Going back to the well...

I first started this blog because I missed writing them on my Myspace page.  I had a few of them up.  They ranged from Volkswagen commercial complaints, to making fun of American Idol and goofing on soccer.  But it wasn't all bitching and moaning.  I had some fun with football super fans, posted hot beach volleyball chicks for the guys (and girls if some of you ladies are so inclined) and talked about Star Wars.  I was looking on my old Myspace page and all of the blogs were gone.  The site doesn't even look the same.  I think it's become a radio website now.  I'm not even sure.  But even though Myspace is gone, for the most part, I'm going to re-hash and update an old blog that only a few of you have probably read, thanks to Myspace's demise.

"Let me tell you about Blingees and layout generators."

But back to the topic at hand, Star Wars.  Ahh, Star Wars.  To guys my age, from 1977 to 1983 Star Wars was life.  Nearly every day there was Star Wars to be played.  Running around the neighborhood with X-Wing fighters.  Lightsaber duels with whiffle ball bats.  Waiting for winter to break out the Snowspeeders and AT-AT's.  The first spring lawn mowing where the old Toro mower finds that Snowtrooper left in the snowbank before you do.  Such good times.  And everyone had their favorites.  Most guys dug Han Solo, the few girls who would play were into the Leia of course and a select few, like me, were Luke fans.  I always heard "Han is so cool", "Han has the best lines", "Solo gets the girl" along with "Luke's a whiner" and "Luke wishes he was Han Solo."  Well folks, here's the deal, Han Solo was a total fuck up and Luke and his friends were lucky to survive him.

"Who, me?"

I know it's coming.  The fanboys are losing their shit as these words sink into their frontal lobes.  "Are you kidding?"  "Luke's a fucking pussy!"  "Star Trek fan!"  I've heard it all before.  It doesn't make me any less right though.  During the first movie it was easy to be the Luke fan.  Luke was the hero by a long shot.  Luke blew up the Death Star.  Luke got a lightsaber.  Luke flew an X-wing instead of Han Solo's stupid station wagon of a  ship and blew up TIE fighters.  Being a Luke fan was easy.  But then came 'Empire', and everybody jumped ship and hopped on the Han Solo train.  Han got a ton more screen time, the coolest lines and the girl.  But I had faith.  I knew Luke was destined for greater things.  Man, was I ever right.

""You do know this Sean guy is full of shit, farm boy?"

I'll start with the first movie, 'A New Hope'.  It wasn't real obvious at first.  Luke was doing all of the hero shit, blowing up space stations and enemy fighters by the bunch.  He was the guy who had the inside track to the Force.  He was given a sword made of pure energy and every kid in the world wanted one.  Han, for the most part, just complained. Complained about the trip to Alderaan.  Complained about the tractor beam.  Complained about the rescuing the princess.  Complained about the attack on the Death Star.  Bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch.  Luke on the other hand, Aunt and Uncle killed?  No sweat, let's save the Princess.  Han doesn't want to go to Alderaan?  Fuck him, I can fly a ship.  Found the Princess' cell block?  Get me a rifle.  Giant space station?  Give me a  god-damned fighter!  Dude was getting shit done.

"And this is just my first day on the job."

"But Sean, if Han doesn't come back during the trench run Luke is toast."  Guess what?  Bullshit.  Follow me on this one.  Han is flying above the trench with a perfect view of Luke being chased down by Vader and his two wingmen.  No one is near him.  He has time to line up the perfect shot.  Han leads his target perfectly.  He pulls the trigger and blows up ONE OF THE FUCKING WINGMEN?  This dude is supposed to be some savvy space pirate.  A bad ass in a daddy vest. But he doesn't shoot the lead TIE fighter with the slick custom wing job, the one doing all of the shooting?  He decides "Maybe I'll work my way up to the guy blowing up all of the rebel ships."  If not for an edgy second wingman shitting his pants and clipping Vader's ship, Luke is space dust.

"Alright, so one little mistake."

