Two weeks ago this space was occupied by the second part of a two-part column on music to enhance everyone's Halloween experience.
Regrettably, it was entirely wrong.
We didn't need spooky music, fun music, energetic music or kitsch horror. And we sure didn't need anything that would cause 170 people to be arrested, 13 of whom were arrested for disorderly conduct and criminal destruction of property.
What we needed was calming music, happy yet disarming music, and music that above all else said, \Please do not break things."" We needed candy-pop and Yanni and the soothing jazz of Charlie Hayden's ""Spiritual."" We needed to listen to ""Why Can't We Be Friends"" by WAR and let its happy funk message of tolerance ooze into our souls.
You guys broke the windows of the Den? Where else will you buy boxer shorts halfway into bartime? Broken windows mean higher insurance premiums and will ultimately result in price increases. Your maniacal desire to shoot yourself in the foot leads me to believe that you should listen to the utterly bland ""My Own Prison"" by Creed. If you miss the song's heavy-handed message of taking responsibility for your actions before God decides to, perhaps ""My Own Prison"" will bore you into inactivity.
By college, most people reach the age when breaking stuff doesn't seem as cool as it once was. Clearly you haven't. Until then, listen to the coming-of-old-age song ""Falling,"" by Teenage Fanclub and De La Soul, about a faded rapper reminiscing about what was once cool-himself.
Through all of the pepper spray, you may not have noticed that more fell from the sky than just glass around University Inn. Light from the massive amount of police sirens might have diffracted through the precipitation to create rainbows. Let these rainbows be a reminder of simpler and friendlier times. Maybe, as Judy Garland suggests, ""Somewhere Over the Rainbow"" there is a more peaceful place, although it would have to be pretty far above the rainbow, because you jackasses were breaking second story windows.
Is there a connection between the girls who you wanted to have flash you and breaking every storefront window in the area? Were you looking for a target to unleash your deep-seeded rage upon? I think it's time you listen to ""Simmer Down"" by Bob Marley. And frankly, you need to hear it on repeat for several hours.
Do we need nap-time music blasted out of the tornado siren speakers? Nick Cave does a great guitar cover of the classic lullaby ""All the Pretty Little Horses"" with Current 93, and Bis recorded the psuedo-children's song ""Love Makes the World Go Round"" as a hidden track on the Power Puff Girls' first album. Are we so immature that we need to be infantilized? Is it that we need to be tranquilized? Simon and Garfunkel's ""The Sound of Silence"" works well as a sedative track.
How can an entire state become so socially maladjusted? My theory is that 90 percent of us badly need a hug. It is time we start a pet-for-beer program, where riotous thugs can exchange full booze containers for dogs and cats and birds and other lovable things to calm the savage that apparently lurks inside all Madisonians. It works for Lisa Marr, of the twee-pop band Cub. Marr's love song to her pet, ""My Chinchilla,"" happily bounces with good-natured pop sensibility.
It's time we act our ages and learn to throw a party without having the police mediate. Either that or it's time to take an overt hint from ""Don't Get Around Much Anymore.""
staticoracle@hotmail.com.
