Discolology: Dead Milkmen I

I was thinkin’ of callin’ this series “Musicular Disctrophy” but that’s in bad taste and I half feel like I’m ripping it off from somewhere.  Discolology will join Dreamposting and Life List in the alternating day slots at random, with my other content being on the alternating– whatever, it makes sense to me.  I’m gonna comment on all the noteworthy things about the discographies of a few artists.  I won’t have an endless supply of these either, like the birds, but each band or artist can generate multiple posts.  I’m not going to break it down by one album per post, will do some lumping.  Depends on how much I feel like saying about them.

The Dead Milkmen!  Because I’m a motherfucking gen X dorkwad.  Most people who remember thing one about them remember “Punk Rock Girl.”  Well.  If that’s you, you don’t know much.  They have a reasonably long discography with a lot of excellent songs.  And a few horrible indefensible ones.  And a lot of ho-hum filler, bad in the ways that novelty music often is.  One joke, quirky lyrics at the expense of tunesmithing.  I don’t think I’m spoiling things to say there were a few early albums that ruled, followed by some OK stuff, and then I lost track of them for a long long time.  This is the path of most bands, which supports the idea creative vitality is for the young.  Being middle-aged, I hope that isn’t true…  Is their newest stuff any good?  I’ll find out before this series is done.

The Dead Milkmen self-released their first tape when I was three years old. I saw them in concert at El Corazon in Seattle back in May 2012, making my husband the youngest person in the audience, making them like how old at the time?  Rodney was forty-nine?  One year older than I am now?  Rodney was just sixteen years old when they released their first tape?  I guess that lines up with the punks I knew in high school.  Ambitious lil’ guys.

Point tho, I am not familiar with any of the music from before they got college radio famous in 1984-ish, and am not ambitious enough to listen to it all.  I skimmed it, and as one might predict, the closer they got to being properly produced, the more familiar the songs became.

Before I get into talking about their discography, I want to offer an escape hatch.  Of course, if you aren’t interested in folk/surf/country-influenced punk rock, or my longer writing in general, I’d be surprised if you’re still reading this sentence.  But for the rest of you, a word of caution.  When I say these guys wrote some horrible indefensible songs, I mean it’s the kind of stuff that might put you off paying any attention to them whatsoever.  Cancellation-worthy, for those of you who participate in that culture.

Punk rock is not about being progressive or leftist at all.  Anti-authority maybe, but there is a fascist sub-genre, and who’s to say they aren’t real punks?  If the music sounds the same and that’s the definition, nazi punks can fuck off, but still be punks.  In the song “Nazi Punks Fuck Off,” Jello Biafra said “punk means thinking for yourself.”  That’s some no true scotsman biz.  I’ve heard it said that the main driver of the original punk was causing offense.  If so, congrats, I’m offended.  Must be punk.

The Dead Milkmen have a very hateful little song called “Taking R(slur)s to the Zoo,” about finding cognitively disabled people disgusting and wanting them to die.  But in a funny way, haha!  Don’t think in any way that it’s taking the stance of a person they disagree with, like they’re playing the character of a horrible nazi in the song.  It’s just the ableism prevalent in our society turned up to eleven.  Why would I give this band the time of day, the cost of admission to their concert?

It’s one song, not the underpinning of the entire oeuvre.  It’s crap and I’d understand anybody wanting to kick this band into the garbage for it.  But as far as I know they don’t usually play this one?  Certainly didn’t at the concert I went to.  Is that kinda shit in the past for them?  The other thing is that this ableism is a crime I’ve been guilty of as well, in my less public and less overtly offensive way, and for me it is in the past.  I’ll reevaluate where I am on them if I find out they still play this at shows or include it on compilations.  What I get out of their best music is strong enough for me to ignore something that can be ignored – by me, not saying anybody should draw those lines in the same places.

There are other instances of ableism and (internalized?) classism, fatphobia, misogyny, and the usual snot-nosed punk fare.  There’s a jeering regard for low-brow culture that can seem by parts condescending and perversely loving, like the works of John Waters.  But I think for most of you, the worst recurring theme of their music is hating life, not caring if you die.  Do they live that philosophy?  One of their members committed suicide in 2004 and they were appropriately sad about it, raising some money for mental health charities and for a church that guy supported.  Alright then, it’s attitude and a show – an exultation in the concept of death as a blasphemy against the sometimes oppressive idea we should be enjoying life.  I’ve mentioned before that’s something I’m into, and probably something that kept me coming back to the band over the years.

Last word, before I get into looking at the music, on the subject of their offensiveness: they are politically left, feminist, everything you might expect for counter-cultural figures in this country.  Like so many others, in expressing their spleen lyrically, they are prone to the same biases that inform their political opposites.  Foolish, disappointing.  I don’t even keep their most offensive songs in my mp3s.  Still on CDs in a cardboard box somewhere tho…

Probably off local success of their self-released cassette Somebody Shot Sunshine, they were signed to Restless Records and began the studio album part of their career.  This is where I start getting into the albums…

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Big Lizard in My Backyard (1985)

This was basically a re-recording of Somebody Shot Sunshine with additional tracks.  While most of it benefits from a modicum of production lacking in all their self-released tapes, there are some intentionally low fi tracks, that sound like they were performed in a bathtub or barn.  When The Dead Milkmen were established, it was with the idea of being a folk-punk band.  By the time they were being recorded in the studio, that had worked out to something more like standard punk rock, with influences of surf and country, and other genre dabbling.

This should be familiar, right?  A lot of American punk draws on surf guitar influence, and via psychobilly veers into country.  I just can’t think of anybody doing anything quite like this, like how they expressed that math.  You wouldn’t mistake them for The Cramps.  Back when I was a kid, I’d listen to all of these albums front to back.  I like the album experience, am frustrated by choosing what I’ll listen to next with singles.  By now tho, I’m a lil more choosy.  Judgmental.  Observe.

