Miami: Ciudad del Futuro

I've been slightly snowed under at work this past week, and until someone makes the canny decision to become my personal di Medici family and begin subsidizing my efforts here at Malcontent Central, the people who put a sizeable sum of money into my checking account every two weeks will have to take priority. I have New York City rent, assorted credit card bills and the overwhelming desire to upgrade to an XBOX 360 this holiday season to consider; ergo, if I have to put this little experiment of mine on hold for a couple of days at a time here and there, so be it.

That said, a news item came across my desk this morning which was simply too good to allow to pass without making some kind of snotty comment about it.

It would appear that U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado has found himself a cause celebre in his ongoing battle to rid America of illegal immigrants. During a recent visit to Palm Beach, he told a crowd of conservative supporters that to witness the dangers of unfettered immigration, it need only travel ninety miles to the south -- to my hometown. Miami, he said, "has become a Third World country."

Needless to say, this opinion was immediately decried as pinheaded and wrong by South Florida's own voice in congress, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a woman who resembles a yapping chiuhuahua both in stature and intelligence. Given that she and Tancredo share a political affiliation -- and that this particular affiliation needs all the party-unity it can get right now -- there probably won't be the usual contrived indignation and dueling press conferences to resolve the matter; instead, Ros-Lehtinen has already offered an olive branch in the form of an invitation to Tancredo. "I invite my friend, Tom, to visit beautiful Miami -- my hometown -- and experience firsthand our hospitality. Miami is a world-class city where diversity is celebrated. Here, people have the opportunity to meet folks from around the globe and honor different cultures," she responded.

I'd like to avoid picking apart the good congresswoman's rosy assessment of the only banana republic on U.S. soil, except to say that if you know anything at all about the way Miami operates, there's a good chance that some form of under-the-table payment from the chamber of commerce is now well on its way to Ros-Lehtinen in return for such kind words. Unfortunately, my level of experience with the city dictates that I, at the very least, elaborate slightly on the points she made.

Yes, Miami is beautiful -- which is precisely why it's become the official ostentatious playground of every worthless but loaded hip-hop star currently tearing up the TRL countdown. It's a place that's so hospitable that several years ago -- after a series of violent attacks -- a decision was made to remove any markings which might denote a vehicle as having been rented locally, lest unwary visitors be targeted and robbed at gunpoint five minutes after leaving the airport. It's a world-class city -- if you believe that the world ends at the southern tip of South America and the eastern edge of the Caribbean. It's a place where diversity has been "celebrated" with three deadly race riots over the past twenty five years. It is indeed a place where people have the opportunity to meet "folks" from around the globe -- and be shot by them.

Believe me, I could go on and on; I have enough stories about the place to fill twenty morgue drawers. But what I'll do instead is refer you to two past columns I've written which deal with the unbridled insanity of life in my hometown. While you read these, I'll just sit back on my couch and think about the image of Tom Tancredo being convinced how wrong he was about Miami by a day of salsa dancing, Cuban coffee, gator attacks, topless sunbathers, never hearing the English language spoken to him -- not once by anyone -- jailhouse visits with indicted city officials, a tour of the "Elian Museum," and a big pile of cocaine.

And that will make me smile.

8/03/06 High Fidel-ity

11/1/06 A History of Violence

When Benny Met Turkey

So his Eminent and "Extreme" Holiness Pope Benedict XVI is about to travel to Turkey in what's being billed as his first official visit to a Muslim country. Already gathered to meet him: vast crowds of generally peaceful but highly vocal protesters who are still miffed over the perceived insulting of their religion by the Pope during a speech he made a few months back.

Among those protesters is Husmattin Aycan Alp, a 25-year-old science student from the Turkish city of Izmir, who says that he wants to make his anger toward the Pope's offenses to Islam known because, "I cannot remain silent when the Prophet Mohammed is insulted. I love him more than myself."

After closing my eyes and sighing heavily, I'm going to repeat this -- just in case you missed it: a science student is professing his unwavering love for and allegiance to a 2000-year-old story, all as a show of defiance toward a man who heads a group which once tortured and executed thousands of people simply because they didn't agree with the particulars of its belief in an invisible supreme being -- a man who is now trying to heal wounds and create a "scholarly" dialogue between his faith in where we go after we die and another, very large and increasingly dangerous group's faith in where we go after we die -- neither of which can be proven in any way whatsoever.

If there is a better definition of "absolute fucking insanity," I'm completely unaware of it.

...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead

There's a seminal scene in the 1986 movie Aliens which seems frighteningly appropriate right now.

The platoon of Colonial Marines, armed to the teeth with the most technologically-advanced arsenal of firepower known to man, wanders into a nest of deadly, unstoppable creatures. Unfortunately, they don't realize this until it's too late; the walls begin moving, and suddenly the entire scene dissolves into complete chaos as the marines come under attack and begin firing blindly -- screaming for instructions from their commanding officer, who's sitting safely at a control center, frozen, terrified, and watching his troops being picked off one-by-one by an invisible and overwhelming enemy.

