I hate people.

Like the PR person who e-mailed to hip me to a story in the "New York Times" reflecting her ethnicity…  It turned out the act profiled was on her label.

Like my next door neighbor.  Who thinks you deserve silence living in the city.

Like the people who e-mail me to tell me what an asshole I am.  Does what I do really affect you that much?

Like the people who call me and won’t let me off the phone.  As if their lame comings and goings are interesting to me for more than five minutes.

Like the guy at the car wash I tipped significantly who did such a shitty job there’s still bird and tree shit all over my car.

I see people walking, driving, sitting at the doctor’s yakking on the cell phone.  What the hell is so important.  That you’ve got to have that receiver glued to your ear?

Seems everybody is trying to get somewhere.  And unless you push back really hard, they think you’re an integral element in their journey, that you can help them.  Like the people I don’t know who just e-mail me a link to their music, like it’s my job to listen to their crap.  And isn’t it funny how the pushiest people are those whose tunes suck the most?

My only respite is my car.

It might be cheap, but it’s got the stereo of a king.

I cruise along the boulevard, with the Alpine cranked and the giant subwoofer taking up a good chunk of the trunk thumping.

The speakers in the rear doors are just for fill.  The main units are up front.  Enough inches in the midranges to give you a full palette of sound, with tweeters adding upper register accents.  All powered by an amplifier so big, it was hard to find a place for it inside the car.

I’ve got XM.  I’ve got Sirius.  I’m not living in the world of terrestrial.  I never want to hear another commercial AGAIN!  I just want music.  All the time.

And I don’t want my music.  I want the deejay’s music.  I want the person inside the box to take me somewhere new, somewhere special, somewhere so great that I’m ELATED!

I’ve come to realize I’m living in an alternative universe.  Far removed from major label land, with its vapid one hit wonders.  And that’s fine with me.  Life’s too short to play the game.  If you can’t exist outside of the system, then you can’t make your own choices, you can’t follow your own muse.

After getting my car less than cleaned I pulled onto Pico Boulevard to the strains of "Fly Like An Eagle".  The organ resonated in a way it never did before.  It was like hearing the song for the very first time.

And I stopped at the post office just as "Bang A Gong (Get It On)" started playing.  My adrenaline was pumping, I was feeling like a world beater, until after buying stamps I went into Trader Joe’s.

I avoid Trader Joe’s at all costs.  And today I was reminded why.  It’s the people.  All wealthy, all looking for a deal.  And you know their personalities.  They think their kids are angels, they think they’re entitled to block the aisle, they think it’s their world and the rest of us just live in it.  So I threw my trail mix over the cart of a shopper back into the rack, shot past the endless checkout line and got back into my automobile.  For a run to Bob’s Market.  To stock up on my number one food resource, Dannon coffee yogurt.

And it was there, right outside Bob’s Market on Ocean Park Boulevard, as I slid between the lines of a parking spot, that I heard it.

I’ve had just about enough of the studio concoctions.  The ones made by beatmasters employing Auto-Tune.  What comes out is records, but there’s no humanity.  There’s humanity in an acoustic guitar.  And that’s what started pouring out of the giant speakers in my car.  The strumming of a professional on his Martin or Gibson.  A hollow body emanating life.  And shortly thereafter, Mark Knopfler started to sing.

The rock you stood upon
Is broken up and gone
Hey baby, who’s your baby now

Hey baby, who’s your baby now?  That girl you fuck you have no idea the inner workings of?

We’re told that everything new is good.  Nothing’s been lost in the process.  Well, if you believe that, you probably feel that terrestrial music radio is good!

You’re nothing without your roots.  Lose them, and you end up where we are now.  An unfathomable music scene.  Where what is hyped sucks and what is ancient rules.  Doubt me?  Just check the touring grosses.

But it’s not really about business.  It’s about life.  You’re going through the motions.  Is it working for you?

Maybe you’ve got a Mercedes.  A 4,000 square foot house.  But does your dick get hard, do you have the edge of excitement in your voice?  Do you feel that you’re alive?

That’s what the music used to provide.  That’s why we were drawn to it.  Because when we listened we felt more alive than at any other time.  That’s why we shelled out the dough.  For the discs and the shows.  We just wanted to feel that way.

Remember how you used to rush home to play your favorite records?  How you needed nobody else in the room to feel joy?  How you played the same track for an hour straight?

That’s "Who’s Your Baby Now" by Mark Knopfler.

It’s from his 2000 album, "Sailing To Philadelphia".

Maybe you know it, more power to you.

But where was I supposed to discover it?  Without a radio station to spin it in Los Angeles?

But now through the power of XM’s Deep Tracks, this deep cut made my day.