A little over a week ago, Arsenal Tattoo in College Station was broken into. Some $10,000 worth of equipment was stolen. Owner Cliff Collard's equipment was not insured, and while most of it is replaceable, it is the sentimental value of much of the gear that never can be replaced.
But five bands are going to try to help Cliff replace as much of his gear as possible. An Arsenal Tattoo benefit concert has been planned for Friday night at Revolution Cafe and Bar in downtown Bryan. The featured bands have artists who have been inked by either Cliff or other artists at Arsenal or who are sympathetic to Arsenal's plight.
Organizers hope to help give back to a beloved member of the B-CS community.
Music comes courtesy of raucous alt-country troubadours Magic Girl & Her Ex-Husbands, old school punk rock bands The Hangouts and 10 Ft. Hammer, alt-folk duo Hand Me That Piano and indie rock hot mess The Ex-Optimists. There's a $5 cover that will be directly donated to Arsenal, but additional donations are encouraged.
And, of course, I can't ignore the largest music story of the past week, if not of the entire year.
That would be the passing of the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Finding ways to talk about Jackson's contribution to society and not talk about the man's terribly complicated personal life is nearly impossible. I have participated in many online discussions in the past week about finding ways to separate Michael Jackson the Entertainer from Michael Jackson the Whackjob Creepy Accused Pedophile.
Well, one can't argue against coming at the discussion from either direction. It is true that Michael Jackson will probably go down, as my sister told me, as the Elvis Presley of Generation X.
Remember that in 1983, one in every four households in this country owned a copy of Thriller in one format or another. Maybe one in every four households owns a Star Wars movie or has a copy of Time magazine in it somewhere. That kind of mass media exposure ensures one's place in the cultural pantheon.
Of course, for most people under 30, Michael Jackson was definitely the creepy dude, the tabloid punch line, the racially ambiguous Howard Hughes-like figure, another weirdo celebrity ripe for the South Park treatment. And yes, Michael Jackson was all of those things. We forget that other media figures in our past and our present have work that is celebrated but a personal life that also is seedy and sordid. Life is complicated for even the most average of people, with highs, lows, personal triumphs and skeletons sometimes locked firmly in the closet and sometimes dangling on the porch for the community to see.
It seems appropriate for someone like Jackson, with such dazzling achievements, to be so flawed a character.
Just a year ago, in the pages of this very paper, I wrote a commentary on Michael Jackson's 50th birthday and the disconnect between the 2008 version of Michael Jackson and the 1983 version. I wrote: "It's hard to believe it, but Michael Jackson used to look somewhat normal and a dancing, singing, record-selling badass."
I still stand by that assessment, and one positive aspect to come from his death is that many people are beginning to go back and remember what brought Jackson to the public's interest in the first place: quite possibly the last pop music this nation mostly agreed upon. Whether he finds eternal rest or damnation is far beyond my limited vision.
* Kelly Minnis writes, plays in a bunch of bands, DJ's, co-owns a local record label and still somehow finds time with his wife and two children. E-mail him at kellyminnis@gmail.com.
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