make it stop

Today was a very tough day for me. I had just bought my "Free Paris Hilton" T-shirt and was looking forward to being the first in my little town to have one, and firm in my belief that she is the Patty Hears of my generation, I was gearing up to network with other activists and hoping that, through our shared outrage, we could perhaps at last bring down this sham that we call western civilization, when I got word that Paris had busted out of jail and was now holed-up in a safe house in Malibu. I am of course happy for Paris, but a little peeved that I spent $34 on a T-shirt which is now worthless, unless, of course, The Man puts her back in the slammer.
Things got much worse this afternoon, when I found out that Wikipedia had rejected my article for the Styx album "Paradise Theater." They called it "sloppy, lacking citations, and inflammatory." Since it won't be on Wikipedia any time soon, I have decided to post it here:

Paradise Theater

Few people remember the pall of uncertainty that hung over the country in the early months of 1981. Ronald Reagan had been elected in a landside the previous year, and the country rejoiced that the ineffectual, stammering peanut farmer was finally gone. But nobody could say for certain that the doddering horseman we had put in his place would have anything better to offer. A winter of plant closings and bad economic news was brightened a bit by the return of the American hostages from Iran (on the very day of Reagan’s inauguration), but few realized at the time that another equally significant event had occurred that same week: the release of what would become Styx’s fourth triple platinum album, “Paradise Theater.”
With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to see how monster radio hits such as “Rocking The Paradise,” and “The Best of Times,” helped bring our country out of the doldrums and give us hope in a better future yet to come. The jingoistic platitudes that our aging Anglo warlord brought forth from his monthly reading of “Reader’s Digest” played a significant part, to be sure, and The Charlie Daniels Band struck a note of proud and steadfast unity with their hit “In America” that same year, but without the conceptual genius of “Paradise Theater,” with its archetypal symbol of a once-grand theater now fallen into decay, which could indeed be resurrected in all its glory thanks to the arena-rock sensibilities and artistic mastery of one of the greatest rock bands of all time, without that urgent message at that pivotal time, many cultural historians agree that the economic and cultural recovery, indeed some may say renaissance, of the mid-eighties in America probably would have never materialized.
It was a bold step when, on “Rocking The Paradise,” Dennis De Young called for us to “futerize our attitudes.” Especially since “futurize” isn’t really a word. Whatever. But bolder still was his skill as a lyricist to incorporate his overall concern with The State of Affairs in The World Today with a traditional love song. Since most of us alive today remember only the “pep talk” aspects (We need long term, slow burn, getting it done/
And some straight talking, hard working son of a gun...), we may be surprised to recall that both stanzas of the song begin with the words “Watcha doing tonight?”
A full two years after the release of “Paradise Theater,” when America had started to digest the positive message that Styx had carefully and skillfully laid out for us and had set itself steadily once again on the correct path, an insignificant and aimless little band from Ireland shamelessly ripped-off Dennis De Young and Tommy Shaw’s love-song/political anthem ethos with a flash-in-the-pan college radio hit “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” from the 1983 album “War,” both of which should immediately have been forgotten. After musing on such somber topics as “broken bottles under children’s feet/ bodies strewn across the dead-end street,” Bono croons “Tonight, we can be as one tonight.” Astute observers of pop culture immediately noticed that Bono has presumptuously changed Dennis de Young’s interrogative into a statement of fact. We will be as one, it is gonna happen, no sense in fighting back. Besides, I am so sensitive and aware of all that is going on in the world, copulation with an entity such as myself could, if you are lucky, bring you out of your small-town paradigms and happily into a bolder, more worldly awareness. Puh-lease. Young intellectuals inexplicaply, or perhaps predictably, bought into this U2 garbage hook line and sinker. And de Young’s more gentle, one might say more appropriate, “watcha doing tonight?” was quickly forgotten.
Of course, nowadays, music historians generally dismiss U2’s album “War” as one of many of their aimless experiments. “War” represents their hard-rock aspirations, and a pretty lame attempt at that, while their subsequent albums explored art rock, (Unforgettable Fire) prog rock, (Joshua Tree), Dance and Industrial (Achtung Baby) then glam rock (Zooropa) and finally power pop (All That You Can’t Leave Behind, How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb). Face it, these pretentious blowhards have staggered all over the map, and, like many other bad artists, they are just slinging shit at the canvas hoping something will stick.
In 2005, in a moment of cosmic blind absurdity, U2 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and then, in 2006, they inexplicably won five Grammies. Meanwhile, the surviving members of Styx bicker over who can use the band’s name while touring. In a universe that must by necessity be governed by some semblance of justice, all reasonable people agree that it is only a matter of time before the witless frauds known as U2 are unceremoniously expelled from their throne, their ill-gotten mantel as the world’s only supergroup will be stripped from them, and the original Supergroup, Styx, the only band in history to release FOUR CONSECUTIVE PLATINUM ALBUMS, will justifiably take their place.