Blasts From the Past: A Musical Odyssey

My friends are really cool. Well, except for the one who’s on the fencing team. We do things like try to make a Madden team comprised solely of convicted criminals. (Why isn’t there a web site devoted to professional athletes’ criminal records? Not even thesmokinggun.com has a good database.) We used to do things like light our Cuban cigars with $100 bills while perusing the Wall Street Journal, but then we realized that we didn’t have enough money to do that and went back to offering each other astute literary criticism. Anyway, my friends are really cool. Once, my friends Timmy, Billy, and I (all names are, of course, fictionalized) decided to give some of the crappy music we listened to back in the day another chance. This is a recap of what we said and heard (although I completely made it up a couple weeks later.)

First CD: Limp Bizkit, Significant Other. Every so often, a band comes along that speaks for an entire generation. Bob Dylan's antiwar anthems and drug-induced incoherent rambling articulated the ideas driving '60s culture for millions of disaffected teens and unwashed hippies. Nirvana's epic songs of loneliness, angst, and purposelessness gave Generation Y their yearbook quotes. And Limp Bizkit gave the youth of the late '90s their rallying cry: "Throw, throw your hands up." Or "Bawitdaba," I missed out on some, uh, culture. I don’t think people today realize exactly how awful Limp Bizkit were. The fact that they’ve pretty much disappeared from popular music reaffirms my faith in the inherent goodness of humanity, and to a much lesser extent, God. From the first sour notes of the rap-metal fusion “band” to Fred Durst’s patented mindblowingly phony “angry” voice, I realized how much 7th grade sucked. The best part was that Billy remembered all the lyrics and sang along. The worst part was the lyrics. “We've all felt like s—t/ and been treated like s—t/ all those motherf--kers that want to step up/ I hope you know I pack a chain saw/ I'll skin your ass raw/ And if my day keeps goin' this way I just might break somethin' tonight.” Does he watch wrestling for inspiration? The Rock might have uttered lines like “Give me somethin' to break/ How bout your f--kin' face!” (Didn’t a bunch of professional wrestlers release rap albums? If we ever have a sequel to this, I’m willing to spend a few dollars in the bargain bin for those. They’ve got to be better than Shaq’s “dissin’” of Kobe.” Although maybe not as good as Ron Artest's upcoming album...) Durst sets a new standard for stupidity with this chorus: “I did it all for the nookie/ C'mon, the nookie/ C'mon/ So you can take that cookie/ And stick it up your, yeah!” I can’t even make a joke here. I could try, but it would be unworthy to share a paragraph with Durst's lyrical brilliance. I’m just going to leave it at that the aforementioned song also has a line the girl with whom he did it all for the, um, nookie, running away with one of his “homeez.” (That’s how it’s spelled in the lyrics sheet.) Music critics (not necessarily people who criticize music for a living, just people who criticize music) have questioned the sexuality of Durst and Co., noting that "only faggots could make music that sucks as much dick as this." Guitarist Wes Borland (probably) dismissed such allegations as "gay." However, I consider the homoerotic album title "Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water" (a reference to the Sodomite practice of [deleted by the Ministry of Family Values]) fairly incriminating evidence. If the album cover doesn't provide enough of a case for you, listen to their songs. God, what homos. Noting the band's use of the quiet/loud dynamic, exemplified by the mumbled, bass-driven verses and powerful, distorted choruses, Timmy tells us that the band is "clearly influenced by the Pixies." I chuckle a little. The album also has songs called 9 Teen 90 Nine, N2Gether Now, and No Sex, but we were so sick of the CD by then that we had to pass on those potential comedic gold mines. So, with “Nookie” not stuck in our heads, but with a general taste of vomit in our mouths, we moved on to their contemporary…