The marines are pinned down and desperately looking for a way out, while the commanding officer, shaking, issues timid and impotent instructions. As this is happening, the only person with any sense in the room is yelling at him, "GET YOUR PEOPLE OUT OF THERE!"

This morning, Iraq is reeling after a series of coordinated bombings that killed more than 200 people and wounded at least 250 others.

It was the single deadliest attack since the war began.

I can't express this in strong enough terms: the next person to say that Iraq is better off without Saddam Hussein, or that the media needs to focus on the "good news" coming out of that country, should promptly be handed a weapon and dropped in the middle of Sadr City.

There simply isn't a word in the English language for what Iraq has degenerated into. "Hell" comes to mind -- but maybe a more apt description is "nothing;" Iraq as we've known it has ceased to exist.

I seem to remember that toward the end of Aliens, that commanding officer redeems himself as best he can by paying a terrible but necessary price for his arrogance. Needless to say, nothing so just will happen in this case.

Imam-a-Rama

A couple of days ago, I mentioned the fact that I look at music the way I look at politics: if the same number of people from each side of the aisle holds your opinion in equal disdain, then you must be doing something right (Shut Up. Listen. Learn./11.19.06). I bring this up, because it's dawned on me that yesterday's little treatise on Michael Richards probably sounded to many like I was trying to let him off the hook for what was more than likely obvious racist behavior. Granted, my fears about the chilling effect of allowing the masses to use the ubiquitous "Offense-o-Meter" to dictate what is and isn't acceptable art may have pushed me slightly left of center -- a position I'd imagine people have become used to seeing me stake out -- but I still was seemingly willing to give intolerance a pass, and most true liberals will tell you that intolerance of any kind simply cannot be tolerated.

So, allow me to inflame the typically good company on the left just a little more by making a statement which leaves no room whatsoever for protean interpretations:

I have no -- as in zero -- problem with the idea of profiling at America's airports.

A couple of days ago, six Muslim imams were pulled off of a flight as it sat on the ground in Minneapolis. This happened because another passenger expressed concern about what he deemed to be their suspicious behavior -- an assessment which admittedly may or may not have been trustworthy. The clerics were briefly taken into custody and searched with K9 units before being cut loose and sent on their merry way to serve Allah in the fashion of their choosing. Needless to say, 24 hours later they were back at the ticket counter of U.S. Airways -- this time, armed ironically with America's own weapons of mass distraction: TV news crews. The imams screamed to the heavens that they had been discriminated against; that they were the victims of obvious religious profiling and persecution; that this is America, and anyone in a position of authority who succumbs to prejudice and the stereotyping of Islam should be called before a series of suggested congressional hearings into the matter.

One word of advice for the Democrats controlling the incoming 110th U.S. Congress: don't even think about it.

If you're looking for delicate prose from me on this one, you won't get it; by all means scroll down and read some of the more articulate material I've cranked out over the past several days. This is simply too much of a no-brainer to merit a flowery analytical argument, and any belief to the contrary is just wrong.

We have a limited amount of resources to secure our nation's airports and hopefully keep killers out of the skies, which even someone as tired of hearing the 9/11 argument as myself concedes is the last place you want those killers to be. There are people out there who still want to murder Americans, and not only are they determined as hell, but as our sweeping, knee-jerk reaction to the "epiphany" that liquid explosives pose a threat to passenger safety proves -- they're at least one step ahead of us at all times. Fortunately, we have one advantage over these terrorists; Unfortunately, we're content to pretend that this advantage doesn't exist, for fear that someone's feelings might get hurt.

The people who want us dead are all Muslim.

A vast majority of Arabs are Muslim.

Not all Muslims want to blow up planes.

However, anyone willing to blow up a plane with him or herself still onboard, is almost certainly Muslim.

Do the math, and the logical conclusion is irrefutable.

One of the most gargantuan lies we've been told since 9/11 is that this isn't a war of cultures; on the contrary, that's exactly what it is. It is a fundamentalist religious culture which considers us heretical enemies of the one true God, and therefore dangerous and unworthy to exist upon his Earth. It considers us not only an abomination, but one which has humiliated and subjugated it simply by virtue of the fact that it has become the dominant way of life on the planet. As a good friend of mine once put it so beautifully, as far as Muslim fundamentalists are concerned, this is not World War III; it's World War I. It is the same war that's been going on since the dawn of time, between a theocracy bent on never moving past the first century and enslaving or destroying those who oppose it, and the forces of modernism and enlightenment. All one has to do to understand this fact is to look at the reaction to a harmless set of cartoons in Denmark, or a beauty pageant in Nigeria, or an absurd comment from a silly little man in the Vatican.

To appease this kind of thinking is not only ridiculous, it's reprehensible; and yet that's exactly what we do. For all of his swaggering anti-terrorist bluster, our president has never been willing to acknowledge the simple truth that is at the root of almost all anti-American terrorism at the beginning of the 21st century: Islam is dangerous.

