Baby Jesus Shitting Self, Etc. (Continued)

Christ on whole wheat, I hope this is a joke:

Of course, my heart goes out to the family of this man who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but while it is unfortunate that someone got hurt, capitalism is not a dinner party. There will always be some collateral damage in a free market. Socialists who hate capitalism are now trying to scapegoat these patriotic Americans who celebrated an American tradition by rising before dawn on the day after Thanksgiving to express their love of this country by partaking of the bounties of the free enterprise system. How can those of us who were not there judge people on the front lines of the Christmas shopping rush? Can we honestly say that we would not have rushed past or over this unfortunate man on the way to grabbing the last plasma TV or Wii to bring some Christmas joy to our children? After 9/11 President Bush said that the best way to defeat the terrorists was to “go shopping.” Should we now condemn those who took him at his word? If he meant what he said, then before he leaves office President Bush should issue a blanket pardon to these high-spirited consumers to head off this assault not only on Americans who were just trying to make Christmas a little better for their families in these trying economic times but on the capitalist system itself.

It's either deadly serious, or highly dead-pan. I really don't know.

An Inconvenient Truth .... About David Lee Roth, Vol. 2

Dateline: Cincinnati, Ohio, April 22, 2008

At two of the Queen City's adjoining entertainment venues, Great American Ballpark and the U.S. Bank arena, two forces from Southern California converged: the Los Angeles Dodgers in the former, and Van Halen in the latter.

Could this be coincidence? Could I care? Answers: yes; no.

Regardless, I was struck by the great irony: here was a man who - unbeknownst to most - penned one of the most anti-consumerism rants of 1980: "Everybody Wants Some!!" in a city known for its conservativism and in particular, its baseball team's general aversion to expanding its payroll.

Suffice it to say, I am sure that I was not the only one who thought, upon hearing that the Cincinnati Reds fired GM Wayne Krivsky, that David Lee Roth might be named Krivsky's replacement. It would certainly make a lot of sense.

David Lee Roth: a conservative's conservative. Make that a gay-sex-in-airport-bathrooms-conservative's conservative.

As I've noted here, and many more times privately to close confidants, DLR's party-boy image was a mask to the true DLR. In particular, the aforementioned "Everybody Wants Some!!" is one of the high points of Dave's socially conscious lyrical style. Let us undertake a critical examination.

With his ear squarely to the ground, Dave observes in song,

I seen a lotta people lookin' for a moonbeam.
Yeah, ya spent a lot. Ya got lost in the jet-stream.

Translation: where has your consumerism, your unyielding desire to acquire more and more, gotten you? It has gotten you "lost," specifically in the "jet-stream." The acquisition of material possesions, DLR postulates, is the proverbial road to nowhere.

But of course, "Diamond Dave" is not "holier than thou" here. The following passage shows the despair and frustration he feels as someone who cannot escape the trappings of consumerism himself:

But ev'rybody wants some. I want some too.
Ev'rybody wants some. Baby, how 'bout you?

(emphasis mine).

DLR was perhaps one of the most misunderstood social commentators of the twentieth century for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the style of music employed by the Van Halen brothers to be the vessel for DLR's message. Certainly Dave's own decadent behavior distracted from his message, although history shall not judge him harshly: had you seen the societal horrors Dave observed throughout the latter part of the last century, you would drink too. Heavily.

My continuing examination about David Lee Roth will lead you to conclude, as I have, that before there was Bono or Michael Stipe..... there was David. Lee. Roth. Not only the voice of a generation. The voice for all generations. If I may say so, when it comes to bringing Americans together, Barack Obama ain't got shit on David Lee Roth.