Good Stuff

*** The album leads off with “Tiny Town,” which is badly ableist in the usual way when making fun of rednecks (incest, chromosomal abnormality), but it does rip shit up.  They play the character of small town villains out to persecute nonconformists and minorities, but, y’know, funny.  Yee-haw.  This is a type of song they return to many times in years to come.  If you’re wondering what my husband thinks of the band, he finds this and most of the rest of the album annoyingly repetitive, earwormish, and says the rhymes have a nauseating quality.

**** Next comes “Beach Song” which includes a low key fatphobic joke and the usual snide antisocial punk attitude, but the music is very fun and the punchline might be the one of the best in their discography.  Simple but effective.  My husband says this song sounds like the perspective of a five-year-old.

*** “Plum Dumb.”  Perv drives around the highway seducing women with the ecstasy-like power of plums?  It’s all about the sound of the music and the words, which makes it one of the tracks that saves them from just being a novelty band.  This is the one my husband finds the most nauseating tho.  There are certain rhymes such as “Leggo my Eggo™” that he thinks of when he’s throwing up.  I haven’t thrown up often enough to have jams for it, but my queasy mood go-to is “Going to a Go-go” by The Miracles.

** “Swordfish.”  Similar quality to “Plum Dumb,” which is that it feels much more about the music than the lyrics.  The lyrics are more meaningful however, this being the first of many many songs in their catalogue about conspiracy, religious, and quasi-religious belief.  My favorite line, “Up from the ghetto with the help of my stiletto, every day I’d hear the people groan, why should we buy postage stamps? we can make our own.”

*** “Lucky” is about how there are interesting ways to die, and then there’s whatever’s going to happen to you and I.  Almost a punk rock anthem.  Not quite.

**** “Spit Sink” is about ingesting dubious chemicals because the world is disgusting, another recurring theme for them.  My husband hates this one, but it’s a big mood for me.  A few lines from it pop unbidden into my head at least a few times a month for the last thirty years, but I don’t resent it, so it must be decent.

*** “Violent School” comes closer to being a punk rock anthem than “Lucky,” but still not quite that great.  “Violence rules, guns are cool, and we’ve got guns in our schools!”  One of the most aggressive songs on the album.  Get thee to the mosh pit.  My husband thinks it’s too repetitive.

**** They’re just some “Right Wing Pigeons” from outer space, sent here to destroy the human race.  In one of the lines he says, “A lady in Detroit owns a can of mace, got pissed at my brother so she sprayed it in his face.”  I used to listen to these albums all the time with my brother, and for some reason the songs that mention the existence of brothers get a bonus point.  Just this and “The Woman Who is Also a Mongoose” from a much later album, but that’s two.

***** “Dean’s Dream” is very nearly in Classics range for me, but not quite there.  The music is too generic, as goes the sound of the album.  But this is a song about dreams, which as you know do interest me.  It successfully evokes that romantic feeling one can have for a figment of their imagination, plus other compelling aspects of those experiences.  This one is all about the lyrics, which in fairness to the Milkmen, is true of 99% of folk music.  My husband says this song suggests a possible influence of Jonathan Richman’s Modern Lovers.

Classics

**** “V.F.W. (Veterans of a Fucked Up World).”  There’s a line in here that will absolutely remind you of incels, but this is a classic punk rock anthem, no doubt.  For those of you unfamiliar with USian crap, VFW normally stands for “Veterans of Foreign Wars,” which I think is a prestige club for people in the armed forces who saw combat?  I know they have a meeting hall near the small airport in north Auburn.  Of the standout tracks, this is my least favorite musically, but the attitude is hard to deny.  Extremely teenage white boy, but I’ve been there.

***** “Serrated Edge.”  Another one about religion.  “Up on the hilltop where the vultures perch, that’s where I’m gonna build my church.  Ain’t gonna be a priest, ain’t gonna be no boss, just Charles Nelson Reilly nailed to a cross.  I don’t piss I don’t shit I’m getting no relief, people shake their heads in disbelief.”  My favorite on the album, the music more than the words.  But I do like the lyrics.

***** “Big Lizard in My Backyard” pulls its weight as a title track.  One of the best songs on the album.  Melancholy but it has enough tempo to not depress, neatly illustrates the world of their whole catalogue.  It’s got recognizable real life absurdities, escalated to an unreal level.  Guy has a big pet lizard.  The army decides to use it as a weapon to fight in dubious wars.  Goodbye, lizard.  My husband says it pairs well with “Concrete Animals” by Shonen Knife.

**** “Bitchin’ Camaro” is the most well remembered song on the album, not for the song proper, but for the punk rock vaudeville act at the beginning.  Legendary.

***** “Nutrition” is a strong contender for best song on the album, a true punk rock anthem, covered by other bands years after this came out.  “My folks say I gotta get myself a job, or they ain’t gonna support me.  Well if all I am to them is just some lazy slob, why didn’t they abort me?  I guess I’ll just hang out on Broad and South living by my intuition.  At least I give a shit what I put into my mouth, yeah I care about nutrition.”

Filler

**** “Rastabilly” puts on the redneck joke style again, in a less offensive way.  I think rednecks would love it, honestly.  But why “rasta?”  I don’t hear it.  I actually like it a lot but I have to admit it’s a filler track, because it’s just a one-note joke and is very very short.

**** “Gorilla Girl” is another one I have to admit is a filler track because it’s short and has one basic joke to it.  The song title is probably(?) a reference to the feminist art movement that formed the year the album was released, but in practice it’s about having a girlfriend who is a weird hairy monster that amuses little girls and eats golfers.  The most reggae influenced track on the album.  Again, I like it a lot.

** “Tugena” is just a musical outro with some goofy samples that may annoy you badly, or may not.  I’m neutral to it, my husband deleted it.

Garbage

* “Filet of Sole,” your mileage may vary.  My brother likes it, I find it mildly annoying.  There’s a recurring musical motif on this album, this bouncy guitar rhythm, which to an uncharitable ear could make most of the songs sound the same.  This one is the epitomy of that, and the lyrics aren’t all that amusing.

– “Takin’ R(slur)s to the Zoo”  The beat and rhythm are aggressive in a way that is more punk rock, more moshable than most of the album.  But why agree so comfortably with Henry Ford and Josef Mengele, even as a joke?  Fuck this one a lot.

