An American Tragedy

Faithful readers, it has come to my attention that at 4:29 a.m. on November 10, 2008, there was a sad thing that happened. On that date, in that moment, the PA system in the Fair Hills Shopping Center in Oshinsky, Michigan was fully operational and faithfully playing its rotation of pre-selected shopper-friendly hits from the seventies and eighties when Foreigner’s “Hot Blooded” came on. Now none of us would expect the shopping center to be filled at 4:29 a.m., but the facts incontrovertibly show that not one human being, animal, or other entity heard a single note or word of Foreigner’s wonderful “Hot Blooded” during that pre-dawn moment. Even the shopping center security camera failed to capture the song’s valiant play, someone having forgotten to change the tape in the machine the week before. The tragic fact we are left with is that there was seemingly no point at all in softly broadcasting the sexy bass line which acts as a precursor to the tune’s legendary lyrics, which begin thusly:

I'm hot blooded, check it and see.
I got a fever of a hundred and three.
Come on baby, do you do more than dance?
I'm hot blooded. Hot blooded.

It was simply heard by no one, not even a vagrant or squirrel. The sidewalk alone absorbed the sounds which had once bedazzled millions. The facts prove it beyond a shadow of a lonely doubt. The song went on, but it didn’t matter one whit:

You don't have to read my mind to know what I have in mind.
Honey you oughta know.
Now you move so fine, let me lay it on the line.
I wanna know what you're doin' after the show.

At Payless Shoes, the window display rack of value-priced footwear could neither hear nor understand Foreigner’s noble effort, even though the front door is right below the speaker, and the JOIN US FOR NATIONAL STRAWBERRY MONTH sign hanging in Baskin Robbins sure as hell didn’t register anything either. The song ended after three minutes and fifty-seven seconds with words that only underscored how much of a mournful joke this episode truly was:

Hot blooded, every night.
Hot blooded, you're looking so tight.
Hot blooded, now you're driving me wild.
Hot blooded, I'm so hot for you, child.
Hot blooded, I'm a little bit high.
Hot blooded, you're a little bit shy.
Hot blooded, you're making me sing.
Hot blooded, for your sweet sweet thing.

And so it faded into silence. We now know that not ten seconds after it passed from the world and “Ebony and Ivory” began to play, a thirty-two year old crack addict walked through the parking lot on the way to his grandmother’s house, so at least THAT song didn’t go to complete waste.

My original point of conveying this information becomes a lot clearer when you realize I haven’t had anything to eat since that bowl of Crispix on Tuesday.