Korn, Follow The Leader. This album starts off with twelve four-second tracks of silence, so it really starts on track 13. Ooh, 13’s an unlucky number that only really evil people think is cool (and 12-year-old “punks” at Hot Topic.) Gee golly gosh, 7th-grade me must have said, these guys are like, awesome. They must totally worship Satan or something. Maybe they eat babies with Marilyn Manson on Friday nights or something. Actually, screw it. They just got the idea from Manson’s PR guy. This CD has the song “Freak On A Leash” on it. That’s the one with the classic video with a bullet going around a neighborhood puncturing things. That’s actually what it is. God bless America for not listening to this music anymore. “You know, they play seven-string guitars,” Timmy says. "The lower 7th string makes them rock harder." In other words, seven strings of suck. This song also features a moronic bridge that according to azlyrics.com goes “Boom na da mmm dum na ema/ Da boom na da mmm dum na ema.” It sounds like they mic’d the intestines of an elephant with digestion problems. Just mutter those syllables out loud and decide on its’ musical merits yourself. Korn’s singer, Jonathan Davis, was abused as a child and he channels those emotions into his songs. Hmmm, I’d think he’d be writing Christian rock then. I always thought there were more pressing problems than child abuse—it’s awful, of course, but just don’t send your kids to Sunday school or to play at that weird unmarried neighbor with a moustache’s house. But if everyone molested as a child went on to start a Korn-influenced band, the Catholic Church should get the same treatment as Al Qaeda. (See, I didn’t say anything about the Neverland Ranch. It’s not current enough—it’s like making Governor Schwarzenegger jokes.) The next song, "Got the Life," actually has a mildly cool riff. I wouldn’t listen to it personally, but it isn’t anywhere near as bad. “Listen to the Pixies influence,” Timmy says, after debating what effect pedals the guitarists are using. (Chorus with a whammy? How about ass?) “They’ve got the quiet-loud dynamic down even better than Bizkit.” Of course, the Pixies didn’t suck. I hit him. A minute in, I take back what I said about the song not being as bad as the first one after a disembodied voice commands us to “Get your boogie on,” (isn’t this whiny rap metal, not dance?) and they segue into a bridge much like the first one, except that this one just sounds like a nursery rhyme for retarded kids, as it goes “Rumbiddieboo/ Rum bum dee dum dee bum diddie doo.” (Note: the lyrics site thanks the_evil_fairy@msn.com and blink182luver_5@yahoo.com for correcting the lyrics. Just a comment about their fan base.)

Linkin Park: (Sorry, I don’t know what this CD is called. It’s probably called Hybrid Theory but I’m not sure.) I really hate this band. Imagine if a group of overweight, unpopular middle school girls sat around after gym class writing down their feelings, and then some kind of electronic-based rap-metal band comes over, takes their tear-stained scrawls, and turns it into something that can be loosely described as music. I’m pretty sure that actually happened. They write lyrics that Dashboard Confessional's Chris Carabba or Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst would be embarrassed by. The funniest part is that Billy’s brother still listens to them. He also tap dances—just a note. He wasn’t around, though, so we didn’t feel guilty about making fun of them. We actually couldn’t get through a single song. However, Timmy again noted the Pixies influence. I ignored him. Billy probably knew all the words to their songs, but was too embarrassed to admit it. I don’t think we listened to this song, “In the End,” but it has these profound lyrics. “Time is a valuable thing/ Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings/ Watch it count down to the end of the day/ The clock ticks life away.” Whoa, dude, that’s like, Socrates or something. Cause time just goes by and we can’t, like waste it, so we should GO SEE A LINKIN PARK CONCERT AND LIVE LIFE TO THE FULLEST! And maybe not be so sad… maybe find a random hookup and write about in my emo journal, which is called something like “Being Torn Apart With The Razor Sharp Knives Of My Feelings,” or maybe “emPt-EE w8stland of aDOlesCenCE,” if it’s a blog. Linkin Park possesses a remarkable ability to find the worst parts about every genre of music and meld them together into a satanic brew that scalds the ears of every soul lost enough to come into contact with its pure, unadulterated evil. Whiny nu-metal adolescent vocals? Sure, sounds great. Post-grunge boring power chord riffing? YES! Emo diary-style angst poetry? Someone's gotta do it. Electronic shit? I don't see why not. Rap? Hell, what do we have to lose? When Linkin Park's music plays, children scream, darkness covers the warmth of the sun, pregnant women have miscarraiges, and I drown under the weight of my sorrows, for the teenage years are truly a miserable time of uh, sucking. I'm going to cry instead of completing my sentence. This is what America wants, I guess; it's certainly what America deserves. There are those who argue that Linkin Park serves a valuable role in the music industry. Confused adolescents, bored with pop radio, turn to this rock lite, which should eventually lead them to bands like Nirvana, who in turn will eventually give them decent musical taste. Linkin Park and their peers are a necessary evil, since without their guidance no one would ever make the leap from Britney Spears to indie rock. This is wrong.