* “Junkie” makes my husband say “shut the fuck up, kid.”  Repetitive, misogynistic, nihilistic, and repetitive.  Rhythm is a little interesting.

– “Laundromat Song” is generic for this album, and lyrically having sleazy daydreams about a kid at the laundromat.  Yeck.

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Eat Your Paisley! (1986)

The first album conceived in the studio era, less of a grab bag than Big Lizard.  Might still have featured a lot of recycled material, for all I know.  This one had more of the two singers, Rodney Anonymous and Joe Jack Talcum, playing off each other.  They went off the rails sometimes, like they were divas of snotty punk singing.  I feel that harmed some songs that were otherwise excellent.  I do like them singing together, just not when the last part of the song is them bellowing the chorus enough to blow out your eardrums.  These two first albums were less rangey with genre, more conventionally punk rock.  That made them less likely to resort to novelty songs.

Novelty Songs

I kid, I kid.  These could all be in the category of “Good Stuff.”  I just think they’re gimmicky enough in concept that they would fit too well on The Dr. Demento Show.

*** “Air Crash Museum” is about finding all the celebs that died in plane crashes and making them into a taxidermy museum.

**** “Beach Party Vietnam” is about Frankie Avalon being drafted.  Sample lyric, “Hey Frankie, aren’t you gonna give me your class ring?”  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Annette.”  “Why not?”  “Because I don’t have any arms.  AAAAUGH!”

*** “The Thing That Only Eats Hippies” is Exhibit A for the idea punk rockers hate hippies.  It was the single for this album.  Kinda fun, but I don’t feel the thesis much.

Good Stuff

**** “Where the Tarantula Lives” is the lead-off track, almost a novelty song, but I cut it some slack in that regard because it’s an exemplar of their personal genre.  Conspiracy foolery, low brow culture, country-influenced punk, emphasis on good music over lyrical wit.  Other fans might rank it a Classic, I don’t quite.

**** “Happy Is” a song about hating the nonconformist.  This has to be a “villain” point-of-view song, right?  But the laid back delivery makes it feel more relatable than it probably should be.  Anyway, it’s a fun little song.

***** I fucking love “Six Days” but can’t quite rate it a Classic.  That category is a rough amalgam of my personal bestiests plus the ones I’m pretty sure fans regard the most highly, emphasis on the latter.  This is a shout-out song, like the country standard “I’ve Been Everywhere,” Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Jump On It,” or Old Dirty Bastard’s “I Can’t Wait.”  I just think it’s fun, puts a punk attitude on that genre.

**** “Take Me Apart” is just a good solid song.  I don’t have much to say about it.  Relatable feelings presented, and when they reach their most maudlin, delivered like a self-effacing joke.  Good humor, and the two singers don’t wear out their welcome on this one.

Classics

***** “Fifty Things” is one of my faves on the album, painting the picture of a bunch of punk youths sharing a flophouse.  Frenzied, relatable, very amusing.

**** I like “Swampland of Desire” a lot.  Just really good music, a funny theme.  Love as a mucky slime situation.

***** “Earwig” is my favorite track on the album.  Not musically, tho it’s cool.  The lyrics are the best on the album.  I think the reason I like The Dead Milkmen so much is that the world they describe is a mockery of the one I live in, the world I know, that is seldom depicted in TV and movies.  This ain’t Friends or Leave it to Beaver.  This is Black Hole or Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, but funny.

Filler

** “KKSuck2” is just a random instrumental bit.

*** “I Hear Your Name” is alright, but if you don’t like the band?  You will find it maddening as hell.  The pace, the monotone singing, combines with the sentimental words to make something a little queasy and dull.  I listen to it when I’m listening to the album, but not the best.

** “The Fez” is a slow instrumental jam, psychedelic noodling with a menacing vibe.  The slow pace basically lets them do improv lyrics.  This is a song where I could legit freestyle to it, and maybe that’s what they did?  I wouldn’t know.  I just know it is non-essential.  There’s a “haha men got raped” joke, like, wotta wacky reversal.  There’s an interesting confession: “There’s a time for takin’ and a time for givin’, but rippin’ off The Butthole Surfers is how we make our livin’.”  Do they?  I think BHS basically ripped off Frank Zappa while high on inhalants and PCP.  Snotty as the Milkmen were, they seemed a lot less willing to make unremittingly officious music.  It’s punk, it’s funny, but it ain’t the same as The Butthole Surfers.

** “Vince Lombardi Service Center” is an instrumental outro that is fine.

Garbage

** I rate the Garbage on this album more highly than the first because I think they’re better musically and less offensive.  However, this song is just about ruined by the last part, where the singers are fucking shit up.  “Two Feet Off the Ground” also does not offer much in the lyrics, just a kind of banal pyschedelia.  Less LSD than kids asphyxiating themselves with the choking game.  I saw my home boy Try-Anything-Once Todd do that once.  Cleared out his sinuses.

** “Moron” is ableist of course, and has some uninspired rhymes and very unpleasant singing.  Weird pathos granted to the unlovable Depeche Mode fan with day-glow gloves in this song.  I like the music, I don’t usually skip it, but again, if you don’t like the band you will hate this one.

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Bucky Fellini (1987)

One album a year at this point, Bucky Fellini goes farther into genre experimentation on a few tracks, and much farther into country than the previous albums.  Is the ill-tempered redneck character of their albums actually meant to be a malign figure, or somebody to be related to?  While the style is getting more bizarre, the recurring themes of their catalogue are taking over on this album. They were closer now to achieving their final form…

Rednecklery

** “Watching Scotty Die” is a country song that wobbles along like a wheezy old dog, lamenting the pollution caused by corporate greed.  I could imagine a serious version of this song working, but it’s in the uncanny valley between zany and maudlin.  I usually don’t skip it?

*** “Big Time Operator” isn’t very musically creative, but it’s alright, kinda funny. Story of a troubadour who is very full of himself.

** “Tacoland” is about a grotty restaurant in San Antonio which the twangy narrator regards as some kind of elysium.

Good Stuff

*** “Take Me to the Specialist” is a foolhardy depiction of mental illness, but the music is fun and it’s worth a chuckle.