Instead of admitting the obvious and acting accordingly -- with at the very least the slightest hint of vigilance -- we give a sheepish smile and pretend that there are a whole host of other factors at play in deciding who does and doesn't become a vehemently anti-American mass murderer: economic, psychological, social, etc. Once again though, we ignore the one common denominator that we know beyond a shadow of a doubt links these killers: their belief in Allah and the glory of martyrdom, as preached in the Koran.

These six imams not only represent that belief -- they are its arbiters. Whether they subscribe openly to the idea that the west should be put asunder doesn't matter in the least when it comes time to walk through an airport metal detector and board a plane with 220 other people. It's just good police-work to give them a second look.

In a perfect utopian society, this kind of suspicion wouldn't be necessary; then again, in a perfect utopian society, one would hope that a group of people wouldn't exist that is willing to kill and destroy in this life in favor of a supposed reward in an unseen and unproven afterlife.

It comes down to this: whether it's political-correctness or simple self-deception, our willingness to ignore the incredibly obvious is a luxury that no one can afford.

And my right to continue breathing trumps your right to be slightly inconvenienced and have your feelings hurt.

The Nth Degree

Anyone who writes -- certainly anyone who wishes to pursue writing as a career -- will tell you that the first few words are always the most difficult. The opening volley in the battle to get the attention of readers can't be overestimated, and therefore choosing the proper way to begin a novel, volume, essay or column becomes a Herculean task -- and one which can reduce even the most assured and veteran of scribes to tears.

So with that in mind -- and after much internal contention -- allow me to begin by simply coming right to the point.

Nigger.

You obviously wouldn't be able to tell from where you are, but after typing that word I put my laptop aside, got up from the couch and walked to the refrigerator to pour myself a glass of iced-tea before returning to my computer a minute or so later. What's important about this isn't what happened during the short interval -- it's what didn't happen. The world didn't explode. Lives weren't lost. Hordes of people didn't pour out onto 125th street, or the corner of Florence and Normandie, or MLK boulevards all across the land to engage in weeping and gnashing of teeth at the assured knowledge that they would immediately be returned to a life of indentured servitude. The universe, as far as I know, didn't collapse in on itself, sucking reality -- or at the very least, a substantial portion of the population -- into a giant black hole of nothingness.

The reason of course is simple: despite whatever heft, whatever power to destroy or dehumanize, that we've unwisely granted a single word -- any word -- in the end it is still just a word, and nothing more.

Except that in the most advanced and preeminent culture to ever exist upon this Earth, in the early days of the 21st century, it isn't just a word. On the contrary, the word "nigger" holds an unparalleled level of ascendancy in our society. There's no better testament to the truth of this statement than the fact that otherwise educated, intelligent people -- the type who normally would rather step on a live land mine than be taken for an idiot -- will gladly allow themselves to be reduced to spouting the vernacular of a four-year-old to avoid speaking it.

No matter the alternative's power to offend and instigate, is there anything -- anything -- more painfully ridiculous than a grown man or woman saying, "The N-word?" It's an absurd verbal tip-toe that not only proves that there is apparently no safe context in which the actual word can be uttered, but also that there exists an unspoken implication that those whom one would expect to be angered by the use of such a word are so stupid that they can't discern between the desire to dehumanize and subjugate and the need to openly discuss, and therefore should be protected from hearing the word altogether -- for the good of everyone. This latter possibility -- an indictment of an entire culture, whether out of condescension or outright fear -- is infinitely more offensive than the utterance of any one word.

Unless you've returned from a mission to the International Space Station within the past fifteen minutes, you're well aware of the curious case of Michael Richards and his bizarre obscenity and racial-slur-laced tirade against a group of black hecklers. It happened last Friday night at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles, and if you believe a media hype machine that's more than happy to feign the necessary level of ratings-driven contrived outrage -- the Earth has stood still since.

Admittedly, it's tough to get past the image of Richards -- TV's Kramer for God's sake -- yelling at the top of his lungs that his tormenters are "niggers" who would've been lynched fifty years ago. Once you do however, you realize that there are a whole lot of issues which come into play regarding both the incident and its aftermath; one man yelling bad words like a child throwing a temper tantrum may be the least of the problems.

I've mentioned on more than one occasion the tenuous and obviously subjective nature of offense and being offended --as well as the dangers inherent in acquiescing to the demands and restrictions of those who take offense, essentially putting the power to censor in their hands. Needless to say, if we strived to create a world in which no one was offended or insulted and everyone was consistently made "comfortable," it would be a totalitarian society where nothing worthwhile is ever spoken or expressed.

Which brings us to Kramer.

What he said was indeed insulting -- it was certainly stupid -- but did it prove him a racist?

