Rock 'n' Roll Love Letter*

Dear Mark, Harpo, Big Man, King of Peru, Friend:

You ate one too many bowls of bad SNL cereal. Or one too few. And now you're lying in the hospital bed with a ventilator, in an unflattering white gown, with tubes and wires and bad hair (well, worse than usual). I will be coming to see you in a few minutes, and, frankly, I'm scared.

Last time I saw my grandmother, she was heavily sedated and on a ventilator. Of course, her illness was terminal; yours isn't. It's just that it's my last memory of her, and it's a painful one. Damn you for doing this.

If you are a man out there in the cyber world, and you happen to stumble on this tiny nothing of a blog, this tiny heart among hearts, listen up: go to the fucking doctor! Go once a year after you're forty. I don't care if you don't want to hear him tell you to lose a couple pounds or twenty or a hundred. He's going to tell you that and to quit smoking, too. And you don't have to do it. You don't have to do anything he suggests--eat vegetables, exercise, get more sleep. But you have to go.

You have to turn and cough for someone in a white fucking coat so that you don't end up in a white gown with tubes and wires and bad hair.

Big Man, you are in my prayers to the Big Guy. I love you.

Oh, and How is a Feeling?

Yours,

Pat Benetar

*The version recorded by The Records, 1988
http://www.mp3.com/albums/153921/summary.html (paste the link in your browser, and then click on the little bullhorn at the bottom of the page next to "Rock 'n' Roll Love Letter")