**** “City of Mud” displays the strange line these guys ride between mocking ignorant rednecks and suburban bums, and just expressing their shared point of view.  While it does sound like Rodney is doing a character here, it’s hard to imagine he doesn’t feel at least a little like the dude he’s playing.  “We’re gonna drag Bruce Springsteen by his ankles through the streets.  By the time we’re done the Boss will look like a side of Beef.”  Indeed.

**** I had no damn idea “Rocketship” was a Daniel Johnston cover.  These dudes were too hip for the year “Never Gonna Give You Up” charted.  It’s a nice song, for punk rock.  If you don’t like them you’ll hate it, if you’re me you’ll be quite fond.

*** “(Theme from) Blood Orgy of the Atomic Fern” is what it says on the box.  Repetitive and a thin joke, but hey, it’s a blood orgy of an atomic fern, so it gets a point back.

**** “Jellyfish Heaven” is probably racist and probably uses a song you like for a joke lyric.  But it’s one of the better tracks on this album, I feel.

Classics

***** “The Pit” is the opening track and it’s so fucking fun.  I love it.  Also big relate because I’ve lived in fucked up slimy circumstances too many times, and not caring about it, while far from a solution, is a way to adapt.  The beginning is a reference to Sweet’s “Ballroom Blitz.”

Wow, I only rated one song on the album this highly and it was very short, the first track.  Bad sign.

Filler

** “I Am the Walrus” is a cousin to the redneck from their other tracks, a boomer and a bircher.  Probably the same dude from the more well-regarded track “Stuart,” on their later album Beelzebubba.  He’s angry, he’s intoxicated, he’s suburban, and he’s hung up on pop culture.  It just seems kinda obvious for these guys.  Got old for me.

** “Going to Graceland” isn’t very good, but it isn’t very bad, and I don’t bother to skip it.  I’ll say that it feels so much like this is what the guys are like in real life.  I can imagine the whole band going on the tour at Graceland and acting like jokers while trying not to get kicked out.

*** “Nitro Burning Funny Cars” is just here, doing its thing.  Doesn’t have a point.  Is very Dead Milkmen.  It’s alright.

*** “Surfin’ Cow” brings back their surf influence for a mostly instrumental track, still unmistakably theirs.  I’m getting the impression as I look at all of these, however, that I did not like this album as much as I thought I did.

** “(Untitled Instrumental)” is a hidden track / reprise of the album’s musical motifs.  It’s non-essential.

Garbage

* “Instant Club Hit (You’ll Dance to Anything)” is pure novelty song, ditches their musical chops to just make punk rock complaints about more successful musicians.  Prejudiced against bisexual goths.  Unforgivable.  I used to think this was funny when I was a child, but it actually figured into a moment when I was unintentionally homophobic at somebody who was very important to me, might have fucked up that relationship forever.  Not Milkmen fault, but they were being a bad influence on an impressionable young asshole.  Like, literally I’ve always been attracted to goths and been slow roll discovering my pants sectionality.  I’m the one this song hates.  But it is a joke, why so serious batman?  I played myself.

* “The Badger Song.”  Did I say something like “They aren’t as committed to making officious music as The Butthole Surfers”?  This album has some obnoxious ones.

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To be continued!

–

Needs More Hoes

OK, at some point in life, we need to talk about Ludacris…  I kid, I kid.  Nobody needs to talk about Luda, and that is as it should be.  Look at this fucking video.  This is an unserious and inconsequential human being, whose celebrity shelf life was only extended by way of a film franchise that got perverse about maintaining the cumulative cast for as long as possible.  I still doubt we will see him again in Ten Fast Ten Furious.  The Luda Era is over.

I have frequently lacked TV or radio access for the current era of music, and missed out on big songs.  I had literally never heard this shit until years after it had its day.  I was working in the electronics section at malwart, with a new young man in charge of the department.  He was chubby with long dark hair and a full beard, thick black framed glasses to match.  Looked Oregonian.  My kinda guy.  Anyway, in an odd moment he just sang a bit of the chorus, and I was deeply amused.

Look at this silly young white man working a demeaning job for modest pay.  He has no hoes, regardless of area code.  He’s just amusing us with recitation of a silly song from when he was in late high school.  And I dig it.  This is a silly little song.  Probably too catchy for me to listen more than a few times per decade, or it’ll RFKjr my brains out.

Still, let us behold.  Let us listen.  Let us evaluate its merits.

Area Codes is a song about having hoes in various far-flung places.  Luda announces his intention to elaborate on this in the opening lyrics.  I’m worldwide, he says, not merely a local legend.  Good for him.  The women he’s involved with are all professionals tho.  Why is that?  I suppose he prefers NSA relationships.  Perhaps he’s aromantic, or is too afraid of rejection to approach women who would not say yes for money.  That’s valid.

He is a hip hop jester, mugging and flopping around lazily.  He couldn’t hack it as a stand-up comedian, but put music to his jokes, and it just might work.  In a song by West Side Connection, Ice Cube once said, “You know that it’s a hit if it’s got Nate Dogg singin’ on it,” and that holds true here as well.  It was a good time to be Ludacris, when this song came out.  Popular friends, ladies with numbers on their swimming apparel.  All was right with the universe.

