Some Anonymous Internet Radio Listener Insulted My Honor!

I don't normally contribute to those online bulletin boards. I'm happier hiding in the corner, reading what other weirdos with way too much time on their hands have to say than I am add my own thoughts. Not that I don't have them. But tonight, something happened that just demanded someone speak up. I bet you're wondering what happened (actually, if I had to put money on it, I'd bet that you weren't, but just play along here) — maybe some neo-Nazi was putting forth some specious Holocaust denial argument or the Catholic League is deliberately misinterpreting a study that supposedly claims condoms don't protect against AIDS. Don't get me wrong; both of those topics absolutely need the most vigorous barrage of logic and rhetoric the thinking mind can muster. Just not my thinking mind. My mind is needed elsewhere: putting people who force their fanatical love of the Allman Brothers down others' throats in their place.

I was listening to Radio Paradise, which has an amazing playlist. I genuinely enjoy listening to maybe seventy percent of what they play, and I tolerate another twenty-five percent with equinimity. But there's that last five percent that's stuff like these Peter Gabriel songs from the late eighties that last approximately as long as it takes to slow-roast a ten-pound ham or pieces of Stevie Ray Vaughn screeching for five minutes straight that make me just want to shove an awl in my ears and poke out my eardrums. Worse yet, it seems like a lot of Radio Paradise listeners grew up in the seventies, meaning that artists like Robert Plant and the Allman Brothers played at their senior proms and bring back all these memories so good they make my poor, deluded fellow listeners forget how utterly crappy the music is.

So, with that in mind, Radio Paradise was playing this Allman Brothers piece that's at least ten minutes long and that I believe our army uses to torture prisoners in Abu Ghraib. And I went to the Radio Paradise bulletin board, not to bitch, just to rate the song a one on a scale of one to ten. But then, the top post of the bulletin board is from some jackass calling himself "radiojunkie," like that gives him indie rock cred.

Yes. This is one of the finest live recordings ever made. This tune was the apogee of the Allmans.

And to all of you "is it over yet?" whiners, it's obvious that you're all a bunch of spoiled little kids who were coddled by your parents every time you whined "are we there yet" in the backseat...you're the reason cars now have to come with DVD players. Can't you just look out the window and enjoy the view? Fortunately, I know you're not even reading this. You quit after the first paragraph, because it's too long.

Arrogant motherfucking asshole! I don't know about anyone else, but I, for one, am not spoiled, I never whined "are we there yet," I don't have a DVD player in my car, I read both lame paragraphs, and I am not a little kid.

I had to defend myself from this slander.

So, for the first time since a dork on the Sparknotes message board called me a communist two years ago, I posted something.

No, it's just that we didn't grow up in the seventies sky high on LSD, so we realize that thirty-seconds of ear-burning guitar riffs doesn't get any better when it's dragged out to fifteen minutes.

Oh, and for everybody who's secure enough to enjoy the Allman Brothers without worrying about what a bunch of spoiled little kids think of the music, it's obvious your parents raised you well.

Okay. Not the most eloquent thing I've ever written, but I think it does the job.