After a couple years of musical snobbery, (I did see the Allman Brothers, I’m not that much of a snob, OK) it’s almost refreshing to listen to some god-awful music. Well, it’s excruciating, but as long as I’m being a “hipster” (never!) and making fun of it with other people who have nothing better to do, it’s pretty entertaining. It’s not like bad music still isn’t around (over the summer, I heard a song by Nickelback that featured Carlos Santana playing guest lead guitar and just randomly noodling over an already-terrible song, and my hippie counselor played Lean on Me) but none of it is quite this god-awful. Increasingly good music is getting popular, (the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and White Stripes and Franz Ferdinand and Modest Mouse, although Modest Mouse are a bit watered-down from their earlier days) meaning MTV is playing occasional songs that don’t suck for the first time in at least a decade. Kids three or four years younger than us won’t have the same cultural touchstones. Then again, Green Day’s new CD is selling well and 50 Cent’s already starring in a movie, so who knows. Just anything as long as it’s not influenced by Blink-182.

Reviews #1

As I post here more often and my writing improves, I'm going to try to take a stab at things that I'm less than qualified to write about, such as literature and los politicos. Anyway, these are a couple attempts at reviews, which aren't as coherent as I'd like and are pretty amateurish. Neither of them are on subjects I care passionately enough to write a review about, like the review my father wrote about my mother after their divorce. Just kidding. Emo... (My parents' divorce was pretty amicable.) I hope my opinions are comprehensible.

TV on the Radio--Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes

I harbor a certain animosity towards certain people from Brooklyn. These people tend to be middle-class Jews, or at least whites, who find Manhattan so evil and despicable that they have to bring up their supposed superiority at every moment. Sweet Jesus, I hate Upper East Side yuppies just as much as you do and hope that Jehovah blasts their condos with locusts. That doesn't mean that I want the entire island to sink under their weight. My parents happen to be wealthier than most of my friends--it doesn't make me a bad person. I feel incredibly guilty about the vacations to Europe I've taken over the last year, in fact, and hate the stigma of what superficial, stupid people think my role is in their class conflict. That said, I am incredibly jealous of Brooklynites for one reason--they have the best bands. First the Fiery Furnaces and now TV on the Radio (actually the other way around, but this way it has more dramatic effect)--one borough's going for a sweep of 2004. Hopefully Interpol can give Manhattan some "cred" back with Antics (only a few weeks), but I doubt that their sophomore release will stand up to their first one. And if it does, well, city pride is more important than borough pride. Anyway, on to TV on the Radio.
On their debut EP, they showed off a unique sound that was equally soul, punk, and jazz, and most importantly, covered the Pixies' Mr. Grieves A FUCKING CAPELLA. Any band that can do that is bound for greatness. (I haven't heard the EP, to be perfectly honest, although I'd like to. Full journalistic disclosure, bitches.) Tunde Adepimbe, their singer, has one of the most amazing voices I've ever heard. Now normally I don't care that much about a singer's voice, even Bob Dylan or David Berman, but Adepimbe blows me away. They also have another singer who's almost as talented, with whom he harmonizes in a way that makes harmonizing not seem lame, which is very hard to do. Sadly, I have no idea what his name is. Their songs are very, very produced--the reviewer for Pitchfork says they have a "metallic sheen," which is a very apt description I won't try to top. The first three songs, The Wrong Way, Staring at the Sun, and Dreams, show how good this band is. They are pretty different from most of my conventional indie rock, as is shown with their sax-and-bass dominated arrangments and soul/barbershop vocals, but based on what I guess they listen to (they hang out with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Liars) and their subject matter, they don't seem like as huge a departure as they ought to. Their rockier songs feature punk/industrial basslines with swirls of My Bloody Valentine guitar and heavy fuzz, but they never hide the jazz. One should take note of the fact that TV on the Radio is a mostly-black rock band, the first significant one in awhile. The Wrong Way goes after stereotypes and racial misconceptions and all the caricatures Adepimbe wants to avoid. Staring at the Sun isn't quite as lyrically strong, but the hooks are so good that it doesn't matter--with vocalists this good, their great lyrics seem irrelevant. After the first three songs, the album isn't quite as strong, especially the last two, but the album has so much style/balls that it's forgiveable. Desperate Youth is a stylistically groundbreaking album that derives its greatness from its originality as much as its songwriting.

