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Mercedes, if asked to describe themselves, was the type of person who would live in Southern California. She would drive a pink Mercedes that was herself; it was impossible to conceptually distinguish her from the vehicle she drove, and so they shared a name. She would put a cassette in her stereo, something fresh. The Talking Heads, probably, her all-time favorite. She might hurtle down State Route 1 with her volume all the way up and her windows all the way down, headed to Los Angeles to catch The Go-Go’s live. Her Farrah-Fawcett blonde hair would stay miraculously intact despite the speed at which she traveled. It would balloon and taper out her window perfectly as if animated, each cel a hand-drawn masterpiece worthy of the walls of MoMA.

Mercedes would also describe herself as extraordinarily opinionated. She had convictions about nearly every aspect of vintage music and culture, and damn if she wasn’t going to express them. And that’s how, nearly daily, she found herself embroiled in arguments in the New Wave Dream. Sure, she liked other genres, but there was no other Dream where she could get in as satisfactory a brawl about why Remain in Light has nothing on Speaking in Tongues.