Now 'Empire' is where the Han Solo camp exploded.  It was hard to argue as to why.  Leia was all over him.  He had the funniest lines in the whole trilogy.  He drew a gun on Vader.  All pretty solid stuff.  Luke even needed Han to come to his rescue and turn him into a tauntaun burrito.  But after thawing out, taking a dip in power steering fluid and getting a kiss that turned out to be very awkward at the closing credits Luke manages to take out a seven story tank with only his lightsaber, a grenade and his brass balls.  The rest of the movie Luke was basically relegated to being bossed around by a Muppet Show cast off, sweating in a tank top and playing in the mud. But in true Han Solo fashion, he fucks things up again.

"The Empire has a thing for weak points."

After successfully navigating an asteroid field, he makes a pit stop in the belly of a giant worm.  He doesn't know this, and that's okay.  But upon inspection of the soft, squishy rock he landed in, he gets a weird feeling that something may not be quite right.  He knows it's not a rock he's landed on.  Safest thing to do is take off and get somewhere safer.  So what does he do?  He fires a blaster bolt into the 'ground' and they almost become lunch.  Then the one guy he decides to go to for help is a guy that has an axe to grind for a perceived ship theft.  What kind of moron goes to a known hustler for help, especially if that hustler has the same set of scruples as the aforementioned moron?  Han Solo, that's the kind of moron.  Thankfully he was frozen solid before he could find a way to blow Bespin up from the inside slaughtering all of the city's inhabitants.  So here we go again.  Luke uses the force to find out his friends are in trouble, goes to face Vader unprepared, loses his hand and nearly his life.  Nice work Solo.

"No one's perfect, right?" 

The last movie of the trilogy cements Solo's status as 'King of the Screw-Ups' for the Star Wars universe.  While hanging in Jabba the Hutt's throne room as a wall decoration, the safest place for every other character in the movie, we find Luke has become a full fledged bad ass, mind controlling, laser sword wielding Jedi Knight.  Not sure if it's the Yoda Summer School/ Jedi GED equivalent, but he's got the sheepskin apparently.  Luke, playing chess while everyone around him is playing checkers, strolls into Jabba's palace like he owns the joint.  No lightsaber, no blaster, just some ninja pajamas and a burlap bathrobe.  He pulls the old Jedi mind trick on the crime lord's right hand man, kills  a fucking dinosaur with a bleached femur and skull and frees everybody on Jabba's sand barge while hardly breaking a sweat.  Han on the other hand is bumbling around like an extra in a Buster Keaton film doing everything but helping.  He does kill Boba Fett, but even the staunchest Han Solo supporter feels that one of the coolest characters in the entire Star Wars universe deserved a better death than the Wile E. Coyote demise he got from Solo.

"And I thought my lightsaber was cool looking."

We move on to Endor where we find Han is put in charge of the ground assault.  No better place for a space pirate to volunteer than for the ground mission, right?  Jesus.  Han's first chance to sneak up on some Imperials and he pulls the old 'steps on a stick' routine and the bad guys almost get away.  Who's there to mop up?  Skywalker Cleaning Services, that's who.  So while Luke and Leia are chasing down and destroying his screw-up, what's Han doing with a platoon of rebel soldiers?  Prepping for an assault?  Scouting for the bunker?  Nope, just sitting on his ass.  During the hunt for Leia the crew gets captured by a colony of teddy bears because Solo's over grown Teddy Ruxpin can't control his appetite.

"He doesn't hang out with me for my cooking."

Before before being turned into rebel burgers for the ewok village feast, Luke uses the force to persuade the tiny furballs that this meal may not be worth the trouble.  Quite literally pulling Han's fat out of the fryer.  The real hero goes off to face Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine and an entire Death Star full of Imperials alone (again) while Han goes off into the woods with his girlfriend to play with a cadre of stunted yetis.  It must have been this moment that Solo realized that his attraction to Leia was because of some underlying furry-fetish they both shared.

"Okay, but they leave their spears outside of the bedroom."

Now the final showdown is about to take place.  Han and his plush toy army are set to take on what seem to be the worst soldiers the Emperor can drum up and Luke to face down two Sith Lords single handed.  By studying the brief history I've laid out for you, we can see this train coming down the tracks.  Luke resists the lure of untold power and defeats Darth Vader in lightsaber combat, after a brief dance with the dark side himself.  Appeals to what little good is left inside of his father and has Anakin redeem himself by destroying the Palpatine.  Drags the elder Skywalker to the hangar bay and flies them both to safety before the space station is destroyed.

"All in a day's work, bitches."

 Han on the other walks into yet another trap, locks the entire rebel platoon out of the targeted bunker and gets his girlfriend shot after she saves his skin yet again.  If it weren't for his pet/hetero-lifemate Chewbaccca and a couple of ewoks stealing a goddamned scout transport, the shield generator never gets destroyed and the rebellion dies a painful death.  The only life lessons you're going to learn from Han Solo is to not worry about the consequences because someone with more skill and conviction will be around to fix any problems you have created with your "Ignore the problem, it'll go away" attitude.  So am I uncool for being in the Luke Skywalker camp?  Maybe.  But, I'll back the guy with the lightsaber and Jedi powers over the pilot with a ship that never works and a truly deplorable skill set every time.

Problem solving 101.

I really tried to be more positive...

I can still remember the look on her face.

It was the summer of 1984.  I was taking some of my money I earned mowing Mr. Snowman's lawn and heading up to the old Record and Tape Traders in the Reisterstown Shopping Center.  My intended purchase was Twisted Sister's Stay Hungry, on cassette of course, and a new pair of AA batteries for my Walkman.  My mother gave me a ride up in her baby blue Ford Fairmont and waited outside while I went in to make my purchase.  After quickly taking a look-see at some of the Iron Maiden and Def Leppard (10 armed version) albums I snatched up the my desired tape, a pair of copper tops and headed to the glass display counter full of marijuana smoking paraphernalia and plopped down my hard earned cash.  Dee Snider and the guys were going to be making my ears melt in about 15 minutes at home.  I hopped into the front seat  and proudly showed off my newest heavy metal purchase, with Dee himself on the cover in all of his make-up covered, bone chewing, curly haired awesomeness.  This is what I got...

"Where did I go wrong?"

So I write this installment of Cut the Chatter with a full understanding that my parents didn't get my music tastes.  Just like their parents didn't understand the allure of four guys from England with matching haircuts that couldn't even spell their band name right.  I get it.  Every new generation thinks that their parents' music is dated and hokey sounding, the equivalent of black and white film compared to high definition movie making.  And to a degree, they're right.  Take Louie Louie by the Kingsmen, for example.  "Louie Louie, oh no.  Me gotta go.  Aye-Yi-Yi-Yi!"  Not exactly Stairway to Heaven or Won't Get Fooled Again.  I could have used Imagine, but as I stated in a previous post, fuck John Lennon.  What I'm trying to get at is that Louie Louie wasn't going to change the world, but it was a fun little song that had a catchy beat that eventually a fat drug addict could dance to on the silver screen.

  You can't dance to anything Yoko Ono got her mitts on.

But I was buzzing through the radio stations out on the road last week and I came across this lump of coal.  I would say little gem, but even a jaded prick like me can't convey enough sarcasm to get the point across of how insulting that reference would be.

