A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook a photo of her and Nick Lowe with nary an exclamation point, like it was no big whoop just hanging out with one of the greatest songwriters of all time! My friends are so cool.
Anyway, she inspired me to listen to this song on repeat:
And of course, the news of MCA's passing yesterday was so heartbreaking. Needless to say, the Beastie Boys were enormously influential in my childhood and adolescence, and Adam was arguably the funniest out of the three. However, he was definitely the first one to grow up a little and fight for something other than the right to party. His activism for a free Tibet kickstarted an entirely new generation of activists, and I hope he will be remembered for that as much as for his music.
In lieu of a Beastie Boys song (my favorite being "Sabotage"), I thought it would be funny to take a trip down memory lane with this clip from the OG Oprah show. It features Tipper Gore getting in a tizzy over the Beastie Boys (shout out to my old friend Flipchild for posting it). Those were indeed more innocent times:
