “Big Ten-Inch Record”.
So sit your still-hot 61-year old behind in a stable, 5-legged chair, put your feet up, and write like it is 1975. We’ll be waiting.