We Can Be Invincible

In the car I have the radio cranked.

So what if its NPR?

But the news started to get a little redundant, even for NPR, so I turned the radio over to a music station.

I do this rarely because A) If I listen to music too much during the writing process, I tend to extract melody lines that aren't really mine, B) I hate commercials and C) Talk radio is slowly giving the sixteen year old an ulcer.

That just makes me laugh.

But low and behold the moment I switch to my favorite rock station, there she is.

Pat Benatar.

I'm sorry . . .

THE Pat Benatar.

That's right.

And she's runnin with the shadow of the night.

Oh, yeah.

My volume knob goes up to 36 before the speakers begin to bleed.

Take that! Nigel Tufnel.

However, the chorus begins to repeat itself over and over.

Not in the usual pop song way, we're talking 8 or nine times. And then, instead of the Fender Strat power chord and Fatty compressed drums kicking in, there's this Casio style beat box followed by sample bars from other songs.

A remix?

Who the hell remixes Pat Benatar?

Doesn't this person understand that there's no conceivable way to improve upon the pop rock goddess perfection that is Pat Benatar?

Now my wife would argue that I'm a total ass and that clearly Joan Jett deserves the rock goddess mantel.

But Joan Jett doesn't have the boobs to shimmy in a pink prom dress.

My best friend Jeremy would vote for Jane Weidlin. Cute, but unfortunately lost in Belinda's ever growing shadow.

Dad might argue for Janis. (he's old, p.s. Happy birthday Dad)

Calvin would say Cat Stevens. (still having trouble with his pronouns.)

The sixteen year old would most audaciously vote for Rhianna. But he prefers his singers to be off key. However, my sixteen year old self would have probably put in a good word for Tiffany.

I take no responsibility for anything I did before I was thirty.

So anyway, I was so muddled by this bad remix of Pat that I told a co-worker I was going to have to dig through my old CD's so I could hear the right version and get this awful remix out of my head.

Then I told the truth and said I was going to have to find it on my ipod.

He told me it was probably going to be in the "Most Played" file.

yes I said, it probably will be.

So I'm driving home.

"Shadow of the Night" cranked to 35. And when it stopped, I put it on again.

And then I let the rest of Pat's greatest hits continue on.

And then I came to a red light.

Windows rolled down.

"We Belong" cranked to 35.

I made the mistake of looking to my left.

A grizzled former contractor in a beat up old truck staring at me like I was one of those hippies.

Then he nodded his head to the beat and turned back to look at the light.

Because really . . .

If you haven't rock out to Pat Benatar, with the windows rolled down,

You're either a communist,

or my mother.