March 24, 2003


Calm Like A Bomb
Yes, Tom Morella is a musical genius with the electric guitar, but we all know who was the REAL heart and soul of Rage Against The Machine. And, while Chris Cornell & Audioslave are a heck of alot of fun, in the end, they're just dancing around the issues like so many angels tiptoeing on the head of a pin.

By contrast, Zack De La Rocha busts out a pair of steel-toed combat boots, stomps a mudhole in the issue, walks it dry, then spits on it to make it mud again before stomping some more.

Favorite Zack lyric from favorite Rage song "Ashes In The Fall":

A mass of promises
Begin to rupture
Like the pockets
Of the new world kings
Like swollen stomachs
In Appalachia
It's the priests that fuck you
As they whisper holy things


Of course, Zack is probably too mad at the world to actually take the time to finish a solo album (rumors of collaborations with Trent Reznor abound). In the meantime, he and D.J. Shadow have ALOT to say about Gulf War II on this solo track, "March of Death".

Paranoia
Courtland Milloy, an African-American columnist for the Washington Post, was milling around the Jefferson Memorial and asked some Park Service folks about some contraption stuck onto the monument. Within minutes, he was surrounded by 10 cops, demanding to see his identification. Read for more details on how quickly you can become a suspect these days.....