2001-07-14 - 2:20 p.m.

Destiny's Child.

You know, When I first heard Destiny's Child, I didn't really like them, but I they didn't have enough of an impact on my life to really affect me much.

Then "Say My Name" came out and they became one of those things that could take a cheese grater to the back of my head and not cause as many psychological problems for me.

Then it just got worse. With "Survivor" and, well, anything else I ever heard by them, and all of their appearances on whatever damned channels I happened to be watching, I started to hate them even more. The one plus they had was the parody they had when Charlize Theron was on Saturday Night Live.

But now, guh. The members of Destiny's Child have, essentially, each put on a pair of big spiked boots and stomped all over the throat of my childhood. I grew up on classic rock and various stuff that my parents listened to. My favorite CD as a child was "Timespace: Best of Stevie Nicks." One of my favorite songs on it, one that I sang all the time, was "Edge of Seventeen." That's the one with that unique, cool-sounding, staccato, one-chord guitar intro and that line in the chorus "Just like the one winged dove, sings a song sounds like she's singin' baby" blah blah blah, anyway, the point is, I loved the song as a child, and still do. The great sound of that guitar opening is something that tells me I'm about to hear a truly great song.

At least, it was. Now it's something that tells me I may end up hearing a completely different song.

And not just any song. A Destiny's Child song.

And not just any Destiny's Child song. One with the horrendously awful name of…

"Bootylicious."

Booty. Licious.

"Crantastic" I understand. "Gonorrhiffic" I can handle. But just the idea of one person that thought the word "bootylicious" was a good idea is like a small, running, metal oscillating fan with the cover taken off slamming into my gut. Making it the title of a song that I'm going to hear over and over again in that way that it seems happens with any Destiny's Child song is like taking me, while doubled-over with the wind knocked out of me by the fan and clutching my bleeding stomach, and throwing me in a giant burlap sack with a rabid Britney Spears fan. And then to follow it up by taking that song and putting a riff from one of my favorite childhood songs? You might as well be putting me through the torture of trying to come up with a worse torture than being hit with a running fan and put into a burlap sack with a rabid Britney Spears fan. IT'S JUST THAT BAD!

I'm gonna go bobbing for piranhas now. If you need me, I'll be in the Amazon River Valley somewhere getting my face gnawed off.