Somethin's Happenin' Here #2 (Oct-27-22)
And what it is ain't exactly clear, but it got my đ more than the student loan fracas so let's talk about it! And in the Music Box: The Best â80s Hard Rock Band Known Only for Their Sappy Hit Ballad
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The objective of this âSomethinâs Happeninâ Hereâ segment is to do some mind-melding over something that was in the news this week. I was going to discuss the controversy surrounding Bidenâs student loan forgiveness plan, but in looking for stories about that topic from the last couple days, there werenât so many.
So I figured letâs press đž on that story (I love these Unicode symbols, Iâm addicted) and just cover something thatâs more of a light, friendly, non-controversial topic. Just to ease us into the weekend, yâknow?
Letâs talk about guns.
WHATâS HAPPENING: There was another school shooting this week. Did you know about it? I didnât.
Yup, it finally happened to me, too. I wasnât paying enough attention to the news on Monday, so I never even heard there had been a school shooting at a St. Louis performing arts high school.
Instead, I found out todayâthree days afterâwhen this followup story came out that the 19-year-old shooter had his AR-15 taken from him days before he shot up the Central Visual and Performing Arts High School, killing student Alexandria Bell (right before her sweet 16th) and teacher Jean Kuczka and wounding several others. (The shooter also died after a gunfight with police.)
The crux of the story is: The kid was having mental health issues. His mother called the authorities to have them remove his semi-automatic rifle from their house. Since it was technically legal for anyone to possess pretty much any gun in Missouri, the cops compromised and gave the gun to a âthird party known to the familyâ for safekeeping. And then theyâre like:
âHow he acquired it after that ⌠we donât know. Weâre looking into that.â
How he acquired it??
He went to the family friend and convinced him or her to give it back, thatâs how he acquired it! Or some scenario similar to that.
Seems like thatâs about the least effective thing they couldâve done this side of just letting him keep it outright. I guess itâs good they at least did something the night they answered the motherâs call. But if you acknowledge somethingâs wrong enough with the individual to do something, why not go the whole way and take the gun into custody?
Canât we at least take a âbetter safe than sorryâ approach when the family of a teenager tells us theyâve sought mental health treatment for him and donât trust him to have a weapon? If we think heâs only out to shoot some poor unsuspecting pumpkin out on a firing range somewhere, then let him keep his gun and let the public judge you, and your gun laws, when he instigates a massacre.
But if we want to recognize that young American men having easy access to semi-automatic weapons has led to widespread and persistent catastrophe in this country, despite how many of those young men use their weapons responsibly, then take the damn guns away from troubled kids like this St. Louis shooter! The pumpkin can wait a couple weeks to be vaporized, canât it? (Hell, itâll actually be mushier and cause a bigger mess by then, look at it that way...)
But anyway. Itâs also not fair to blame law enforcement without having more info than weâll probably ever be given about the circumstances here. We would need to know (1) what really happened when the cops answered the shooterâs motherâs call and subsequently rerouted the gun to the family friend, and (2) what transpired that allowed the gun to make it back into the shooterâs hands.
And it sure sounds like the police response here in St. Louis was swift and thorough, unlike the performance of the authorities during the Uvalde and Parkland shootings.
But consider this: Think of all that happened between your 19th and your 21st birthdays. Personally, I was still more boy than man at 19, and more man than boy at 21. (Still making steady gains toward full manhood two decades later! Iâll get there!)
Any number of positive things couldâve happened to that kid between 19 and 21 that wouldâve kept him from going on a shooting spree. For one thing, he made explicit reference to never having had a girlfriend in his suicide note. So maybe he wouldâve fallen in love, and/or had somebody fall in love with him in that timeframe.
(Of course, significant others can also drive the crazy crazier, but I digress.)
Or this kid couldâve gotten a job he really liked, one that was exciting and fulfilling. Or he couldâve made a new buddy whoâd been affected by gun violence and therefore hated guns. Maybe that vibe wouldâve rubbed off on the kid, I donât know.
You should not be able to legally buy weapons of war before you can legally buy a beer in America, is all Iâm suggesting.
And look, I hate the thought of taking away the bonding experience I imagine it must be for hundreds of thousands of parents and kids (or more?) to go out hunting. I donât personally dig the idea of killing sentient beings for sport, but I do get it that it is a longstanding and beloved tradition for many American families.
