I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Los Angeles. Out there they live life in the fast lane. Actually, it’sonly half fast; more like life in the breakdown lane. Recent surveys reveal that of the ten million cars in greater Southern Cal, nine million of them have car radios tuned to radio stations that play the Eagles. In fact, you can’t get on the freeway until you’ve got the Eagles on the radio and run a couple of white lines up your sinuses.

Every time I go to L.A. and get in a car, I have the mandatory conversation about the new Eagles’ album and make clucking sounds about how much stuff they snorted the night before, and no, I haven’t made love until my brains rotted out recently, at least I don’t think 1 have, but I’m sure you have and that’s nice. Then the car radio gets cranked up and we cruise along. I used to get hysterical about California culture, a couple of times 1 said while we’re out for this drive would you mind stopping at the airport I just remembered I left the water boiling in New York and I have to catch a plane. But other times I get into it, plummeting along at sixty miles an hour inside a tin can wired for sound, grooving on the sounds of the times.