Butt rocker the modern mountain man

I was thumbing through my new guitar magazine today, the one with sharp-dressed Billy Gibson (of ZZ Top fame) on the cover, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Today's butt rocker - Zakk "Attakk" Wylde (right) being perhaps the ultimate prototype - is no less than the modern day mountain man.

Balderdash? Consider the similarities - both are/were unshorn, nomadic, wily and enigmatic. And just as the mountain man of yesteryear wandered the earth in search of securing his place in history, today's butt rocker tours relentlessly, engaged in similar pursuit. Sold-out concerts? Nothing more than a latter-day rendezvous, complete with trades of wampum (your hard earned cash) for beaver pelts (that totally awesome black Ozzy t-shirt with all the tour dates printed on back).

And I don't have to tell you about the ladies ... back in the day all you had to do was mention Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, and John "The Pathfinder" Fremont and females would shortly be fanning themselves. I ask you: which self-respecting woman of the 21st century doesn't want to catch a rock god's sweat-drenched towel thrown between heat-inducing guitar solos?

I could go on, but probably won't because I shouldn't.