My favorite thing about the song is the ho jokes.  But he makes so few of them!  I decided to rectify that with the rest of this post…

You thought this song was over?  We can keep things hoin’
Some birds and bees ho-ver, to keep ho-ney flowin’
Gotta garden hoe too
She grow a lotta ho-neydew
Whore-sradish for my hotdog
3-1-2 famous kielbasa
Payin for sausage or paying for cha-cha
4-1-5 pan-sexin’ on professionals
5-0-4 when i sex in confessionals
So ho’s your day been? Ho’s your main men?
I stay up in the ho-tel, service the 3-10
3-1-2, 3-1-3
Are you the ho or is it me?
I’m a john like They Might be Giants
Hookers should call me a number one client

7-1-8, 9-1-7, I died in Brooklyn and went to ho heaven
(the nate dogg impersonator begins)
I’ve got hoes, I’ve got hoes…

(me again)
On payin’ for love I am w-ho-lly reliant
Sell my ass to pay for more, deadly but silent
3-6-0, 4-2-5
They caught Ridgway so I’m still alive*
My hookers rule ass on fool serial killers
After we kill ’em we drink an ice cold Miller
5-0-9, 2-5-3
We ran out of codes and added 5-6-F’whore
Forgot my w-ho-le premise and fell into parody
Can you sing this to the music or am I just fooling me?
I hook like crochet to dirty old gays
Hook line and sinker makin’ em pay
Ho did it come to this, look at myself in a mirror
Trowel on the makeup and the image gets clearer
I’m Scorpion in Whore-tal Kombat
Get over here boy and be my mack, biatch.

(fake nate)
Is it ’cause I needed money to get by?
Is it ’cause I earned my degree at DeVry?
Is it ’cause they like my badonkadonk?
Is it ’cause they like to sunk my conk?
Whatever it is, they love it and they just won’t let me be
I handles my biz, don’t rush me, just relax and pay my fee
Whenever you call, I come runnin’
2-1-2 or 2-1-3
You know I’m a call girl, got you cummin’
But the sexing ain’t for free
I’m a ho, I’m a ho
In different area codes…

(me again)
I’m a ho
(a bunch of numbers here)
I hoes in different area codes, know that
W-ho-le Bible Belt, giving them welts
BDSM like Rihanna, Is it too late to plead the fifth ya honor?
Still won’t do biz at the rethuglican convention
A pound of cure saved by an ounce of prevention
Not sayin’ they got HIV
Just their politics and my thrussy disagree
I hoes to the left and hoes to the right
w-Ho wants to get it dirt cheap tonight?
I’m tragic like the love of Amlet and Hophelia
Played in the TV movie by Bonnie Bedelia
They say Die Hard is a christmas movie
This ho-ho-ho would have to agree
Whores-scorin’-whore years ago
Our whorefathers brought forth a ho nation
Conceived out of wedlock and dedicated to proposition
Me for $17.76, I’m the cheapest kick on Route Sixty-Tricks
Never want m-whore than a job on my back
Even tho I don’t need to pay for the crack
Ho-ly shit what a waste of time
But just bein a ho shouldn’t be no crime
Cuz I’m a ho and that’s a fact
Like Agnes Agatha Jermaine and Jack
R-I-P to Biz Markie
He wouldn’t ho rap with the likes of me
It’s hOkay I ain’t one to hate
And while I’m at it R-I-P Nate
Why these rap guys gotta die
Im-Ho-tep in the pyramid with a thousand guys
Ho boy it’s time to go, this rap went too long
Hookering lyrics for a prostitution song
Upload ho.txt, submit, and press send.
And like my big booty you know it’s The End.

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*hashtag noPJ

Mah Spoon is Too Big

Hey who remembers Don Hertzfeldt?  His early masterwork circulated in low quality bootlegs for a long time, having been released just in time for massive expansion of the internet, to be downloaded at 320p a quarter bazillion times.  Edgy wiggly cartoons.  Funny voices.  Violence.  Amusing nonsense.  More importantly, artistic use of the medium.  I don’t think Adult Swim even existed back then, tho it was young enough to have been influenced by Matt Groening and MTV’s Liquid Television.  Content warnings:  This shit be violent, including against children.  Very brief fatphobic joke.

I am rather fond of this little film.  Don has more -and more important- works, tho sadly his personal website bitterfilms.com is no longer as artistic as it used to be.  I imagine some kind of hassle came along and broke the cool navigation and format stuff he had done, and he didn’t feel like struggling against that particular river.  One of these years, I want to make a cool personal website again.  I’ve purchased bebemelangedotcom but it is presently nothing at all.

During a window of time when I happened to be majoring in animation at art school, Don teamed up with Mike Judge to produce a thing called The Animation Show.  I attended one of those events and got his signature in an old sketchbook.  Good times.

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Helters of Skelter

At the risk of giving a few fractional pennies to some miserly old jerks, assuming any of these videos are allowed through the ever-shifting wall of copyright shenanigans to be playable as embeds, behold:  one of the heaviest songs of all time, Helter Skelter, by Whomever & Pals.  This is a tune, and as I’ve been saying about tunes lately, good ones transcend their origins to become standards – insofar as we’re allowed to have those anymore.  A good tune sounds good even when divorced from its original context and style, like Hendrix covering Dylan.  Dig the original, and then let’s consider how it holds up to the manglings of cover artists.

Helter Skelter, by Some Bros

There are people who happen to be doing a cover, and there are literal cover bands.  This first example is one of the latter – the kind of people who make a living playing casinos and smaller venues for ehh dollars, by giving the audience exactly what the fuck they want.  The bands that originate songs often play those songs in concert however they please, riffing and changing them up.  Cover bands know you wanted to hear every Yo and Ungh and Grunt in the exact same time and tones as the album version, and they do this job very competently.

Helter Skelter, by Magical Mystery Doors

OK, good job.  But too faithful!  This doesn’t get us anywhere near the spirit of the original, which is a heaviness that comes from the soul.  They tried to bring a new flavor to it by medleying with Zepp, but this only highlighted the fact these guys are incapable of innovating on preexisting material.  Or unwilling.  It isn’t a true medley; it just stops and starts.  Even so, I respect the hustle.

To me an artist should bring their signature style to a cover.  With the most successful bands – the Hall of Rock alums – the style is what we want from them.  I found Bon Jovi doing a cover live and eh, the vocals were a lil’ jovey, but it was too faithful, not interesting at all.  Aerosmith fared better only by merit of Steven Tyler’s vocals being so distinctive.  It was equally low effort.  To me, Mötley Crüe did a much better job.  They crüed this shit more than anybody on the list brought a style of their own.  That said, with this particular band, how good of a thing is that?