Rating: (I haven't decided between letters and numbers) 8; A-/B+

The Deer Hunter

Vietnam is the perfect setting for so many movies and books because of all the meanings it has in our collective subconscious. Vietnam is the "jungle," where everything is unclear and gray and Charlie could be any villager or worse, any tree or bush. Neither the viewer nor the characters are sure whether they belong in Vietnam, a war whose American participants rarely saw purpose in and that is condemned by future generations. Unlike most war narratives where good and evil are clearly defined, ambiguity rules Vietnam. In other words, it's life. This realization is part of what makes Apocalypse Now and The Things They Carried (Tim O'Brien) so good and just one of the things missing from The Deer Hunter.
The Deer Hunter features brilliant acting (Meryl Streep is good! Crazy world) but is done in by loads of plot loopholes, long, boring, and unnecessary episodes, and a lousy script. The movie opens on the eve of Steven (John Savage)'s wedding and takes an hour to get to Vietnam! It dawdles through boring sequences without any conception of character development and finally gets to the titular deer hunt. Robert DeNiro plays
Michael, the most serious of the men, and the best hunter. Like everything else in the movie, there are flashes of brilliance, but it goes on twice as long as it needs to. This opening hour would have been far more powerful in 20-30 minutes. Not to say I'm not a fan of nuance, but it's just boring. Next the movie travels to Southeast Asia, where diirector Michael Cimino ruins the movie's prospects of greatness or even decency. (While watching it I wasn't as bored as I should have been in retrospect because I kept anticipating that something interesting would happen, and of course it never did.) It's hard to make Vietnam sequences lousy, but Cimino pulls it off. The old friends (implausibly) meet up in the midst of atrocities and are taken captive by the Vietnamese, who, in one of the worst attempts at metaphor to ever grace celluloid, force them to play Russian roulette. From this scene one would assume that the Vietcong loved Russian roulette so much that they would hand their captives loaded guns with which they could escape. More unrealistic action scenes follow until, in an attempt at commentary on how the Vietnam experience changes soldiers, the film segues back to their Pennsylvania hometown, to which DeNiro has finally returned. Savage is in the hospital, unable to walk and avoiding his wife. Christopher Walken is MIA in Vietnam. The film drags on to the three-hour mark as DeNiro hunts, hunts some more, and hunts Meryl Streep. Unfortunately, that means pursuing her romantically instead of roasting her like venison. Finally, DeNiro heads back to the jungle, where Walken has become addicted to Russian roulette and finally shoots himself.
Somehow, Cimino won an Oscar for his directing and screenwriting. He entirely bungles two possibly potent metaphors--the hunting and the roulette. Never is a coherent connection made between hunting deer in Pennsylvania and fighting in Vietnam. I suppose I understand what he was trying to say, but it seems thematically inconsistent with a lot of the movie. The roulette is a little more obvious, just dumber. The soldiers, Walken especially, become enamored of risk and living life on the edge until it finally destroys them. It's cliched and doesn't have much actual meaning. In short, the Deer Hunter has a long, boring beginning, a poorly written and directed middle, and a plodding end. Some "before and after" contrast. Some classic.

