A Eulogy for Louis C.K.

There's a bad man in everyone

No matter who we are.

There's a rapist and a nazi living in our tiny hearts,

Child pornographers and cannibals and politicians too,

There's someone in your head waiting to fucking strangle you.

Those are lines from the song People II: The Reckoning by the folk-punk band Andrew Jackson Jihad, now known simply as "AJJ." I don't think the band had Louis C.K. or any of the current crop of pussy grabbers in mind when they wrote the song, as it's from their 2007 album People Who Eat People Are The Luckiest People In the World (hat's off to Barbra Streisand for the title). Despite it's age, however, the lyrics of the song fit our current situation so well, they sound almost prophetic today.

AJJ was scheduled to play People in its entirety at Atlanta's The Masquerade tonight to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the album, but the show was cancelled. A shooting last night at the downtown music venue left two people dead and two more wounded. Apparently, there was some rap show Sunday night and some idiots reportedly tried to get on stage in between the acts, and then some even bigger idiot in the audience took exception to their actions. So he shot them.

Two dead, and two wounded by incidental gunfire.  As The Masquerade's still part of a crime-scene investigation tonight (they haven't caught the shooter yet), tonight's shows (it's a multi-stage venue) were cancelled.

Fatal shootings at a downtown rap show.  It's tempting to say, as some already have, that's why we can't have nice things in Atlanta.

But I don't blame rap music for the violence.  Rap, even gangster rap, doesn't incite violence, it's merely reporting on it, just like the the rise of sex and drugs in the 60s wasn't caused by rock music - the musicians were merely acting as sentinels chronicling an emerging scene.  No, rap doesn't cause violence, it's an unfair and unjust system of economic and racial inequality that results in violence, and rappers are just telling people what life is like for many people on the streets.

Systematic prejudice, racial inequality, gentrification and displacement - that's why we can't have nice things, Atlanta.    

So here's to you, Mrs. Robinson, you live in an unforgiving place.