AND THEY ARE STILL...

THE ONLY BAND THAT MATTERS

If you're a fan of today's punk bands, you should thank The Clash. If you love "Paper Planes" by M.I.A., you should thank The Clash (she sampled their song "Straight To Hell"). In fact, just thank The Clash that you're alive because fuck you, they're the effin' Clash!

I also understand why there is so much drama when someone 'samples' another artists' work. To me, M.I.A's song is garbage... and she absolutely ruins a song that is one I loved to listen to when I was in Korea. But I digress.

It isn't that bands aren't as relevant or have as much social significance in their representation of their audience, but they are often dilluted by the commercialism that inevitably comes. Often the price of getting their voice heard is that when they speak, they speak with the voice of 'where they are at, not where they from'.

When I listen to rap (which is NOT hip hop... of all the mirco-genres that thins music out, this is one I will stand by... I was around for the 'split'), with all of its name droppin', hedonistic materialism and misogyny (even by some of the females) and expoloitation of its audience, I wonder what it is that the disaffected urban youth are identifying with? It makes no sense because the cats who tell them to 'keep it real' often aren't 'real' themselves.

Jay Z, 'Fittee' Cent, the list goes on and on. But the Clash weren't like that with their image and their music (and it isn't like I don't know the irony around Joe Strummer... Think SLC Punk and Matthew Lilliard's character). Instead of simply saying something, they had something to say. It happened that their music blew up.

Because they continued to say something about the conditions of world as they saw them, and I felt that the promo line that was used was true. They remain 'the only band that matters'.

Rather than buying fancy stuff that would require most of their audience to sell a child or kidney to own, they made popular a look that was put together with thrift store clothing. Sometimes, I have to wonder what Joe Strummer would say about all the 'posers' that strut about the scene now.

WHY CAN'T WE BE FRIENDS?

Beth at 'Blind As A Bat', put up on her Facebook page a question that has been around since Adam, Eve and the Serpent (provided the Serpent was male). Can a man and a woman be 'just friends'.

I left some claptrap about how men see their women 'friends' as 'missed opportunities'. My reasoning being that like many men, I figure that if a woman was to give a cat an opening he would take his shot. Then I thought about myself... and I gave myself an 'awkward moment'.

The SFC and I were always friends with each other... and while I always thought she was pretty, the notion to get at her came and went so quickly in my mind that you have to wonder if it was ever there at all. Only in hindsight can I say that there were 'opportunities', but I never saw or felt any of them. I had never seen her as anything less than my best friend(cause I don't know what I saw women as at that time... I was still amazed at having someone present with me when I ejaculated).

So I guess you can be friends with someone of the opposite sex. But geez, don't go fooling yourselves, ladies. Just like 'Cougars' have been on the prowl long before it became fashionable, I am sure that there are women who don't mind being 'bunk buddies' with someone. All I am saying is that it goes both ways.

But whenever I reminisced about my girl and our time in the Army together, I always thought of her as not just my friend, but my best friend. And she still is.

Don't know what our future holds... but she is always going to be dear to my heart.