Iâd be absolutely heartbroken if they tried to outlaw my favorite pastime. It meant so much to my late dad and me. And it, too, is a controversial sport that without question does harm.
And to humans, not animals!
The above was one of the most legendary plays in Ohio State college football history. Part of the reason it was so legendary was that it occurred after weâd gotten down 24-0 toward the end of the first half, and taken the lead 28-24 less than four minutes into the second half.
And Keith Byars, my first favorite Buckeye, also lost his shoe on this run. (Actually he was my second favorite Buckeye, but no need to get into thatâŚ)
It was also the first year for Ohio Stadiumâs massive new scoreboard, but Dad and I were in the very last row at the top of C-deck, all the way to one corner of the stadium. So my view of the cool new state-of-the-art scoreboardâwhich featured white-only light bulb-generated animations (and definitely no instant replay or commercials)âwas obstructed.
I was so bummed when we first found our seats.
BUT, there was a big walkway behind the last row, so I could pace my way back and forth back there, from our seats to the middle of our side of the stadium where I could see the scoreboard do its thing. It was an exciting surprise bonus feature of our last-row tickets (we got âem at the last minute) that seemed dangerous and forbidden to a little kid. Who knew there was this neat secret walkway all the way up at the tippy-top of the âHorseshoeâ nosebleeds?
I just about cried when Illinois started pounding us. However, âThereâs a whole lotta game left,â Dad kept saying. And sure enough, by the time we made our miraculous comebackâand came out victorious in the endâpeople were using that secret walkway (which I had the run of while we were getting thumped in the first half) to freak the eff out, and hug strangers, and guzzle smuggled-in Miller Lites together in pure Buckeye bliss.
And you wanna take this cherished family tradition away from me??
Well, yes. In a way.
To me, no amount of joy I could feel for my favorite sport is worth having countless guysâ lives ruined by CTE (the progressive brain condition called chronic traumatic encephalopathy). You can justify it by saying the ones who make it to the NFL are making a crapload of money, theyâre doing it of their own free will, the rules are making the game safer and safer every year, etc. But is it, or is it not still causing many dudes immeasurable suffering?
It isâwhile theyâre playing, as well as later in life. Not everybody suffers brain injury while playing, but many have, and many more will be proven to have experienced it in the years and decades to comeâitâs just that autopsy is the only way to diagnose it. So weâre only in the beginning stages of understanding how far-reaching CTE really is.
Iâd love for someone to create some kind of wacky technology that would place a shockwave barrier in between players so they could run into each other at full speed and not feel it, or have their brains scrambled by it. But in lieu of such a development, I understand and support (however tentatively) those who say football needs to be drastically changed so that head injuries are eliminated from the game.
Broken collarbones heal. Broken brains donât.
Granted, itâs a little easier to make such a statement now that I donât have Dad to share the college football experience with. But Iâm pretty sure he would feel the same way, as painful as it would be to have our favorite thing to do together be minimized, or even struck down entirely.
So my question to hunters and other gun enthusiasts is: Would you likewise be willing to consider selling back your high-powered weapons, AR-15s especially included, in order to save a bunch of lives?
Because it would definitely save lives. The juryâs out on how many, butâŚhow many saved lives would be worth disrupting your enjoyment of shooting?
Australiaâs always the example leftists give of a citizenry who worked together to settle on an âagreementâ to ban guns after a particularly awful mass shooting in the â90s. I thought theyâd totally outlawed guns, myself, except perhaps in rare instances. But the National Firearms Agreement of 1996 did not outlaw all guns. (And yup, they even called it, officially, the âAgreement!â How civil of âem!)
Turns out, Australians can still own any number of hunting rifles and shotguns. But they have to go through the same hoops as one does (in both America and Australia) to get licensed to drive, for instance.
You can even own an AR-15 Down Under! Itâs just that there are a proper shit-ton of hoops you have to jump through to do so. You have to prove you need it for your livelihood, you have to operate it on your own property, and you have to keep applying for the license for it year after year after year.
In other words, âA pain in the arse,â as a Sydney gun store employee called the process in a news.com.au article. But shouldnât it be? What is wrong with it being an involved processârequiring determination, persistence, and demonstrable mental stabilityâto secure dangerous weaponry?
So whaddaya say? Iâll settle for watching a souped-up version of flag football if you settle for shooting varmints with an airgun. Deal?
