When Rage Against the Machine hit MTV, I didn’t like them much. Freedom is a good song, but somehow it just didn’t click with me. I eventually checked out the album at a listening station at the local record store, and it just wasn’t what I wanted or needed.

A couple of years later, Bulls on Parade came out and that track did grab me. A friend who used to hate Morello now throws flowers at him. Our main disagreement about Rage always came down to the same point: the use of a wah pedal. A pedal is a tool and when it’s wisely applied, it enhances whatever the guitarist is performing. My friend was a purist (back then) but now appreciates the judicial use of pedals.

I bought Evil Empire at a record store in Warsaw. It was on a trip I came back sick as it turned out my gall bladder decided to rebel against the rest of my body. While hallucinating on pain killers/anesthesia, I dreamed a bizarre fight scene to the tune of Bulls on Parade. I re-used this in a novel (self-published), as the first fistycuffs (!) between the protagonist (a nega Stu version of myself) and a bully.

I regret doing that. Not only was I doing a disservice to a song with actual commentary on the world, but I was reducing it to simple “fight music” for a sequence that went on for too long. Action scenes might best work on scripts, not on novels. It just feels like a lot of telling, and not showing, which is the easiest way to bore your reader to tears.

If I were to re-edit that book (which could easily lose 45% of its word count), my axe would go straight to all the action scenes polluting the book. Hindsight is always 20 20 and although I hated that book for the longest of times, I see it as a learning experience. I don’t believe I’ll be a published author, but I’d like to believe I’m improving. Let’s push things forward.

-Sam J. Valdés López