Rating: 4; C-

Bonus: Baseball Quick Hits

1. It's a good sign to see that more and more telecasts list OBP along with traditional stats AVG, HR, and RBI, but the media continues to attack sabermetrics every chance they get. For example, consider the reaction to the Nomar trade. The Red Sox were panicking, they said. Theo Epstein was abandoning the "Moneyball" techniques in the face of a large deficit, and it was about time. Of course, as usual, they got it all wrong. The trade made sense no matter how you looked at it, of course, as Nomar was unhappy with the situation in Boston, almost certain to leave as a free agent at the end of the year, and unlikely to play 100% even in a pennant race. In return, they got a guy who was one of the best shortstops in baseball a year ago annd whose poor play this season was partially attributable to the situation in Montreal, and a first baseman who was far better than anyone they had and would allow David Ortiz to become a full-time DH. The mainstream media's distrust of sabermetrics is rooted in the fact that they completely do not understand it. Sabermetricians do not discount defense: they simply realize that a player's contributions on offense far outweigh defensive miscues. Additionally, the fact that defensive statistics are very flawed not trusted (especially the one traditional fielding statistic, errors, possibly the most meaningless stat in any sport) causes lazy analysts to assume that a statistically based philosophy discounts defense. The heart of the Moneyball philosophy is finding value in players that the establishment does not deem worthy. Billy Beane this winter stated that a primary reason behind his acquisition of Mark Kotsay was to improve the defense through a guy whose defense was underrated. The Red Sox used sabermetrics to realize that the team was likely stronger offensively and certainly would have a better run differential with Cabrera and Mientkiewicz. Under no circumstances should the trade be seen as a victory for the traditionalists. Rather, it displays the versatility of sabermetrics.
2. A news article tells us that baseball owners are among the largest contributors to the Bush campaign this election. If I were a fan of any other team, I might be somewhat pissed off, but it's not like there's anything George Steinbrenner can do to seem any worse. Also, I'd love to see Tom Hicks run for president. Speaking of which, Kerry needs to push one major issue the rest of the way for any chance at victory: the Sosa trade. "Would you trust a man who would trade Sammy Sosa for spare parts with your future and your children's future? I certainly wouldn't."
3. The Yankees have taken a lot of undeserved heat lately for their forfeit request, because as much as the media hates sabermetrics, they despise the Yankees. The evil Yankees were not picking on the lowly Devil Rays because they were terrified of the advancing Red Sox and desperate for an easy win. They were unhappy about MLB's conduct in this matter. They had been notified first that the Devil Rays would leave on Friday before the hurricane and then that the Devil Rays would leave promptly monday Morning instead of hanging out at Tropicana Field. I don't think the Devil Rays should have had to forfeit the game, but the Yankees should be cut some slack and more attention focused on MLB's poor decision making and misleading communication.

The Magic Article

This is an article I wrote for Discord, a paper at my school that is very disorganized and operates under no recognizable principles of responsible journalism. It isn't quite as funny as I remember and it's better if you know who that shitburger Frasier Goldberg is, but it's still enjoyable.