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Iâm pretty sure that song, called (obvs) âI Love You,â was a hit overseas, although it was panned as being Hallmark-level corny here in the states and failed to gain traction. As in, like, any traction at all.
But no matter. Saigon Kick is still the best â80s hard rock band ever criminally overlooked because they only had one hit, which, to their further misfortune, was the sappiest of sappy power ballads.
And in truth, Saigon Kick is a â90s band. Their self-titled debut came out in 1991, while their most popular record, the sophomore offering The Lizard, was released in 1992 (by actor Michael Douglasâs Atlantic-distributed Third Stone Records vanity label, incidentally). But everybody recognizes themâagain, criminally!âas an â80s hair band.
In my view, they are right up there with Tesla (band-not-car) as one of those legitimately talented groups that had the bad luck of launching when the MTV glam metal craze still ruled the music roost. They simply had no choice but to look the part, even though their music was way more muscular (i.e. badass) than the Poisons, Pretty Boy Floyds, Tuffs, and Trixters of the world.
And thus Saigon Kick, Tesla, and countless other quality rock bands went down in history asâdid I mention people should go to jail for this?âa bunch of wussy hairspray bands.
Tesla, in fact, was a strong contender amongst our judges (i.e., me) for Best â80s Hard Rock Band Known Only for Their Sappy Hit Ballad. âLove Song,â is certainly that bandâs most popular hit, but they had a bunch more minor hits, and way more success overall than Saigon Kick (as did other contenders like L.A. Guns [âThe Ballad of Jayneâ] and Faster Pussycat [âHouse of PainââŚsorry, âHouse of Painâ]).
In other words, Tesla can still tour in the 2020s and make at least part of their living doing it. Saigon Kick, as far as I can tell, cannot. At least not consistently so. They got back together for some gigs in the 2010s, but appear to be concentrating on side projects these days.
Saigon Kickâs far-and-away best album was their follow-up to The Lizard. Water came out in 1993, which was impressive because (1) by then most bands followed Def Leppardâs lead and took years to birth a new record, while Saigon Kick were churning them out once a year; and (2) by â93, most of the â80s-style hard rock bands had already been vanquished by their labels in favor of an arsenal of grunge groups.
So I guess give Jack T. Colton & Co. at least a little credit for not immediately canning Saigon Kick as soon as âHands All Overâ hit Headbangerâs Ball. But then Water got officially ignored by former hair metal/new grunge fans and consequentially tanked. And then the band was quietly dropped from their deal.
(For my part, I failed to differentiate much between grunge and glam at the time. It was all melodic guitar-driven hard rock to me. In fact, if Iâm not mistaken, I walked out of Tracks on the IU campus one day in August â92 with both Warrantâs and Stone Temple Pilotsâ new records. And not long before that Iâd seen Alice In Chains open for Van Hagar. It was a weird time.)
âLove Is on the Wayâ and a couple other tracks excepted, The Lizard is super-heavy. Water, on the other hand, still has riffs aplenty (âTortureâ), but also has moments that are delicate, although not power ballad-delicate (âFields of Rapeâ). The title track is dance-y Duran Duran way more than itâs rockinâ Dokken. The album opener, âOne Step Closer,â bashes out monolithic melody and harmony. âSgt. Steveâ is a weird acoustic number that takes residence inside my head roughly once a week on average. And âOn and Onâ should have been the single, with its slinky bass line and crazy-catchy chorus. I think it sounds like Culture Clubâa huge compliment in my book. (Wait, maybe it was âOn and Onâ that did well as a single overseas? Hey you! Saigon Kick fan reading this in 2025! Check me on this!)
BOTTOM LINE: It was just an uncommonly (especially at the time) multi-layered, engrossing, rich experience to listen to, from top to bottom. And still is today.
Yours,
~Dean
P.S. - The second track on Water was a near-carbon-copy cover of âSpace Oddity,â by a British singer Iâd barely heard of as of 1993: David Bowie. So in addition to delivering one of the very best albums of the early â90sâan era in my life that included all the grunge outfits that shaped the kind of musician I would become far more than my earlier glam metal faves didâSaigon Kick holds an even more special place in my heart for introducing me to the Thin White Duke.
P.P.S - In fact, to my earlier point, itâs worth noting: I knew nothing of David Bowie when I was 19 in 1993, but was a fan by the time I was 21.
So again, a lot can happen to a young man between the ages of 19 and 21 that can help make life worth living, and make a lot more sense.