I Drink for a Reason (22 page)
8. Trying to make sense of the review of Autechre’s
Untitled?
It’s a one-act play that starts with:
(Sitting in the dormitory room just after class on Thursday, Achilles changes into his gym clothes as his roommate Tortoise
bursts through their door in a fit of happiness.)
Tortoise:
Achilles, have you seen this?
Achilles:
What?
Tortoise:
Do you see? Yes? I’m referring to the object, though small in size, quite interesting in stature, I am holding in front of
you now.
Achilles:
It’s a CD.
And ends with:
Achilles:
And my point is, if it’s driven by form, it’s a pretty messy, lazy form—certainly no more structurally sound than any other
software wank music. On top of that, if I’m supposed to “feel” this, to pick up on some obscure metaphysical in-joke, I’m
not—isn’t it the job of a good artist to make that shit clear? Either way, it fails for me. Autechre decided to go their own
way, fine, you know, just don’t expect me to call them “geniuses.”
Tortoise:
[
Sigh
] Alright, Achilles, I can see we’re going to have to agree to disagree. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.
Achilles:
Oh don’t worry, dude, just wear headphones when you play that stuff.
(With all apologies to Douglas Hofstadter and
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid
, which I’d send you if I had an extra copy.)
Why not give a listen to Pillow Logic’s new disc,
Treason to Live
, a wiry concept album that gives new meaning to the phrase “Now, I’ve seen everything!” Ostensibly about a young girl who
loses her shoes in a cockfight she mistakenly attends during Thanksgiving of ’59, it’s really about the universal themes of
loss, angst, candy, and damp clothing. Taking its cue from the early commercial work of Deloite and Hughey and filtering it
through the “I cut myself shaving” piousness of Throm Tillson, Pillow Logic reworks early sock hop chop flop and allows people
like me to enjoy enjoying it. RATING—Two T-Shirts and a cup of jizz
9. Slogging through the review of Emperor X’s
Central Hug/Friendarmy/Fractaldunes (and the Dreams That Resulted)
—
The aesthetic of Emperor X’s recording belies its craft. Homemade and sometimes grungily recorded, the latest record by Chad
Matheny’s one-man band delivers jitter—and indie pop that practically gnaws its own arm with excitement.
—to try to find out if you might like it? Then don’t listen to ThunderPussy,
When The Wild Birds Sing.
You can only shine a turd so many times before it gleams as bright as a six-year-old girl’s ass cheek on Christmas morning.
ThunderPussy answers the question, “How many times does one need to shine a turd before it gleams as bright as a six year
old girl’s ass cheek on Christmas morning?” The answer according to ThunderPussy is twelve. Twelve is the number of tracks
on this CD, each one of the same song, “Star Wars!” And they all suck except for the last one, which shines just like a six-year-old
girl’s ass on Christmas morning. It’s true. RATING—4.Point
10. Enjoying the self-referential Franz Ferdinand review, which includes the following?
“Ryan, that cow is dried up. It’s Gordita meat. I’ve even done the I’m-not-going-to-do-a-concept-review-anymore concept review,”
I said.
“Hear me out. I’m seeing a comeback for one of your zany characters,” Ryan said, making stupid TV-producer gestures with his
hands. “I’m seeing the interpretive dancer Santa Schultz, the Revolutionary War soldier Ham Grass, advice columnist Professor
Rok, Diapers the glam-loving lab monkey, Justin Davies the bass player of The Hold My Coat, The Bummelgörk, Kelly the Masseuse,
Volodrag the Yugoslavian sycophant, Paul Bunyan, Wolfie. Besides, you promised me the Franz Ferdinand review months ago.”