Don’t Tread on Me: The Loveable Misfits of Magic: The Gathering
By Zack Friedman

On every floor there are the main hallways, the arteries of student life at Hunter, through which we all pass. Then off on the side, like veins making sure the appendix gets its proper portion, offshoot hallways to the Music and Art classrooms and the computer lab spring out. Once in awhile Average Joe passes through these dark, mysterious passageways and probably is struck by an overpowering urge to kick the bespectacled midgets they see scurrying about like insects. We forget that these stunted antisocial freaks who never see the light of day and probably communicate with non-teacher females around once a week are, contrary to appearances, people too.
Armed with pen and paper and buddy Drew Davis, I searched around the hallways for the local cluster of Magic players. Magic, for those of you who do not know, is a “collectible trading card game,” referred to somewhat bewilderingly as both a CCG and TCG. A quick tangent I will go off on here is that normal people do not use acronyms in conversation. Only nerds and teenage girls do. Is there a sociological difference between D & D and OMG? A vengeful Old Testament God shall inform us on Judgment Day. I’m pretty sure Judgment Day is a Magic card. So’s God, for that matter.
Contrary to popular belief Magic is more prevalent among 8’s and 9’s than among 7’s, although I for one can’t tell the difference. Utshob Alam (9) refers to the game as an “addiction,” saying that “we get hooked young and can’t quit.” [Note: Later that year, it was discovered that Utshob peddled porn among freshies, possibly the most disturbing thing I've ever heard.] I’m somewhat disturbed by the game’s similarities to crack cocaine, but I suppose in a way it makes sense for them to make the logical progression from Magic to “magic.” This leads me to my next question: How much cash do you spend on Magic? Another freshman, Christian Chen says that “the average player spends $10-$20 a week. Some even starve themselves to feed their addiction.” There are exceptions, however—Alam prefers to borrow other people’s decks, while Evan Maltby, who has been playing since 3rd grade, estimates he has spent upwards of $2000 dollars on his cards.
After hearing this I had to pause for a second and take a deep breath. $2000 is a lot of money, even if it were 2000 Canadian dollars. I could buy the ’65 Fender Jaguar I covet or, speaking of old things from the ‘60’s, an Edsel or two. Two thousand dollars is probably more than most sweatshop workers or Thai prostitutes make in a year. Hell, it’s probably more than the GNP of most of the Third World anyway. (There’s a third group that uses acronyms in conversation—politicians. Politicians are a lower caste than even Magic players.) Two thousand dollars is the largest legal donation to a political campaign under the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. Just think, Evan could have put his hard-earned money towards re-electing Bush instead of buying Magic cards. On second thought, I’m glad he bought the cards.
It took quite a bit of effort to win the trust of the Magic players before they would consent to be interviewed, let alone give their real names. My mistake, apparently, was telling them I was from Discord, rather than a more respectable publication like The Observer, Penthouse, or The New York Post. At least they took Discord somewhat seriously—if I had said anything about thedeepend I would have been in for disaster. No-talent amateurs. There seems to be a lack of camaraderie among the group, which is strange, since one would expect outcasts with such an overarching common interest to stick together. Then again, I suppose constantly trying to destroy each other with magic spells and powerful monsters isn’t really a good way to inspire trust. Drew jumps ahead with a new question for the group: “How does it feel to be ridiculed?” Most of them don’t really seem to mind, actually. Christian Chen says that “they’re used to it and everyone would hate them anyway. And Magic’s fun.” I continue by asking if they have ever tried to fit it. Alam replies: “I tried to conform, but that made even more people hate me, so I realized that without Magic I probably wouldn’t have any friends.”
After hearing tales of official Magic tournaments where for arcane reasons certain cards aren’t allowed, I decided I’d do a little background research. According to the official website, Magic has over 6 million rabid fans worldwide. Six million's a lot--that's how much it cost to build the Six Million Dollar Man (and we did it, don't believe we don't have the technology. [That line was inserted by a Discord "editor," which is why it sucks. Original, censored line: There were also 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust, which makes me think that the wrong six million were killed.] There is also a prestigious “Pro Tour” with cash prizes of over a million dollars. Suddenly, Evan seems like small potatoes. I mean, it’s one thing when a genuinely talented athlete like Texas Rangers pitcher Chan Ho Park gets paid obscene amounts of money. But Magic? The website also adds that on the Pro Tour, “legends are born,” making me wish that I’d asked the guys who their favorite Magic pros were.
There are also Magic magazines such as In Quest, which list the prices of cards like stocks in the Wall Street Journal. Apparently Magic cards can be a decent investment—in a typical $3 dollar pack there is often a card worth at least $8 and sometimes up to $30, so buying en masse could mean big bucks. Older cards go for much more, including the almost mythical Black Lotus, which goes for around $750, or our school’s approximate budget. But I’m still not sold on the whole idea of the game. I suppose I’ll have to agree with the assessment given by Andrew Fulmer (10), who says that it has “an interesting storyline, but it isn’t a game I’d play. It seems like an underfunded attempt at a MMORPG.” What an MMORPG is I can only dream of, but I didn’t think asking Andrew for clarification would have helped my point. On the subject of card games, he also adds that the “Pokemon card game completely defies the point of Pokemon, which is to raise and nurture the animals, rather than all the fighting people associate the game with..” I can only wonder what boundaries he has yet to cross.
Most of the Magic players fit your stereotype—they plan on branching out into Dungeons and Dragons pretty soon. For the most part, they receive pretty good grades, especially Tony Chen, a freshman in 11E math. One of them, Frazier Goldberg, however, informs me that not all Magic players are rejects. “I’m athletic,” he says. “I do track and tennis.” I won’t make fun of track, but tennis is a loser sport. “I’m also a member of JCAC and I hang out with people, especially at my synagogue.” I have a little anecdote about him—once I went to the often-maligned JCAC, and Frazier rattled off trivia about Israel. He could probably tell you David ben Gurion’s horoscope or Golda Meir’s bra size. So I wasn’t surprised to hear that, according to Christian Chen, Frazier’s an “outcast, just like the rest of us.” People avoid him like Manichewitz.
So next time you see these poor people clustered around a set of colorful cards with cryptic numbers and symbols, don’t mock them. Love them. You don’t need to try to fit in—as I discovered, wearing my ID card around my neck and trying to fake a lisp didn’t help. Ask them to teach you how to play. Make friends with one of them. Chip in a few bucks to help them buy a few more decks. If all goes well, seeing as that we already have a math team and rugby isn’t going anywhere, maybe Hunter can be the very first school to have its own Magic team.