Michael Richards, from what I've read, fits the stand-up comic stereotype in every sense of the word -- despite the fact that he isn't technically a stand-up comic. He's insecure and overly-serious about his craft -- which makes him ironically arrogant. He's occasionally difficult to work with. He has more issues than Time magazine and considers himself to be a mildly tortured artist. In other words, he's the furthest thing from the character he played for eight years, whom we all loved so wildly. Hence, the first problem: the expectation that Michael Richards is somehow not a human being and is a television character. The real Richards allowed a couple of people talking at a show to fluster him so badly, that he lashed out and verbally brutalized them in the strongest way possible. I've said before that I believe that -- although ill-advised -- it's entirely possible to spout racist language without actually being a racist per se. The argument for this belief is simple: there are times when a person can become so enraged that he or she wants to say the most hideously damaging thing possible. The aim is to inflict pain -- as much as you can; calling someone a name that you know will devastate and demean as nothing else will is nothing more than the verbal equivalent of punching someone in the face. In that case, the offender may not need diversity training as much as he or she needs an anger management course.

Another thing to consider is this: Michael Richards is a graduate of the Andy Kaufman school of comedy. According to popular legend, he was one of the handful of people who were in on Kaufman's notorious joke during his appearance on the TV show Fridays in the mid-80s -- the tense and far-from-funny incident in which Kaufman supposedly went "off-book" for the entire show, improvising his lines, throwing the cast into disarray and eventually disrupting the live show by getting into a fist-fight with Richards. Kaufman was less a comedian than he was a terrorist; his brand of performance art was sowing uncomfortable confusion and anarchic dischord. It was this very volatility and unpredictability that made him brilliant beyond words. The point is, it's entirely possible that Richards was hoping to do what a comic mind -- like Kaufman's -- is supposed to do: incite, instigate and in some cases, infuriate. Lenny Bruce did it back in the 60s -- typically, using the word "nigger" more often than an NWA song; Kaufman did it in the 80s; it could very well be that Richards is hoping to do it for a new generation.

I concede however that Richards is no Kaufman or Bruce, as his schtick at the Laugh Factory may very well have proven.

But then there is the most disturbing aspect of this entire controversy -- yes, even more disturbing than a lanky middle-aged man spending three minutes shouting bad words: the chilling affect which is already being trumpeted as a direct and desirable consequence of Richards's actions. It was expected that the NAACP would hold a news conference along with Najee Ali of L.A.'s Project Islamic HOPE -- an opportunistic idiot who never met a camera he didn't like -- to demand that Richards be banished to pop-culture oblivion. What no one expected was for Laugh Factory owner Jamie Masada to not only bow to the unnecessarily sweeping outrage of the angry mob, but to proudly announce that he was banning all offensive material at his club from this point on, and that Michael Richards was not welcome back at the Laugh Factory until the black community approves. I'll repeat that in case the draconian severity of these measures didn't sink in: the owner of a facility which acts as a stage for artists is going to allow one facet of the population to dictate what is and is not acceptable humor. Forgive me for speaking in soundbites, but art should never be subject to democracy. Ever.

It's worth mentioning that Masada is the man who initially introduced a young boy and his family to his personal friend, Michael Jackson; that family eventually wound up accusing Jackson of child molestation. It's obvious Masada's judgment isn't exactly stellar -- a point which will once again be proven when audiences looking for decent, wholesome entertainment (if such people exist in Los Angeles) are still willing to flock to the Laugh Factory, but good comics avoid it like a double-bill with Carrot-Top.

There are other issues which can and should be up for debate in the wake of this indisputably prototypical celebrity controversy, circa 2006 (just ask Mel Gibson): the somewhat disconcerting fact that almost everything we do these days -- all acts noble or unscrupulous -- are documented on video. Everything you do can be seen and videotaped by someone. Also, the thoroughly ludicrous nature of issuing a prepared and almost certainly insincere apology in an effort to appease the masses and subdue their bloodlust -- the masses who are, by the way, not owed a damn thing.

All that's missing from this story is a trip to rehab.

Still, in the end, it all goes back to that one -- as Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy calls it -- "troublesome little word;" the one we do not speak of; the one we're afraid of, and afraid can consume us as a culture.

It's time we started really talking about the "N-word;" we can start by actually being able to say it.


(My good friend and fantastic writer Steve Bunche has his own take on this, which is slightly different and infinitely more visceral and hilarious than mine. Please do yourself a favor and take a minute to give it a look at The Vault of Buncheness: KKKramer Kommits Kareer Suicide.)

Shut Up. Listen. Learn.

Just about everyone has that moment.

It typically comes during the formative years, and its sheer weight cannot be overstated, simply because -- upon reflection later in life -- it will always be held in the kind of esteem and spoken of with the kind of reverence typically reserved for a first kiss or a conversion to Christ. I'm speaking of course of that single, epiphanic event which inarguably determines if not the final outcome of your musical tastes, then at the very least the path that will be taken to eventually arrive at that point. It is the juncture which often decides whether you'll spend entire evenings passionately arguing the merits of the new Secret Machines album, or debating the necessity of Muse's existence were it not for the fact that Radiohead doesn't write actual songs anymore -- or think to yourself that you might pick up that new Mariah Carey record at some point; whether you'll seduce a potential lover with a mix playlist that includes Jeff Buckley, Marvin Gaye, Zero 7 and Protection-era Massive Attack, then inevitably have mind-blowing sex with that person to the Deftones' Change (in the House of Flies) -- or half-heartedly try to decide between Kenny G and Enigma should you actually convince someone of the opposite sex to spend an evening with you in a manner that doesn't involve chloroform and a tube-sock.

