OMFG RATM!!!

Dude. DUDE! Listen to me. Seriously, listen. I have something very important to tell you...

Rage.
Against.
Thuh.
Machine.

... back together.

Holy effing balls!!#$&@*!#1

Now, I understand that because I have a fairly diverse readership, this may not mean much to you. And if that's the case, you're probably not listening.

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE IS BACK TOGETHER!

Dude.
Duuuude. Seriously. Seriously.

Bjork, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and RATM are set to kill Coachella on April 27 in California I may very well become bi-coastal for this shizzle. If you want to understand what's going on here, I'll give you the quick recap.




1991 - The world is done a friggin' service by Tom Morello and Zack de la Rocha getting together to strike fear in the hearts of ... okay. They formed a band.

1992, November 3 - Rage is introduced to the world with their self-titled debut album. Peaking on billboard at #45.





1996, April 16 - Sophomore? Is that the right word here? Their Sophomore release? Well... #1. On Billboard. That's "Evil Empire."





1999, November 2 - This, regrettably, is where I finally heard of the band. Like most acts, I was introduced late in the game. However, I still play this freakin' record all the time. "The Battle of Los Angeles" is one of the greatest rock records of my life time, and certainly in the top 10 of the 90's.



2000, December 5 - Rage's "last" record. Didn't have the commercial success of "battle", but I gotta say, it was no reason to go breaking up over it.






Now, I gotta admit, Audioslave was no slouch of a rock band, but that's because Tom and the gang went and grabbed the last great true-rock singer, Chris Cornell, and did some damage on the speakers in my '87 Sentra.* What we all need to be focused on now, though, is the fact that Coachella tickets just turned into Gold. Solid effing gold.

Oh yeah, and Bjork is playing. So that's gonna make it... neat, too.

Wrock.

Your friend and mine,
Meshach Jackson


* I never actually had an '87 Sentra, but I also didn't have an iPod yet, and I didn't want to have to trace back all the crappy cars I actually did have around that time, so I have referenced here the crappy car that a friend of mine had, with whom I must have listened to Audioslave and Rage at some point or another... in the aforementioned Nissan.

Old, Wrinkly, Hairy Balls.

Every time I go to the gym, I get myself psyched to get pumped. Pumped up to get pumped up, if you will.

I walk the handful of blocks to New York Sports Club singing to myself some verse from a DJ Shadow tune or a Bjork hook, quickly swipe my key-chain card, climb the stairs to the locker room, and stop to get some water. Refreshed, I enter the locker room.

Every time.
EVERY.
TIME.

Every freaking time I turn the corner in the locker room, my tender, blue eyes are assaulted with the slap-stick mockery of the human body in the form of old, wrinkly, hairy balls.

What the Flying F#*k!?!?!?!

Dude, seriously.
SERIOUSLY!

There is a huge freaking stack of COMPLIMENTARY TOWELS on the counter. It's on your way in! GRAB ONE. Hell, grab five.

Cover up your layers of wrinkly, blue-gray, veiny fat, and by all means, that cold-cut meat pocket of a flabby, hairy ass BEFORE you decide to cross the 40 feet of open floor to take a shower.

These are the same dudes who stand 5 feet from the urinal in busy public restrooms with fists on their hips like a superhero fireman, wielding his furious trouser hose to put out the fires of evil. When their done, you can always count on them standing in the corner of your eye (while you count the pores in the tile in front of you), shaking and pulling themselves for a solid minute and a half just to make sure someone (anyone) sees their johnson.

Today I finished my workout, walked back into the locker room, and had to stand facing my locker while I changed clothes, so as not to throw up at the site of the 400 lb tub of layered pork stacked on the bench beside me. He's sitting ON a towel, text messaging.

No joke, pah'dna, you can let your nuts air-dry all you want in the privacy of your own home, but while you're in a room full of dudes ...

Then it struck me. That's it. That's why.

These dudes CAN'T do this foul shit at home. Their families would kill 'em. No one, no matter how long you've been with someone, wants to see sasquach's obese newborn walking around your living room.

Sorry, it just ain't pretty. I know it's mean, but I didn't make the rules. It's not about being skinny, it's about the mystery of the human body, and the nausea of seeing it in an obese and wet-meat-loaf-like state. Barbacoa. Layers of beef.

I just threw up in my mouth.

Anyway, my theory is this. I think most of these dudes want to be seen. Not for some strange homo-erotic motivation (usually), but just to know they still exist. In some way, not having your bare ass seen by another human being for say, 27 years, could make you feel less human, I think. I would imagine that it'd make you feel like something is wrong with you (which, who are we kidding? Something's wrong with you, dude. You 'got more rolls than Holsom™).

Consider this my plea, married peoples of the world:

If your partner joins a gym, you should, with all haste and hostility, begin preparing yourself to see them naked.

Often.

Comment on what it looks like (good or bad, the truth is all part of the healing). Make sure that your partner knows that his/her ass, splotchy and Baked Potato-ish as it may be, has been seen that day. No need for them to go and drag it across the corner of an innocent young man's jeans sitting on the bench. No need to stand at the sink with your gentiles against the counter while you apply your third layer of pungent after-shave. You've been seen. You're still there. Very, very, there.

Now, where the hell is my other sock?

What the hell am I thinking? Who the hell do I think I am?

Yesterday I found out that my younger brother, while serving 10 years in prison in Louisiana, has been "written up", and had 6 months added to his sentence. The 10 years charge was for armed robbery, which was committed with my older brother. 2 brothers, both arrested together, on Christmas Eve, 1999. They were scheduled to be released together in August 2008,
after serving 85% of their sentence (the state minimum for a violent crime).