Friday Mack Attack 10/24

This week I'm macking on: Dennis DeYoung. You know, from Styx. He won a Jeff Award this week in Chicago (their Tony Awards) for his musical version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which makes complete and total sense. DeYoung, on his website, says of the ceremony, "It was an experience I will never forget. There was rock star boy onstage with this year's Tony winners." But anyone who's watched his career arc quickly from arena rock to Rocking the Paradise knows he's fronting; he's always been musical theater boy. It's the reason Tommy Shaw looked like he wanted to cry on that Behind the Music episode: DeYoung held him captive in some crazy personal rock opera called Kilroy Was Here, dressed him up like the Tin Man and made him sing, "Secret, secret, I've got a secret." Well some of us knew the secret, and it was that Dennis DeYoung secretly wanted to be Andrew Lloyd Webber. Congratulations!

This week I'm hating on: the death of Rudy Ray Moore, even though the fact that he made it to 81 is in itself pretty amazing. No matter what you thought of him or the blaxploitation films that brought more of him to love, there's no denying that Moore was a master of his craft. Of course, that craft was an ability to make absolutely everything that came out of his mouth onstage or on camera sound so filthy you'd need a shot of penicillin just for listening. Moore was so dirty The Aristocrats locked their doors when they heard he was in town. His inimitable delivery paved the way for a whole genre of low-down, big-pimpin' hip-hop. 

So for the man who solidified the signifyin' monkey's place in popular culture, pour one out, but instead of a beer, make it a bottle of lube. He probably would have wanted it that way.