What is Rock and Roll?
This will not be a hot take or even an original take. I don’t understand the criteria for what constitutes “rock and roll” in the eyes of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The latest list of potential inductees has surfaced. It includes Mary J. Blige, Kate Bush, Devo, Foo Fighters, the Go-Go’s, Iron Maiden, Jay-Z, Chaka Khan, Carole King, Fela Kuti, LL Cool J, New York Dolls, Rage Against the Machine, Todd Rundgren, Tina Turner, and Dionne Warwick.
Of this list, basically half are actual rock and roll artists: Devo, Foo Fighters, the Go-Go’s, Iron Maiden, New York…
Step by step.
Screenwriters have a trick at their disposal. It’s a way for them to hit the right beats at the right time during a movie. It’s a bit of a crutch, but it almost always works. Knowing the right ingredients, stirring the pot a tiny bit, and serving it attractively is the Hollywood way.
Movies like Star Wars, Die Hard, and The Matrix all follow the formula.
The problem with writing to a formula isn’t movie after movie looking and feeling the same. It’s how the formulaic structure takes the audience on a leisurely ride with only the mildest of bumps…
I wanna go back.
When I was a kid, I watched my favorite shows just like any other kid my age. If you grew up in the 70s, you probably watched the same programs I did, give or take a few. I watched The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman. I loved the original Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. WKRP was awesome.
Recently, I watched a few episodes of the 60s Batman with Adam West and Burt Ward. I had forgotten just how “tongue pressed firmly in cheek” the whole show was.
When I was still running around…
I contain multitudes.
In 2021, I will turn 53. I take my medications every morning. The face that looks back at me in the bathroom mirror is old. My hair is practically gone. My beard is tinged with silver. The bathroom scale is not kind. As I start my day, I retreat to my home office. I am lucky enough to do my job from home and even luckier that I have a space to call my own. It truly is my own fortress of solitude. Let me explain.
My corner of the basement is a testament to my fandoms. My comic book…
Is Illinois Basketball back? Yeah, I think it’s back.
In 2003, my father asked me if I thought Bill Self would leave the University of Illinois for the University of Kansas. At the time, I could not fathom him leaving. He was incredibly successful and had Illinois on a run that has not yet been replicated. I felt he was about to set up Illinois as a perennial Big Ten Champion and NCAA Tournament mainstay. I mean, I was convinced the Illinois Men’s Basketball team was about to win several National Championships.
I was so wrong.
Sure, his replacement, Bruce Weber, took Self’s recruits and made the NCAA Championship…
Make a plan.
I don’t know what’s going to happen today and the rest of the week and, frankly, neither do you. The not-knowing is not fun. The anticipation, one way or another, is disquieting. It’s disconcerting.
I’ve been home for more than 230 days and the continued fear of the unknown is almost paralyzing. With COVID-19, we have no idea when it will end, what will happen, how it might mutate into something worse, and what life looks like on the other side.
The election of 2020 is exactly the same.
It only took an hour and a half.
I’m currently in line to vote early. I have never experienced a line to vote early before. I don’t know for sure what this means, but my gut tells me it’s not at all good for the incumbent.
I’m lucky my line is entirely indoors. While it is a crisp, sunny day, standing outside would be uncomfortable for any amount of time. Not unbearable, just uncomfortable.
The people in line at the early voting location look like a cross-section of Champaign, Illinois. Some older voters, many in their 30s-40s, but not many young people in their 20s. Behind me is…
Tom, Daisy, and Donald.
There’s a tendency to think of crime families in terms of cinematic ones. We call Donald Trump, Jr. “Fredo” as a comparison to the dumbest, most inept of crime family boss Vito Corleone’s sons. The problem with that analogy is Donald Trump isn’t Vito Corleone. The Trumps may be a crime family, but at best they are Fredo. Well, maybe not poor Baron.
If you are looking for a more accurate description of the Trumps, the answer is not in The Godfather , but in The Great Gatsby .
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby is an examination…
Racism is taught.
I am frustrated.
I am beyond frustrated with the willfully ignorant. Those who don’t want to understand the reasons for protests highlighting grave injustices always say the same things: “all lives matter” or “blue lives matter” or “black on black crime is bad so why do we need to care about black lives now?” They choose to be ignorant. There is no self-reflection happening. They already know they are morally superior, so when they see these things happening in society they justify it all away. “He was going for a weapon” or “It was self-defense.”
No. No, it wasn’t. …
An offer you can’t refuse.
In the last few weeks, I’ve made a conscious decision to stay away from the news. It is not healthy for me to doomscroll and so I’ve actively turned toward media as an escape.
Last week my wife flipped on MSNBC and after a few minutes, I asked nicely if we could watch anything else. She flipped through the menu and found The Godfather and I settled into the comfort of a movie I knew well but hadn’t seen in a while. I was engrossed in the action, watching Pacino and Brando, and reinforcing the importance of family (even though…
Sean McDevitt
Sean McDevitt is an author, professional copywriter, freelance writer, and scrambled eggs maker who lives and works in Champaign, Illinois.
