Old Yeller'd: The Rolling Stones

Editor's Note: Old Yeller'd is a new weekly column in which we take once beloved artists and send them off to a big farm in the country. SPOILER ALERT: Just like they did with that lovable dog in the movie Old Yeller.

We've all thought it.

We've all probably said it. At least around people we weren't afraid of starting a conversation around.

This is one of those touchy subjects where you don't want to say it in front of certain family members or friends because it turns into a fight. Like a cat fight about something that in the end makes no difference, but some people just really want to stick up for people or bands they have never met, will never meet, and if they did meet, would probably fucking learn to hate them.

When people talk about Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones, they don't take into account the fact that the Beatles were silenced involuntarily via an overweight Jared Leto assassin, while even a nuclear fallout couldn't stop the botox train that is The Stones. There is also this weird vibe within that conversation that says you have to somehow pick one and ONLY love that band's music. As if that's even possible, when both bands' catalogs are so fucking thick and amazing.

I'm not here saying The Stones or the Beatles suck.

I'm saying it's time to put the Rolling fucking Stones out to pasture. In just a few months, The Rolling Stones will have been together for 50 fucking years. Not only is that impressive, it's extremely disturbing and depressing that a band with so many musical accomplishments and experiences feels the need to keep going. There should be a point in everyone's life when they stop, think about it, and then say "I've done everything there is to do in my particular field, it's time I hung it up".

Now is that time. Fuck, 10 years ago was that time.

In 1998 or 1999 The Rolling Stones were making one of their first comebacks and had arranged a few shows at Chicago's Soldier Field. I was excited, because this was the music I had grown up listening to in my dad's car. Plus, after enjoying pounds and pounds of shitty weed myself, I had utilized many a Rolling Stones tune to pass the time in my pre-inebriated, inebriated and post-inebriated state. I was also dating a girl at the time and her parents were fucking awesome.

So I decided I'd buy 4 tickets and surprise my lady and her parents with Rolling Stones tickets. Fortunately for me, I had joined a theater company a few months prior to the show and I was forced to give up the tickets to the parents and my now ex-girlfriend so I wouldn't miss opening night of Man of La Mancha. Yes, I was a straight man in a gay man's world, and when I mentioned that I gave up my Stones tickets for a fucking play I was told by one of the elder homosexuals in the troop (yes, troop) the following.

"Oh honey, no one needs to be seeing Keith Richards or Mick Jagger from any distance. Elves live in their wrinkles."

Yes, a gay man in a full knight's armor told me that actual elves live inside of their skin crevasses. Duly noted gay knight of the realm.

Fast forward 8 years and I am gifted Martin Scorsese's rockumentary Shine A Light featuring none other than The Rolling Stones, in fucking Blu Ray. Yes I was excited to hear music loud as Fuck and in crisp high definition, but I should have heeded the words of the gay knight when he mentioned the wrinkles in the faces and the elves within these wrinkles.

My son Dylan, who at the time was about one years old, crawled away from the television shrieking. It was fucking disgusting. Keith Richards actually looks like an airbrushed corpse and Mick looks like his face is stuck in the "There isn't a cock in my mouth, but if there was, my face might look a little something like this" face. Sure the butterscotch blonde Telecaster sounds fucking epic, but there is nothing you or Keith Richards can do to a song that's been played for 50 years to make it sound better.

Everything sounds like it's always sounded, fucking great. But jesus christ on a gluten-free sandwich wrap, just go the Fuck home and enjoy the last few years of being alive and touted as some of the greatest musicians to ever fucking live.

New music from The Rolling Stones sounds like new music from The Rolling Stones, something you tilt your head and say "Wow, still going after all these years?" but you never asked for it and you sure as shit never intend to actually listen to it. Their time is over. Most can never even imagine the fame and success these fellows in The Rolling Stones have experienced, but it's fucking time.

It's time to put Old Yeller down.