"But you always get your way."

"No, you just keep telling me I always get my way. I like that better than actually getting my way."

"Well, you like to get your way and and get the credit." get the credit."

"I do like that, don't I. And I like you."

"Thank you."

"And you know how to freshen a girl's drink."

"We're out of ice."

She loved ordering me to beat people up for her. She didn't want me to mean mean it; she just wanted to me to say, sure honey, even though she knew I couldn't bust the proverbial grape in a fruit fight. it; she just wanted to me to say, sure honey, even though she knew I couldn't bust the proverbial grape in a fruit fight.

When Renee died in 1997, I could no longer fantasize about beating up people who were mean to her. It was like Lord Byron asked: "Let the object of affection be s.n.a.t.c.hed away by death, and how is all the pain ever inflicted on them avenged?" Good question. After she died, she left her pain in the world, and I couldn't protect her from it anymore. But then, I never could. I'd come a long way for her. And now I was somewhere new. From the start, I had to realize how helpless I was to protect her from her pain, and the longer we stayed together, the more I felt swamped with awareness of all the bad s.h.i.t in the world from which I could not protect her.

When Renee had trouble at her day job, she kept a Robin Ventura baseball card on her desk. When steam came out of her ears, she would look at Robin Ventura and think, "Don't charge the mound. Once you agree to fight, you lost already. Don't start none, won't be none." It calmed her down, reminded her to keep her head. To anybody just pa.s.sing by her desk, it looked like an innocent baseball card of the White Sox third baseman, a handsome jock, nothing more. But to her, it was a coded message, and it had to do with Robin charging the mound when Nolan Ryan hit him in 1993, and how a pitcher on a mound always has the first-punch advantage and it was a total no-win display of temper, even though he was right. Being right is no advantage in the fight-if anything, it's a piano on your back, making you pitifully easy to put in a headlock. When Renee would feel her temperature rising, she would whisper the name to herself, "Robin Ventura," over and over, and usually it would go away. Also, Robin Ventura had a righteous a.s.s, which probably was also partly why she kept the baseball card.

Not being able to protect her from things was the most frightening thing I'd ever felt, and it kicked in as soon as we got together. With every year we spent together, I became more conscious that I now had an infinitely expanding number of reasons to be afraid. I had something to lose. You know the movie Swamp Thing Swamp Thing? The mad scientist takes Adrienne Barbeau hostage shortly after her topless scene and uses her as bait to entrap the Swamp Thing. When the trap works, the mad scientist gives an evil laugh at the Swamp Thing and says, "The man who loves gives hostages to fortune."

It was lonely, grappling with all those fears. Did all adult people worry about this? I didn't know.

One Sunday afternoon, Renee and I ran out of gas in the middle of a fight, driving across Afton Mountain in my sister's Granada. That car couldn't claim to have a lot of road-worthy virtues, but it did have a functioning gas gauge, and I really should have noticed that the needle was on empty, except Renee and I were too busy sniping at each other about some topic that seemed incredibly important at the time. I honestly don't even remember what it was we were mad about. The car stalled out and I nosed into the breakdown lane. We really wanted to sit in the car and keep fighting, but instead, we got out of the car to fight about which one of us would have to walk down the mountain in search of the nearest gas station.

We stood out there on the side of the road, leaning against the car, both of us staring bleakly at the traffic rushing by us. We began to understand how stupid we were to stay together. Neither of us said a word-we just stood there, our shirts flapping in the breeze like a couple of rags tied to the antenna. We were going to have to use our brains, but it was our brains that got us up here, so something else had to get us down. Is there anyone stupider, weaker, more helpless, but especially stupider, than two twenty-three-year-old kids in love?

Not stupid for running out of gas or even for fighting, but for staying together in the first place. That was the first moment I realized how f.u.c.ked we were. For the rest of my life, I would have reasons to be afraid. I now had something in my blood stronger and meaner than I was. Two people leaning against a '76 Granada by the side of the road, arms folded, staring at the gravel-this was a posture we could stay in forever, and n.o.body could protect us from it except each other. Like the Turk says in The G.o.dfather The G.o.dfather, blood is a big expense.

