Complex Numbers

B minus 5 Days

My town has become a Police state.

Yes, tonight, Sting's old band has a concert at a local venue. This has made the streets almost as clogged as my arteries - except with dumber cholesterol.

When I got to college at 17, I found myself rooming with a guy who should have been compatible. We were both from northern Virginia, both virgins, and we were both younger than most of the other first-years (UVA doesn't have freshmen, sophomores, etc.; it has first-years, second-years, and so on and, just for me, ninth-years).

Should have been, but he worshipped reggae music.

Now, I like reggae as I like most music that isn't rock: I'll listen to it, and it's okay, but it's not my drug of choice. So at first it was cool; I was expanding my musical horizons, and I found out more about Rastafarianism than I ever wanted to.

Of course, mostly he'd listen to Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. But he wore out the grooves of Synchronicity.

The Police is reggae by musical definition, if not by culture. For that matter, Hotel California (song, not album) has a reggae beat, and it was the one song we could agree on - but I digress.

So after hearing The Police a few dozen times, I OD'd on Bruce as an antidote. This was, for those of you who don't do math well, the year before BitUSA came out, so I only had up to Nebraska.

Steve, my roommate, liked Bruce about as much as I liked reggae: in small doses.

Still, everything was fine until the day I came "home" and Darkness on the Edge of Town was on the floor, unwrapped, and Synchronicity was on the turntable - not turning, because he'd stepped out and it had finished playing.

LPs, remember? So it's not like a CD where you can leave it around for a little while and it'll still play, and it's not like an iPod by any stretch. LPs were pretty fragile, and I always handled them with care and respect.

So that's why I'm not going to go see the Police tonight. It has nothing to do with not liking them - I grew to like that album again after first year, and everything to do with Steve's lack of respect for the Bruce.

The midnight gang's assembled and picked a rendezvous for the night
They'll meet 'neath that giant Exxon sign that brings this fair city light
Man there's an opera out on the Turnpike
There's a ballet being fought out in the alley
Until the local cops, Cherry Tops, rips this holy night
The street's alive as secret debts are paid
Contacts made, they vanished unseen
Kids flash guitars just like switch-blades hustling for the record machine
The hungry and the hunted explode into rock'n'roll bands
That face off against each other out in the street down in Jungleland