Porn and Cocaine

OK, so I'm able to Get the Led Out tonight after all. I just flipped on The Loop in time to be serenaded by Clapton with the live version of Cocaine. I had decided to take the night off from bashing Seaver and praising Byrd, but this song brings back some memories...

It must have been back in '91 or '92 sometime, when I was driving around like any other bored Midwestern suburban kid. Nowhere to go, no friends in the car... just aimlessly cruising. It's not like I was trying to pick up chicks... my luck in that area didn't come until later. Even if the babes had been interested, they sure as hell weren't turned on by the maroony-brownish 1980 Dodge Aspen (aka The Boat) handed down to me by my folks. Looks aside, it was a damn smooth ride... it kinda just floated and bounced down the road. I got a couple good years out of that car until I totalled it. It was silly, really... I rear ended some jackoff who stopped in front of me in a subdivision. And it was past my curfew, so I was already in trouble. We were both watching some even bigger jackoffs on each side of the road, throwing toilet paper at cars. Too bad I had my eyes on them instead of that ridiculous yellow Geo Tracker in front of me. What a big group of dicks. That memory actually makes me kinda sad. The Dodge was almost a beater, and if I was gonna wreck it I shoulda slammed that Jaguar that cut me in the Taco Bell parking lot months earlier. Rich motherfucker...

Anyway, so I'm driving around doing nothing when I pass the Dairy Mart (though it might have been called something else then) and there's a bunch of people with picket signs protesting the "smut" being sold inside. As a young loser who had yet to see a real boob, and who had limited access to porn (these were the pre-internet days afterall)... the mere idea of this was ridiculous to me. I'm too much of a pussy to yell or to start anything with anyone (still to this day... and even with the Moral Majority types), so I start to think of ways to piss them off. I'm looking around and racking my brain... then I flip the station to the city's classic rock station to hear Clapton singing the virtues of cocaine. "Good enough," I thought... having never touched an illegal drug in my life. I make the block, roll down my windows, blare the radio, and glare at them as I drive by real slow. Then I spent an extra second at the stop sign, and attempted to peel out. Too bad 0-40 in this car took about a mile. I wonder if they even noticed? Probably not. A couple years later (after I'd turned 18), I stopped in that same Dairy Mart to buy that year's Christmas Edition of Playboy. I finally made my stand with my wallet, and it was great to know they still had all those filthier magazines wrapped in paper behind the counter.

To this day, my dad still teases me whenever we hear Cocaine.

OK... so the next song before Get the Led Out was Who Made Who. That was the first AC/DC record I taped off a buddy. I still don't get that one. Yeah it was a soundtrack to a movie I never saw, but as a package of hits it totally blew.

So now I'm ready to rock. Apparently Seaver still can't backtime, because he starts to Get the Led Out 3 minutes early. C'mon, dude! Then it's the intro, then it's a call... same old shit. The guy on the phone is nearly incoherent, but his wife is mad at him for a reason that may be related to him Getting the Led Out. He dedicates Babe I'm Going to Leave You to her. Aw yeah! Seaver sees his chance to be a personality again. "That marriage is over... See you later, sweetheart... Get a lawyer!" Brilliant stuff. Ha ha.

A good set so far though... I have no objections to Babe kicking off the rock. Then it's The Ocean. Fuck yeah... that's the shit! But here is where I must reveal the rocky start to my relationship with Led Zeppelin. The first time (for real) I heard that riff was in the sample-heavy She's Crafty by Beastie Boys. This was back in '86, when I couldn't yet admit to anyone that I liked rap. Run-DMC blew the doors off my little world (partly because they enlisted Aerosmith for Walk This Way)... but in my white-bred school it just wasn't the right time to love hip-hop. An acquaintance sympathized with me, and sold me Licensed to Ill for $4... and to legitimize my purchase, he also sold me Anthrax's State of Euphoria for the same price. Both tapes kicked my ass, but I could only fess up to liking one. It all seems so silly now. And in a matter of a year or so, I admitted my love for all music (well... country came years later) and I acquired a Zeppelin mix tape featuring The Ocean. I'm rocking now!

But wait... what is this? Is this what I think it is?! Geezus, Seaver man... WHAT IN THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?! After rocking my ass off to The Ocean, he hit a bumper and went to the mechanical beats of Little by Little. Yeah, no shit. That's Robert Plant... solo. You promised me and everyone else listening that you'd GET THE LED OUT. Dude, this is a cardinal sin. I fucking hate it during block party weekends (with or without deep tracks) when I'm rocking out on some Who and you sandwich in a shitty Pete Townshend solo track. And I never want to hear Cocaine again played among two mind blowing Cream songs. But to do this while we're trying to Get the Led Out? Blasphemy! You suck. How dare you! Do your fucking job, Seaver. It's spelled out in your gawddamn job description that's posted right on the WLUP website...

*****
Get the Led Out
Every weeknight at 8, The LOOP salutes one of the greatest rock bands on the planet, Led Zeppelin. Zander rolls out a 3-song "Zep Set" every weeknight, featuring your all-time Zeppelin favorites, including many cuts you never get to hear on the radio.
*****

And I'm not even bashing Plant here. He's done better songs, and he's done worse. He's done some pretty interesting stuff... especially right now. But he has no place in a 3-song set of Zeppelin. What's next? Jimmy Page's occult-inspired soundtracks? JPJ's avant-garde record with Diamanda Galas? A deep cut from Bonham? You're a jerk, Seaver.... you don't give a shit about Zeppelin. You just ruined my night.