They say the Internet would have eliminated dictatorship, but it only made me cry. The last time I cried was at the funeral of my uncle when I was a tiny kid. Our family wasn't close but they lived in an apartment several storeys above us. He is also my first school Principle. He has like 5 kids so we weren't close at all but I felt a personal connection. But mainly it was the funeral music.

OK, maybe I cried more than I remembered because of kid stuff. But I didn't remember I was so sad that I had to cry. Once when I was small I cried because my mother offered a closer sleeping place to her to my little brother at grandma's house. I remembered grandma told me not to cry. It was maybe the last time I saw her alive.

The Internet is trouble when you can stream any music or anything ever existed at any time anywhere. In the golden age of TV, if you missed the last episode of the final season due to exams after following the series for years,  that's that and you have a hole forever in your mind.

Being sentimental, I seldom listen to my favourite old songs. I could have listened to the album for hours while reminiscing what I was doing when the music first came out. That wasn't difficult at all. I was half the globe away from home most of the time without my type of CD's, TV or radio stations.

The Internet is trouble when the hottest idol type singers of my time were dead due to overdose, suicide or cancer. Listening to their songs has different feelings and meanings.

I discovered in a Youtube vintage video that the Bad Guy and the Good Guy actually made up on stage. The GY is a much better singer and he wrote beautiful songs too. But the BG was much more popular and lasted longer. During a BG's concert, he sang a GY's song and praised him night after night until he appeared one night and finished the song together.

Fuck, the song is beautiful but this two hottest idol is about my age if they were not long dead! The GY overdosed probably because people forgot about him and his songs. The BG broke a lot of records for a singer, formally retired, went on to became a movie star and broke more records. He jumped from a hotel window obviously because he didn't save enough of his money and his life was not worth living anymore. I totally understand if he has no kids nor close family members. His fair-weather friends were long gone. Only very rich women wanted to keep him as a trophy, and gay lovers too.

Youtube has a habit of carrying you down the rabbit hole. This time it was a different kind of concert. It was 12 days of retirement concerts for the music godfather, 12 thousand seats each. It was just last year instead of the concerts that I missed decades ago. And he was like 90.

The story goes that godfather started performing in a nightclub many many years ago and went on to own the music scene totally until he retired. Actually, the job lasted about 6 months and then he left for America to study, a feast that no ordinary families can afford. He is the opposite of the King. His pop-country style of music was so dominant that rock and rap remains a tiny fraction. He was in charge of music in the dominant TV station in the golden age of TV. He composed every TV theme song, which sold much more than others. And I am always surprised how many other songs he composed for record labels and movie.

Retirement at 90? I would think somebody used him to make money. Anyway, most of his star singers were long retired. But those who got invitations could not resist or excuse. They returned from all over the world. Whether your career ended well, there's no excuse not to come and honour this man.

The young idols now came as respectable grandmas and grandpas! For those too old to sing or dead, they were replaced by the new generation of idols, who came with a tint of the style of those they replaced, and sang almost like the original song!

No money was spared making everybody so stylish. Some grandmas still have their angelic voice. Some dudes are still so cool as Mike Jagger. Some come as their very middle-aged self with glamorous suits. I don't remember some singers at all. And I remember some who never made it that big, but one of their songs made it.

What can I say? As time goes by ...

And I was wrong. It was never too old to come. The biggest stars have to be over a 100 hundred by now. But they must have been using a big team of movie special effect makeup artists. These stars looked like they are still in their 40's! And they can still sing as they were.

The biggest impact to me are those new idols whose jobs are to perform some classic songs where the original singers were not there for various reasons. Not only that they sang well, if not better, their interpretation was close to the original including their looks, with a modern twist. The contrast is so big for time has passed.

You have to admit you are old when these kids remembered that they were listening to godfather's songs every day for kids' programs and then every evening with the whole family during dinner and after. Now they are so grown up and so gorgeous. So many memories.

A young boy started singing one of the Good Guy's greatest hits. I don't even know godfather composed it. There's no resemblance in the face, hair or outfit, but you can easily imagine the same young boy singing the same song. It was an extremely motivational song, about reaching for the sky. Fuck, he wasn't even my favourite idol. His ending was so sad, so forgettable. My aim was so high. I went through so many ups and downs. I still have so many people and things to take care, to struggle through. The song was so good, so familiar and gave me so much spirit, at the same time I cannot forget that the singer died a forgettable, miserable death. Fuck, I cannot suppress my burst out crying.

I think it was like the singer / composer who went to listen to Vincent. But she wrote a song for that. I just cried.

Being a lot more popular, more than one idol sang the Bad Guy's songs, and they all pick my favourite. Not the hit song he started his fame, though I had fond memories singing with my girlfriend parting at the airport. Not the hit he wrote for his own retirement, a tribute to the song that made him famous. It was the theme song of the first movie of the trilogy he was the lead actor. That movie is legendary. It was about childhood friends who sacrificed themselves heroically shoulder to shoulder for a better tomorrow.

I tried to sing along but my voice cracked and my throat blocked. I was too emotional to carry on.

Although I have few childhood friends or any friends left. It brought back memories. Perhaps it was the memory that I actually missed the legendary movie when I was far far away from home when everybody I know watched. It was the treasured things I missed in my life.