I Won't Do That

It isn’t even technically summer yet, and it is so damn hot. I have been sweating all day, not just since the gym workout. I sweat all over Target. I sweat while baking a cake, and seriously, who bakes a cake in this kind of heat? I sweat over my lunch time salad, and I sweat while putting the clothes in the washing machine. And is the past tense sweat or sweated? And does anyone care? No, not in this kind of heat, they don’t. I took a cold shower, and I wasn’t even horny. And you know what I did afterwards? That’s right, I sweat some more. I even briefly contemplated shaving my head, but then I remembered how good that turned out for Britney Spears, and opted for a pony tail instead.

The worst part of my shower was that for some bizarre reason, I had that Meat Loaf song in my head, “Anything for Love.” So there I was, taking a cold shower, and belting out the three lines I admit to knowing of that song, at the top of my lungs. I don’t know why I had that song stuck in my head; it’s not like I heard it recently, or even like it. But regardless, “I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that.”

Now, I am no big fan of Meat Loaf. Meatloaf, the food, I like just fine. I am partial to the ketchup covered kind rather than the brown gravy kind, and heaven help you if you sneak in hunks of green pepper or shredded cheese, because that is plain wrong. But Meat Loaf the musician, well, I wouldn’t say I care for him. First of all, his name is Meat Loaf. I suppose that is some throw back to the sixties and seventies, when every other band had some bizarre food name. Bread, Cream, Marmalade. In what drunken stupor did Meat Loaf sound like a good name for a musical act? Did it stem from a real place, or was it an eureka moment over dinner at Mom’s? When I was a kid, I thought he was called Meat Loaf because he was overweight, and being overweight myself, I didn’t think it was very funny. He might be fat, but he most certainly did not look like a meat loaf. Then again, he was kind of lumpy and unpleasant to look at, like a real meatloaf, so maybe that’s why it stuck.

Aside from his name and his appearance, his music is also lumpy and unpleasant. He is a big star of the rock ballad genre, which I don’t get nor appreciate. And his songs are more than just rock ballads, they are fucking epics. “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” goes on for over eight minutes. “Bat out of Hell” is a long nine minutes. “Anything for Love,” at over seven minutes, takes longer than most couples actually do anything for love. And is he singing from experience? Who wants to fuck a meatloaf anyway?

I remember those horrible videos of Meat Loaf that MTV would play back when they still played videos. He was all sweaty, not unlike me today, with his stringy hair sticking to his flushed face, his rock star-esque white scarf flung around his neck. He would sing exaggeratedly into what had to be a moist microphone, and the lighting was bad, and the video would never end. And invariably one of his videos would be followed by a Stevie Nicks song, which was almost enough to make me want to turn off the TV and go read a book.

I know anyone familiar with “Anything for Love” has been wondering the same thing I have. What exactly is it he won’t do for love? Not that I lose sleep over it or anything. It’s not like it’s the fucking Lord of the Rings. I don’t really care, but I also don’t think Meat Loaf should have a legacy of being deep and complex over a song that bad. I looked up the lyrics of the song after my shower, while I sweat (sweated) some more. And they are long. T S Eliot “Wasteland” long. Jesus, it’s a crappy ballad, not your opus. But the absolute worst part of the song? It was released in 1993. 1993!!!! I could buy 1973, but 1993??? Nirvana’s “Nevermind” is older than a crappy Meat Loaf song? How wrong is that?

Anyway, I can’t get the damn song out of my head. And I can’t stop sweating. And no, I am not having a hot flash. It’s just hot. Which makes me irritable, I suppose. As irritable as thinking of a Meat Loaf song.