Do you know what band I miss? I miss Rage Against the Machine. I know that Audioslave is the same band with a different singer. But it’s really not the SAME band. There’s something missing in Audioslave. It’s not in the musicianship. Tom Morrell is still amazing. Chris Cornell is one of the best rock vocalists ever. The musical ability of Audioslave is tremendous.

Well, let me qualify what I just said. Audioslaves musicianship is tremendous. But it’s lacking something. I think that something is the RAGE. Audioslave is all sanitized and warm and fuzzy compared to Rage Against the Machine. For instance, “Born of a Broken Man” by Rage just played on my iTunes. The guitar riff, the vocal passion, the urgency of the song were all intense. Compare that with “Doesn’t Remind Me” by Audioslave. See what I’m saying. “Doesn’t Remind Me” is nice. It’s warm. I can relate to it. How many times in my life do things remind me of some lost love or some long gone circumstance that I wished never passed? Yeah, I can relate to the idea of liking some things in life because they DO NOT remind me of anything. That’s nice. But how does that compare with a song like “Broken Man” with lyrics such as these:

“My fears hunt me down
Capturing my memories
The frontier of loss
They try to escape across the street where
Jesus stripped bare
And raped the spirit he was supposed to nurture
In the name of my
In the name of my

Born of a broken man
But not a broken man
Born of a broken man
Never a broken man”

No, I don’t completely understand the complete meaning of the song. But I FEEL it. “My fears hunt me down, capturing my memories.” In my opinion, and that is all this article is about, I’d rather be hunted down by my fears and FEEL the affect of that than to be temporarily numbed by thinking of things that don’t remind me of anything that I FEEL. Do you see what I’m saying?

Just as I’d rather listen to Rage Against the Machine and lament their break up than listen to Audioslave, I’d rather FEEL something in my existence in this passage we tenderly refer to as LIFE. I’d rather feel the pain and the fears, the cutting and bleeding. I’d rather bang my head along with Rage than smile along with their new incarnation. I want some that’s relevant. I want something that feels like it matters. I want the feeling of the sword through my chest as I spit in my enemy’s eye just before giving up the ghost. I want THAT more than I want to sit in my slippers and robe and collect my pension one day.

All of this talk reminds me of some obscure piece I wrote almost a year ago after drinking. I admit, I was driving too. Please hold your Mothers Against Drunk Drivers lectures. Let’s stick to the point here. What the hell is the point? Oh yeah, getting drunk. No, the point is FEELING something, something that MATTERS. Here’s what I wrote (and I apologize in advance for lacking the necessary writing ability to make what I want to say clearer):

“Sometimes you just have to punch the person next to you in the inside of their arm so goddamn hard that they yell, ‘What the fuck did you do that for??’, then smoke a big joint and listen to Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” with headphones and learn what dysfunction can teach you.

Is the status quo all that it’s cracked up to be? Is politically correct always correct? Fuck. I don’t think so.

There’s something to learn from CHAOS, something of order in the disorder. Something to claw into. Something to rip your heart open and implant something of essence.

Just drink your big ol’ bottle of booze, hop in your car and drive your brain right out of your skull. (Just make sure you only kill yourself, dick.)

Or maybe you just need to crank up some Madonna and dance until you bleed, slam yourself into a wall and convulse in a fit of laughter.”

See what I’m saying? It’s the correctness of it all that’s fucked up. It’s phoney. It’s bullshit. I’m so tired of it. I’m so tired of LIFE AS USUAL. I’d rather have the chaos. I’d rather have THE RAGE. At least then there’s the possibility of something significant, something that MATTERS. Is it possible that society is so scared that it has insulated itself from CHAOS and DYSFUNCTION? Have we really tricked ourselves into believing that politically correct is actually correct? Have we merely LABELED that which we don’t understand and that which prevents the system from functioning the way we have grown accustomed to? Aw! To hell with that! That precludes PASSION. Without passion what can you feel? NOTHING. And that is exactly the point! Give me passion. Give me chaos. Give me rage. Give it to me any day, especially TODAY.