Writing a review of an ICP movie, which is obviously a representation of the world of Juggalos, is like writing a review of somebody’s asshole. Say, the asshole of a co-worker. In both cases, I’m aware that the subject exists, but I rarely think about it on my own and it is rarely drawn to my attention. I live in LA and we don’t really have Juggalos here. In terms of the asshole analogy, I live in a pants-wearing society, while the Mid-West is a nudist colony in which everyone has daily newspaper delivery. And this suits me just fine.

Periodically, however, the subject commands attention and, on a certain level, it is pretty fascinating, especially if it is posted on the internet. Now, since I used to loosely follow the music industry, I knew that there was a white rap group called The Insane Clown Posse and that they had signed with a couple of different labels for huge bonuses, then been dropped, which I thought was pretty cool. It’s so rare that performers get to screw over the labels, my hat is off to anyone who can pull it off. ICP doing it multiple times is rivaled only by the once hotly pursued punk band Jawbreaker actually writing a song on their last independent album about taking a huge signing bonus from a major label, then checking out and breaking up. Then some wiz kid at Geffen Records signed them with a seven figure bonus and they proceeded to make a half-assed record and break up. However, though I admire ICP for playing the record companies, they still have more in common with assholes than with Jawbreaker. Hey! Remember those awesome Jawbreaker shirts? The only cooler thing you could have was a deliberately tattered Subhumans shirt that asserted that you’d been a fan since you were seven months old.

Anyway, a few years after hearing about their big pay day, I became aware of the fact that ICP actually had avid fans through my girlfriend’s stocky Iowan cousin, whose very soul was riven by a fierce inner conflict due to the fact that he liked both ICP and Eminem, but they did not like each other. A few years after that, the internet really came into bloom and it told me all about Juggalos and how ICP have forged an entire subculture based on bland spiritualism and amateur wrestling. I saw stuff like this, and just as if a coworker had posted their asshole on the internet, it seemed pretty clear to me that I couldn’t not look.

I guess the analogy falls apart in that, once you start looking at Jaggalos on the internet, you can lose days at a time. And when I say that the analogy falls apart, I mean that it obtains perfectly. Once you watch one of these, you can’t really stop. Then you have to read all of the Wikipedia entries to make sense of it all. Then you have to go back and watch the Juggalo stuff with a deeper understanding of how shallow and strange it all is. I guess the whole thing is, above all, harmless.  A lot of the language around ICP involves reaching out to an unknown group of like minded people so that the stocky white guy can feel a sense of family and have friends. It sounds a lot like the explanations for why people join white supremacist gangs, so if ICP can channel all of that into midget wrestling and “seminars,” more power to them.  I don’t get it at all. Rapping clowns? Rapping clowns in a Western movie? Or any other context? It’s still better and more sensible than the Aryan Nation or Ayn Rand but ultimately it does not compute.

So anyway, the message is clear enough. Stocky white guys unite! So at its core, ICP is not really any different than the NYHC that I disdained in my own adolescence, only its relative popularity in flyover country is far greater. Which brings us to the latest ICP flare-up to draw my attention- the fact that ICP have two, TWO movies! The latest is Big Money Rustlas, a follow up to Big Money Hustlas. Big Money Rustlas was called to my attention by a forumite who wanted me to review it.

It is terrible.

• Earnest Borgnine and Jan-Michael Vincent were reunited on a special episode of “The Simpsons,” though they appeared in separate scenes and did not record together.
• I know that some of the things I say here seem made up, but Stephen J. Cannell’s teenage son really was tragically suffocated by a giant sand castle.
• I had a dream that I was jumping up and down on a bed with Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. It was fun for a while. Then we accidentally killed Larry Bird when he fell and then one of us jumped on him and broke his neck. We thought nobody would believe it was an accident. I was relieved to wake up and find myself in the clear.

Episode 15: Santini’s Millions

Borgnine is transporting a human heart to the The Windy City in Airwolf, which makes absolutely no sense, seeing as Airwolf is supposed to be a top secret vehicle that doesn’t officially exist and if it landed on the roof of a hospital in the middle of Chicago, somebody might see it. Plus, there were more suitable vehicles for such tasks, even back in the 80s. I was alive then, and I clearly remember there being commercial jets.  It’s even possible that some made that very same flight from Los Angeles to Chicago. But then again, String and Dom also use Airwolf to break up disputes amongst local farmers and to settle 98% of their personal problems in their favor, so what are you gonna do? So, Ernie’s flying across the desert and his scanners see a small plane crash, he checks it out and it turns out to be the richest man in the world. I mean, he is literally supposed to the richest man in the world.  Who Dom just happens to find in the desert while using a secret military aircraft for routine organ transportation.  The Richest Man In The World offers Borgnine $50,000 to delay the organ transport and fly him to a business meeting in Los Angeles, and Borgnine declines because he’s incredibly noble. I mean, I would totally accept a medium sized bribe to indirectly kill an innocent person with an act of heartless negligence. Who wouldn’t? Because of this act of divine moral fortitude, The Richest Man In The World wills Borgnine 40% of his empire which turns out to be worth $40 million which would mean that, even in the 80s he wouldn’t have been close to being the richest man in the world. The rest of the episode makes less sense.

Best Borgnine Line: The human body, when confined, produces certain odors which we tend to forget in this age of deodorants and other perversions. Actually, I find the atmosphere of this room rather comforting. Schiller needed the scent of apples rotting in his desk in order to write. I, too, have my needs. You may remember that Mark Twain preferred to lie supinely in bed while composing those rather dated and boring efforts which contemporary scholars try to prove meaningful. Veneration of Mark Twain is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate.

Episode 16: Prisoner of Yesterday

If it wasn’t so meandering , I’d think this episode was meant to launch a spin-off because the regular cast only gets about half the screen time. The real star of the episode is Doc, or rather, whatever actor played Doc, one of String’s friends who is kidnapped to help an ailing revolutionary leader in a fictionalized Latin American country called “Argentina” or something. Once he’s back in the country, he meets an old flame, the revolutionary’s daughter, Lilly. He somehow wins her heart but no one gives a fuck because he is neither Jan-Michael Vincent nor Ernest Borgnine and this episode suffers from a severe dearth of helicopter footage. What the fuck is going on? I think I’m going blind in one eye.