The First Musical Crusade

The word “crusade” has received a pretty bad rap lately. First, revisionist historians made a big fuss about the slaughter of countless infidel innocents back when it wasn’t even frowned upon back in the day, also known as the Middle Ages. Now, our Beloved Leader’s foreign policy is criticized and labeled a crusade by touchy-feely hippie types (helped, perhaps, by a certain general who described the war on terror as “a fight between our God and theirs” and was promptly promoted.) Well, I’m here to take it back—crusades are much less threatening when they don’t involve massacres and are oriented around pop music. Besides, the only people I want to kill with my crusade are a lot of middle-aged yuppie Stones fans.

Like the immortal Bill and Ted of classic American legend, let’s hop into our time machine and travel back to the early 1960s, in a magical faraway land called Merry Olde England and follow the careers of two bands that played a new, ballsy kind of music dubbed “rock ‘n roll.” Rock and roll was invented by white Americans, among whom were Elvis Presley and Bill Haley. Anyway, both of these seminal bands would join the Beatles in the British Invasion, in which the English Army, seeking revenge on America for supporting Mel Gibson’s Scottish insurgency, would attack America and even burn down the White House before a young Austrian named Arnold Schwarzenegger would heroically come to our defense, slaying the British Queen and unmasking her as a lesbian alien robot. Despite the American military victory, British rock bands soon had total control of the States. Leni Riefenstahl shot her famous film “Triumph of the Will” at the pro-British rally in 1964 at Shea Stadium and teenage promiscuity rose rapidly. Thankfully, patriot Yoko Ono assassinated King John “Lenin” Lennon before the Iron Curtain could descend over the bright light of freedom. (Lenin means “Man of Steel" in Czech, though some translate it as "Kraftwerk."). Lennon was an advocate of socialism, as any music fan knows, made clear in his song "Back In the U. S. S. R. (Death to the Imperialist Yankee Pigs)." Night fell on this dark era of American history, but not after American popular music had been altered irrevocably.

While the divide between Redcoats and Tories was of course great, categorized by gang violence and nightstick beatings, there was a greater divide: that between Mods and Hip-Hoppers. The Mods, a short-lived youth group, were categorized by their excellent musical taste, while the Hip-Hoppers, the eventual victors, would grow up to become corporate executives in the post-war capitalist nightmare. It should come as no surprise that the Mods’ group of choice was the Who, led by guitarist, songwriter, and eventual accused pedophile Pete Townshend, while the Rolling Stones, like this website named after a Bob Dylan song, were preferred by the Hip-Hoppers.

The biggest misconception among music historians (besides anything that takes Bjork seriously, let alone mentioning her at all) is that on the great baseball game of music, the Rolling Stones were the Gehrig to the Beatles’ Babe Ruth. Some even think that Mick Jagger hit the game-winning home run off of Classical pitcher Wolfgang Beethoven. (In fact, the Pixies’ Black Francis mischievously scampered home with the winning run after Tchaikovsky booted Joe Strummer’s ground ball.)

Now I don’t want to suggest that the Rolling Stones were a bad band at all. Paint it Black, Rocks Off, and Under My Thumb are three of the great rock songs of that era, and Jumpin’ Jack Flash and Brown Sugar, while overrated, are classic. But Satisfaction is one of the most annoying songs ever written, and songs like Sympathy for the Devil and You Can’t Always Get Want You Want vary between extreme pretension/stupidity and grating, trite mediocrity.

