As I was getting a haircut just now, I was subjected to a Muzak version of Sting’s “Fields of Gold.”

Did someone really stop and say “You know, ‘Fields of Gold’ would be a perfect song to play to people getting a haircut, except that it’s just a bit too noisy. Can we tone it down and make it less intrusive?”

“Fields of Gold” is already played coast to coast in elevators everywhere.  Making a Muzak version of it is like putting Heidi Klum on a diet plan.

I’d like to make a Muzak version of a Muzak version of a Sting song.  It would sound like a low, barely discernible hum. You could do a bunch of them and release them as an album: “Sting Proudly Presents: Inside the Mind of a Coma Patient.”

It’s just possible that it’s time to move out of your current area, when you pick up a copy of the local paper--for example, let’s say yesterday’s Oakland Tribune--and read this headline: “Police arrest 69 people, euthanize 80 birds in cockfighting bust.”

Oakland, you ignorant slut.