BBL:  Hey!  Where are the sissy and the bald guy going?

Episode 17: Natural Born

Sigh. Was Jan-Michael wrecked all of the time at this point, or something? “Airwolf” seems to be in short supply of Airwolf. Another episode featuring a one-off guest star who gets most of the screen time. Drug dealers kill his dad… …. …. …. finally, Airwolf intervenes. It does have a drunk clown and some especially nice stunt work. One would hope so because this is the episode where the stunt man was killed. Instead of dicking around with some stupid kid, I think Airwolf should have blown up the CN tower which was, at the time, the world’s tallest “building.” How dare the Canadians try to usurp the status of the Sears Tower with that ugly, useless grab at the record? Like, if you glued a bunch of Pringles cans together, stuck a Frisbee on top and it was taller than the CN tower, would the Canadians concede the record to you? Airwolf could have swooped in at the base firing rockets with JMV screaming “Muuulroneeeeey!!!” I’m sorry, that was the beer talking. It’s all been the beer talking, but on other occasions it’s been funny.

Best BBL: Now, stay as close to my bird as possible.

Episode 18: Out of The Sky

This episode opens at a country concert, a generic setting where the series has spent time before. I feel like “late century rube” is an underrated set of 80s aesthetics, as a good portion of action heroes eventually find themselves in a hick-infested dive where slide guitars are blasting and everybody’s clothes are too small. I don’t blame them because I think it would be kind of fun to go to a bar like that, especially since country music was so much better before it just became pop music for the functionally illiterate. Santini Air is working on the production of a concert for country super star, “Roxy” and the rest of the story elements are basically the same as “Colonel Homer.” Suspiciously so. Well, there is more kidnapping and helicopters. Also, it has this scene. Yes, judging by the rest of the actress’ performance, which demonstrated a range not seen since Harrison Ford played Han Solo during the period when he was frozen in carbonite, this is an actual vag grab and this is her genuine reaction. I’ve viewed this sequence about 1,700 times. I suggest you take at least a few run-throughs to drink it in.

I’m not sure the zeitgeist is (or ever was) waiting in the fetal position, sobbing for yet another KISS record to hit America’s hungry shelves, but as the DVD sales of Family Jewels have not met industry projections, here we are again, eleven years running since Psycho Circus inexplicably conquered the charts with its own special brand of mediocrity. The CD is Sonic Boom, and if the title alone weren’t enough to part you from your hard-earned money, remember that this is one more in a long line of Wal-Mart exclusives, forcing you to add the guilt of patronizing the devil’s workshop to the fact that you are, at whatever age, still listening to KISS. And are willing to pay for the privilege. Well count me in, as if I had nothing better to do than help line the criminally deep pockets of the one Jew on planet earth who would not have been above buying stock in Zyklon B as a way to hedge his bets. Yes, Gene Simmons, still inserting his 60-year-old Hebrew National into whatever orifice will release the most coin, remains the ageless wonder of rock; a strutting, scamming, holy roller of indestructible marketing timber who shuns alcohol and drugs not out of any moral sense, but because he wants to be the one sober man at the bargaining table. His comrade-in-arms, 57-year-old Paul Stanley, is once again on board, though I imagine he might actually need the money, what with the royalties for Love Gun not paying off like they used to. Two other musicians have signed up for the inevitable gravy train, but as they’ll be replaced like spare parts for an oil-burning Impala whenever Gene tires of paying union wages, it’s best not to get too familiar.

Gene and Paul, not to be confused with John and Paul, are once again peddling their wares as the rock world’s worst lyricists, but I’ll be damned if that isn’t part of the charm. After all, few grandfathers would attempt to get away with the line “I know the way you made the others break, but lovin’ me would be your first mistake.” Maybe Philip Roth. But in the disc’s opening round, “Modern Day Delilah,” Paul is doing exactly that, asking us not to wince as he describes his lustful affair with some woman he first saw “across the room.” As played, it’s a nasty, adrenaline-charged cut that breaks KISS tradition by forcing all female pegs into whorish holes. It’s hard to believe that our crew haven’t learned their lesson, what with a good 10,000 conquests under their belts, but God love ‘em for still trying. “Russian Roulette” humps the same note on the rock piano, as Gene dares trot out the oft-used “Out of the frying pan, into the fire” line to convey his irresistible senior appeal. “One pull of the trigger is all you’re gonna get,” he groans, as if any woman, high or low, would complain about not enough trips to the Simmons well. Most men his age who sport the same haircut or propensity for spitting up blood are swiftly hospitalized, not rewarded with a fifth house in Beverly Hills.

“Never Enough” sets the record back on track, showing that women, in addition to submitting, deferring, and acquiescing in every manner possible, are likely to “light the fire below” even though the man “won’t slow down.” Sex aside, this is also one in a 35-year series of KISS anthems to equate breaking all the rules with true liberation. “I won’t stop till I make it to the top,” Paul roars, wondering how high the pile of money must get before he rests. “Yes I Know (Nobody’s Perfect)”, as much as I’d like it to be Gene’s atypical flirtation with humility, sours the instant it reveals that the source of regret is not that he fucked so often, but that he didn’t fuck enough. His failure to reach the ideal is because, contrary to all logic, there a few holdouts to his nutsack. And, if he will admit to any flaws, it’s that not every chick has agreed to take off her clothes. He isn’t providing any answers, but we can only assume they didn’t care for the disco record. “Stand”, one of the few to avoid fucking altogether, is the closest the disc comes to an arena crowd-pleaser, as it furthers the notion that loyalty is mankind’s greatest attribute. “Stand by while I make a shitload of money” might have been more accurate, but overall, Gene and Paul have never been this overtly generous. They even admit they’ll do anything they’re asked to do, without a trace of an invoice to be found.

