I just returned from one of the best three-day trip of my parenting life. My son, Will, not yet 16, and two of his female friends and I drove to San Francisco to attend the Outside Lands Music Festival.  It’s an all-day late-into-the-night, music festival on the Polo Fields at Golden Gate Park.  There are multiple rock and roll acts performing simultaneously on several stages throughout the festival grounds.

The list of performers included such well-known acts as Incubus, Pearl Jam, Tom Jones (yes, that Tom Jones who has become a sort of icon to the younger set), The Black-Eyed Peas, and The Dave Matthews Band.  On the more obscure side, especially to this ol’ middle-aged dude were acts I’d never heard of including Gooferman, Zap Mama, Kinky, Q-Tip, Albino, Dirty Rotten, TV on the Radio, Ween, Lenka, Cage the Elephant, and Heartless Bastards.  Honestly, I didn’t make up any of these names.