The cd function in my Golf's stereo has officially committed seppuku. I blame it on burned cds like pirated albums and personal mixes. The stereo found these illegal copies dishonorable and therefore could not continue its existence knowing that every other cd I was going to cram down its throat would be criminal. Well screw you, you skanky piece of Pioneer shit. You're only two-years old. Get over your prude righteousness and start swallowing whatever I stick in your mouth. I don't care if it's illegal where you're from.

Whatevah.

The cd player has been kaput for a while now. I make due. I have the radio and I have my Nomad (i.e., poor folk's iPod). Between the two, my life works out okay. Of course there is the hassle of plugging the Nomad into the low frequency FM transmitter, and then plugging the transmitter into the cigarette lighter, and then finding a static filled FM channel on the car stereo (which is nearly impossible in urban areas), and then matching the transmitter frequency to that of the car stereo receiver. The entire setup doesn't take all that long and is well worth the effort for longer cross-town trips, but for a 10-minute Taco Bell run the three-song benefit isn't worth it. For these short jaunts I stick with the radio.

All this listening to the radio whilst tooling around in my reluctant VW reminded me of a 13-year-old rule, which I recently discovered is still in effect to this day.

My first car was my 1974 Volkswagen Beetle. I bought the chunk of German engineering for $200 in 1991. The cool part about having a $200 car was the perspective it put on high-end purchases. Hey, those sunglasses cost as much as my car! Or. For the price of those earrings I could buy a fleet of orange VW Beetles! That car was sweet as all hell. It was tiny and orange and had glaring patches of primer gray on the trunk (which was in the front), the hood (which was in the rear), and the bubble fenders. Across the primer patch on the back I pasted a bumper sticker that proclaimed, "Spread the word of Shenry for fun and prophet!" …an inside joke that reference the o.g. Book of Shenry. I loved that car, but then again doesn't everybody reserve a special place in their heart for their first car.

One of the few modifications I made to the Bug was to cram a tape deck into the glovebox and wire up some decent speakers. I was cruising with tunes in my stud bug. Sometimes I listened to tapes and sometimes the radio. Often, when chauffeuring friends, passengers would brazenly dub themselves stud bug dj and totally usurp musical control from me, the driver and owner. Most of the time, my tastes and those of my friends matched up. Sure we had our differences, but overall we agreed on stuff like that and that's probably why we were friends in the first place.

I did have a subset of friends who didn't exactly agree with my classic rock tendencies. They didn't mind Hendrix, because the man was a genius. They were fine with The Doors, because The Doors were perfect for teen angst. They could tolerate Pink Floyd, because of their movie The Wall. They couldn't stand Bob Dylan, which I could accept because the dude is an acquired taste. And they couldn't stand Led Zeppelin, because… because… I don't know why. There is no reason not to like Zep. Seriously, there is no reason not to like Zep. If the term "player hater" had been around back in the day, I would've slapped 'em with the tag.

The continual interruption of Led Zeppelin songs pissed me off to no end. I love me some Led Zeppelin, and when I jam out in the car I bust out my primo Robert Plant falsetto. And despite what those around me say, I know I sound just like Plant when I wail, "B-b-b-b-aaaAAAAaby!" And if you can't tell that I sound just like him by the way I just typed "B-b-b-b-aaaAAAAaby!" then you are blind… or maybe deaf… I dunno. The point is that I know I sound like Plant and that's what matters. I got tired of people fucking with my Zep groove so I laid down the Led Zeppelin Law:

No fucking with the stereo when it's blasting Led Zeppelin.

The mandate's effectiveness was amazing. Apparently, people respect laws and rules more than heart felt requests. While my polite pleas to listen to Zep were crassly ignored, my stone-chiseled law was obeyed without question.

That was a bazillion years ago. Cue the timeframe up to the present and I have discovered two fallouts from that ancient decree.

Apparently, the Led Zeppelin Law is still in effect. When I'm surfing radio stations in the car --which I do quite a bit because I'm O.C.D. about avoiding radio commercials unless the commercial happens to be a new "Real Men of Genius"-- and I hit a Zep song, I cannot change the channel. But why would I want to flip past Zeppelin? I cannot envision a reason. Long live the Led Zeppelin Law.

The second, less obvious, observation I've made is this: I'm no longer in touch with those high school friends for whom the Led Zeppelin Law was enacted. However, I still hang and swang with the high school friends who enjoyed the majesty of Led Zeppelin as much as I did. I'm not assigning cause and effect. I'm not saying the Led Zeppelin Law forced people away from me over time. I'm simply noting that a correlation exists.

The moral being: Those who rock out to Zeppelin together stay together.
...and so it was written, shenry at 11/19/2004 07:36:00 AM.
...and so it was appended with .