As we stood there, I knew what "hostages to fortune" meant. Love can do whatever it wants to you. And it's a lot meaner than you are. (And then love starts talking to you the way Kirk Douglas talks to Jane Greer in Out of the Past Out of the Past.) It won't be quick. I'll break you first. You won't be able to answer the phone or walk around in your own apartment without wondering, is this it? And when it does come, it still won't be quick. And it won't be pretty.

I'm not sure how long we stood there. A car pulled into the breakdown lane ahead of us. It was Renee's friend Becky from Waynesboro, another paralegal in her office. Becky rolled down her driver's-side window. "Yooo-hoooo!" she yelled. "Y'all look like you're in a bit of a pickle." She laughed a bit, then drove off to get us some gas.

"I'll be right back," she hollered before she peeled out. "You two don't go anywhere!"

It took her about twenty minutes. But she came back with a can of gas from the station down the other side of the mountain. Becky taught me how to open a hood and pour gas from a can directly onto a carburetor, a skill I have never used again. Renee and I didn't tell her we'd been fighting. Becky probably guessed.

We thanked her and told her we didn't know what we would have done without her (that was true). She said, "Have a good night," and we said, "We will" (that was a lie).

We nosed back onto Route 250 in silence and defeat. It took a few miles for Renee to turn on the radio again. I didn't want to hear it.

"Come on," she said. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too. I just don't want to talk."

"Smile?"

"Not now."

"Come on. You know I love this song. Rox-ANNE!"

"I don't feel like it."

"Rox-ANNE!"

Pffff. Teeth still clenched. Slow exhale.

"Don't leave me hanging from the Roxanne tree, darlin'. RAAAK-ZAAAAN!"

"Put on a red light."

"That's it! Rox-ANNNE!"

"Purrron uuuh RED! LYYYYY!"

"Yeah! Roxanne!"

"Purrron uuuh REEEEEH! LYYYYY!"

"Roxanne!"

"You don't have to PURRRON UUUH REEEH! LYYYYY!"

"Roxanne!"

Miles go by, no red lights at all.

DURAN DURAN.

"All She Wants Is"

1989.

Duran Duran celebrated the end of the 1980s by releasing their greatest hits alb.u.m, which they called Decade. Decade. This was either their way of making fun of Neil Young, exactly the kind of old-school rock idol they had no use for, or their way of reminding everybody they'd stuck around five times as long as anyone expected. I thought I was Duran Duran's biggest fan, but I never dreamed they'd still be making hits in 1989. This was either their way of making fun of Neil Young, exactly the kind of old-school rock idol they had no use for, or their way of reminding everybody they'd stuck around five times as long as anyone expected. I thought I was Duran Duran's biggest fan, but I never dreamed they'd still be making hits in 1989.

"All She Wants Is" was their answer to "I Know What Boys Like." They sang, "All she wants is, all she wants is"-but they wouldn't say what she wants! Duran Duran knew, they just wouldn't tell me. That wasn't fair. George Michael wasn't coy about what the girl wanted from him (she wanted money) and neither was Billy Idol (she wanted mo, mo, mo). Girls want things-to have fun, to be free tonight, to dance-and that's the engine that drives pop music. n.o.body seemed more sure of what girls wanted than Duran Duran, and that was why I seemed to be still stuck with them. Now that I had a girlfriend, I needed to know more than ever.

It worked. They got my money. I waited in line at Plan 9 Records and spent my nine bucks for the Decade Decade tape. That weekend, I took it to a grad-student party as a novelty item, but the hostesses put it on, inflicting it on everyone who showed up. The fact that Duran Duran left "New Moon on Monday" off their greatest hits alb.u.m made my friends mad, so they pulled their twelve-inch Duran singles from the back of the pile, where they'd been carefully hidden, and slapped the records on. It was a long, sweaty, Duran-filled night. tape. That weekend, I took it to a grad-student party as a novelty item, but the hostesses put it on, inflicting it on everyone who showed up. The fact that Duran Duran left "New Moon on Monday" off their greatest hits alb.u.m made my friends mad, so they pulled their twelve-inch Duran singles from the back of the pile, where they'd been carefully hidden, and slapped the records on. It was a long, sweaty, Duran-filled night.

Listening to it now is like a personally guided tour through my past. Every song is a time capsule full of things that girls want. So I keep listening.

Side 1 starts with "Planet Earth." Duran Duran's first hit. Reached number twelve on the U.K. charts in 1981.