“Hot and Cold” is all Gene, which from the beginning has our hero interrogating a chick just long enough to see her naked. “I will seduce you my treasure” is perhaps the band’s most confident lyric, though it’s quickly followed up by, “I know you’ll ask me for more and more” as a strong runner-up. And when the hypothetical woman is pushed to “Feel my tower of power,” the song flirts with a mild sexism quickly erased by a chorus of accusatory insults. Once you hop into bed, don’t you dare bring your conscience. Few things grate like a cold woman. Though in “All for the Glory,” KISS admit to “playing to win”, even if no one likes it. Who, exactly, is complaining? Gene and Paul might as well have been sealed in a tomb for a quarter-century for all the current events they so blithely ignore, and if rebellion is your game, who is the audience? KISS isn’t about to win new fans, for fuck’s sake, so is it really appropriate to lecture your aging audience about the need  to let loose with retirement just around the corner? Yeah, they could buck the system and not pay their bills, but millions are doing that already, even without the band’s help. “Danger Us” helps rub salt in the wound, as it points out the impossible-to-swallow reality that a man having even less talent than you for just about every artistic endeavor under the sun makes more money on the shitter than you do in several decades of humiliating labor. All that (and ugly to boot), and still swimming in pussy after all these years.

I don’t really need to tell you that “I’m An Animal” is about a woman damn near dying after being fucked by Gene, what with him being “made of fire, made of heat” and all. “I am free”, he says, furthering the disgust you felt at the disc’s halfway point. Still, and it cannot be minimized, this is a wild, fast-paced album, pushing its pounding rhythms miles away from even the hint of a power ballad. “When Lightning Strikes” ups the ante further, equating Gene’s penis to TNT, electricity, high voltage, and cataclysmic earthquakes in turn, though I could have done without the song’s final allusion, which may or may not reveal Gene as mankind’s true savior. All of this, however, has been leading up to “Say Yeah”, the KISS army’s call for revolution, so long as you believe chanting “Yeah, yeah, yeah” in the streets will get you anything but arrested. The world can be such a bore, Paul squeals, so why not join the crowd and pierce the air with your defiance? It’s impossible to imagine when this band was  perceived as a threat; when loving these “Knights in Satan’s Service” was the surest way to be grounded or cast aside as a wild child. Did these cultural watchdogs ever bother listening to the songs they so feared? Sure, having sex is worse than murder for some, but amidst the crazy boots, armor, fire, and gallons of face paint, stood a band more Ayn Rand than Abbie Hoffman. Fuck, fuck off, and fuck some more, but keep your eye on the real prize. It’s Gene’s way, and apparently we’re still buying into it.

It’s getting hard to trust aging punk bands’ output after so many disappointments in the past couple years. Pennywise, Poison Idea, Bad Religion – there comes that point where a loyal fan must accept that his heroes have run out of new ideas. When the old guys in Motley Crue are releasing more exciting material than NOFX you start to contemplate if punk has a creative ceiling.

I was reticent picking up Rancid’s Let The Dominoes Fall. Initially passing it up new for $9.99 at Best Buy, I then found myself facing a classic used CD store Catch-22 when I saw such a recent release on the shelf at the secondhand price of $7.99, a price that seems like a no-brainer for the latest from such a legendary band until you think about how someone in town sacrificed about $5.00 in possible disgust. I considered listening to it on Youtube before shelling out the money but the store is all the way across town and I figured I owed it to the band if only for the timeless …And Out Come The Wolves and my five finger discount of their previous album from the internet.

Rancid’s newest turns out to be much less of a letdown than some of the aforementioned bands’ last releases. You’re not getting a reinvention of the wheel here like with Wolves and coming six years after the all-over-the-map Indestructible, maybe fans were hoping for a little more predictability. With Indestructible, band founders Tim Armstrong and Lars Frederiksen were immersed in so called “side” projects to the point that it was expected to feel like a second-thought album, which does not seem to be the case on this release.

To this particular critic, now in his mid-30′s and listening to like six new records a year, LTDF is a helluva solid comeback. Blasting off with another charged opener, and a singalong tribute to their stomping grounds, “East Bay Night,” a hopeful but cautious smile crept across my stupid face. Four of the first five songs in fact are pretty infectious and though it doesn’t seem as classic as Rancid’s past material, part of that could be due to my sorry lack of knowledge about new music.

Not every song gets to be an anthem though, except if it was on AOCTW, and therefore we put up with some of Rancid’s now trademark mid-tempo filler come songs numero 6 and 7. Perhaps being lulled into apathy by those two then, I’m now doubly excited about song 8 and what would have to be the record’s next single, “New Orleans.” A heartbreaking love letter to an unjustly scorned American city, this is a folk song on par with something by the likes of Bob Dylan or John Fogerty, just with reved up guitars and some flying spittle. The band doesn’t go out of its way to bust the government’s chops on their sinful response to that tragedy, and like “Rwanda” from 2000′s self titled release, just keeps it a show of support to the town and its people and that’s what makes the song so great. That and a remarkably uplifting melody. And is there anyone else out there who can rock a slide guitar like Tim Armstrong? “New Orleans,” is Rancid’s best song since the mid-90′s. And that’s saying a lot.

The populist screeds “Civilian Ways,” and “Lulu,” recount more working class song stories, a band trademark and, “You Want It, You Got It,” lights up the back side of the album between a couple weak moments. One issue I had– Armstrong has one of the most distinct voices in music and Frederiksen is a welcome growler but to me bassist Matt Freeman sounds like he’s trying to force out a bunch of vocals while running out of breath and is reminiscent of that guy from Dropkick Murphys who they let sing sometimes too and I thought to myself “why would Rancid invite Dropkick’s underwhelming backup singer to sing on this?” Then after a couple listens I realized it was Freeman, who they let touch the ball out of charity a couple times in the past. Seems pointless and why toy with such a successful formula but hey, why carp? I think it’s safe to say punk doesn’t boast the most rangeful of vocalists. They also have a new drummer. I liked that other guy but I can’t say I’m able to tell the difference.

Nineteen decent songs with a couple killers close out with, “The Highway,” a little acoustic gem that becomes disarmingly yearning as it goes along and has a distant last song ever quality to it. Which after listening to Let The Dominoes Fall, I sincerely hope is not the case.

I never had much respect for Great White. Their popularity in the late 80′s came completely on the strength of a cover song and I think it’s bullshit when bands are allowed to get away with that. Where you can be fined $1,200 in America for downloading and listening to a copyrighted song, if you re-record it a couple years after it’s performed by the original writers and strike while the iron’s hot on your particular genre of music, your band can walk away with a few million. Cause you can be certain Great White weren’t going anywhere with their first stab at a hair metal anthem, the melancholy “Rock Me”. Even the band’s chosen name was a cash-in on the inexplicable craze of using your band name to pay homage to a random white animal.

