If music be the food of love, could you turn it down just a little?

Oh my children, it's a wondrous day for newly pubesced girls and the 5 or 6 recently pubesced boys who are smart enough to realize that Skyreach center in Edmonton is the place to be tonight! The Princess of Pissy Music Hillary Duff is slated to "rock" the asses off 15,000 screaming kids and take every one of their parent's merchandising pennies.

I have a theory on a young person's ability to distinguish decent music from what corporations like Disney hand over to them.

When my children were young and I read to them every night, I did not read them passages of Umberto Eco's "Foccault's Pendulum" or "Rise & Fall of the Third Reich." I read them things like "Good Night Moon" or " Green Eggs and Ham." Both of which are fine examples of literature for kids but not something any semi-educated person has lying around on their night-stand. No way. If my night-stand is gonna be cluttered with half empty water glasses and my stash box, I'm gonna have something decent there to act as a flat surface for joint rolling. Not "I Need To Pee, Mommy."

I think various entertainments and particularly music are similar that way. Sure, there will always be kids who get turned on to Myles Davis far sooner than any of their friends but for the most part, kids like shit. And that's okay.

I don't know how many times I was forced to listen to the horrible sounds of Barney's Best!, Elmo's Hootenanny, or Ted Nugent's Double Live Gonzo, but just like books taught the kids basic sentence structure and story telling, shit music teaches kids basic rhythm and song structure.

So let the little buggers like what they like and don't be judgmental. Just love 'em and remember back to the day when you're parents yelled at you because they were sick of hearing One Eyed, One Horned, Flying Purple People Eater over and friggin' over again.







K, bye for now.