Somethin's Happenin' Here #2 (Oct-27-22)
And what it is ain't exactly clear, but it got my 🐐 more than the student loan fracas so let's talk about it! And in the Music Box: The Best ‘80s Hard Rock Band Known Only for Their Sappy Hit Ballad
The objective of this “Somethin’s Happenin’ Here” segment is to do some mind-melding over something that was in the news this week. I was going to discuss the controversy surrounding Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, but in looking for stories about that topic from the last couple days, there weren’t so many.
So I figured let’s press 🐾 on that story (I love these Unicode symbols, I’m addicted) and just cover something that’s more of a light, friendly, non-controversial topic. Just to ease us into the weekend, y’know?
Let’s talk about guns.
WHAT’S HAPPENING: There was another school shooting this week. Did you know about it? I didn’t.
Yup, it finally happened to me, too. I wasn’t 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 today—three days after—when 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 “third party known to the family” for safekeeping. And then they’re like:
“How he acquired it after that … we don’t know. We’re looking into that.”
How he acquired it??
He went to the family friend and convinced him or her to give it back, that’s how he acquired it! Or some scenario similar to that.
Seems like that’s about the least effective thing they could’ve done this side of just letting him keep it outright. I guess it’s good they at least did something the night they answered the mother’s call. But if you acknowledge something’s wrong enough with the individual to do something, why not go the whole way and take the gun into custody?
Can’t we at least take a “better safe than sorry” approach when the family of a teenager tells us they’ve sought mental health treatment for him and don’t trust him to have a weapon? If we think he’s 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, can’t it? (Hell, it’ll actually be mushier and cause a bigger mess by then, look at it that way...)
But anyway. It’s also not fair to blame law enforcement without having more info than we’ll probably ever be given about the circumstances here. We would need to know (1) what really happened when the cops answered the shooter’s mother’s call and subsequently rerouted the gun to the family friend, and (2) what transpired that allowed the gun to make it back into the shooter’s 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! I’ll get there!)
Any number of positive things could’ve happened to that kid between 19 and 21 that would’ve 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 would’ve 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 could’ve gotten a job he really liked, one that was exciting and fulfilling. Or he could’ve made a new buddy who’d been affected by gun violence and therefore hated guns. Maybe that vibe would’ve rubbed off on the kid, I don’t know.
You should not be able to legally buy weapons of war before you can legally buy a beer in America, is all I’m 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 don’t 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.
I’d 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 we’d 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 that…)
It was also the first year for Ohio Stadium’s 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 scoreboard—which featured white-only light bulb-generated animations (and definitely no instant replay or commercials)—was 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 ‘em 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 “Horseshoe” nosebleeds?
I just about cried when Illinois started pounding us. However, “There’s a whole lotta game left,” Dad kept saying. And sure enough, by the time we made our miraculous comeback—and came out victorious in the end—people 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 guys’ 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, they’re 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 is—while they’re 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 come—it’s just that autopsy is the only way to diagnose it. So we’re only in the beginning stages of understanding how far-reaching CTE really is.
I’d 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 don’t.
Granted, it’s a little easier to make such a statement now that I don’t have Dad to share the college football experience with. But I’m 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 jury’s out on how many, but…how many saved lives would be worth disrupting your enjoyment of shooting?
Australia’s always the example leftists give of a citizenry who worked together to settle on an “agreement” to ban guns after a particularly awful mass shooting in the ‘90s. I thought they’d 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 “Agreement!” How civil of ‘em!)
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! It’s 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, “A pain in the arse,” as a Sydney gun store employee called the process in a news.com.au article. But shouldn’t it be? What is wrong with it being an involved process—requiring determination, persistence, and demonstrable mental stability—to secure dangerous weaponry?
So whaddaya say? I’ll settle for watching a souped-up version of flag football if you settle for shooting varmints with an airgun. Deal?
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I’m pretty sure that song, called (obvs) “I Love You,” 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 ‘80s 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 ‘90s 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 Douglas’s Atlantic-distributed Third Stone Records vanity label, incidentally). But everybody recognizes them—again, criminally!—as an ‘80s 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 as—did I mention people should go to jail for this?—a bunch of wussy hairspray bands.
Tesla, in fact, was a strong contender amongst our judges (i.e., me) for Best ‘80s Hard Rock Band Known Only for Their Sappy Hit Ballad. “Love Song,” is certainly that band’s 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 [“The Ballad of Jayne”] and Faster Pussycat [“House of Pain”…sorry, “House of Pain”]).
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 Kick’s 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 Leppard’s lead and took years to birth a new record, while Saigon Kick were churning them out once a year; and (2) by ‘93, most of the ‘80s-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 “Hands All Over” hit Headbanger’s 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 I’m not mistaken, I walked out of Tracks on the IU campus one day in August ‘92 with both Warrant’s and Stone Temple Pilots’ new records. And not long before that I’d seen Alice In Chains open for Van Hagar. It was a weird time.)
“Love Is on the Way” and a couple other tracks excepted, The Lizard is super-heavy. Water, on the other hand, still has riffs aplenty (“Torture”), but also has moments that are delicate, although not power ballad-delicate (“Fields of Rape”). The title track is dance-y Duran Duran way more than it’s rockin’ Dokken. The album opener, “One Step Closer,” bashes out monolithic melody and harmony. “Sgt. Steve” is a weird acoustic number that takes residence inside my head roughly once a week on average. And “On and On” should have been the single, with its slinky bass line and crazy-catchy chorus. I think it sounds like Culture Club—a huge compliment in my book. (Wait, maybe it was “On and On” 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 “Space Oddity,” by a British singer I’d barely heard of as of 1993: David Bowie. So in addition to delivering one of the very best albums of the early ‘90s—an 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 did—Saigon 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, it’s 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.