That’s not to say Great White’s version of “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” wasn’t infectious, or that the video wasn’t outstanding. Remember when they all drove their motorcycles into that warehouse or whatever and those groupies were line dancing and there was the particularly smoking one wearing just a bra, like the voluptuous, traffic-stopping Sue Ellen Mischke? I’m not saying Great White maybe didn’t deserve a spot opening for the downward-spiraling Ratt or whatever but based on just that one ripped off song, Great White started headlining arenas and I think they were up for a fucking Grammy!

I will say, even though all they really had was one #1 cover single followed by a slew of mid-tempo half-hits, the band did earn my props a little bit with the brilliant “Wasted Rock Ranger”, one of the best songs to come out of the entire 80′s canon. Sadly, for some ungodly reason it was an obscure B side and not even on the Twice Shy album and most of you Finnish weirdos who loiter at our website have probably never even heard of it.

So I live in Waterloo, IA, and and it’s a miserable craptown and we rarely  get any good music coming through here. But sometimes, when the annual My Waterloo Days festival has its three-day run, some burnout adviser convinces the city council to spring for a rock group straight off the pages of Metal Edge magazine. A 1986 issue of Metal Edge magazine. And I’m not gonna lie, I usually look forward to it. Two years ago, we got Quiet Riot in the park and that night was a blast, all the way through to when I woke up in a crackhouse spooning a fat black woman with dentures.

Last year, Bret Michaels was the featured act, but I missed that one cause fuck him. Awhile back we got Lynyrd Skynrd, with Ronnie Van Zant’s cousin fronting the group, because Ronnie is dead.

’09 presented some new wrinkles. In honor of this year’s festivities, the ribbon was cut on a newly renovated downtown square which was probably financed with our FEMA funds from the ’08 floods. It lays just south of a 12-story retirement home where I’m assuming many of the residents were shaking their fists out the window all night for 10,000 people to get off their lawn. There was another big difference in 2009- I was attending the My Waterloo Days extravaganza sober for the first time since I was in middle school. Ah yes, I rolled in with a crowd of anonymous alcoholics. We wore fake beards and sunglasses to conceal our identities. Well, I did. Because there’s nothing like that awkward 14 seconds between when a hot girl you know yells out your name and boozily stumbles in your direction before she realizes you’ve started your new career as a total stick in the mud. And so, because I hate my life, I just decided to concentrate on the upcoming stage action. Diet Mountain Dew in hand.

Now, before we proceed any further, I just want to mention that I heard more than enough mean-spirited jokes that you can probably just write your own, such as “Boy, I’m sure glad this show is outdoors!” I decided not to even go there, because that’s all between Great White’s former tour manager, the Rhode Island state’s attorney, and God. But don’t think we didn’t experience a minor tragedy of our own on the closing night of My Waterloo Days.

The band came out playing and their guitarist – new guitarist – took the stage with the familiar opening riff to one of their mega-hits, “Once Bitten, Twice Shy”.  Predictably, that quickly bled into a different, obviously lesser-known song, “Desert Moon”. Now, I wouldn’t recognize any of the rhythm section anyway, but most of us who ever tight cuffed our lightning-washed jeans know who the fuck Jack Russell is. The hard-drinking, big nosed front man with the straight blond mullet. Well, whoever the hell was singing had a big, curly, black afro. And this was even weirder in light of the fact that Kevin Dubrow showed up in 2007 without his trademarked big, curly, black afro and instead rocking a spiked golden top similar to Ozzy’s old ‘do. What was going on? Where were we? Did hamburgers now eat people?

These motherfuckers did two songs before the bass player crept nervously up to the mic and informed the audience that unfortunately, and I am not fucking making this up, Jack Russell fell off a ladder and could not be present that night as he was healing from his injuries. You have got to be joking. That’s the best they could come up with?

He went on to tell us that in Russell’s absence we’d be entertained by the ex-lead singer of the band XYZ, Terry Ilious. Yeah, me neither. I could Google my own name and get more hits than I did on Ilious when I got home last night.

So it’s not enough we have to exist in Waterloo, Iowa but we now had to watch the spitting image of Frank Stallone substitute for the lead singer of a band whose claim to fame is a shamelessly lifted power anthem. Surprisingly, few people besides me were really all that upset. Of course, they were all drinking delicious, icy, refreshing beer. Beer that flows like cold fresh spring water on a hot summer day down the Rockies and…FUCK! There was this one guy wearing a Jack Russell T-shirt that said something about Russell rocking a Jack Daniels festival in Kansas City or some shit. That guy did look pretty bummed and I felt bad for him. Nonetheless, the show went on.

One would think that after unleashing this disappointing news on an unsuspecting crowd of drunken revelers, “Great White” would launch into an uptempo rocker to quell the discontent. Instead they plucked out a slow, bluesy bar jam for the better part of the next seven minutes. Then, the godawful power ballad, “Save Your Love” and then another fucking despondent low-tempo blues song following that. This shitty block of tunes probably lasted 20 minutes. A guy behind me told his old lady, “they better start playing some cover songs or something”.

I saw three downies and their keeper backtrack through the crowd. If you can’t keep a downie entertained, you need to find yourself another line of work, pal.

After that, the band played “Mister Bone”, which is sort of a righteous song, “Rock Me” and finished out with the only crowd-pleaser left in their holster, “Once Bitten, Twice Shy.” One of my drunken buddies who I ran into there said to me “Oh, that song is by these guys?” Why were you even there, Jon?

The only real bright spot of the evening came after the audience had thinned down to a few crusty bikers, when the band came through on some sporadic requests they were getting to play the anti-anthem, “Wasted Rock Ranger”. I have to admit, that put a smile on my face.

So all in all, at least we have this cool new town square in the heart of our city. It will no doubt meet the same fate as Auto World in about five years but right now it’s kind of pretty to look at.

As for the music scene in our little burg, well, one common theme for the bands that are coming through here is they are either fresh off a horrible tragedy, or they have one soon after they leave. So maybe that means next year we’ll get Mayhem.

