Ira Glass is a tease… and other stories.

I live in Chicagoland, so not only do I get to hear Ira Glass on "This American Life," but also during our twice-annual pledge drive. During our most recent membership drive (to which I contributed), Ira Glass played his current favorite song to make a point that contributors are "Invincible."

I'm sure he mentioned the band responsible for the song. I'm sure I'd heard of it. It's a faux-heavy-metal pop song, with rather silly lyrics like "when they finally come to destroy the earth, they'll have to deal with you first .... blah blah blah ... you're invincible" and "invincible" is screamed with much enthusiasm.

I heard it, liked it, and forgot about it. Until last night, when I was listening to "This American Life" and the bandless, nameless song was interspersed between the first and second acts. Now I'm obsessed. I've done a Google search on the lyrics I know (above). I checked the "This American Life" Web site to see if they've posted the segments and music (they sometimes do). Not yet.

Ira, please, save me from this insanity and tell me who sings this song.

Also, I heard back from my new beta-reader. She's British and so she's correcting my (numerous) Americanisms (granted, I asked her to) and also being quite thorough in her critiques of my voice and characterization (I also asked for this). She made a lot of corrections to and suggestions on my third chapter.

I'm finding my journalistic tendencies of beating people over the head with the facts hard to break ... I'm finding I'm not so good at nuance or subtlety. But perhaps I will be at the end of this fifteen-chapter exercise, perhaps I'll find myself a better writer of fiction.

Here's hoping.