Helter Skelter, by Mötley Crüe

Siouxsie and the Banshees likewise bansheed their version well, tho I think it’s much less heavy than it should be.  U2 were in high asshole mode on their cover, fucking up the lyrics on purpose.  Raw talent made it almost tolerable, but not fucking quite.  Bizarrely, I found some other covers that fucked up the lyrics in the same way as Bono.  Were they covering the U2 cover?  Gross.  Rob Zombie’s duet with Marilyn Manson had decent production quality, which is better than most of the videos I’m posting, but it was an uninteresting waste of time.

Pat Benatar did a fine job but was, again, too faithful.  But that got me thinking about lady covers, and this one was pretty damn good.

Helter Skelter, by Dana Fuchs

That said, maybe as I was watching this I just wasn’t in the mood for a raggedy throat blastin’ rock broad, as much as that’s a very cool thing to be.  Respect, but it wasn’t for me at the moment.  Still, I carried on with the ladies.  Now forgive me, the quality of sound on this next video is just horrid.  But I thought they did very well for high schoolers.  I hope they are high schoolers.  Like the more virtuous and experienced ronk dragon above, these kids brought something new to the song.  Not as much, not as showy, but it’s there, if you listen close thru the painful crappiness of the video.  It’s most obvious on the solo.  Shreddin’.

Helter Skelter, by Heiress

Let’s pull away from horrible ass quality and back into the realm of actually good sounds.  Here is another young-ass group of youngsters fronted by a lady, doing a good job of it.  The arrangement is, again, bringing some original spirit to the cover, and so it becomes obviously superior to the cover band version.  However, while the singer has a great voice and does well, she doesn’t make it very interesting.  I have a suspicion if I could hear the above girl thru the grime, her voice would be a fifth as powerful and skilled as the below girl, but I’d like the performance better.  But also, the band did a great job of making this one distinctive and heavy.

Helter Skelter, by Hündersins

Here’s another indie band with good modern production value, and this is an interesting one to me.  I think there’s a name for this genre they’re working in and I’m not familiar enough with millenial ronk to put my finger on it.  You can hear the influence of pop punk like Blink 182, but it’s more hardcore.  Was MCR like this at all?  Is it called hardcore?  Some other kinda core?  Whatever the case, it’s distinct.  He sings so clearly and nicely, it’s kinda funny in contrast to the rest.  He isn’t vamping, isn’t playing into his own ego or enjoying the art of the impression too much, and I appreciate it.  Also, props to the drummer’s t-shirt.

Helter Skelter, by Joker’s Hand

Is it bad that I also like these boys because the lead singer is very beautiful to me?  Probably.  That is a freakin’ beautiful young guy.  Mwah.  Even so, they were definitely getting away from putting an interesting spin on it, edging closer to that cover band approach of just being very competent.  Close, but their genre predilections and his nice singing helps them clear that trap.

I had to save the best for last.  Here’s the thing most of the coverers did not understand.  This song is about the instruments as much as – or even more than – the vocals!  I did not find what I wanted when I was seeking a cover for Helter Skelter on this occasion.  I was hoping to hear a deconstruction, a reconstruction, maybe an industrial or electronic version.  Still, in making the cover instrumental, Asterism made it rock harder than all of the above.  Get dusted, y’all.

Helter Skelter, by Asterism

So fucking heavy.  And u kno what’s funny?  Asterism is apparently a cover band.

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A Clear and Present Danger

Remember when Harrison Ford was playing an action thriller man, who got annoyed with the president and was all like, “How dare you sir?!” in a scene that may have been inspirational to Keith Olbermann’s punditry career?  That was in Clear and Present Danger, right?  The one with the bazooka attack that was used without permission by a TV show?  I don’t care enough to look it up now.

Anyway, now Harrison Ford is playing the president.  I think.  I only saw the trailer once and didn’t care enough to look it up.  He’s taking over for William Hurt in portraying General Thunderballs McDickFuck for Disney’s Marvel’s The Cinematic Universals, but now he’s been promoted from generalisimo to presidente.  Who cares?  He’s el jefe, and now he’s turning into comic book character The Red Hulk.

The Red Hulk debuted in print like fifteen years ago, if I’m not mistaken.  I was hemisemidemi paying attention to comics at that moment.  He was like the green hulk but even angrier and more radioactive.  Could he breathe fire?  I forget.  Now he’s the final boss of the new Cap’m Amurrical movie.

I would have been sooo there for that shit several years ago.  Black Captain America vs. overpowered villain.  At this point, I don’t trust Disney not to use this movie as an excuse to shit on antifa (like they did with their cap spinoff streaming show) or otherwise suck trvnfk’s gnarly scrotum.  I’m still half-hoping irl one of the gun-havers who have sworn to defend the constitution is going to recognize a clear & present danger to it, perform a military coup, and leave Vance with a choice – stop the over-reach or join your bosses in hell.

Can you imagine if our current nightmare nazi deathclown president could turn into an orange hulk?  Ew.  Half the fanart of him kinda looks like the transformation is beginning.

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Minphis Don’t Play

U might not be aware, but several US cities have rap scenes with a lot of local pride.  One particularly infamous local rap scene which intrigues people to this day: Memphis, Tennessee.  Or as people with that accent call it, “Minphis.”  When I say “Minphis don’t play,” I’m quoting a random loudmouth I overheard on the bus a very long time ago.  As I recall, he also claimed that city invented pimping, for what that invention is worth.  I’ll accept this as truth.  Moving on…

I’ve mentioned the biggest success story from the Memphis scene a few times, The Triple Six Mafia.  And what did that success bring them?  A great number of Memphis rappers, famous or otherwise, are dead from drugs or violence.  Bad times, but maybe that has something to do with the intrigue.  For some reason, hipsters out for the “realest” music have latched onto the Memphis scene as Tha Source.

Why I am I fucking with it?  Isn’t rap homophobic and misogynistic and glorifying of violence and irresponsible use of chemical recreation?  True.  Some of it is worse than others.  Well, Memphis tapes are about as bad as any.  Call it a problematic fave.  I won’t justify it to you and you don’t have to justify yours to me.  I’m not the world’s biggest Memphis rap fan, but hipsterism hath perked up my ears to it.

