ON MUSIC:

I don't know why hair metal should make me so happy. It's not the lyrical content, that's for sure..."The dress you're wearing makes you look so cute/But girl you'd look better in your birthday suit" isn't exactly the lyrical equivalent of a sunset.

And I don't know enough about music - how it's written, how it's structured - to say that it's the rhythm, melody, harmony, or any other term (staccato!) that does it for me. Sure, I enjoy a squealing guitar, but not all squealing guitars are created equally.

And it's certainly not the fashion. My hair doesn't grow "long," it grows "out," so I've never been able to have awesome long hair like the guys from Britny Fox. I've never put on eyeliner or worn leather pants. So it's not that.

Maybe it's that it takes me back to a simpler time. When my only worries were basketball practice and which hockey jersey I would be wearing the next day. When I could tape songs off the radio and not feel ridiculous for doing so. And when I was barely responsible for my own behavior, much less for 400 college sophomores. I don't know. Whatever it is, listening to the "Hair Metal" station on aolradio.com pretty much makes my afternoons tolerable.