It's taken me over 50 years to get over growing up in Detroit. Some would say it shows.

I'm a notorious shut-in and 70's snob (and an anomaly amongst my peers in that I hate both the Beatles and Bob Dylan) with a serious dislike for sunlight, Miss America, and Christmas, married with three kids, and at the risk of appearing like I'm trying to convince you that my youth was better than yours, people like Beck, Radiohead, or Bjork would have been pilloried if they dared set foot on a stage anywhere within shouting distance of this lunchpail burg "back in the day." The fact that all three are allowed to roam the earth makes it official: there is no God.

Don't get me wrong; as a music lover, it's hard to imagine a better town to have grown up in than Detroit, but I'm here to shatter an illusion or two. In yet another example of image overshadowing reality, romantic fans thousands of miles outside the Metro area have created a cult of Detroit worship, concocting a mythological rock nirvana where there are free concerts every day and hippies who don't stink, inflating "Detroit Rock" into a sweeping and majestic term that refers to more than just the two bands that deserve the hubbub: The Stooges and MC5. And maybe Alice Cooper, but he came from places wester and slicker for a Motor City overhaul. Much to everyone's misfortune, many of these heavily-accented folks form bands and try to live this little fantasy, complete with truck stop clothes and biker get-ups, but can't get it through their thick skulls that it's been done before and better.

My personal view is that for the most part, rock music became utterly useless around, oh, 1990, exactly 97.3% of all modern pop music smells like something Charlie Sheen would take out for a night on the town, "art," as a concept, blows, and that hip hop isn't really music at all, technically.

I like fun music, music that makes yer liver quiver and your bladder splatter which, by definition, omits most singer/songwriters, i.e., people strumming guitars they can't afford and don't deserve whilst intoning songs all about Themselves and how They feel about events affecting Them in Their lives, all in the trepidant tenor of God pondering whom He might next consign to eternal damnation.

All cars are junk - I hate them - to hell with automobiles. To hell with insurance. To hell with Henry Ford. I am not mechanically inclined. Nor am I "handy," or "improvisational," or "clever." I can barely navigate my way out of a toll booth. If only I had paid attention to my Dad at all of those Saturday "let's learn about the wonders of the four-stroke engine" bonding sessions when I was a teenager. If he had been telling me how Link Wray got that dirty fuzz tone guitar effect in his seminal 1958 instrumental classic, "Rumble," I would have listened.

Bono? Light beer? Red Hot Chili Peppers? Cobain? Don't get me started.

Living in the past, sleepin' with the TV on; hold all calls...