The Who, on the other hand, wrote three of the defining anthems of rock history (Baba O’Reilly, My Generation, and Won’t Get Fooled Again), not to mention beautiful songs like Behind Blue Eyes and Pinball Wizard, and Boris the Spider, which is probably the funniest non-Pavement rock song of all time. They certainly wrote some terrible music and came up with the rock opera, which would have been the dumbest idea in rock history if they had not also come up with the “last” reunion tour every three years and Pete Townshend hadn’t excused his kiddie porn habit as “research.” I’ll get to a few more of their groundbreaking ideas straight ahead with the handy Band Member Comparisons:

Roger Daltrey vs. Mick Jagger: Daltrey now hosts Extreme History on the Discovery Channel, which is such a terrible show that I would run into a burning building to save a small child from watching it. However, Mick Jagger has giant lips and an annoying voice. Besides, this “debate” has Fox News proportions of bias. So I’ll have to give the advantage to Daltrey. Luckily, the next three matchups are a lot more one-sided.

Keith Moon vs. Charlie Watts: Keith Moon is one of the coolest people in the history of rock. He was a hyperactive kid with A. D. D. who joined a combo called the High Numbers and took them to the next level, destroying countless hotel rooms along the way. He also gave a guy named Jimmy Page a cool band name—Led Zeppelin. Along with John Bonham from Led Zep, Jeremiah Green from Modest Mouse, and Dave Grohl from Nirvana, he’s one of the few drummers who really transformed a band’s sound. There are several more, but I'm too bored/musically ignorant to list them. (The reason the new Modest Mouse CD sucked—no Green. Simple as that). Moon loved the drugs, and once even took some horse tranquilizer. That’s pretty damn badass. If, like Zeppelin, they disbanded after the death of such an integral piece, the Who would be much better remembered today. Oh yeah, Charlie Watts. At least I remembered his name, unlike…

John Entwhistle vs. Someone: Who gives a fuck about the bass player? Well, if they’re the Ox (great nickname) and play the only good bass solos ever on "My Generation," then I do. (Or if they’re very talented like Kim Deal or Mike Mills, or if they’re really hot like Kim Gordon/ Ms. Thurston Moore or D’Arcy from the Smashing Pumpkins.)

Pete Townshend vs. Keith Richards: Keith Richards, after all those drugs, is like a cockroach who survives the nuclear holocaust. Pete Townshend likes li’l kiddies. But back in the ‘60’s, Townshend was a revolutionary genius. Let’s go through his accomplishments:

1. HE INVENTED THE POWER CHORD!
2. Ok, one more time. HE INVENTED THE FUCKING POWER CHORD!
3. Not only did he do that, the band as a whole influenced punk rock more than any other English band of that period.
4. On their best album, Who’s Next, he pioneered the synth, which isn’t all bad—sure, synthy ‘80s pop sucks, but "Baba O’Reilly" and "Won’t Get Fooled Again" are almost worth it.
5. He wrote a song, Pictures of Lily, that used to be mildly creepy when it just seemed like it was about masturbation, but is now unlistenable when one worries that Lily is a bit underage.
6. While the Velvet Underground justly get the credit for arty concepts like feedback and dissonance, Townshend was arguably the first guitarist to use feedback as a soloing tool.
7. One more time: THE FUCKING POWER CHORD.

So what did the Keith do? He played a bunch of ripped-off, watered down blues licks.

So why are the Stones so much more popular? Some might say that they were better at writing pure pop songs, but the first couple Who albums are Ramones-esque in their catchiness. The Stones have been a much more effective business than the Who, regardless of the fact that they haven’t done anything halfway decent since 1974’s Exile on Main Street. I blame Rolling Stone magazine. No music fan trusts this rag for reviews, as they don’t believe anything decent has been recorded since the early seventies, except maybe Oasis and the White Stripes. They also employ the Orwellian tactic of rewriting old reviews when conventional wisdom turns against them. This magazine exists solely to kiss the lily-white asses of baby-boomer yuppies and remind them that they took part in the Greatest Generation (doing acid, not fighting in WWII), the pinnacle of human achievement. The Stones are just like they are. They had a wild youth, but realized they should make money and got damn good at it. Jagger and Richards probably loved Margaret Thatcher, just as stateside former protesters love some of Bush’s macho tax cuts for their international corporations. Of course, Tommy has become a school play, not something to listen to stoned in stereo, and Bargain is an un-ironic commercial. Hopefully musical history will right itself soon. Come on, who’s going to like a band with that gay-ass lips logo?