BUCKEYE GIVES USA ANOTHER BLACK EYE

BUCKEYE GIVES U.S.A. ANOTHER BLACK EYE! HEAVY METAL MASSACRE POINTS UP NEED FOR ELECTION RESULT TO BE OVERTHROWN!

by Thomas Brennan

Perhaps there is a taint of the curmudgeonly in holding one state of our union up for serious inquiry, but with the murder of beloved Heavy Metal guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott on December 8th, it seems the Buckeye state has delivered yet another black eye to all Americans.

Yes, I know that Ohio down the years has on occasion given us some of the most worthwhile people in many varied endeavors. I am aware of that. John Havlicek, Jerry Lucas, and especially Oscar Roberston represented all that was brilliant and shining once in the National Basketball Association. And, Holy Toledo, I personally thank Toledo for blessing us with the luminous and infinitely talented young actress Katie Holmes.

But clearly, from the Kent State Massacre in 1970 and The Who Massacre of 1979 to the Election 2004 Massacre and the Dimebag Massacre, there stretches a pattern of bizarre behavior in the voting population of this state that we need to examine more closely. Or perhaps not. Maybe another talented Ohioan, who discreetly left the old Buckeye State for England, Ms. Chrissie Hynde, wasn't far off the mark when she gave us the song "My City Was Gone." That song, released in 1982, not long after The Who trampling tragedy, is a treatise on the toxic waste dump that the Cuyahoga River had become. It doesn't take much dabbling in microbiology to come to the conclusion that toxins can drive you nuts. For those concerned with who we hand the White House keys to, this issue of collective state sanity might even be the one factor that gets this darn election overturned.

Dick Morris, former advisor to everyone political, regardless of stripe, and occasionally seen on the business end of a dominatrix leash, had this to say: "Clearly," Mr. Morris says, "if someone gives me money to say so, then, yes, that's the way it is or will be. Or something. There is clearly a pattern. There is behavior. There is something clearly going on there that I can be hired to do something about. If, clearly, the price is right."

Mr. Morris' arguments seemed to be firmly buttressed by prominent media shrinks as well, who were coincidentally gathered at a media conference in Washington D.C. to discuss the positive effects Mr. Bush's victory is already having on the anti-depressant industry.

"Clearly," a spokeman for Media Shrinks, Inc., said, "if there is more money in saying that Ohio needs our verbiage and seminars rather than pill-dispensing, there might be a small wavelet that turns into a tide that turns into an ocean, and then forms a curl with a cusp that wipes Mr. Bush out of the White House. Being people of science, I think it is prudent to say something like that. By the way, do you need any of us to analyze Tommy Lee's body language for signs of depression?"

Examining these two streams of thought, what else could explain the Presidential Election result and the even more traumatic slaying of the beloved Dimebag than a general, free-floating nuttiness loose in Ohio, and perhaps not even the fault of any Ohioans themselves but rather the result of environmental factors?

A representative of the EPA, reached by phone, could only offer a terse, "Hey, we give those people all of the arsenic they need in their drinking water, in fact, more than even Arkansas, so how could they be unhappy?"

All we know is that there are a lot of people hurting this Holiday Season, or at least until a Damageplan 8-CD boxed set arrives sometime in the spring of 2005.

It comes as no surpise in the wake of this tragedy, the depth and range of the Metal Community and also its extraordinary numbers. Even in the icebitten fringes of the Ohio Valley, community members gathered together to accessorize with lots of zippers and bandanas, and hoist their pinkies and forefingers into the cold, uncaring air.

When contacted within hours of the tragedy, none other than Ozzie Osbourne was beside himself with Rage. Then Rage left. And Ozzie was completely alone again. Or perhaps, Nikki Sixx said it best for all when he intoned the memorable, "I tell ya. I feel more like a five right now."

But one thing is for sure. As Dimebag's Legacy lies in state in the Rotunda of Ebay, for all to view, the question of Ohio being the decider in the last Presidential contest weighs heavily on many consciences.

That is why we respectfully suggest that this telling incident clinches it. Ohions are brave, wonderful people, but something has happened that proves they just "weren't right" when Election Day came and went towards the end of 2004.

There are two things that can be done to "begin the healing." One, let's give Ohio a "timeout" retroactively, and throw their now-rendered-meaningless vote out. Two, make sure this never happens again by asking that the bereaved members of the huge Metal Demographic don't gather under Dimebag's girlfriend's window all night long and yell "Hail Satan." Some things are just common sense.