Let me lay the ground work for this. When Vanilla Ice broke, I hated the fucker. As a budding Hessian, mortally terrified of the dance floor and in search of a youthful affiliation, Vanilla Ice and all rappers of the day were a legion of mongoloid villains. They served a purpose, however, as the more popular they were, the more they proved that everyone else was beneath me. Rappers didn’t even play their own instruments! Well, I’d heard the Beastie Boys started out as a hardcore band, so I guessed that they were OK. On the other hand, according to multiple sources, Ad-Rock had AIDS, and that didn’t pan out.

So I come to the defense of Vanilla Ice in much the same way a renegade cop who plays by his own rules, might team up with the mafia to defeat terrorists. My argument isn’t that he was good, just that he wasn’t particularly bad. Just as importantly, the same flock of zombies who bought 40 million copies of that album, are the ones who now name “‘Ice Ice Baby’” to “worst songs of all time” lists as they swap Josh Groban cuts and struggle to grasp the unprecedented genius of Coldplay. These people are now, as they were then, desperate to be cool. Part of their disdain for the song stems from the fact that white people who are desperate to be cool always attempt to align themselves with blacks, the OGs of coolness. The hope is that by agreeing that whites can’t be cool, they as whites, might somehow become cool anyway. So blacks single handedly invented Jazz and Rock and Roll with no white influence whatsoever. Elvis was no different from Pat Boone. Egyptians were black, Def Poetry isn’t utterly terrible and white guys can’t rap. Now, in a dazzling triple reverse, Vanilla Ice has come out to publicly apologize for recording some simple pop songs, to the very people who bought and enjoyed them, hoping to follow them back into coolness. All of which is quadruply pathetic because, if you are old enough to remember Vanilla Ice in his “prime,” you are way too old for this kind of thing.

So was “Ice Ice Baby” a bad song? Well, yeah. It wasn’t horrible though. Vanilla Ice certainly looked stupid trying to deny that the sample of “Under Pressure” was a sample.  Though in fairness, he was probably just trying to save himself from paying royalties during a time when the legal issues surrounding sampling were still being hammered out. Furthermore, it was a good sample. If you like the hook when those gay guys did it, why would you suddenly find it mortally offensive when Ice’s DJ revolves it? On top of that, in “Ice Ice Baby,” the sample is recontextualized with a more energetic beat and some original melodies, creating a distinct song. Contrast that to the other definitive, mainstream rap hit of the era, “U Can’t Touch This,” which is basically just “Superfreak” with Hammer saying “U Can’t Touch This” instead of saying “Superfreak.”

This brings us to my next point, which is that there are plenty of hit rap songs that are clearly  worse than “Ice Ice Baby.” Are you going to sit there with a straight face and tell me that MC Hammer’s “Pray” is not substantially worse than “Ice Ice Baby?” Really? “Pray, Pray, You’ve got to pray just to make it today?” Because, if that is your position, I will kill you and destroy everything that you love. “Who Let the Dogs Out?” “Rico Suave?” Will Smith’s “Wild Wild West?”  Almost anything by Will Smith? Absolutely anything by Ma$e? What about Puff Daddy digitally remastering “Kashmir” and shouting “yeah, yeah,” over it? All of these songs, and many more, are less original and all around worse than “Ice Ice Baby.”

Finally, you might point out that Vanilla Ice himself was and remains a tool shed. After all, when they weren’t booking talented, authentic rappers like Kriss Kross, arbiters of cool, “In Living Color” did the sketch, “White White, Baby,” which they then parlayed into an “I’m Asian!” rap sketch, foreshadowing the unlimited creativity that the Wayan’s family would entertain us with for years to come. Countless other hacks took shots at Vanilla Ice, though mostly just for being a white rapper and, even more oddly than that, a poorly dressed rapper. Well, of course, Vanilla Ice is a ridiculous buffoon. Unlike Puff Daddy, Flava Flav, Nelly or DMX. But Vanilla Ice’s handlers fabricated part of his bio! Yeah, we’re talking about a genre in which 50 Cent is in a position to mock Rick Ross for padding his resume. The more you look at the case of Vanilla Ice, the more you see that, far from being an embarrassing aberration and a white man ripping off the brother man, Vanilla Ice was a pioneer, mapping the territories that would lead phonies with limited abilities to vast fortunes with dogshit music for decades to come. It should be Vanilla Ice’s turn to collect royalties.

Song: Who’s to Blame

Artist: Sacred Reich

Year: 1990

Key Lyric: “Oh my God it’s Jonny…Hanging by his neck…All those metal albums…Have led him to his death.”

The Bottom Line: A typical tale of alienated youth and generational miscommunication, Jonny can’t talk to mom, dad is likely abusive, and everywhere he turns, he’s tormented to get a haircut. He listens to Ozzy and Judas Priest, which means that when he’s found swinging from the ceiling fan, the parental units can’t help but put his entire music collection on trial. Perhaps there’s a lawsuit. Perhaps ma and pa focus more intently on young Jimmy, who so idolized his bro that he’s one step from the noose himself. He is pretty gloomy, after all. Far from kicking the chair out from under Jonny and his ilk, Sacred Reich sets up the poor lad as a martyr; a victim of parents who don’t listen, care only for their jobs and social standing, and have the audacity to expect sonny boy to wake up before noon on the weekends to do his homework. Though not exactly pro-suicide, the song does seem to excuse it, so long as the trigger is authoritarian rule, rather than harmless headbanging.

Song: Kill Yourself

Artist: S.O.D.

Year: 1985

Key Lyric: “Dig yourself a hole in the ground…Push up daisies six feet down…Take a dirt nap, buy the farm…Inject a bubble in your arm.”