Everybody knows who Duran Duran are, and everybody knows a few of the big hits: "Hungry Like the Wolf," "Rio," "Planet Earth." Some people also know the tiny hits, like "New Moon on Monday" and "Hold Back the Rain." A few of us even made it to Side 2 of the Arcadia record. So Red the Rose So Red the Rose-now there's a poetic alb.u.m t.i.tle.

There are five Durannies, although some periodically leave the band and get replaced by n.o.bodies. The replacements are never attractive, because the Durannies are too vain to share the stage with anyone as hot as they are.

The Fab Five: Simon Le Bon is the lead singer, the one who wears towels around his neck and had a famous yacht wreck in 1985. He has always claimed Simon Le Bon is his real name. John Taylor is the ba.s.sist, and the foxiest member of the group. He did the theme song for the popular film 9 Weeks 9 Weeks, "I Do What I Do (To Have You)," and starred in the indie film Sugar Town Sugar Town. Nick Rhodes is the keyboardist, who is (besides Simon) the only Durannie who has never quit the band. Andy Taylor, the ponytailed guitarist, was the first to quit and go solo. Roger Taylor, the drummer, was the first to quit and not do much of anything.

They first blew into my world in late 1982, when the radio started playing "Hungry Like the Wolf" and "Rio." I knew these songs months before I saw the videos-from the sheer sound, you could tell this was a whole new thing. They claimed they wanted to combine Chic with the s.e.x Pistols, and talked in lofty art-school terms about their fusion of punk, funk and glam. They wore makeup. They sang mind-humpingly bad poetry, every word of which I loved.

Oh, those fiendish Durannies, with their bat-s.h.i.t pretensions and their preening pretty-boy b.i.t.c.h faces. Duran Duran, with their ridiculous feverish poetry about the mysterious Cleopatras who seduced and defanged them every few minutes. They made a lot of enemies as well as lifelong fans. Every time they come back and do a reunion tour, the adult women in my life turn into bobby-soxer battalions.

I'm a hard-core Duran Duran fan. I have followed them through side projects and solo alb.u.ms. I have listened to every single one of their mediocre comeback alb.u.ms, even the one that was called Red Carpet Ma.s.sacre Red Carpet Ma.s.sacre. I rented the 1986 movie American Anthem American Anthem, a sensitive love story about two Olympic gymnasts, just because Andy Taylor did the pus-gushingly bad theme song.

Hey, I have my moments when I worry about how much I love Duran Duran. I've done things I'm not proud of and frequented chat rooms I won't visit again. I realize they're maybe not the most productive group in the world, or the most talented, or the most proficient. But it doesn't matter. We share secrets, Duran Duran and I. I watched the Live Earth broadcast in 2007 just to see them save the planet. Simon Le Bon told the crowd, "Just coming here is not enough to get what's got to be done, done . . . but but . . . if we all sing . . . we might just make a stand, right here!" . . . if we all sing . . . we might just make a stand, right here!"

And what song did Simon choose to save the planet? "Girls on Film." That is why he is Simon, and that is why we love him.

"Girls on Film." Famous for a video with s.e.xy models attacking sumo wrestlers.

Let's not mince words: Duran Duran are famous because girls like them. If a few boys want to come along too, that's fine with Duran Duran, they like the color of our money. But we are the fans they do not care about. They don't need us. They have the girls. They know who keeps them in business.

They've always known this, even in their earliest days. In my collection of DD memorabilia, I treasure their 1981 interview with Melody Maker Melody Maker. Nick Rhodes announces, "I've just worked out why so many more blokes are coming to our gigs this time round." Why? "Because they've heard that so many girls come."

In most styles of music, there's a stigma to having this kind of a female audience. When LL Cool J was having his rap battle with Canibus, the deadliest insult Canibus could say was, "Ninety-nine percent of your fans wear high heels." In part, this is just jealousy, but there's also some primal male fear involved. There's the fear that if you have a female audience, male fans won't touch you, and when the females move on to the next cute dude with a catchy song, you will be broke and lonely.

Of course, it goes the other way too. Ladies love LL Cool J-that's what the name stands for, "Ladies Love Cool James"-whereas Canibus never had a hit in the first place. LL's response to the high-heels line? "Ninety-nine percent of your fans don't exist."