To put it simply, it will decide whether or not you suck.

As I sit here typing these words, I'm listening to the new Army of Anyone record. For the unfamiliar, the band features the DeLeo brothers (formerly of Stone Temple Pilots) and Richard Patrick (lead singer of Filter). It's the kind of album which will in no way align the planets, but as good, melodic rock records go, it more than serves its purpose. I owe the fact that this is currently being played in my home to one person, and one person only. His name is Robert Rivero. I haven't seen him since the sixth grade, which is coincidentally the same year I met him.

Up until the point that Robert Rivero entered my life, my music had come from the same source as my Toughskins jeans -- Sears. And as with those jeans, the authority deciding the specifics of what I would be listening to was my mother. Thankfully, my mother had pretty decent taste in music -- when it came to what she herself listened to. With the exception of the sage purchase of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours album however, the music she foisted upon me showed no such keen judgment. In fact, as I think back to a small stack of records that included Leo Sayer, Abba and a pre-ironically-hip Bee-Gees, I realize that my mother owes her current freedom only to that era's liberal child abuse laws.

When Robert Rivero stumbled into class on the first day of school in 1979 however -- eyes mere bloodshot slits, dressed in the ubiquitous stoner uniform of a Led Zeppelin t-shirt, torn jeans and suede chukka-boots -- everything changed. He and I made friends quickly and within a month or so, much to my parents' abject horror, Robert was influencing everything from the way I looked and acted to, most importantly, what I listened to. In an ultimately pathetic vision-quest to be more Rivero-like, I would put my allowance toward the purchase of vinyl and beg regularly to be chauffeured to the mall to pick up AC/DC's Highway to Hell or Sabbath's Paranoid. I had fantasies of running into Abba on the street and setting them on fire in an effort to demonstrate my unwavering allegiance to Jimmy Page, and -- by proxy -- Satan.

The irony however, is that it was through the attempt to emulate someone else that I learned to make my own decisions; it was through an influential kinship with someone my own age that I learned to develop tastes and appreciations that were independent of my parents. It also, as I mentioned before and can't stress enough, started me down the passionate musical road which I continue traveling to this day.

The titular "Highway to Hell" perhaps.

About a month ago, I voiced my considerable like for the new My Chemical Romance album The Black Parade. That opinion still stands -- in fact, after repeated listens I can honestly say that I like it even more than I did when I first wrote about it. As that post was quick and to the point -- as opposed to some which are long, rambling and take forever to make their point, like this one for instance -- I didn't expect much in the way of reaction. I was wrong. Given the responses that I received, both on the comment page and via e-mail, you would've thought that I had suggested replacing every other noun in the pledge of allegiance with the words "pee-pee pants." What surprised me most was the implication by many that the enjoyment of MCR was somehow beneath me -- that it was unexpected for someone who considers himself an independent thinker to support a band that was so obviously populist.

And that's what led me to feel the need to make my musical tastes clear.

My first job in broadcasting was as a DJ at WVUM, the radio station at the University of Miami. Before finding my place as the host of a show which was essentially talk and opinion, I made the rounds in the general DJ pool, where I played a combination of my own choices and the songs and bands which the program director had deemed worthy of broadcast. I'll probably make my first pro-mainstream statement regarding my likes and dislikes (aside from my MCR jones of course) by saying that most of what the program director picked was shit. In fact, most of what's played on college radio in general -- then and now -- is shit. Although there are many fantastic bands on tiny labels which certainly deserve to be heard, there are three times as many bands that are on tiny labels with good goddamned reason. A message for college radio kids: playing bands that are so far underground that they've never even heard of themselves doesn't make you cool, it makes you desperate to appear cool, which in turn makes you suck.

Likewise, abandoning a band simply because they evolve, get a major-label deal, or suddenly achieve some measure of success merely shows that you weren't half as interested in the band as you were in how the band made you feel about yourself. Once again, this makes you suck.

I look at music the way I look at politics: if an equal number of people from both sides of the aisle -- in this case, the pop-lovers and the indie kids -- hold you in the same disdain, you're probably doing something right.

So, without further ado -- and in appropriate stream-of-consciousness fashion -- here's the music that I love and hate...



