| This isn’t right. In
a business populated by people you’d rather
not know, the Beastie Boys’ MCA was one
of the good guys.
He’s not supposed to be dead, if only
because he didn’t do any of the things
that typically make rock stars die. If
rock stars are going to die early on us,
they’re supposed to do so at the point
of a needle, or the mouth of a bottle,
or at the very least a ham sandwich in
their hotel room. They’re not supposed
to go like humans. Adam “MCA” Yauch was
different. He wasn’t a raging alcoholic
like Amy Winehouse. He didn’t have debilitating
issues with powder (Whitney) or pills
(The King). He wasn’t simply too weird
to live (MJ). In his end, Yauch was brought
down by his own body, betrayed by a few
Benedict Arnold cells.
And that’s terrifying.
Cancer is an asshole, my friends. Just
about all of us have lost someone to the
damn, blighted disease, and if we haven’t
then we know someone who’s fought with
it and mercifully lived to tell the tale.
Many — if not all — of us turn to music
to help ease the pain of difficult or
painful times. But now we’ve lost someone
who helped many of us through our own
tough nights of crying fits, prayers and
dark thoughts.
And who’s supposed to help us through
that?
Fittingly, many of us will turn to the
man himself. Part of the legacy of being
a musician, is getting just enough insubstantial
immortality to cushion the blow of your
own demise. Dead musicians are almost
always the trumpet for their own tribute.
So just like the dirty hippies sitting
in a park overlooking Lake Washington
and singing “All Apologies” or the rednecks
at Graceland standing in front of a misspelled
gravestone reciting “I Can’t Help Falling
in Love With You,” people all over the
globe are now finding some measure of
comfort in “Fight For Your Right,” “B-Boy
Bouillabaisse,” “Sabotage” and even the
absurdity of “Brass Monkey.”
“I burn the competition like a flame
thrower/My rhymes they age like wine as
I get older,” The Beastie Boys had the
good sense to do two things: make really
good music, and never take themselves
too seriously. Yauch was a driving force
behind much of the group’s political conscience,
and his rhymes did indeed mature and grow
in complexity as the man himself aged.
But always there was that whimsy. MCA,
Mike D and Ad-Rock were continually winking
at us, and that was part of the fun.
MCA is gone, but that fun lingers in
the air, like the smell of alcohol after
a party. Queue up “Paul’s Boutique,” “To
the Five Boroughs,” “Ill Communication”
or the groundbreaking, paradigm-shifting
“License to Ill,” and there it is, warm
and inviting and vibrant as always.
This isn’t right. But life rarely is,
and at the end of the day, you’ve got
to just step in there and make your mark
while you can. Because there’s always
something out there, waiting to take you
away before it’s really fair. Few people
knew that like MCA.
So long, Lone Plains Drifter. CV
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