CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE: JUDGE FILES LAWSUIT THAT MAKES MANILOW CRY

An Arizona appeals court judge is suing Barry Manilow because his concerts are too loud.

Excuse me, but isn't that like complaining that Lawrence Welk played the accordion too fast?

Sorry; I digress.

Anyway, Philip Espinoza is suing Manilow (he writes the songs that make the young girls cry -- apprently because they're too loud. I would have thought it was because they're so relentlessly sappy), Manilow's production company (they produce the songs that Manilow writes that make the young girls cry) and the city of Tucson (they run the convention center where Manilow performed....you get the idea).

He says his ears have been ringing ever since the 1993 concert he attended with his wife, a concert which, incidentally, he says was the loudest concert he's ever attended.

I wonder what the good judge usually listens to? Maybe classical. Unless it's "The 1812 Overture," classical may be stirring, but it's not what you could call cranked.

My friend Terry, who used to be a nun, loves Barry Manilow, and in fact saw him perform during the 1993 tour.

Terry was in the convent when Manilow was in his heyday and missed the whole "Mandy" phenomenon.

However, she ran across a cassette of his tapes several years after the phenomenon had faded away, and shared it with all her friends.

"He's wonderful!" she told us. "I hope he makes it really big."

It's not nice to laugh at nuns, even the ex- kind.

I think my problem with Manilow is that he so perfectly sums up the 70s: Airy, deeply shallow and way overproduced.

Maybe it's because he so perfectly captures the decade that he's so easy to make fun of.

However, I must confess, I do like two of his songs -- "Weekend in New England" and "I Hate to See October Go."

I must also confess that I'm not immune to schmaltzy pop. I have a sneaking fondness for Abba.

And in eighth grade, my friend Denise and I, accompanied by my older sister (she drove), went to a Village People concert at what was then the Checkerdome.

There we were, doing the "YMCA" (the precursor, I think, of the Macarena) with every gay man in the St. Louis metropolitan area.

Of course, I was a very young eighth-grader, and I didn't realize that just because somebody was referred to as "Leather Boy" that it meant he pursued an alternative lifestyle.

I did, however, wonder why all those men were dancing together.

Call it a learning experience.

In 10th grade, I went to see The Bee Gees. I was madly in love with Barry Gibb.

Look, it was 1980, and I was 15. There wasn't a lot to choose from.

I am not defensive.

Obviously, I'm also not a music critic.

I've seen many other concerts, real honest-to-God rock and/or country and/or classical music, and many of them were awfully loud.

Styx, for example, and the Rolling Stones. Bruce Springsteen. The Who, the loudest band on record.

But I expect a rock concert to be loud.

I guess Espinoza's point is that, while you expect decibel levels to be a concern during "Pinball Wizard," you don't think of "Daybreak" as an eardrum-buster.

Now the "State Farm" jingle, on the other hand...

Peggy O'Farrell is a copy editor for the Southeast Missourian.