Song Of The Day 9/2/2015: Wham! vs. Billy Idol (Wax Audio) – “Careless Rebel”

M*A*S*H*U*P Week '15 – So here we have two titans of the first half of the ’80s facing off against each other in the restored Colosseum of Rome, pacing about each other in circles, grunting and exhaling through their nostrils, arching their upper lips in visible contempt, wrapping up their used gum and conscientiously disposing of it in a mannerly fashion.

George Michael, clad in cocktail casual, peeking out from behind his mousse, the rubbery cheeks of vestal elasticity just now giving way to the solemn etchings of aging dubiety, a team of four Andrew Ridgeleys attending to his billet, polishing the vinyl, printing the T-shirts.

And Billy Idol, so assured of his notoriety he named himself “Idol,” stepping over disused carburetors, gnawing off the end of a strip of buffalo jerky, honing his insignias, symbolizing both the rugged Old West and the rotted Dead Future, pursing his lower lip, then receding it, then pursing, then receding, pursing, receding, and what the hell are you looking at?

The spectators want blood. They want to see someone get cut and bleed. Then they want to see several efficient and scrupulous orderlies rush onto the scene and contain the blood loss and sanitize the perimeter, because they actually get sick at the sight of blood.

“William of Idol,” George bellows, “I accuse you of high crimes against humanity!”

“Hey,” Billy retorts, “that’s what I was gonna say about you!”

“My over-competence wins the day again, William, because if you wanted to go-go first, you should have went-went first!”

“You, George of the house of Michael, have sashayed your last! I shall avail myself of war paint applied to my cheeks and yet win this sword in the name of the rebellion!”

“War paint? Who are you, Adam of Ant? I kicked his ass into next week last week!”

“Adam Ant was a petty pirate, hardly fit to lick the barracks of his own teeny-bopping barge! I am made of Middlesex mettle and irascible street smarts! Behold my muscle shirt.”

“Shan’t your frame have muscles for your shirt to highlight? Not those two dangling pillows with pores oozing the dregs of Newcastle Brown Ales from six years past!”

“Enough of this prattle! Commence with the battle! Let’s settle this conflict like two men fighting over the urinal in a Beverly Hills park bathroom!”

“You cut to the quick, William, but I cut to the bone! Now wither in the face of my polished adult contemporary!”

“Only after thou crumble underneath the weight of my synth-tinged post-punk! Charge, beast!

They meet in the middle, stop, then shrug the whole thing off, go back to Billy’s place and listen to some old T. Rex records, because I don’t write fight scenes.