If you decided not to listen to it by judging the thumbnail, I understand.  But go back and take a listen.  Done?  Good.  I can continue.  WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?  Okay, that's out of my system.  The first time I heard the song, it was half way through the first verse.  I guess you could say verse.  I should say the first set of self absorbed, inane, childish, borderline evil whining.  I didn't think it was a real song at first.  I thought it was one of those pop radio station versions of the old 98 Rock twisted tunes.  No way it could be real.  A couple of quick things.  If you have ever said any of those things that the girl was saying in this song, punch yourself in the face.  No, I'm serious.  Right in the face and get some help.  And get Darth Vader the fuck off of that video.  I know he's just a movie character, but I'm pretty sure the Dark Lord of the Sith would lay waste to that entire room and turn these two "DJ" jokers into Sarlacc food.  I truly hope my kid isn't lumped in to the worst generation this planet has ever seen.  These club-going, Instagram addicted, hipster douches have got to be the worst thing this planet has hosted since small pox.  Maybe I'm overstating a bit, but I would rather the worst parts of every zombie film come to fruition than to have this sub-culture of me first, narcissistic, infantile pseudo-adults get any larger.  At least you're allowed to shoot zombies in the face.

Thank God they aren't playing any dubstep.

So what I'm going to do is show you some alternatives to some real shit that's out there keeping our ears from hearing some very beautiful music.  The first suggestion I'm going to give you over the non-sense I just presented is going to prove  me to be a bit of  a hypocrite.  I don't know if I have mentioned it before, but I really don't like TV talent shows.  I find American Idol, The Voice, X-Factor and their ilk completely reprehensible.  A while ago I posted on my Facebook page a picture of currently the greatest rocker on two feet today, Mr. Dave Grohl, and  a quote that was attributed to him denouncing these cruddy talent shows.  I guess it's as reliable as anything else on the internet.

 Simon Cowell just shit himself.

All of that being said, I found myself in a YouTube wormhole that started out with learning the opening guitar riff for The Sword's Maiden, Mother and Crone, and came across this gem.  And no sarcastic inference should be applied here.  This young lady is brilliant and funny and can make you care about her songs and their subjects with the simple strum of her guitar.  Have a listen to Ms. Lucy Spraggan...

I know there is a more polished and well produced version of this song out there, but just listening to her alone with her acoustic gives the song more power and emotion.  She is talent personified.  If you get  a chance, hop over to YouTube and listen to a few of her other songs.  I highly recommend Last Night and Mountains.  The kid's a genius.

And back over on the shit pile I found this...

I know it's a little easy to pick on Miley "I have more daddy issues than the cast of Debbie Does Dallas" Cyrus, but an easy target is still a target.  So back to the song.  Let us go in order. Clubbing, percocet, shoes, clubbing, shoes, weed, shoes, percocet, blowjobs, shoes and shoes.  Jam Master Jay would be turning over in his grave if he could see what happened to the music he helped pioneer.  I'll take My Adidas all day long over this non-sense.  Instead, give this a try...

Say what you want, this guy still fucking gets it.  That, and Rick Rubin is a genius.  The last real good rap song I heard before this was Jay-Z's 99 Problems.  And Rubin had his paws all over that one too.  Just good old fashioned rap music.  It's got a wonderfully sampled music selection, ballsy lyrics and a unique style that screams good hip-hop.

And to show that I'm not just picking on rap and dance tunes, how about this that is somehow passing as alternative rock these days...

Is it bad?  I don't know.  Is it good?  Not particularly.  It isn't anything actually.  It's vanilla ice cream, one scoop, in a cake cone.  It's a rice cake.  Not even one of those new rice cakes that taste like caramel or jalapeno peppers.  Just a plain old rice cake.  It's just there, on the middle shelf, waiting for you to finish the Utz salt and vinegar chips and anything else with some flavor before you get to it.  Now this though...

Bluesy guitar riffs, screaming vocals and some good time honored beating the shit out of some drums?  Check, check and check.  I don't know when indie-rock went from Bullet with Butterfly Wings to Little Talks, but it's nice to see some bands out there trying to rectify the situation.

I tried.  I really tried.  I wanted to go the year without complaining about stuff that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.  But man, that fucking Selfie song.  (No, I'm not putting the hash-tag in front of it.)  It was just taunting me,  sitting there mocking me.  Maybe my next post will be more positive.  Something about the camaraderie we witnessed in Sochi during the past Olympics or the upcoming season and how our world will go from a dreary winter's gray to a vibrant spring's green.  Just don't bet on it.