I think it’s funny because this could just as easily been any city and any genre.  In my hometown of Auburn, Washington, we had a number of punk bands with moderate local success.  Some of them put music on CD, cassette, even vinyl.  Where are those albums now?  Will they ever receive this kind of love?  I really would like to see all the art of the world given that respect, no matter how pathetic or retrograde or disposable.

I’d love to see the internet become a true archive of the whole breadth of human experience, and of art, which was the cry of some nowhere people against the void – I matter right now.  Hear me make music about it.  But we can’t.  You literally can not find everything on the internet.  Even very recently created art has been lost forever.  As everything ultimately will be, so it’s not a cosmically big deal.  But it is kind of sad.

We don’t even have all the Memphis tapes – and mysteries abound.  Check out this blog post wherein a guy was researching the strange story of how one rap dude released some tapes with his voice pitch shifted, playing a lady rap persona seemingly inspired by an ex, and never copping to it.  Why did he do it?  Maybe we shouldn’t push the question, knowing one possible explanation is being trans, and you don’t want to push people out of a closet – especially now.  But that doesn’t seem likely to be the case here.  It’s just kind of funny seeing a guy named Skinny Pimp release a Chipmunk-styled song called Where the Big Dicks At?, then duck when people ask him about it later.

Maybe Minphis do play, after all.

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Bad Arterfinger

One of my favorite albums ever is Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger.  Musically, quite excellent.  Some of the B sides are fairly B sides-ish, but the majority of the album lives up to the band’s name.  It creates a garden of sounds that carry you emotionally exactly where you want to be.  Break your rusty cages and run, little grungers.

I don’t want to piss on Chris Cornell’s grave.  From what little I know of him, he seemed like a lovely guy.  I hope any people who feel suicidal find some way out from under it and don’t follow after the late lamented grunge icons.  Please take this critical look at his music in the same way you would if he was still with us – just art criticism, not an attempt to besmirch anyone’s character.

There is a politically conservative streak in this album that I don’t love, and it’s hard to know without deeper research into the man’s life whether or not it was even intended.  If it was intended, that sucks.  I hate finding out some art I enjoyed was the bellicosity of my political opposites.  If it was not intended, it was a failure of artistic aim.

This album predates our polarized times.  The ’90s were kinda polarized, just nothing on where we are now.  Call it the halfway point; getting the strong impression from where we stand now that Reagan was the real “beginning of the end” for liberty in the US.  Back in the ’90s, conservative jokes about political correctness were laughed at by most liberals.  Feminists were dismissed as too shrill, but with a chuckle instead of a two hour youtube diatribe and gun polishing.  Causes of social progress were not in better shape than they are now, in terms of their acceptance by society at large (obviously it’s worse in the halls of power now, and increased awareness of the existence of trans people means increased hostility to us from haters).  If Chris Cornell had any conservative inclinations, he also had lyrics sympathetic to class struggle, native rights, and environmentalism.  There would not have been an obvious contradiction in that, to the average thoughtless amurrican joe circa 1991.

A common feature in the genre of grunge was nonsense lyrics, meant to evoke a feeling more than to say anything real.  It’s possible then that any political meaning to the words was “vibes” and not a well-considered expression of intent, though that read gets pretty dubious on some tracks.  Nonetheless, it would be right to say there is a lot grunge nonsense on the album.  What is Rusty Cage even about?  A jailbreak?  A revolution?  Atheism?  I dunno, but I do like “god’s eyes in my headlights.”

The big questionable tracks are Slaves & Bulldozers and Jesus Christ Pose.  The former is the better song – truly one of the all-time greatest tracks in the history of heavy rock – and the more overtly problematic.  What does Cornell mean when he invokes slavery, as he does on other tracks and other albums?  What does he think about black people?  I don’t know.  The refrain of this song is that the singer feels he is being mocked, manipulated, and exploited by those who are seeking sympathy, culminating with “bleed your heart out / there’s no more rides for free / bleed your heart out / I said what’s in it for me?”  Remember the phrase “bleeding heart liberals”?  Talk about moochers on social programs?  Welfare queens?

If he’s expressing a conservative feeling in earnest, how far does it go?  Does he think tha blacks have gotten too uppity?  That welfare and food stamps are reparations for slavery that are undeserved?  If he isn’t expressing a conservative feeling, is he doing a character?  Is he writing from the imagined viewpoint of a conservative, to illustrate how they are bad dudes?  If so, the problem is that the song is too fucking good!  The singer is lofting with righteous fury, tearing the world down with his voice.  Giving that quality to the performance ennobles the words that are being sung, which means that if he was doing a character, this was fundamentally bad art.

Cornell defeated his own point.  You don’t listen to Kill the Poor by The Dead Kennedys and wonder if Jello Biafra really wants to kill the poor.  That’s good art.  It communicates itself.  You don’t listen to Gin and Juice and wonder if Snoop Dogg is actually satirizing the gangster lifestyle.  He likes that shit and is letting you know.

That is assuming he wasn’t earnestly banging on about how the real problem is poor people, which is a contradiction to Limo Wreck on the next album.  That album has a song called The Day I Tried to Live which seems to be about doing all the wrong things sociopolitically and realizing you suck, again, through a heavy filter of grunge nonsense.  Back to Slaves & Bulldozers tho, tl;dr:  bad beliefs or bad art, on a good song.  That’s a shame.

Jesus Christ Pose is more broadly problematic.  There Cornell describes somebody loudly pretending to be a victim, and how he doesn’t care and wants to see them gone.  My husband says it sounds a lot like he’s complaining about an ex-girlfriend.  True, but how much political conservativism is just a reaction to hating “bitches”?  Women are not mentioned, so you could see this as a stretch, but it is a very common complaint from the “male” side of bad relationships.

The song isn’t wrong about this – some people do moan loudly about their struggles in order to manipulate, even abuse others.  See complaining about people at work to your nine year old child, see convincing your lady you couldn’t help but hit her because you have it sooo bad.  But this is very comparable to a concept in Laveyan Satanism of the “psychic vampire” who must be violently repudiated and shut down.  As spelled out in The Satanic Bible, you can see that point of view.  You know people who take and take with their bitching and moaning, slowly draining your emotional resources and never giving anything back.  However.  It is no coincidence that large parts of the book were copied almost verbatim from an antisemitic, eugenicist, white supremacist screed called Might is Right.