My three "desert island" albums are, in no particular order: Radiohead's OK Computer, Jeff Buckley's Grace, and Coltrane's A Love Supreme. Buckley's Grace contains probably the most beautiful song -- and certainly best cover -- ever recorded: Hallelujah. OK Computer meanwhile is the best rock album of the 90s (yes, better than Nirvana's Nevermind). Although Nirvana are a vastly more important band than the Foo Fighters, they are not, in fact, a better band; when their bodies of work are compared side-by-side, Foo Fighters are an infinitely better band. There's a reason that pop music is pop music: it's pleasing to the ear; as such, I'd rather truly enjoy Neil Young's gorgeous Harvest Moon album than have to trudge my way through his nauseatingly self-indulgent Arc album, which consists of nothing but noise. Hip-hop right now is little more than noise -- unlistenable noise being shouted by mindless dipshits with a lot of money, and I'd probably give up the brilliant work of Mos Def, Public Enemy, Outkast, A Tribe Called Quest, Ice T, Slick Rick, the Beastie Boys and others if it meant that the cultural virus known as today's rap could be completely eradicated. If you think this is racist, you're probably a tool. Tool is one of the best and most instrumentally complex bands in the world right now, however, song-for-song I prefer A Perfect Circle. Perfect Circle is R.E.M.'s best song from Michael Stipe's pre-intelligible stage, Sweetness Follows is their best post-intelligible song. R.E.M.'s Automatic for the People is one of the 10 best albums of the 1990s. Matthew Sweet's Girlfriend is one of the top 25 albums of the 1990s, despite containing only three really great songs. Every Matthew Sweet album contains only three great songs, tops, but those songs are typically better than other artists' entire discographies. People who claim that vinyl is better than compact disc or digital music should be treated with leeches and trepanation the next time they get sick. AC/DC should've broken up after Bon Scott died from choking on his own vomit. I'll never forgive Rick Rubin for turning the Cult into a latter-day AC/DC on their worthless Electric album. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's Howl album, although brilliant, should've come from another band; their original incarnation, doing Jesus & Mary Chainian psychedelia, filled a much-needed hole in the musical landscape. BRMC -- then and now -- are one of the coolest bands on the planet; the others that come to mind are Girls Against Boys, Queens of the Stone Age, and the Dandy Warhols. I'm in love with the Dandys' Zia McCabe, and not just because she occasionally performs topless. Liz Phair's old material is great. Liz Phair's new material is average. Whether Liz Phair's material is great or average doesn't matter, because there's no one in rock n' roll that I'd more like to have sex with. Gwen Stefani used to be both adorable and the singer for a really decent band, No Doubt -- she's now a hip-hop anime character. Gwen Stefani's Hollaback Girl is one of the worst songs in the history of recorded music; it makes me wish I'd been born deaf. Fergalicious by Fergie is equally bad. Jennifer Lopez's disappearance from the music business is proof that there may in fact be a benevolent god. Despite the underlying Christian message of their music, Switchfoot are actually a pretty likable band. You can like a band's music but hate the band itself (Good Charlotte). You can like a band but hate their music (Happy Mondays). Oasis are music's biggest assholes who also write great songs; they also have the distinction of being the only band whose b-sides are actually better, by and large, than the material on their albums. The Red Hot Chili Peppers may be the last great rock n' roll band with any kind of longevity. U2 may very well contradict my last statement. Upon further reflection, yes, Green Day's American Idiot was that good. Billy Joel has recorded more phenomenal music than any other single artist working right now; although The Nylon Curtain is his best album, Zanzibar is his most underrated song. Cheap Trick are rock's most underrated band. The Grateful Dead are rock's most overrated band. I never get tired of hearing the Stones' Gimme Shelter, the New Pornographers' Use It, Crazy Town & Orgy's Black Cloud, Gnarls Barkley's Crazy, Fiona Apple's Sullen Girl, and Zero 7's Destiny (or the entire Simple Things album for that matter). I got tired of hearing the White Stripes midway through their debut album and actually believe that Jack White's new band, The Raconteurs, are far better. No one is better than Tom Waits. Elvis Presley has always been overrated. Elvis Costello cannot be overrated. Somehow, New Order released their best album two decades into their career; Get Ready is shockingly good. There is nothing, NOTHING, better than a playlist which includes Coltrane, Monk, Mingus, Miles, Brubeck and Jimmy Scott. The debut Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy album and, more recently, the debut N*E*R*D album contradict what I said earlier about hip-hop. Generally speaking, both blues and funk are types of music played by brilliant musicians who can't write a song for shit. Faux-punk music would probably be tolerable if it didn't try to bill itself as punk. When Avril Lavigne was labeled "punk," Joe Strummer, in a final show of defiance, died. Sid Vicious was an idiot; Johnny Rotten was anything but. The Pistols were gods regardless. Every night I thank God for Henry Rollins. I want Debussy to be the last thing I hear before I die; Clair de Lune is perfection. I want Nine Inch Nails to be the last thing I hear before I kill; The Fragile is a masterpiece. I loathe Missy Elliott. I miss Elliott Smith. I miss Husker Du. I miss the Replacements. I miss the Smashing Pumpkins while simultaneously not missing Billy Corgan. I will never, NEVER, be able to figure out why Jonatha Brooke isn't huge; stop reading this immediately and buy everything she's ever released. I will never be able to figure out why Ken Andrews isn't huge; buy the Year of the Rabbit album immediately. Abandoned Pools are the best band you've never heard of, besides possibly The Start. David Baerwald's A Secret Silken World is the best song you've never heard. Sloan rule. I believe that the Sneaker Pimps are actually better without Kelli Dayton. I believe that Brian Warner/Marilyn Manson is a fucking genius. I believe that Charlie Benante of Anthrax can drum circles around Lars Ulrich of Metallica. Buddy Rich can drum circles around both of them. Greg Dulli has never sung a bad song, whether it's a cover or an original -- whether he's fronting the Afghan Whigs, the Twilight Singers or solo. Surprisingly, Motley Crue's cover of the Tubes' White Punks on Dope isn't half bad. Unsurprisingly, Motley Crue's cover of Street Fighting Man is terrible. There has never been a good reggaeton song, and there never will be. Madonna should be killed on principle. Killing Joke's Night Time album is probably still my favorite record of the 80s. The Killing Moon from Echo & the Bunnymen is probably the best song of the 80s. The Cure was always better than the Smiths. You can tell a lot about a person by his or her preference in Cure material: my favorite Cure songs are Burn from The Crow soundtrack, The Kiss, and anything from Disintegration; I have no use for Friday I'm in Love. I loved Gang of Four the first time around, which is why I can't take two seconds of the wholly derivative crap that Franz Ferdinand churns out. Sometimes it isn't about the music, so much as where it takes you when you listen to it -- this is why I can listen to Trespassers William's Different Stars album and Thievery Corporation's The Mirror Conspiracy over and over again. Liam Howlett should've kept Prodigy intact. Big Audio Dynamite and Faith No More are both vastly underrated, and contributed more to the sound of modern music than anyone willingly gives them credit for. 1992 was the last truly great year for music. Were it not for the greatness of Pearl Jam, the death of Andrew Wood and the collapse of Mother Love Bone would have been one of the biggest losses to rock n' roll ever. Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash were too fucking cool to live. Prince, David Bowie, Trent Reznor and possibly Todd Rundgren may be the only musical geniuses still living. Perry Farrell isn't half the musical genius he thinks he is. Ritual de lo Habitual was Jane's Addiction's best album; their last album Strays was a good rock album, but not a good Jane's Addiction album. Ministry's Psalm 69 is the best non-metal metal album ever recorded. John Doe's Meet John Doe is the best non-country country album ever recorded. Everything you've heard about Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is true. Lou Barlow is indeed the King of Sadness. Steely Dan's Deacon Blues is one of the coolest songs ever recorded; Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street is as well, if for no other reason than the first note of one of the best and most understated guitar solos around. Five strings, ten fingers, countless great songs, one name: Van Halen. Earth, Wind & Fire are gods. Joni Mitchell's Blue is beautiful beyond words. Duncan Sheik has a place in my heart for covering Joni Mitchell's Court & Spark, Jeff Buckley's masterpiece, Lover, You Should've Come Over, and Radiohead's gorgeous Fake Plastic Trees. Nessun Dorma, from Turandot -- particularly when sung by Pavarotti -- always makes me cry, ALWAYS. The Beatles were, in fact, the best band in music history.

