between watching sex and the city season three, working on a short story, searching for a notebook, eating two bowls of ice cream, pondering the good ideaness of taking a nap, playing freecell, starting to dial the phone and hanging up, checking my e-mail 3,923 times, i’ve managed to eek out just enough time to annoy the hell out of myself and ponder the social implications of rod stewart’s song “young turks.”

this was one of my very favorite songs circa sometimes in the 80s. the actual dates don’t make sense because when the song was realeased in 1981, i’d have been all of 9 and the only thing i really remember listening to was my mom and dad’s simon and garfunkel record or my donnie and marie go coconuts tape.

but somehow i had discovered young turks when i was about 14 or 15. maybe it was MTV. i don’t even remember. but when i was a kid i thought this was the best, most rebellious and romantic song ever. these two kids running off to the big city to be in love. billy pierced his ear and drove a pick-up like a new york tank! what could be better.

but tonight, after listening to the song 94 times i see the error of my ways. this song is nothing if not completely irresponsible. what kind of adult encourages kids to think that “time is on their side?” time is not on their side. sure it might be cool to spend your life piercing your ears and having an apartment that’s jumping every night of the week. but the next thing you know you’re giving birth to a 10 pound baby boy and you don’t even have a high school education. now where are you? yeah, that time might have been better spent, don’t you think?

and while i agree with rod that you gotta seize the day, that time is a theif when you’re undecided, and you shouldn’t ever let them change your point of view, well maybe they billy and patty should have found happiness hitting the books and not in each others arms. or if they were gonna find the happiness as teens are wont to do, that happiness could have been wearing a condom.

and you just know there was no happy ending for billy or patty. you know patty had problems losing the baby weight, and billy left her for some slimjim with shaking hips. poor patty was left with the 10 pound baby boy and had to move back home with her parents and they never let her forget that she ran away like some young turk and what did that get her? well? eventually she worked her way through college and met another man, whom she married but that poor 10 pound baby boy always felt like the bastard stepchild and grew up to listen to rod stewart endlessly driving his mom and stepdad and his three stepsisters absolutely nuts until he too decided to let his young heart be free tonight. and well, i’m sure you know how that story ends.