Even if some people are bottomless holes of need and will never be able to give back to the world what they take from it, those people did not ask to be born.  They were forced into the world by the recklessness of breeders, and don’t deserve to die in misery because of it.  And most needy people are not like that at all!  Here is the sleight of hand pulled by The Satanic Bible in making that point of view seem reasonable – say that it’s cool to help people in need as you can, dismiss people who need a lot as psychic vampires, and then allow you, the reader, to decide how much help is too much.  If you’re a callous greedy shit, anything at all is too much.

Jesus Christ Pose is about somebody whining they are being martyred, and about how they can fuck off with that shit.  Maybe it is inspired by the kind of person who really should fuck off with that shit, but who’s to say?  Legitimate beefs have been written off with such attitudes, especially by conservatives.

Anyway, call this a nitpick.  I’m going to lean into the idea it’s grunge nonsense and doesn’t mean anything while I continue to listen to the album, but this does take it down a notch for me.  Off topic, some of my fave songs on there are Face Pollution and Drawing Flies.  That’s all.

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Fat Middle-Aged Genderqueer ASMR Unbagging Reaction: Trader Joe’s Crispy Dried Watermelon Chips

Need one o’ them there meridian responses?  Like unboxing and reaction videos?  Product reviews?  You like slow paced grainy video where the loudest sounds are packages rustling and fans whirring?  If ya want my body and ya think I’m sexy, come on baby let me know.  Sorry for rod stewarting at you there.  Point.

I referred to an inanimate object as crazy, in violation of my ableism policy, but I don’t know how to bleep it.  Enjoy this little walk on the wild side.  And go to sleep!

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Superhero Violence

Sure is fun when superheroes punch.  Nobody gets brain damaged or killed by it.  Biff bam boom.  This is less true when you get into edgier edges of the genre, like martial arts films where the punching goes on for hours and eventually some people get killed.  But if Captain America is punching a guy?  Spiderman?  Batman?  They just fly away and bounce, knocked out.  Beddy-bye time.

This was my problem with R Batts, as much excitement as that revisit to batmannery generated.  The initial trailer showed him beating on a guy to the point where IRL he’d be looking like Emmett Till, emphasizing that by having the other dudes in the gang watch the violence in mute horror.

This comes up in my dreams.  Last night I dreamed I was Spiderman, and I had to beat these super-powered bad guys.  But when does a beating stop?  In comics and movies it stops with the KO.  In my dreams, much like in real life, a person isn’t necessarily going to lose consciousness before the point where they become crippled or die.  So I punch this guy until he’s at a disadvantage and he’s still tusslin’.  Then I push his head against the ground hoping he’ll black out.  Instead his superpower finds final expression when he phases through the ground all the way to hell.  I said, damn, tell me he didn’t die!  I don’t want to kill people!  But his girlfriend was like, no, he’s dead.

The dream followed him into hell then, where he woke up feeling refreshed, the damage of violence falling away.  But he was in hell, so more tussling ahead.

My husband never liked superheroes because he identified more with the kind of weirdos they fight against.  The late Wesley Willis was not consistent about this, but it did come up a lot in his poetry.  Fighting with superheroes, not thinking of yourself as the person they would save.  This was not my point of view growing up.  I could be a superhero in my imagination.  I’m starting to feel it tho.  The idea one can punch this fucked up world into making sense is absurd on its face.  The face you’re punching.

Now we have Watchmen, The Boys, Damage Control, etc., looking at the other side of superheroics, with varying degrees of success and varying degrees of horror content.  I’m not really into those either.  I’m just pointing out a thing, not making any case for a way to address it, or saying it needs to be changed.  In the vast realm of comics I haven’t read, there is almost certainly one that would make me say Yeah, that’s it, but I’m not enough of a comic fan to be all that curious about it.  Feel free to drop recs anyway, or just talk about related subjects.

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Slices of You

Things are easier to cook when they’re thin.  You don’t have to cook them as long, so there’s less risk of overcooking if you watch what you’re doing.  And more importantly, less risk of some shit being burnt on the outside and raw or cold on the inside, which is an absolutely vile result.  I’m willing to bake or nuke something that comes with simple instructions, but otherwise it’s slicin’ and using a frying pan.

It’s also cool because you can get more of that crisp element of frying.  The outer edges and surface get crisp, and the thinner what you’re cooking is, the more of each bite that will posses that quality.  If it’s a vegetable I’m cooking, thin slices.  I don’t like the crunch of veggies, and thin veggies get soft faster in the pan.  Soft veggies for flavor, crisp meat or cheese… That’s the goods.

Even when cooking isn’t a consideration, I cut thin.  I got the idea from David Lynch.  Not to sound like a freak; feel like I’ve been mentioning him too much recently.  Some years ago I was watching an episode of Twin Peaks where Joan Chen was being tormented by (spoiler), losing her mind in the kitchen.  Her mental state was illustrated by having her slice an apple.  In America we almost always slice apples in wedges of roughly equal dimensions, but she was slicing it thin, like cheese or deli meat.

The scene had a sensuous quality, but maybe I just imagine that because Joan Chen is too beautiful.  Surely, she wasn’t supposed to be seen as erotic or romantic in that moment, not exactly.  But she can thin slice me any day, I tell you whut.

There’s an Electric Six song called Slices of You, and it’s not one of their best.  It’s fine.  But I think of this part from the breakdown, sometimes when I’m joanchenning an apple: “Everywhere I go, people ask me Valentine, what’s your recipe for love?  And I always tell them the same thing.  Cook the hell out of it, and SLICE IT.”

Anyway, I think about this often enough that I wondered if I’d already written a blog post on the subject, and I searched the archive here.  You know how many occurrences of the word “slice” there are on this blog?  I haven’t written about this exact subject before, but I’m starting to wonder if I have a problem here.

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