"Hungry Like the Wolf." The first time most of us heard Duran Duran, at least in this country. Still the only hit song in history ever to endorse lycanthropic s.e.x.

Simon still sings in the high-pitched yelp of the pop idol. That can be a dangerous thing for a rock singer. It's an old s...o...b..z truism that a low voice has a longer career than a high voice. Even in the old-time radio days, if you were a lightweight tenor, it meant your audience would be female, and that meant you would have a short run. Frank Sinatra became an idol in the 1940s by crooning breathy love ballads to girls while their boyfriends were off fighting World War II. When the soldiers came marching home, Frankie's career crashed-until he made his 1950s comeback with his deep new broken-down-by-love voice. Singers with high voices always try to aim deeper. As baritone Bing Crosby told tenor Dennis Day on The Jack Benny Program, The Jack Benny Program, "Get your voice down here where the money is, kid." "Get your voice down here where the money is, kid."

Simon never worried about any of this. In fact, the mere fact that he decided to go pro with that voice is proof he is made of sterner stuff than people realize.

It can be uncomfortable for a boy to watch the frenzied, uninhibited enthusiasm of girl fans screaming for their idols, whether it's Sinatra, the Beatles or Michael Jackson. That is partly jealousy too-who wouldn't want to be the one who inspires girls to make that kind of noise? But it's also partly because we envy that enthusiasm. The archetypal girl fan does not have to worry about whether music is cool or valid or authentic. If it makes her dance or gets her hot, she screams.

Boys do not scream, so we get threatened by all this libidinal energy. As the musical philosopher Lil' Kim has noted, inside every man is a baaaad baaaad girl. And that bad girl can scare the bejeezus out of us. The lady makes demands. girl. And that bad girl can scare the bejeezus out of us. The lady makes demands.

There's a story I love about the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, a gay man who could never publicly acknowledge the intensity of his love for this band he'd discovered. One night, on tour in America, he gave himself a special treat he'd never indulged before. He sneaked into the back of the crowd, anonymous in the dark, stood with the girls, and screamed as loud as he'd always wanted to.

When I hear Duran Duran, part of me wants to scream for them and part of me wants to be the guy who the girls are screaming for. I guess that's why they keep me feeling fascination. Duran Duran are a girls' band who have stayed famous by being true to their girls; they do not let this stigma get to them. They are flamboyantly pleased to be adored by females. They do not get rattled by the screams.

Next up on the hit parade is "Rio." The t.i.tle track to their second and biggest alb.u.m. Still their most famous video, with their second-most-laughed-at lyric: "It means so much to me, like a birthday or a pretty view." Gloriously terrible sax solo too.

They cared nothing for rock standards of authenticity. They had three guys in the band named Taylor, as in clothes-makers, and I didn't know what was more brilliant, the fact that it was their real name or the fact that they weren't related. They came from Birmingham, and if I'd known anything about Great Britain, I would have known it was a grim industrial steel town where the urge to break out of gender confines must have been overpowering. But I didn't. All I knew was the way they draped themselves on the inner sleeve of Rio Rio. For a few months, it was hard to tell Nick from John, unless John was sporting his bare-chest-under-white-blazer-and-one-of-La-Toya-Jackson's-spare-headbands look.

I still get that frisson every time I see the "Rio" video. Simon's on his yacht, wearing some kind of powder-blue mesh tank top. A girl swims through the ocean carrying a pink phone, which Simon answers so he can sing the second verse to another girl on another boat. I love the girl who strolls out of the surf with a knife strapped to her thigh. (Why, Lord, why? Why didn't that look catch on?) I love the girl who stretches on the love seat and yawns indulgently while John nervously fumbles with the champagne.

I have no idea how many different girls are in this video, but they're all Rio to me, and I fell in love with all of her. The way she winks at the end, as if she has been here before. Duran Duran are not the first rock-and-roll sailor boys to zoom through her harbor, and they won't be the last. She is older than the sand upon which she dances. You will pa.s.s away, lover boy, just another pair of dancing footprints in the sand, but Rio will roll on. Creamed jeans are made of this!

Side 2 starts with "The Reflex." Their first and only U.S. number-one hit, even though everybody likes "Rio" a lot better. The lead singer of the Fixx denounced this song, saying, "There's a soul flapping in the breeze there."