The Bottom Line: Without a trace of irony, S.O.D. provides the era’s how-to manual for self-slaughter, all but demanding that kids take the easy way out. And maybe they should. Though employing such tired cliches as “kick the bucket” and “you’re a loser,” Billy Milano and company have had it up to here with whiny, disaffected young people who seem to look up to the very bands who ask them to go the fuck away. Never one for record sales or popularity, S.O.D. risks all by instituting a call to arms for fans everywhere: we’re glad you came to the show, now fuck off and die. Not only do they push the insecure over that final hump, they all but load the weapon themselves. Teenagers just want to be understood, but this song peeks under the covers and reveals the unexpected truth: they really don’t have anything to say anyhow. It’s all parents can do to keep a straight face during the umpteenth tale of the hot girl who won’t pay you any attention, even though you haven’t changed your shirt in weeks. “Hey, kiddo, I hate to break it to you, but prom is not being held in your room this year. Or any year, for that matter.”

Song: If I Don’t Wake Up

Suicidal Tendencies

Year: 1988

Key Lyric: “Why do I wake up in the morning – nothing’s changed since the day of my birth…Why do I wake up in the morning – I make no difference on this earth.”

The Bottom Line: Though tempered by a last-minute blast of defiance (some poppycock about “blazing a trail” and “I will not fail”), the song takes on the eyes and ears of a typical kid who wants to die solely so he can look down from heaven and see relatives weeping at his funeral. As always, suicide among young people is seen is decidedly temporary, where one can “get back” at those who have wronged him, only to spring from the grave and lecture parents and popular kids alike about not taking him for granted ever again. Yeah, the song is right in that most kids – most people – could leave life and no one would be the wiser, but it seems to be the sole property of the young to make so much noise about it. Who but a kid would screech like a banshee, fill up volumes of painfully self-aware diaries, and strike out with high-caliber weaponry, all in the name of being left alone? Still, S.T. captured the flavor of high school just about every time out, and amidst the expected protest songs against the usual suspects, they never failed to say it just wasn’t worth it anymore. The subject of this ditty is a self-described dimwit, which is wholly acceptable to S.T., for among the rebellious, there’s no greater sin than being better than someone else. And proving it.

Song: Reason to Live

Artist: Kiss

Year: 1987

Key Lyric: “Everybody’s got a reason to live, baby…Everybody’s got a dream and a hunger inside.”

The Bottom Line: Don’t do it, man! You have too much to live for. At least that’s what Paul and Gene would have you believe, though I’m inclined to think that they want you alive simply so you can buy their next CD. And if you’re going to end it all, the least you can do is pre-pay for a Kiss coffin. Though pro-life, the song mistakenly suggests that kids should always act on their desires, even at the expense of social order. Still, Kiss being Kiss, the song reveals its true agenda in the second half as the real reason for carrying on is to fuck another day. Maybe impotence, then, is the only exception to the song’s push for taking life by the horns. To put everything in the proper context, it’s important to see the accompanying video, which posits that being within earshot of a hot blond in a towel is a (perhaps the) reason to live, which pretty much excludes all but three members of the worldwide Kiss Army. Ace Frehley included.

Song: Mandatory Suicide

Artist: Slayer

Year: 1988

Key Lyric: “Ambushed by the spray of lead, count the bullet holes in your head…Offspring sent out to cry, living mandatory suicide.”

The Bottom Line: Though more a portrait of war through the eyes of a conscripted soldier of fortune, the graphic account could just as easily be an ode to the suicide bomber, which proves even Slayer knew what was coming on 9/11. From being “raked by machine gun fire” to being in a place where the “bullets drip like rain,” the song is both apocalyptic and sentimental in turn, giving us streets littered with dead bodies, only to allude to the tears of survivors with the next riff. Is it a call to die for a cause, or simply an objective view of a typical bloodbath? Slayer revered death, but how often did they tackle topical issues? More than you’d think, but here, I’d gather it’s the band’s way of wallowing in horror, but not so much that you don’t find it all a wee bit alluring. Unlike the sad figure of solitary suicide in S.O.D.’s world, this is about taking a good chunk of your neighborhood with you, especially if it can be done in the name of glory and infamy. Oddly, the same album would feature a song that could accompany Operation Rescue on its bombing missions, the fetus-friendly “Silent Scream” (though Randall Terry might object to the nugget, “Death is fucking you insane”).

Ram it Down

Theme: There’s war in the streets, baby, and you’d better be armed. Armed and fabulous, if you catch my drift.

Key lyric: “Bodies revvin’ in leather heaven in wonder…Lights are dimmin’ and heads are swimmin’ as thunder hits the stage.”

Bath House Barometer: 4 – Sure, it’s a fiery tune about the power of rock n’ roll, but armies of men rarely gather in one place without at least a few flesh feasts breaking out. As an opening track, it’s arguably Priest’s best, and it sets the tone for the endless throbbing to come.

Heavy Metal

Theme: Power chords set the heart to racing, leading to all kinds of violent sexual behavior. It’s clear to see that without the music turning our young into zombies, not a single man among us would be blasted into incontinence.

Key lyric: “An armour plated raging beast, that’s born of steel and leather…It will survive against all odds, stampeding on forever.”

Bath House Barometer: 7 – Hard cocks are eternal, and always on the prowl for fresh victims. There’s also talk of “therapeutic healing” that can’t help but act as a metaphor for ingesting a Halford protein shake.

Love Zone

Theme: Rob is waiting on his Harley, and you best not be late. It’s parked behind the tour bus, if you’re having trouble.

Key lyric: “I’m behind the wheel, throttle open wide…The gas tank’s full, do you want a ride…Drivin’ in the fast lane late at night…I can’t keep my eyes off your red tail light.”

Bath House Barometer: 9 – Consider the key lyric. “Throttle” has been code for “cavernous colon” in the gay underground since at least the late 1950’s, and a “full tank” harkens to Peter North’s unending stream of semenal fireworks. And whose ass wouldn’t be red after taking on the whole goddamn band?

Come and Get It

Theme: You are a masochist. You like to be beaten, strangled, and left for dead. But only after being given a fresh coat by Rob, K.K., Glenn, Ian, Dave, and at least a dozen grizzled roadies.

Key lyric: “Do you like it heavy, do you love it mean…Do you want it dirty, we don’t play it clean.”

Bath House Barometer: 8 – Only a fool could miss the subtext. Sex with men, while the natural order in a metal universe, can lead to blindness. But you’re still game. From being “hammered” to equating the male orgasm with “dynamite,” it’s all one can do to keep from being ravaged.

Hard as Iron

Theme: Jesus Christ on a cum rag, who needs a road map with a title like that?