Yes, the new My Chemical Romance album is fucking great.

And no, I will never be able to repay Robert Rivero.

If You Want Blood, You've Got It

My strongest memory is of the victory parade.

On a cool late afternoon in February of 1997, Fred Goldman and his family walked out of a courthouse which sits on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica, clasped their hands together and raised them in victory. For the first time since their beloved's death three years earlier, they cried tears of triumph and vindication -- tears that were clearly visible even a hundred feet away, simply because they reflected the Southern California sunset. The crowd of thousands -- made up mostly of news crews from every conceivable point on the map -- applauded and cheered them; it was a rare surrender of all objectivity in favor of a momentary show of solidarity with these people whose suffering the reporters, photographers and producers had documented nonstop since the night of Ron Goldman's brutal murder on June 12th, 1994.

Fred Goldman and his family turned and strided with newfound confidence along the street which ran parallel to the courthouse, away from that sunset and toward a new dawn. They had done it. In spite of the miscarriage of justice of unfathomable proportions that was the criminal trial two years earlier -- the one which pitted the people of California not so much against the defendant as against his team of legal wizards, whose talent for misdirection and obfuscation was unparalleled -- they had finally won.

They had beaten O.J. Simpson.

A civil jury had unanimously ruled that Simpson was responsible for the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson -- and Goldman patriarch Fred's only son, Ron. The award: $33.5 million total.

Photographer Glen Shimada and myself were supposed to be doing something else that afternoon; we were supposed to be on a shoot in Long Beach. We were diverted oceanside by a frantic call from our assignment desk telling us that a verdict had been reached, and would be announced shortly -- and that we were to get to the courthouse as quickly as possible to meet our reporter, Harvey Levin. As the impromptu Goldman victory parade marched on, Glen and I followed closely behind the family as part of the procession. It would be fifteen minutes later that Harvey would seek us out and, in typically crazed and kinetic fashion, scream that he had secured the first interview with the Goldmans' attorney -- the man who had done the seemingly impossible -- Dan Petrocelli.

