More metal

I'm often slow on the uptake. For example, I hadn't heard Dokken until this fall, when I started to do research on my old favorite, Winger.

I know a lot of Dokken now. I am Rokken with Dokken, it seems.

I write to a former teacher of mine--technical writing and computer applications--and, after he sent me a few cat pix of his, I told the guy to check out my pictures on my MySpace site. His response went something like this: "I noticed that almost all your 'friends' are from Winger. There must be a story here."

Indeed.

I've always been one of those pathetic women with a prissy, overeducated accent. And I've worked as a copy editor, for all the good that it did me. Neither Kip Winger nor Paul Taylor has followed my advice in cleaning up their MySpace profiles. I haven't yet told Reb that he needs to write "your" most of the time when he has "you're" on his formal Web site (www.rebbeach.com).

Anyway, Michael had never pegged me for a metal fan. He's probably surprised that I loved King's X but hated the Foo Fighters. He didn't know about my passion for David Coverdale.

Back to Winger. Michael is also big on Winger, and he's at least twenty years younger than I am. [Correction: He's not quite twenty years younger than I am.] I sent him a YouTube link to Reb Beach's favorite Dokken song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7m1x5XAKYk), and now I owe to Michael my fascination with that group.

I'm now listening to Kiss, thanks to my former teacher.