Then don’t listen to
Thar She Blows
, the terrible new CD by the Original Apple Dumpling Gang. If you like shitty, regurgitated slop as evinced by the over-lauded
production team of Dr. Snagglepuss and Oppressor, then you’re gonna love this. Daring to delve into his worn-out bag of used
tricks, Dr. Snagglepuss turns to his old SugarSnaps partner, TreacherousFace ZombieHead, and spits out beats that sound like
two dying frogs farting in your face. If that’s your idea of an aural good time, then you’re probably the kind of person that
likes early Faust meets pre-post-op Neutron Bitch also meets Blunder (with a nod to Iceland’s Achilles Healed) but then a
fight breaks out and DNA Groove comes over and separates everybody and quickly escorts Neutron Bitch out through the service
entrance, where they make love on a pile of day-old lettuce (like in the movies). Either way, T.A.D.G. do themselves a disservice
by trying to milk some more milk from an AIDS-infested cow called “their old music.” All in all, it’s a big disappointment,
but then again, if you like AIDS milk, then I guess this is for you. RATING—2.shit
Hi, everybody! The following is a letter I wrote after picking up
Git-R-Done: The Larry the Cable Guy Story
(ghostwritten by Susan Sontag). I have to warn you that this letter is nearly nine pages long. But I think it’s chock-full
of life lessons for all of us, and if you’re not careful, you just might learn something!
H
ELLO
, L
ARRY
. I
T’S ME
, D
AVID
C
ROSS
. R
ECENTLY
I
WAS SHOOTING
something for my friends at
Wonder Showzen
(the funniest, most subversive comedy on American TV at the moment), and when we were taking a break one of the guys on the
show asked me if I had seen some article in something somewhere wherein you were interviewed to promote your new book
Please-Git-R-Done
(published by Crown Books, $23.95 U.S.) and they asked about your devoting a chapter to slamming me and the “P.C. Left.”
Since I stopped following your career shortly after you stopped going on stage wearing a tool belt with cable wrapped around
your neck (around your appearance at “Laffs ’n’ Food” in Enid, Oklahoma, Aug 23–26, 1999?), I said I wasn’t aware of the article.
They went on to tell me that you said basically (and I am not quoting but paraphrasing their recall) that I could kiss your
ass, that I’ve never been to one of your shows (true), and that I didn’t know your audience (untrue).
So, I went and got your book
Gitting-R-Donned
and excitedly skimmed past the joke about that one time you farted and something farty happened, on past the thing about
the fat girl who farted, and finally found it—Chapter 5, Media Madness. Well, needless to say, I farted. I farted up a fartstorm
right there in the Flyin’ J Travel Center. I fartingly bought the book and took it home with an excitement I haven’t experienced
since I got Bertha Chudfarter’s grandma drunk and she took her teeth out and blew me as I was finger banging her while wearing
a Jesus sock puppet in the back of the boiler room at the Church of the Redeemer off I-20. (I don’t care who you are, that’s
funny.)
Anyhoo, I got home and read the good parts. It seems that you were pissed off at
Rolling Stone
magazine, and I can understand why. You made some good points in your argument as well. I agree that there is an elitism
and bias in the press, and too often a writer will include asides to show the readers how smart he or she is and how “above
it” they are. But come on! Surely you can’t be surprised, or worse, hurt or offended, by this. You even say in the book that
you knew what you were getting into (
Rolling Stone
being all “lefty” and whatnot). Certainly I’m not surprised that they took a ten-minute phone conversation with me and chose
to print only the most inflammatory paragraph within it. That’s what they do.
But I want to address some of the things you write about me in
Git-to-Gittin’-R-Done
. In response to the
Rolling Stone
article, but first let me say this: you are very mistaken if you think that I don’t know your audience. Hell, I could’ve
been heckled by the parents of some of the very people that come see you now. I grew up in Roswell, Georgia (near the Funny
Bone and not far from the Punch Line). The very first time I went on stage was at the Punch Line in Sandy Springs in 1982
when I was 17. I cut my teeth in the South, and my first road gigs ever were in Augusta, Charleston, Baton Rouge, and Louisville.
I remember them very well, specifically because of the audience. I remember thinking (occasionally, not all the time) “what
a bunch of dumb redneck, easily entertained, ignorant motherfuckers. I can’t believe the stupid shit they think is funny.”
So, yes, I do know your audience, and they suck. And they’re simple. And please don’t mistake this as coming from a place
of bitterness because I didn’t “make it” there or I’m not as successful as you, because that’s not it at all. Since I was
a kid I’ve always been a little oversensitive to the glorification and rewarding of dumb. The “salt of the earth, regular,
everyday folk” (or lowest common denominator)—who see the world, and the people like me in it, as on some sort of secular
mission to take away their flag lapels and plaster-of-paris Jesus television adornments—strike me as childishly paranoid.