Boys were threatened by Duran Duran, which was understandable. They were the first popular band to get dismissed as a video band, an MTV scam that gullible girls got brainwashed into liking. John Lydon of Public Image Ltd., formerly Johnny Rotten, sneered, "As for you poor little cows who buy Duran Duran records, you need serious help 'cause these people are conning you."

That was a popular sentiment. When the Clash called their 1985 alb.u.m Cut the c.r.a.p Cut the c.r.a.p, Duran Duran was probably the c.r.a.p they meant. Sweatband-wearing rock prudes Dire Straits rustled up a huge hit called "Money for Nothing," raging against them. "That little f.a.ggot with the earring and the makeup / Yeah buddy, that's his own hair." Dire Straits didn't wear earrings, makeup or hair for that matter. They just wore sweatbands.

Boys around the world were arguing with their girlfriends, trying to explain why Duran Duran were a fraud, a smoke-and-mirrors show, an imperialist plot, a joke. They probably didn't write their own songs or play their own instruments; they were a soulless corporate product. If I'd had a girlfriend, I probably would have given her the same argument. Maybe I liked Duran Duran so much because I could console myself for not having a girlfriend. By being a DD fan, I was part of the problem that was making so many other boys so mad.

Lots of bands complained that Duran Duran and the other new-wave hair-hoppers were taking up valuable airtime that rightfully belonged to the American bands turning up the soil of the punk underground: the Minutemen, the Flesh Eaters, D.O.A., Big Boys or Black Flag. Some of my favorite bands grappled with the moral ambiguities of the whole DD phenemonon: X came out against them ("I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts"), while the Replacements found them amusing ("Androgynous").These were both great songs. Not as great as "Hungry Like the Wolf," though.

"Is There Something I Should Know?" This ballad has Duran Duran's most famous line: "You're about as easy as a nuclear war." No, I don't know what it means.

The first time I met Duran Duran, they were called Shaun Ca.s.sidy.

Maureen Connelly brought the Shaun Ca.s.sidy alb.u.m into school one day, in that fateful spring of 1977. The entire girl half of the fourth grade sat rapt as Shaun whispered his secret girl code: "Da Doo Ron Ron." Da doo ron ron? What the h.e.l.l did that mean? The dewy look on every female face in the room made me eager to know more, but Shaun wasn't telling. Da doo ron ron.

All of us boys hated Shaun Ca.s.sidy, feared him, made fun of him, boycotted his Hardy Boys Hardy Boys television show. We were singing "f.u.c.k you ron ron ron, f.u.c.k you ron ron" to his television show. We were singing "f.u.c.k you ron ron ron, f.u.c.k you ron ron" to his Dynamite Dynamite cover shot, cursing his blond perfection and his three-foot-wide blue eyes; I rejoiced when cover shot, cursing his blond perfection and his three-foot-wide blue eyes; I rejoiced when Mad Mad magazine renamed him "Shorn Chast.i.ty." What we didn't realize was that Shaun didn't understand this girl language any better than we did. We had no idea "Da Doo Ron Ron" was an old '60s girl-group song by the Crystals. Shaun didn't know what "da doo ron ron" meant either. magazine renamed him "Shorn Chast.i.ty." What we didn't realize was that Shaun didn't understand this girl language any better than we did. We had no idea "Da Doo Ron Ron" was an old '60s girl-group song by the Crystals. Shaun didn't know what "da doo ron ron" meant either.

A few months later, the same d.a.m.n thing happened all over again. Except now it was Melissa Kaiser bringing the alb.u.m into cla.s.s, and Shaun's name was now Andy Gibb. He was even blonder and cuter, with ringlets that cascaded down his head like the wool of a sacrificial lamb. That's when it dawned on me that this cycle would never end. By the time Andy Gibb was up to his third or fourth hit, there would be another one, and then another. Only the names would change, and even then not much. It was like Showgirls Showgirls: there's always someone younger and hungrier coming up behind you on the stairs.

This proved to be correct. Every few months there was always someone new, except now my sisters were old enough to command the radio and buy records, so I heard them at home rather than just at school. They kept coming, the Rick Springfields and John Stamoses (Stami?) and Loverboys and REO Speedwagons. And-just in time for high school-Duran Duran, a new breed of boys on film.

