Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
Precarious?
“Yo.”
Is that Cipollina?
“Yup.”
Why is Keith in the middle?
“Pizzazz.”
Seriously.
“One of the casters locked up while we were moving the piano. Just left it where it was.”
But Keith should not be in the middle. Especially not in 1978.
“We had to wheel him to the stage, too.”
I’m not shocked. Is that a skull?
“Where?”
Under the Perlstein.
“I think so.”
Why is it there?
“Sounds like a Mickey thing.”
Yeah.
Is that a rando?
“Actually, no. This is Alec Benjamin, and he’s a new–”
PORK HIM.
“–talented…here we go.”
Climb on top and see if you can make it eight seconds. I think you can; he looks frail.
“He’s a very gifted–”
Make a fire, John. Rub your sticks together and make a fire.
“No.”
The sticks are your johnsons.
“I got that. It would not make fire.”
It would. Sticky fire.
“Ew.”
The field is fertile and new, man! Plow it! Make the ground shiver with your fecundity!
“I’m not gay, y’know.”
Well, you haven’t publicly finger-banged a starlet in years, dude.
“So? That doesn’t make me gay.”
It kinda does.
“You’re an idiot.”
You’re an idiot for not being watch-deep in that twink right now.
“Stop talking to me.”
Okay.
CELL PHONE NOISE
“Fine. Fine. Better than you.”
…
“You’re on with John.”
“GETCHER JEW HANDS OFFA THAT THERE LAD!”
“Ah, shit.”
“It ain’t bad enough you’re a hebe, you gotta add sodomy to th’ mix?”
“Not gay.”
“No, you ain’t. Ain’t no such thing as ‘gay.’ There’s just swishy sinners.”
“Wow.”
“That comes from the Bible, boy. You read your Bible?”
“Not every day.”
“The Jew part is the worst part! Book don’t pick up until Jesus comes in. Not known for their writing, you Jews.”
“Not Jewish, Sarah. Not gay and not Jewish.”
“All homos are Jews, but not all Jews are homos.”
…
“Yeah, I kind of agree with that, but it’s still wildly inappropriate. Why are you even calling me?”
“You wanna be the new Chief of Staff?”
“Hard, hard, hard pass.”
“You can led a Jew to water, but you can’t make him clean.”
“Again: not…ah, fuck it.”
DIAL TONE NOISE EVEN THOUGH PHONES NO LONGER DO THAT
“Hey.”
Yeah?
“Please make her stop calling me.”
Freedom of speech, brah.
The future was better in the past. We’re in it now–the future, the first little bit of it–and it does not live up to the trailer. Promises were made, Enthusiasts, and all of them were abandoned roadside, or half-assed, or infinitely five years away. (Virtual Reality has been five years away for half-a-century now.) Future, I’m not mad; I’m just disappointed. And I’m actually pretty mad, too.
Promises were made.
ROBOTS We do not have robots, at least not ones that can buttle and fuck. There is the Roomba and also those devil-machines that Boston Dynamics builds, but we were assured there would be fully-sentient bipedal androids roaming about by 2018. Instead, we get Russian guys in cosplay.
FLYING CARS But this is a good thing, at least until full-automation is possible. Flying is slightly more difficult than driving, in the way that playing bocce ball is slightly more complex than being a paramecium. Human-guided flying cars are inherently the stupidest of all “future tech.” Imagine a fender-bender. Now imagine a fender-bender 200 feet in the air that causes both vehicles to plummet, flamingly, into the roof of a children’s hospital. Now imagine that happening hundreds of times a day. People cannot be trusted with flars. Also, I do not want to say “flar.” Or “plauto.”
SPACE TRAVEL Now, Younger Enthusiasts, you may not know this, but we went to the moon. A guy named Buzz took a piss in his pants right there in the Sea of Tranquility. Another guy named Alan, well, he played some golf; bunch of other fellows brought a dune buggy with ’em, and they went tear-assing around the moon like they were on vacation. Then we stopped going to the moon, and stopped building giant rockets that could get us there, and we built ourselves a van. That’s what the Space Shuttle was: a van. It was for moving stuff. The Shuttle was like a Ford Transit that exploded once every 75 times you drove it. Now we don’t even have that, and American astronauts must hitch rides with the Russians to get to the ISS.
We were promised more. If not a sprawling resort & casino on the moon, then an Antarctica-style scientific base at the very least. Men were going to Jupiter–Jupiter!–in 2001, and that seemed reasonable. The end of the film was not reasonable in the slightest, but the concept of visiting the rest of the solar system was within our grasp, we thought. Now, a manned mission to Jupiter is rather foolish, as Jupiter is a gas planet and therefore there is no solid surface upon which to golf or do wheelies in a dune buggy, but what about Mars? It’s right next to us, astronomically speaking, but all we do is send up probe after probe. From hurling up dumb, iron satellites into low orbit to landing men on (and bringing them home from) the moon in a decade. First man on Mars could have taken that step in 1981. We just didn’t try.
