For my next number ...

"Honey, what was that noise I heard in there?"

I was in the den watching basketball and my wife was in the bedroom doing something or other.

"That was just me singing," she said. "Why?"

"Oh. It sounded like somebody was clubbing a goat in there," I told her.

I was kidding. She actually can sing.

I knew she was singing but I feel it is my husbandly duty to occasionally give her a hard time about this, that or the other thing.

It's what I do. It's my specialty.

It's one of my powers. And speaking of singing and clubbing stuff, let me share with you my philosophy regarding the state of music in general. It is my firm belief that a lot of people who have recorded songs after 1989 should be hunted down and clubbed like a rabid jackal.

That's when music died you know. After the 80s. That's why the 80s channel on XM Radio is pretty much the only one I listen to anymore.

Waddya gonna do?

My parents probably had the same kind of gripes about the music from their generation. "Anybody who has made a 45 (for you young 'uns, a "45" is not a gun — at least not in this case — it is the size of a recorded disc, the type of which has since become obsolete, that was formerly played on an antique device known as a "record player," also now obsolete) after the Big Band era should be hunted down and smacked up side the head," they probably said.

It's not that ALL of the music these days is unpalatable. I guess I actually like some of it. Oh, not any of this so-called hip-hop. They call it hip-hop because if you have any taste at all in music, when you hear this stuff, it makes you go into a seizure, just a hipping and a hopping and a thrashing all over the floor trying not to swallow your tongue.

I suppose it's all a matter of taste. It's all up to you, I reckon. If you like hip-hop, belt it out. If your taste runs toward country, go ahead and make that steel guitar cry. If you like rock, then rock on my brother.

The main thing is this — enjoy your music. Man, life is too short to be all caught up in, as Barney Fife once so eloquently put it — "trivial trivialities."

If you feel like singing — by all means — SING!

Don't tell me you can't sing. Don't tell me you can't carry a tune in a bucket. If you can talk, you can sing. I don't care if it's record label-worthy, or if it's Grammy Award winning-worthy, or even if it's American Idol-worthy.

I know I'm not the best singer in the world, but I still like to try. And I've got me a repertoire in my head that would make the most diehard of iPod tune collectors envious.

And I ain't afraid to use 'em.

And I do my best work in the shower. I can rattle me some serious tile when I vocalize in the shower.

And sometimes the amount of time I take to shower is directly proportional to the number of songs I want to get done before I get out. With a Pantene shampoo bottle as a pretend microphone and a vision in my head of me on stage at Carnegie Hall, I have wowed audiences around the world with renditions of everything from country, to contemporary gospel, to classic pop.

Sometimes I have me an 8-song, or 9-song, or 10- song (plus a curtain call — shower curtain, that is — or two) performance.

Why just this morning, I warmed up with a version of "I Ain't As Good As I Once Was," before highlighting my sudsy show with Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al," and then making my exit after a soulful rendition of "Walking In Memphis."

Yeah baby. I had it going on. So sing while you can.

And don't tell me you can't.

And if after you're finished with your shower concert you suddenly hear applause ... well, you probably should have locked the bathroom door.

Klonie Jordan (editor@gaffneyledger.com) is executive editor of The Gaffney Ledger.