The average girlie-idol pop star has a short run, partly because girls are fickle, but mostly because boys always want to be taken seriously. So they try going rock, and get alpha bravo'd by reality, at which point the girls have found someone else. Your average pop star gets famous by acting girlie-and as soon as he gets to the top, he frantically tries to get rid of the girls and starts trying to get taken seriously by the boys. h.e.l.l, even Shaun Ca.s.sidy tried to go boy-rock eventually, doing an alb.u.m of Who and Talking Heads covers produced by Todd Rundgren.

It's the oldest story in the book, but the stars never learn. They wash off the makeup, grow some stubble, start frowning and crossing their arms in the band photos. Hey, is that a brick wall? Let's stand in front of it! It never, never never works. works.

Okay, right, it worked for George Michael. And Justin Timberlake, and I guess you could count Bon Jovi too, although I'd trade their entire mature cla.s.sic-rock phase for one chorus of "Livin' on a Prayer." But look at the wreckage. Poor Ricky Nelson-he changed his name to Rick, disavowed his teenage-idol past, started playing sensitive hippie country rock. The Bay City Rollers became the Rollers and started writing adult rock songs about how lonely it was being teen idols on the road. The New Kids on the Block changed their name to NKOTB and tried to win the serious hip-hop crowd with "No More Games." Frankie Goes to Hollywood claimed, "We're not a girl's band. We're a man's band." (Well, that was understandable.) Spandau Ballet went metal. Milli Vanilli tried singing.

Even Poison, those frou-frou bubble-metal s.k.a.n.ks-they scrubbed off the Max Factor, got serious, did an acoustic ballad called "Stand." "You got to stand for what you believe." Wait, I'm getting advice from Bret Michaels? About standing for what I believe? I'll tell you what I believe, Bret. I believe in "Talk Dirty to Me," and C.C. DeVille, and Rikki Rockett, especially on the alb.u.m where you were credited with "Vocalizin' and Socializin' " while C.C. was "Sticks, Tricks, and Lipstick Fix." I believe in every single episode of Rock of Love, Rock of Love, especially the one where the crazed stripper steals the gym socks from the roller rink. But "Stand"? Nay, Bret-this is not what I believe in, and you never believed it either, which is why I believe in you. Hug? especially the one where the crazed stripper steals the gym socks from the roller rink. But "Stand"? Nay, Bret-this is not what I believe in, and you never believed it either, which is why I believe in you. Hug?

Every star is afraid of the scent of Bubble Yum, the snap of barrettes. But can you blame them? It's got to be unnerving being up there in the girlie lights, hearing the screams of the l.u.s.t-crazed bacchantes. It scared the ancient Greeks-Orpheus, the inventor of song, was ripped to pieces by lovesick sea nymphs because his voice was just too hot just too hot. Euripides wrote The Bacchae The Bacchae, about the dancing ladies who worship Dionysus and get driven so mad by his music that they rip off their husbands' heads.

If Simon Le Bon ever feels it's a drag to get up there every night and remember the plot to "The Chauffeur" and act surprised every G.o.dd.a.m.n time Rio shows up to run him down ("Wooo! Hey now! Look at that!"), he keeps it locked inside his pretty little head. If he owns any sensible shoes, he never gets caught wearing them in public. If any of the Durannies have any fits of male pride where they feel it's demeaning to tart themselves up for the ladies, they keep it to themselves. These men let their self-doubt float across their sky like a fluffy black cloud. Once, when an interviewer asked who would play them in a movie, John Taylor named some guy from Dynasty Dynasty, Simon picked Eddie Murphy and Nick Rhodes said, "Joan Crawford, just because she wore great shoulder pads." Now that's that's a star talking. a star talking.

"A View to a Kill." The theme to a James Bond movie that n.o.body has ever seen. The video has John Taylor shooting a bunch of people on the Eiffel Tower.

When I was writing for the MTV Video Music Awards, in the summer of 2003, I wrote a speech about them. Kelly Osbourne and Avril Lavigne were giving the band a Lifetime Achievement Award, and I wrote their speech. They are both huge DD fans, even though they weren't born until 1984, circa "The Wild Boys." It was a daunting task. How could I do justice to the subject-not to the band, who I'd written about a million times, but to the fans. Could I do justice to the girls who were screaming for this band before Kelly or Avril showed up to scream along?