Key lyric: “Hard as iron, sharp as steel…Stop for no man, you better beg and kneel.”

Bath House Barometer: 10 – Quite possible Priest’s most outlandish call to arms, there isn’t an S&M stone left unturned, and here, it’s likely that after being forced to chug cock, feel the pinch until blood pours from your ass, and accept orgasms that literally cause the ground to break open, you’re still not finished until this monster strangles you to death. And this guy’s immortal, so we’re all fucked.

Blood Red Skies

Theme: I’m innocent, so if you try and arrest me, I’ll wipe out the fucking planet.

Key lyric: “Felt the hand of justice…Telling wrong from right…Threw me out upon the street, in the middle of the night.”

Bath House Barometer: 2 – More a tale of the usual martyrdom than a sexual fantasy, though it’s still not clear whether wrecking the planet involves at least one rape-induced orgasm. Typically, the subject of a Priest song is being given the shaft, though he’s prepared to die if it means being spoken of with reverence in the years to come. Sounds like your average teenage assassin to me.

I’m a Rocker

Theme: Metal superstars are the ultimate rebels, doing whatever they want, whenever they want. No mention of contractual obligations to the record company, however.

Key lyric: “I’m a rocker, oh oh….Do as I feel, as I say…I’m a rocker, oh oh…And no one can take that away.”

Bath House Barometer: 2 – Being the least subtle band of all time, I doubt even JP intended this carte blanche attitude to include calling out random seat numbers and forcing the lucky audience members to come backstage and get raped. No, this is simply a rocker’s life; free and clear, nice and easy, and, apparently, the genetic predisposition to fist pump.

Johnny B. Goode

No self-respecting Priest fan even admits that this song was recorded. And don’t get me started on the movie with Anthony Michael Hall.

Love You to Death

Theme: Two interpretations circulate in the metal community. Either Rob is such a good lay that you happily die knowing it could never get better, or he broke into your bedroom (having already butchered mom and dad), tied you up, and pulverized shivering ass cheek until you expired. Not even hardened CSI investigators know what to make of it.

Key lyric: “I’m comin’ to the point, I can’t hold back…Then you ease off with your attack…You’re the best I’ve had, if you please…You never stop, you great big tease.”

Bath House Barometer: 8 – Only a gay man would sodomize you against your will and insist that you’ve “been the star of your own show.” Still, it’s fascinating that for a self-described cocksman of the most illustrious vintage, he’s constantly having to force people to take his cock. I haven’t heard from a willing participant since Stained Class.

Monsters of Rock

Theme: One of these days, the earth will split open, smoke and dirt will choke the sky, and a massive cock will devastate the landscape. That’s the dream, anyway.

Key lyric: “From the concrete jungle, the smoke, the dirt, the grime…Could not contain the hunger, it grew and grew in time.”

Bath House Barometer: 7 – Written post-AIDS, this is perhaps the final gasp for the penis, as it would from thereon be accused of nearly every sexual crime under the sun. As such, the song is more myth than reality; a fantasy about consequence-free male lust made flesh.

Freewheel Burning

Theme: Victory at all costs. Over what exactly, one never really knows, but you’d better be standing tall at the end of it. Twenty-five years later, and I still have no idea how to picture a “freewheel.” But it’s on fire, apparently.

Key lyric: “We don’t accept defeat, we never will retreat…We blaze with scorching heat, obliterations everywhere.”

Bath House Barometer: 6 – Masculine force is at full throttle, and the song alludes to a “load (that) will detonate”, but generic obsessions with power do not a shattered colon make.

Jawbreaker

Theme: Inhaling, chugging, and damn near swallowing the mighty girth of cock. Perhaps it’s Halford’s inflated sense of self, but I’m sticking with K.K. Downing on this one.

Key lyric: “And all the pressure that’s been building up…For all the years it bore the load…The cracks appear, the frame starts to distort…Ready to explode.”

Bath House Barometer: 10 – Coiled vipers, poison coming to a boil, contorted muscles….it’s an S&M frenzy unlike any in the Priest canon. But there’s regret afoot; it didn’t have to be this way. But if you ignore the rod for too long, it’s bound to tear you asunder.

Rock Hard Ride Free

Theme: It’s too easy to conclude that the story involves an erect nomad and some complimentary anal assault he receives in a
London alley. No, it’s simply another tale of taking the reigns and giving your enemies no quarter. Who knew that Priest fans were so beleaguered?

Key lyric: “Rock hard with a purpose…Got a mind that won’t bend…Die hard resolution…That is true to the end.”

Bath House Barometer: 7 – There’s too much sexual determination to ignore outright, but as nothing’s shooting forth or causing the ground to quake, it’s best to treat it as an inspiring fascist ditty.

The Sentinel

Theme: Sooner or later, you’re going to be alone among the ashes of a vanquished world, set to meet shadowy figures who have every intention of sending you to hell. Welcome to puberty.

Key lyric: “Upon this sign the challengers, with shrieks and cries rush forth…The knives fly out like bullets, upon their deadly course.”

Bath House Barometer: 6 – Groaning, flowing blood, visions of scarred chests…yeah, it sounds too good to be true, but our hero is trying to keep hope alive, not pause to snare a fuck on the cusp of Armageddon.

Love Bites

Theme: Once the sun sets and you crawl into bed, you’re in danger of being assaulted, raped, and possibly drained of your bodily fluids. It could be a vampire, but I’m guessing Richard Ramirez.

Key lyric: “Into your room, where in deep sleep…There you lie still, to you I creep…Then I descend, close to your lips…Across you I bend, you smile as I sip.”

Bath House Barometer: 8 – There’s a lot about being sucked dry and bled white, but “owning your soul” is less gay than the usual Priestian lust for arbitrary power. Still, if the religious tracts are true, men copulate not out of joy, but self-loathing and violent impulse.

Eat Me Alive

Theme: Brutal rape need not have a downside. Not in the gay community at least.

Key lyric: “Bound to deliver as you give and I collect…Squealing in passion as the rod of steel injects…Lunge to the maximum, spread-eagled to the wall…You’re well-equipped to take it all.”