A half-hour after that harried pronouncement, Harvey was seated face-to-face with Petrocelli, asking him how he did it; how he managed to slay the giant; how he convinced one group of people to hold Simpson responsible for an act of which another group of people said he wasn't guilty. Then he asked the million dollar question, or actually, the 33.5 million dollar question: how was anyone going to force O.J. Simpson to pay the money that he now owed to the Goldman family?

And that was when the conversation went deathly silent.

I have a confession to make -- a seemingly appropriate gesture, given the nature of the subject matter.

I've always been thoroughly fascinated by the O.J. Simpson case.

Despite the legitimate claims by many that at the time it represented journalism's lowest point, I was captivated -- like so many were -- by the intricacies, timelines, characters and theories which took center stage in America's collective consciousness for months into years during the mid-90s. I was never naive enough to believe that Simpson -- as deluded, begrudging and outright hostile as he was -- would quietly and graciously accept the civil jury's judgment and hand a over small fortune to those he considered his tormentors. What I never expected however, was that he would spend the next nine years egregiously flaunting his disregard not only for the Goldman family, but for the memory of his ex-wife and the general consensus of the vast majority of the population which considers him little more than an escaped killer.

As the saying goes, "When you're walking on eggs -- don't hop." Well, O.J. Simpson has spent nearly the past decade doing more hopping than the Easter Bunny. His behavior has been occasionally strange and sickening (pretending to stab a camera with a banana), occasionally violent (threatening a man during a traffic confrontation), and more often than not, simply sociopathic (taping a pay-per-view special called "Juiced" in which he plays a practical joke on a used car dealer by attempting to sell him a white Ford Bronco).

There's obviously an argument to be made that O.J. doesn't really need to tread lightly; he got away with murder. Double jeopardy precludes the state from ever trying him on the necessary charges again. But if you knew that millions of people believed that you were guilty of a crime, and still owed a small fortune because a jury knew it to be true, wouldn't you at the very least avoid the subject in mixed company?

O.J. has not only accepted his position as America's Most Notorious, he's reveled in it and assumed intellectual property rights.

This is what, in some ways, makes the heavily-publicized and heavily-criticized new book and television special "If I Did It, Here's What Happened," nothing more than the next logical step in O.J. Simpson's quest to become the most loathed human being to not also be responsible for the deaths of six-million Jews.

If the incessant and admittedly unsettling promotion is to be believed, the television interview at least will usher in the final triumph of post-modern meta-reality -- a stroke of Victor/Victorian genius, with O.J. playing the part of a killer pretending to be an innocent man pretending to be a killer.

The commercials feature a seemingly tortured and tormented Simpson, breaking under the intense questioning of his inquisitor and publisher Judith Regan (a dual-role for which she was born). He speaks not in hypotheticals but in apparent absolutes: about the amount of blood at the scene, the feeling of nearly decapitating two people, one of whom, a woman he once loved, etc. And yet Simpson insists he's doing nothing more than assuming a fictional identity -- albeit one which bears his familiar name -- and stepping into an alternate reality; he's essentially playing a game of "what if." The show's title even hints at the schizophrenic nature of its implication; it's a grammatically-incorrect pairing of two opposing assertions.

The word "surreal" doesn't even begin to cover it all.

Although plenty of venom has been directed toward O.J. for willingly stooping to new levels of murderous whoredom, those who purport to hold themselves to a higher standard of discourse have saved much of their fury for his apparent pimp, Regan. She is after all the one holding the purse strings in this miasma -- agreeing to pay Simpson an undisclosed sum for his "hypothetical" admission of guilt (a sum which O.J. is rumored to have promised to spend immediately, rather than allow Goldman and family to get a crack at it). I surely admit to having initially decried both Regan's actions and mere existence as the reason the rest of the country despises the relatively small slice of land which I happen to call home: New York City. However, Regan's defense seems to be that after nine long years, she's succeeded where others have failed; she believes that she's trapped an unwitting and narcissistic Simpson into saying the words that America has demanded from him: "I did it." The fact that Simpson may believe that he isn't in fact issuing a true confession is relevant only in that it both makes the "gotcha" factor that much sweeter and stands as a testament to his frightening sociopathy.

The question though is obvious: what's really gained by a confession that amounts to nothing more than Simpson once again taunting an impotent legal system and a frustrated family?

Doesn't it do more harm than good?

During the period between the criminal trial verdict and the supposed vindication of the civil trial decision, Harvey Levin would storm into the KCBS newsroom in Los Angeles every other day claiming to have uncovered the "bombshell" that would prove O.J. Simpson's guilt. He did some excellent investigative reporting -- better than excellent in fact. In the end however, it accomplished nothing; Simpson was still free to come and go as he pleased.

He remains free to this day and will continue to -- free to issue confessions, real or hypothetical, that will change absolutely nothing.