It was a surprise award for the band. They thought they were merely invited to appear onstage and present an award to somebody else; Kelly Osbourne and Avril Lavigne came out with the trophy and sprung it on Duran Duran as a surprise. The band looked pleased-but not humbled. Who wants to see them humbled?

Kelly and Avril delivered the speech beautifully, pa.s.sionately. Kelly sounded like a preacher, getting religion, waving her hands in the air and getting the crowd screaming. Every time she yelled out another DD song t.i.tle, the screams got louder. She was on fire. I was watching from my seat in the back of Radio City Music Hall, where I was just another dude. But Kelly Osbourne and Avril Lavigne-they were girls who loved Duran Duran.

"Notorious." A huge hit in 1986, produced by Nile Rodgers of Chic. This was the first DD hit without Roger and Andy. It was also the first hit that made people say, "Oooo, I like this one. Who is it? Duran Duran? What the h.e.l.l are they doing still around?"

There's a character in a Shakespeare play who describes life as "six or seven winters more," but what she really meant was "six or seven Duran Duran records more." They always keep making more. More than you would guess without having to look it up. No matter how big a fan you are, you probably haven't flipped through Nick Rhodes's photographic collection Interference, Interference, or listened to Simon's solo version of "Ordinary World" with Luciano Pavarotti. Duran Duran have more records than you've heard, more than they remember, more than anyone wants. They've stuck around so long, they have aged into the despot dowagers of new wave. To tell the truth, even a hard-core fan has to be stunned by their staying power. or listened to Simon's solo version of "Ordinary World" with Luciano Pavarotti. Duran Duran have more records than you've heard, more than they remember, more than anyone wants. They've stuck around so long, they have aged into the despot dowagers of new wave. To tell the truth, even a hard-core fan has to be stunned by their staying power.

In the '90s, they had an urban radio smash with their cover of Grandmaster Flash's "White Lines (Don't Do It)." But they don't really worry about hits anymore. Now they make records with Justin Timberlake and Timbaland, just to prove they can. They seem to be constantly doing reunion tours. Once in a while, you catch them taking themselves seriously, and although those moments are brief, they're rea.s.suring and kind of poignant. There's a VH1 Cla.s.sic Alb.u.ms Cla.s.sic Alb.u.ms doc.u.mentary on the making of doc.u.mentary on the making of Rio Rio. It's downright sweet to see Nick Rhodes in the studio at the mixing board, turning up the guitar track from the master tapes of "Rio." "It's a h.e.l.l of a guitar sound, actually," Nick muses. "Andy always used to use Marshalls but then he was quite experimental with his pedals at that time too, so I'm sure it was chorused and f.l.a.n.g.ed and delayed a little." John Taylor adds, "He had a lot of knowledge of the fret-board." Oh, puh-f.u.c.king-lease! What are we, Jeff Beck now? This is a Duran Duran record!

I feel I still have so much to learn from Duran Duran. They're like the musical version of the sensei that Uma Thurman goes to study martial arts with in Kill Bill Kill Bill. They are my new-wave senseis. What do we expect from DD? Egomania. Ridiculousness. s.e.xual hysteria. A little humor if we're lucky. You will never meet anybody in your life who has ever felt disappointed by them or anything they do. But somehow, that just makes it safer to love them.

Does anybody know or care what DD themselves want? Does anybody worry that they are not finding artistic fulfillment? Does anyone wonder what they are "really like" or how they "really feel" in everyday life? Maybe Simon likes to slip into a terry-cloth robe and read romance novels in the tub. Maybe John roots for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Maybe Nick sneaks into the bas.e.m.e.nt and picks up an acoustic guitar to play Bob Dylan songs. Who cares? n.o.body. Not even me.

In general, girls do not really care what goes on in Simon's brain. They don't want him sincere or confessional. I love the tender ballad "Save a Prayer," so whenever it comes on the car radio, I turn it up. But my wife, Ally, just snickers, "Sensitive DD!" Girls do not like "Save a Prayer" as much as they like "Hungry Like the Wolf." They do not want a Simon who feels adult emotions; they want him to ooze vanity and lechery. So "Save a Prayer" is now an obscure deep cut, while "Hungry Like the Wolf " is a song known to every human being on planet Earth.