Father – forgive me, for I have sinned. It has been two weeks since my last blog confession. My work schedule has been temporarily changed for the past couple of weeks. This has left me seeing day where you see night, telling me it’s black when I know that it’s white.
It’s always the same. It’s just a shame. That’s all.
And unfortunately, this topsy-turvy shift change has also made it impossible for me to really put out a new blog this week as well. So instead, I offer another piece I did for the geek blog I write for – Spwug.
Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this one “Devil May Cry Foul”:
The other day I was listening to the Tenacious D song “Beezleboss
(The Final Showdown)” from the soundtrack to Tenacious D in The Pick
of Destiny, a movie which no one saw (as evidenced by the abysmal
box office numbers). Despite its lower-than-lackluster performance, I
found the film to be a fun romp in the spirit of the rock band
misadventure movies of old. And being a fan of Tenacious D itself
(comprised of Jack Black and Kyle Gass), it was only natural that I
picked up the soundtrack to the film. While it isn’t as good as their
first album, “PoD” still contains plenty of little musical gems. One of
my favorites is the afore-mentioned “Beezleboss”.
The song retells a slightly altered version of the story regaled in
the previous D song “Tribute” – JB and KG get involved in a “rock-off”
with the Devil. The stakes? If The D wins, Satan must go back to Hell…
and he has to pay Jack and Kyle’s rent. If Beelzebub wins, he gets to
take KG back to Hell with him to be his slave (and not the indentured
servitude kind, either).
With the stakes in place, the rock-off commences. Satan begins with
an epic, dark mass of metal proportions. Tenacious D reciprocate with a
fairly inspirational effort, but to no avail. The Devil wins and
prepares to take Kyle back to his domain for eternity.
But wait! At the last minute, Jables intervenes, causing the
Beezleboss to break off a piece of his own horn. With that piece in
Black’s possession, he is able to command the Devil to go back to Hell
once more until he is “complete again”.
So, I’m listening to this song and the thought occurs to me – most
tales that chronicle Ol’ Scratch competing for a mortal’s soul seem to
paint him in the same manner in order to sell the message that good
always triumphs over evil. He’s almost always painted as an honor-bound
entity that can be easily beaten by someone with enough talent, hard
work, and moxie.
Wait, what? Hold on a minute. This is the same guy who had the
molten stones to challenge The Big Man. Sure, he lost and was cast out
of St. Peter’s jurisdiction, but he obviously had enough power to
challenge George Burns in the first place. You don’t make such a bold
gesture unless you know for certain that you got the Mana to do so.
Plus, Lucifer is also a master of deception. He managed to fool the
first man and woman with fruit. The guy’s got some serious ad executive
powers going on if he can sell a couple of nudists on foliage sweets.
Come to think of it, this isn’t all that different from the supernatural
ability Steve Jobs has to convince people to buy things like iPads.
Wait… Steve Jobs… Apple…
Mind = blown. Where was I again?
Oh yeah… So, The Dark Lord is obviously a master manipulator.
There’s a reason why he is called The Master of Lies – the guy uses
words to confuse, deceive, delude, dupe, fool, gull, hoax, hoodwink,
kid, snow, take in, trick, intrigue, machinate, plot, scheme, arrange,
contrive, devise, finesse, mastermind, cheat, chisel, defraud, fleece,
gyp, hustle, and swindle (thanks, Merriam-Webster!). He’s always in it
for his own ends and he does whatever is necessary to get what he wants.
This means that there is no way in Hell (pun intended) anyone like
Charlie Daniels or Ralph Macchio could ever hope to defeat him in a
one-on-one. It doesn’t matter how hard you try or how much spirit you
poured into your efforts. The Devil can say whatever he wants. He
could play two plunky chords off- key while you play Vivaldi backwards
with your butt cheeks. He’ll declare himself the winner no matter
what. It’s what he does. Say goodbye to your soul, Karate Kid,
because no amount of Crane Kicks or Drum Techniques or Lipton will save you from spending an eternity waxing
Brisk Iced Tea
on and waxing off The Prince of Evil.
Now, I’ll give “Beezleboss” some credit. Despite the fact that the
Source of All Evil adheres to a “demon code”, the song (as well as the
final scene of the movie, which is where the song comes from) does
finally illustrate that The D had no chance of winning a rock-off
against The Dark One. Even the “Real Ghostbusters” episode “Night Game”
had a better understanding of how things should work when you compete
against dark forces. Granted, Winston was playing baseball against your
more run-of-the-mill demons, but the ump still recognized that evil was
free to cheat and play as dirty as it wanted (well, at least as dirty
as a Saturday morning cartoon can get). Of course, in the end good
still won, despite the fact that the evil demons cheated the hell out of
that game.
Don’t get me wrong. I completely understand the intention
behind the way these stories are told. Triumph of the human spirit
against the forces of evil and the belief that we are inherently good
enough to conquer our own (metaphorical) inner demons is a popular trope
that’s never going away. As a society we need to be able to watch
movies and television shows, listen to music, and read books and comics
that remind us no matter what dark paths we go down or what nefarious
entities we meet, we still have a chance and the power within us to
punch old Beelz in the front-flow and scream “Adrian!” in triumph.
It’s just that every once in awhile I would like to see Mephisto with
his Adamantium cup on.