She hadn’t wanted to admit she’d been careless enough to marry the local concert promoter Nick Morrison.
He would purchase the ownership rights—usually pretty cheaply—to some semi-famous musical group from the Fifties or Sixties that couldn’t perform anymore due to age and/or mutual animosity. Then he would create a younger knockoff of that group and send his impersonators out on tour with a slight name change: the New Wombats, Johnny Sparkle Jr. and the Sparkletones, Clawspace 2.0. Several of his new groups had even appeared on those oldies concert shows that the local public-television station, WQED channel 13, churned out for constant broadcast, five or six minutes at a time between pledge breaks.
Lots of people considered him a ripoff artist who peddled fake nostalgia to gullible Baby Boomers. First, fake nostalgia can offer as much satisfaction as the real thing. Second, from what I’d heard, he genuinely liked Fifties and Sixties music and wanted it to continue reaching an audience. And third, he occasionally paid the original group members residuals—not much, but better than nothing.
In short, I didn’t hate his business ethics. I hated his appearance: short, bloated, hairy, and waxy, plus he flaunted his chub by wearing tight golf shirts and tight jeans.
Copyright © 2014 by David V. Matthews
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