VIDEO PHONES We do have these, and it is a wonderful invention that I praise. It is possible to see either adorable nephews, or to shake your titties and/or ding-dong at a loved one. The future gets a full point here. Good work with the video phone technology, the future.
“Hey, Jer.”
“You thought of something new since we got out of the car?”
“Thoughts flood my mind.”
“What, Weir?”
“You should have your beard fight that guy’s beard.”
“How would that even work, man?”
“According to Queensbury rules, I guess. But, uh, I got a foxy black chick.”
“Huh?”
“You got the bearded gent, and I got Pig’s girlfriend. So, you know, I kinda win getting out of the car.”
“Weir, get back in the car.”
“Did you forget something?”
“No, I just want you to get back in the car, man.”
“You’re a sore loser.”
The best suicide songs are the cheeriest.
“You look very robotic, Russian Jenkins.”
“No one’s going to buy it, sir.”
“Bosh. I thought that it was your head on top of an artificial body for a second. Like in The Fly. I thought maybe there had been an accident with the teleportation devices.”
“We don’t have any teleportation devices, sir.”
“Of course we do. Invented them the same week as the robot.”
“We haven’t invented a robot, either, sir. You had R&D–”
“Rudyevski and Dave.”
“–3D print a janky War Machine costume, got me drunk, and stuffed me into it.”
“I had to get you drunk, Jenkins. To alleviate the pain of being Russian.”
“Literally nothing goes right for us.”
“Since Prince Oleg himself. Anyway, let’s see your dance.”
“My what, sir?”
“Your dance. I believe it is eponymous.”
“I don’t want to do the robot, sir.”
“I’ll beatbox. Do I start with the wikki-wikki noise or the heavy breathing? Oh, for fooey’s fortune, I’m just going to let loose and go with it. Get out on the dance floor, Jenkins! I’m beginning with wikki!”
“Sir.”
“WIKKI WIKKI.”
“Sir.”
“Whoopity Scoop. Jenkins, you can’t cause a commotion if your booty ain’t in motion. Get to stepping, son.”
“I can barely move in this ridiculous outfit, let alone dance, and I keep receiving small but horrible shocks on my testicles.”
“It’s a robot, Jenkins. Bound to be some electrical problems at first.”
“It’s a suit, sir. There shouldn’t be any electricity involved. They installed the power source and arranged the wiring specifically to zap my goolies.”
“Those scamps.”
“No one’s going to buy it!”
“Not if you don’t sell the performance. Acting, Jenkins! That’s what we need. It reminds me of the story once told about the great Sir Laurence Olivier and the slightly-less great Dustin Hoffman. They were filming Marathon Man, which is a lie of a title. Not a numbered bib in sight.”
“Yes, sir.”
“They are shooting a scene in which Hoffman’s character was supposed to have been awake for 24 hours. And so the actor did. On the set the next morning before the cameras rolled, Olivier noted Hoffman’s haggard appearance. Upon being informed of the reason, Olivier leaned close to Hoffman, and grabbed his crotch, and said, ‘That’s prime Jewish cockmeat.'”
“I don’t quite take the moral of the story sir.”
“The Jew is a decadent parasite.”
“Sure, sure.”
“Jenkins, listen, this is an easy gig. We’re going out there, you’ll schmooze, and we’ll sell a million units to the Russian Army. Ooh, could you do an ED209? That would play really well over here.”
“How would I do that? I have no weapons. I can’t even see with the helmet on.”
“Rudyevski and Dave have an upgrade for that.”
“Which is?”
“They’re gonna cut holes.”
“I formally protest, sir.”
“Yeah, how well does protesting usually go in Russia?”
“Hand me the helmet.”
“For the Motherland, Jenkins.”
Enthusiasts, I am proud to live in Florida, where our legislators are brave and Constitutional enough to protect our kids. Liberals hate your kids, and want to eat them, but I want to give your kids guns so they can shoot the liberals first. That is also a law in Florida, that you can just shoot anyone whenever you want.
But I fear the commission has not gone far enough. Yes, obviously teachers should be open-carrying at least one sidearm, preferably of a caliber higher than .38. I know all those Drama teachers are gonna want their .22’s, but let’s keep in mind that we’re doing this for the students. Man up for the kids. Furthermore, the custodial staff is well-suited to bear mortars or other large artillery; their rolling garbage cans are portable armories, essentially. We can also all agree that the lunch ladies should have access to air support. All of these ideas are common sense ones.
The measures that the commission prescribes are not drastic enough, and are sauce of the weakest dilution. Random strafing fire in the hallways will work for a while, and I believe that we should move ahead with the idea of building “Florida RoboCop.” As for the rest? Piffle.
I propose we end school shootings by eliminating the supply: we must kill the children ourselves, before the child with the gun does. With no one to murder, he will turn away from violence. And, if logic follows, he will have been killed along with the other kids. Also, think of the savings on education funding.
School shooters: let’s beat ’em at their own game!
Hipster wedding?
“Just a wedding.”
