Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 1999 4:59 PM

Subject: The Third Thursday of Every Month with an "R" in it.

So there I woke up, naked in a ditch.

Now that I have your attention, I can begin my tirade. Tirade. Tirade. What should I go on about? Sex? Too passe. Drugs? Too chic. Rock-n-Roll? Too many opinions to share in a single email. Well, maybe not. Let's give it a shot.

What happened? I can't put my finger on exactly when it happened, but I believe it started in the early to mid eighties. Music changed, and not for the better. It used to be good. It used to live up to it's name of Rock and Roll. It is now just a term for a kind of music that has not been played for many years. It used to be good. It used to have feeling. It used to convey the spirit of the song. Now it is just a jumbled bunch of notes with some words thrown on top.

When you listen to the Beatles, you hear musical poetry. There is a symbiotic relationship between the words and the music. Without the words, the music would still convey the feeling of the song. Not anymore! With this brand new crap they serve up on the radio, you get to hear something that might rhyme, but sure as heck does not follow a beat. The words are no longer poetry, it's just typing. And not good typing either. Now i know where u r coming from, but it ain't anywhere you should be, you illiterate slug. "u" is not a word. Follow me on this one. "u" is a LETTER. A letter is not a word, with the exceptions of "a" and "I". Using pseudo-words like that just makes you look dumb. (Pay attention Prince, this might just save your musical soul.) If you are writing a word for others to read, do not use shorthand. I am sorry for this digression, I shall endeavor to stick to a point.

The old songs were poetry. The new songs are mostly commentary. For the Beatles, sex was "Drive my car". Drugs were "Lucy in the sky with diamonds". Now you got the new posse on the block singing about having a pecker so large it takes three girls to suck it, and smoking rocks in your crack pipe. What happened to the double entrende? Do you have to be explicit? I guess if you don't have the vocabulary, but whose fault is that? Just because you might be uneducated, does not mean you have to dumb down the rest of society. And don't think that that is not happening. It is. How many times have you seen Homey the Cracker tooling around in his Volvo with Sugar Puff Daddy blaring out of his thumpa-thumpa bass stereo so loud that your beer shakes? And what does Mr. Craker say when he gets out of the car? "Yo, yo, my n*****s, what goin' on?" Nathaniel Harbrace is rolling over in his grave just because I typed that. Consider how many people actually talk like that and it is amazing that we don't hear the high-pitched whine of his spinning six feet under.

And then you have the fake-named twits. Sugar Big Puff DJ Cool Posse needs to come up with a real name. If it ain't on your drivers license, get bent. Do you think those names are "cool"? They are just plain silly. And in the name of all things good and/or evil, Prince's name is Prince. It is not the artist, it is not some stupid symbol that nobody is pretentious enough to pronounce. It is Prince Rogers Nelson. If you think otherwise, you are just giving into artistic uncreativity. Just because you don't want people talking to you, is no reason to change you name to a gay little adrogeonous symbol. I got a new name for you Princey-boy. Try Doofus.

ho hum. That's enough leakage from my brain. I just miss good tunes with lyrics that you can understand, that didn't offend parents, and that you could dance to. I miss Styx.

-Dave at the SSC Call Center