But perhaps the funniest (oddest) thing in your book is you taking me to task for being P.C. Have you heard my act?! I’ll
match your un-P.C.ness any day of the week, my friend. I truly believe, and have said onstage amongst other things, that Orthodox
Jews are, bar none, the most annoying people, as a group, that walk this earth. I absolutely refuse to say the term “African
American.” It’s a ridiculous and ill-applied label that was accepted with a thoughtless rush just to make white people feel
at ease and slightly noble. I also believe that in the right setting that, as unfortunate as it may be, retarded people can
be a near constant source of entertainment (fact!).
Larry, whether Northern, Southern, straight, gay, male, female, liberal, conservative, Christian, or Jew, I’ve walked them
all. It didn’t matter if it was a roomful of “enlightened” hippie lesbian Wiccans at Catch a Rising Star in Cambridge, MA,
or literally hundreds of students at the University of St. Louis (a Jesuit school) or a roomful of the cutest, angriest frat
boys in Baton Rouge all threatening to beat me up, I un-P.C.’d the shit out of them. That’s another thing that bothers me,
too. I honestly believe that if we had worked a week together at whatever dumb-ass club in American Strip Mall #298347 in
God’s Country U.S.A. and hung out that week and got good and drunk after the shows, that you and I would’ve been making each
other laugh (I imagine we would have politely disagreed on a few things). But not only would we be laughing, but we’d often
be laughing at the expense of some of the audience members at that night’s show, and you know it. I’ll address your easy,
bullshit sanctimonious “don’t mess with my audience” crap further on. But for now, let’s “Gittle-R-Ding-Dong-Done!”
Okay, here’s what I said in the
RS
interview: “He’s good at what he does. It’s a lot of anti-gay, racist humor—which people like in America—all couched in ‘I’m
telling it like it is.’ He’s in the right place at the right time for that gee-shucks, proud-to-be-a-redneck, I’m-just-a-straight-shooter-multimillionaire-in-cutoff-flannel,
selling-ring-tones-act. That’s where we are as a nation now. We’re in a state of vague American values and anti-intellectual
pride.” You took umbrage at my calling a lot of your act anti-gay and racist and said that “according to Cross and the politically
correct police, any white comedians who mention the word ‘black’ or say something humorous but faintly negative about any
race are racists.” Well, first of all, your act is racist. Maybe not all the time, but it certainly can be. Here, let me quote
you back, word for word, some of your “faintly negative” humor, and I’ll let people judge for themselves.
Re: Abu Ghraib Torture
“Let me ask some of these commie rag head carpet flying wicker basket on the head balancing scumbags something!”
Re: Having a Muslim cleric give the opening prayer at the Republican Convention
“What the hell is this the Cartoon Network? The Republicans had a Muslim give the opening prayer at there [
sic
] convention! What the hell’s going on around here! Is Muslim now the official religion of the United States!… First these
peckerheads (ironically, “peckerhead” was a derogatory word slaves and their offspring used to describe white people) fly
planes into towers and now theys [
sic
] prayin’ before conventions! People say not all of ’em did that, and I say who gives a rats fat ass! That’s a fricken slap
in the face to New York city by having some Muslim sum-bitch give the invocation at the Republican convention! This country
pretty much bans the Christian religion (the religion of George Washington and John Wayne) virtually from anything public,
and then they got us watchin’ this Muslim BS!! Ya wanna pray to Allah, then drag yer flea-infested ass over to where they
pray to Allah at!” End Quote. So… yeah. There you go. This quote goes on and on, but my favorite part is when you say toward
the end, “now look, I love all people (except terrorist countries that want to kill us)….”
There are numerous examples, and I don’t think I need to reprint any more. You get the idea. Oh, what the hell, here’s one
more: “They’re dead, get over it! Poor little sandy asses! I’m sure all them dead folks’d they’d killed give 40 shekels or
whatever kinda money these inbred sum bitches use, but I’d give 40 of ’em whatever it is to be humiliated instead of dead!”
About being anti-gay. I honestly take that back. I do not think that you are anti-gay; I didn’t choose those words wisely.
Your stuff isn’t necessarily anti-gay but rather stupid and easy. “Madder than a queer with lockjaw on Valentines Day.” That’s
not that funny, I don’t care who you are. It’s just sooo easy. I mean, over half the planet sucks dick so why gays? Why not
truck stop whores, or Hollywood Starlets or housewives? Because when you say “queer” you get an easy laugh. End of story.