Bath House Barometer: 9 – The gaping wound that was your backside will cause you grief, but all real men like it rough and ready. There’s more panting, heaving, and shooting from the hip here than in any other rock song of the era. Still, at gunpoint?

Some Heads Are Gonna Roll

Theme: Violent revolution is just around the corner, as is your scream-filled, hellish death.

Key lyric: “The power-mad freaks who are ruling the earth, will show how little they think you’re worth…With animal lust they’ll devour your life, and slice your world to bits like a knife.”

Bath House Barometer: 3 – No real sexual heat, just a sad planet that can’t keep from blowing itself up. Why, oh why, is the world of the Priest ruled by such humorless dichotomies? Fuck hard or die slow? It’s the bleakest metal universe yet.

Night Comes Down

Theme: Yeah, yeah…setting suns, you’re all alone, and likely to die in misery. You don’t need to get some every fucking night, chief.

Key lyric: “As the light starts to dim, the fear closes in, and the nightmares begin…”

Bath House Barometer: 4 – Pain and sorrow follow from not being naked and erect, but there’s a defiant tenderness here that transcends sexual preference. Rob could just as easily be howling to a woman that escaped his stank-filled lair.

Heavy Duty

Theme: Another day, another sexual conquest split in two like a besieged atom.

Key lyric: “We’ll rise inside ya till the power splits your head…We’re gonna rock ya till your metal hunger’s fed.”

Bath House Barometer: 4 – To be fair, and depending on your mood, this is either a sick, demented gang-rape fantasy, or an ode to the power of rock ‘n roll. Perhaps they’re not mutually exclusive.

Defenders of the Faith

Theme: God is alive and well and standing before you clad proudly in crotchless, though studded, leather pants.

Key lyric: “We are defenders of the faith.”

Bath House Barometer: 1 – Not a real song, so much as a final cheer for Priest’s power to heal the wounds of a battered world. What are they defending, exactly? Nothing less monumental than the duty of every red-blooded American male to harness the orgasm to right all wrongs. Or die trying.

I’ve Had Enough (Into the Fire)

Theme: Fighting adversity, winning at all costs, and, because Gene Simmons is on board, making money at the expense of your humanity.

Key lyric: “Wishin’ and hopin’…Won’t get you nothin’…Prayin’ and schemin’…No time for dreamin’…I’ve got the power…This is the hour now.”

Misogyny Quotient: 2 – It can be assumed that women are not invited into a man’s dreams of world conquest, but at the same time, it’s just as likely that those who are lying and treating him like dirt wear skirts. A mixed bag.

Heaven’s On Fire

Theme: No anti-religious screed (sorry, PMRC), this is nothing more than a bird’s eye view of Paul Stanley’s throbbing, heat-seeking Hebrew National.

Key lyric: “Baby don’t stop, take it to the top, and eat it like a piece of cake.”

Misogyny Quotient: 8 – Women are whorish teases whose capacity for evil rivals the devil himself. And when you’re close to a woman – which could mean the bedroom or the same block – no words are to be exchanged, just heavy breathing and lukewarm ejaculate.

Burn Bitch Burn

Theme: Rape. Manly, justified, candlelight and kisses rape.

Key lyric: “Well it’s an act of thrust and any way you slice it…No sticks and stones, no kicks and groans can hide it.”

Misogyny Quotient: 10 – The babes are so in need of a good fucking that their very identity is irrelevant. Reduced to “a cut of pink,” they are, if the song’s image is to be believed, all waiting, asses in the air, for furry-chested Jews to break down their doors and pound them into oblivion.

Get All You Can Take

Theme: Get yours, no matter the cost. Pussy and money in equal measure. Maybe at the same time. Though a re-read makes me think they’re speaking out against country clubs that keep out the Jews.

Key lyric: “Don’t think about the race they’re runnin’, they’ll never let you in…With all the rules, it’s a race of fools, and you can never win.”

Misogyny Quotient: 2 – Without any real allusion to a band member’s member, it’s hard to imagine this is anything other than a pitch to self-righteous teenagers who feel excluded from life. Because virgins need guidance from aging rockers with the clap.

Lonely is the Hunter

Theme: The misunderstood lothario. The vanquished Don Juan. The flaccid seducer. The one woman who didn’t bend to Gene’s will and made him fall in love.

Key lyric: “Asked her for a refill, she flew off my face…She’s a legendary figure, kept me in a cage.”

Misogyny Quotient: 9 – “Women love money, like bees the honey.” Cute, coming from Mr. Simmons, but no less accurate. And don’t ever, ever pour your heart out to a dame. She’ll use it against you and grind away your manhood.

Under the Gun

Theme: I’m so crazy, there’s no telling what I might do. Rest assured, though, it involves eating pussy.

Key lyric: “Well there’s no speed limit where I’m comin’ from…Let’s hit the highway doin’ 69!”

Misogyny Quotient: 7 – Every now and then, men like to get a little wild. They go off half-cocked. Just stand out of their way and let them do their business. And leave the panties at home.

Thrills in the Night

Theme: Sure, women are in the workplace now, but they’re still whores. Just wait until they clock out.

Key lyric: “In the evening when she takes to the street…She goes hunting with a body in heat.”

Misogyny Quotient: 10 – The lyrics could not be clearer. Wherever women tie up their hair in buns, there are quivering thighs in need of a man. A big man; a Cher-like Jewish man.
Broads put up a respectable front for civilized society, but they need to be fucked back into their proper place.

While the City Sleeps

Theme: Jesus Christ, I work hard all day, so why you all up in my business? Her? What about her? Whore.

Key lyric: “For better or worse, you bought and sold…They love you while you’re hot and leave you when you’re cold.”

Misogyny Quotient: 7 – In a deeper, more personal turn, Gene and Paul lament the lean years when women actually said no because of lackluster album sales. Creatures of the Night just didn’t spread the pussy like Alive II.

Murder in High Heels

Theme: Never trust a bitch in leather. Ever.

Key lyric: “She ain’t the girl next door worth waitin’ for…Well you’re playin’ with the fire, a pool of sweat’s lyin’ on the floor.”

Misogyny Quotient: 9 – For every blowjob, there’s a risk of homicide. But only after they take your money. There’s a consolation at least: she’ll bare her chest as you’re being lowered into the cold earth.