You know an issue has gained popular momentum if a columnist writes about it–usually meaning a pressing issue, like their golf game (”my short game’s off!), their ex-wives (”still demanding money ow my back!”), or their yard (”Darn crabgrass!”). Finding something you sympathize, much less agree with in a regular columnists’ mailbag should be a point of great concern, and a sign that your personal development has a. advanced directly to the age of 48, or b.) that you should consider taking up a hobby to become more interesting, like a fierce cocaine habit, for example.

We may have to do that after reading this in Pat Dooley’s mailbag:

I agree with you about Miami where the music was too loud and excessive. I’ll listen closer on Saturday, but what they really need to do is plug my iPod into the sound system. Then we’ll be rockin’.

Agreed on one point: we’re generally very queasy about music being played over the loudspeakers, especially because everyone’s taste in music sucks except for Barstoolio’s, and even then we’re suspicious because we like her music, and our taste sucks. It’s particularly bad because at Florida they crank up with “Thunderstruck,” a middling AC/DC song at best, and then pepper the proceedings with “Zombie Nation,” the aural infection that we uneasily “oh oh oh” along with when in the stands because….dammit, it works.

It works other places, too: if you’ve been in Tiger Stadium when they play “Callin’ Baton Rouge,” it works; so do a number of other songs, including “Jump Around” at Camp Randall and “Enter Sandman” at Virginia Tech. We’ve mentioned this before, but if they played the first 35 seconds or so of this at Florida Field…

…we’d write a check worth literally tens of dollars to the athletic department on the spot. It wouldn’t bounce or anything. We’re not willing to let Pat Dooley plug in his iPod yet–DO YOU LIKE TOM PETTY?–but the real test would be asking yourself: does subtracting the music lessen the experience?

In some cases, the answer is a resounding yes, though in Florida’s case no one would weep if “Thunderstruck” were taken off the case completely. If you can’t get feverishly excited in 90 degree heat and 60 percent humidity, you’re simply not excitable, or perhaps lying on the ground twitching from heat stroke.