Nah. Groom’s suit gives it away. And your presence. Hipsters.
“These people are not hipsters.
They favor lakes over rivers, and tend towards bilious rather than splenetic, and each has kissed the anus of One-Eyed Black, the goat-god who hates all. You know: hipsters.
“Just stop it.”
You going for Snow White or Red Sonja? I recommend Red Sonja, cuz she looks crazy.
“Leave it alone.”
Did you already make your run?
“Stop it.”
Did you lock your S-foils in attack position?
“Why would you even do that? It alerts the enemy of your intent.”
Don’t do that.
“What?”
Don’t nitpick Star Wars. None of it makes any sense. Why does the spaceship have fucking wings, man? It looked sweet and that’s the end of the explanation.
“Okay, fine.”
CELL PHONE NOISE
“I said I would stop nitpicking!”
I’m still mad.
…
“You’re on with John.”
“Johnny! Yachty here! Are any or all of these men your grandfather?”
“No, Little Yachty. KISS is not my grandfather.”
“Lil.”
“Little Yachty.”
“Lil.”
“I don’t want to do this bit.”
“Help me, Johnny White Guitarist! I’m sorry I forgot your last name!”
“Mayer.”
“Yachty! Nice to meet you!”
“Okay, lemme call you back.”
“You don’t have my number!”
“I know.”
DIAL TONE EVEN THOUGH PHONES NO LONGER MAKE THAT NOISE
“Jackass?”
Yuh?
“I don’t want to go on an adventure saving Little–”
Lil.
“–Yachty from KISS.”
Okay. There was only the one picture, anyway.
“God, you’re treading water.”
Hush.
Due to illness, the part of Ramrod will be played by the Fourth Doctor.
OR
Is Garcia wearing his coat backwards as a makeshift blanket? Ramrod’s got his shearling on, and those are warm as fuck; where are they? Did the Dead play Ice Station Zebra?
OR
Milk? Is that a pint of milk, packaged in the familiar cube of waxy paper that used to accompany our school lunches? Who the fuck is drinking milk? Nothing about this picture makes any sense at all.
OR
Heineken?
Goddamn, you are a well-dressed baby, Nephew on the Dead.
“I have a natural eye. This season, I’m all about mixing vintage with ironic.”
Awesome.
“I also have dogs on my knees.”
That is both true and adorable.
“Uncle?”
Yeah, buddy?
“All my clothes are bright-colored and have dinosaurs and bulldozers and giraffes all over them. But, like, no adults dress like that.”
They don’t.
“Why not?”
No idea. Absolutely no idea. We should. It would make every facet of existence better. There should be spaceships and dragons on every stitch of clothing, including military uniforms. The navy could have duckies, and the Army could have horsies, and everyone would just walk around all day being amused by one another’s pants. It’s a paradise I’m describing here, Nephew.
“Uh-huh. Question.”
Shoot.
“And don’t be offended.”
You could never, buddy.
“Are you the weird one in the family?”
Oh, yeah. By a large margin. There’s not even a runner-up, really. All other adults in the clan have lingering and active doubts about my influence on you.
“Awesome.”
Right?
“Will you buy me beer?”
Now?
“No. Wait, would you?”
No. I would order you a shandy, maybe. But that’s a summer drink. Maybe a spritzer, but no that’s also too summery–
“Forget I asked.”
Done.
“Where does the garbage go?”
Oh, is that what you’re doing?
“Me and The Guy are gonna take out the garbage. There’s a door in the wall and the bag goes in there and then…well, there’s my perimeter of my knowledge. Makes a spectacular noise. I was thinking that when I get a little bigger, I should chuck a bunch of stuff in there.”
Do not do that, Nephew.
“I’m absolutely going to. The garbage hatch is mysterious and wonderful, and the handle is shiny. Shiny is nice. The noises, once again, are top-grade. Could listen to those noises for hours. Put the bag in. Where does it go? I do not know, and therefore I love the garbage hatch.”
The trash just falls into a dumpster, buddy. There’s no mystery to it.
“A dumpster? And then where?”
A garbage truck.
“New York’s Sanitation Department is the least respected and most necessary branch of the civil service.”
You’ll get no argument here.
“Where does the garbage go after the truck?”
A processing plant.
“What happens there?”
The garbage is processed.
“And then?”
Having undergone processes, the garbage is placed on a sub-type of barge known as a scow.
“And then?”
Scow goes to a landfill.
“What’s a landfill?”
We dig a hole and throw trash in it.
“Dig a hole? That’s our solution to unwanted refuse? Bury it and walk away?”
Oh, no. You can’t walk away. If you leave a landfill alone, it becomes a giant trash-bomb.
“The corpus of humanity’s daily life must be tended to and appeased, lest it erupt with murderous fury? Has anyone else noticed the metaphor?”
Several have. None were listened to.
“The human condition.”
Oui.
“Dude, you see this blackberry?”
The one on the floor?
“Yeah.”
Yeah.
“I’m gonna eat the shit out of that.”
Go to it, Nephew.
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