Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

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I Love It When A Jam Comes Together

Ten years ago, a choogly-type pickup band was sent to prison by a military court for a jam they didn’t commit. These musicians promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the San Francisco underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the B-Team.

J.A. Lane: Muscle, explosives, HVAC repair, showing Bobby how his phone works.

Bobby “Tall Napoleon” Weir: Brains of the outfit, also the sandals of the outfit. Good with a blade. Drives the winnebago.

Mikaela “Smiles” Davis: Hacker. Undercover expert. Does that Black Widow move where she leaps crotch-first into a bad guy’s face and spins him around. Also helps Bobby with his phone.

Donnybrook “Don Was” Washerdryer: Werewolf by night.

OR

Mikaela Davis has stolen her haircut from The Runaways and God bless her for it.

Look:

See?

Haircut: 100!

Oh, no!

“What!? What’s happening!?”

They’re cutting your beautiful hair, Nephew on the Dead!

“Is that what’s going on?”

Yeah.

“Huh. Well, at least we’re getting it out of the way.”

Nope. Gonna be doing this the rest of your life.

“You’re pulling my pud.”

Language.

“The rest of my life? How long is that?”

You’ll make it to 90 without trying. Unless civilization collapses.

“What are the odds on that?”

6-to-5 and pick ’em.

“If you say so. What is this called again?”

Haircut.

“And I do this…forever?”

Yes.

“Do I get to sit on The Lady’s lap?”

Not much longer. It starts to look creepy once you hit your teens.

“Oy. Any other recurring activities that no one warned me about?”

So many. Hygiene, buddy. Gotta shower and brush your teeth every single day. Cut your nails. Wait until you start shaving. You’re gonna hate it.

“What I’m hearing is that life is nothing but a never-ending slog of personal upkeep.”

Precisely.

“This blows.”

It does. Laundering oneself is a tedious and Sisyphean chore.

“Not optimal. Gotta tell ya, Uncle. This is not optimal.”

It’s not. Our bodies are made of filth. It’s a never-ending battle against stink and ass-cheese. Humans generate their own gravy.

“First of all: eww. Second: what if I want to wear my hair long?”

Like Axl?

“Just like Axl, yeah.”

Well, you’re gonna need to learn how to talk so you can tell your parents that.

“I’m almost there! I can say ‘dog.'”

Yeah?

“Yeah. But it comes out ‘duck.’ And half the time I say it about cats. Or mailboxes.”

Close enough.

“Do I get to keep the cape?”

You do not get to keep the cape.

“This deal is getting worse all the time.”

Sorry, Nephew. Welcome to the world.

Where There’s A Will, Soloway OR The Long, Dark Chu Of The Soul

This one’s just for the mean fucks out there: Andrea Long Chu on Jill Soloway’s book about Transparent. Remember the Pitchfork review of that Greta Van Fleet album? Or the New York Times piece about Guy Fieri’s restaurant? Well, this here’s the literary version.

Full disclosure: I have never seen an episode of Transparent–it’s apparently a weekly hour of Jeffrey Tambor in a dress–but familiarity with the source material is not necessary. Just luxuriate in the cruelty. Trust me on this one: read it.

Gonna Be One Of Those Nights, Huh?

Self-care: horseshit.

______ of the Year: horseshit.

Tax subsidies: horseshit.

Memoirs: horseshit.

Grad school: horseshit.

Wellness: horseshit.

Identity politics: horseshit.

Using the phrase “identity politics” as a pejorative: horseshit.

A good 80% of the Constitution: horseshit.

Non-edible fish: horseshit.

“Wholesome”: horseshit.

You, probably: horseshit.

Me, definitely: horseshit.

Where’s my Guggenheim Fellowship?

Pack Up The Soapbox

Stan Lee taught me how to read. Not personally. He didn’t come to the house with a hornbook or anything. But he wrote “With great power comes great responsibility,” and “Petey, eat your wheatcakes,” and “UNCLE BEN! NOOOOOOO!” and that was my very first education. Spider-Man comics. Alexander the Great had Aristotle as a tutor, but I had Peter Parker stashed in milk crates under my bed. My mother deciphered the squiggles for me, or maybe just underlined the words with her finger as she read them to me. The precisities of my mother’s pedagogical methods are not known to historians. Then Stan took over. He had words, oh such words. Zounds and forsooth and uncanny and hero and villain and neighborhood. Super fucking words, True Believer.

He wasn’t perfect–he was a vain, gullible, credit-stealing, gloryhound–but neither are you and you didn’t create the Fantastic Four. Or name the Hulk. And you certainly didn’t teach me to read. ‘Nuff said.

 

EDITOR’S NOTE: That’s Stan the Man in the monitor in the above page; this is from 1978’s Marvel Team-Up #74 and Spidey is “teaming up” with the Not Ready For Prime-Time Players while Stan hosts the show. I swear.

Marvel Team-Up, hereafter known as MTU, was Spidey’s second book. Until Wolverine showed up, Spidey was the most popular of the Marvel characters, and so he got two titles. Marvel used MTU to introduce new heroes or reintroduce forgotten ones, and workshop new bad guys. The guests varied wildly: sometimes Peter would run into Thor or the Black Panther, and other times he would fight Frankenstein’s Monster. I swear.

I need you to stop doubting me when I tell you that comic books are dumb. I feel like I offer you a piece of evidence, and you refuse it, even though I’ve proven myself correct time and time again while speaking on this particular subject. You must not take my word on medicine, or politics, or business, or love, but I am a goddamned expert in the subject of “How dumb superhero comics are.” Please stop resisting me on this. LISTEN TO ME, FUCKERS.

That escalated. Stop it immediately.

I can’t help it, man. I’m all about consent. And I want the Enthusiasts to consent to me. I need them to, really. How do I make them consent?

We’re going to have another HR meeting if you keep this up.

CONSENT TO ME, FUCKERS.

Just show the nice people what kind of pickle our friendly neighborhood wallcrawler has gotten himself into.

Okay.

They always left Spider-Man’s mask on when they shackled him to the spagmoidinizer.

I wasn’t kidding. Look at these scrubs Spidey has to deal with:

Points for “Tatterdemalion,” Marvel. That is a good word and an even better bad guy name. Points off for literally everything else. For God’s sake, the man has been an Avenger, and now he’s gotta hang out with poorly-drawn werewolfs in a sewer? Oh, and that character’s name isn’t “Werewolf,” it’s “Werewolf By Night,” which you shouldn’t think about too much, or at all. That’s not water. It’s effluvia. Spidey made out with Kirsten Dunst and Emma Stone, but now he’s up to his spider-balls in shit soup. It’s not right to do to a man.

At least that’s the last time Peter will have to deal with werewolfs.

I should have been more specific.

(Oh, the Man-Wolf? That’s J. Jonah Jameson’s son, John. John was an astronaut, and he went to the moon. While there, he saw a glowing rock and picked it up. The rock, naturally, turned him into a Man-Wolf. How many times do I have to tell you that comics are dumb?)

Anyway, back to the dead guy. Peter and Mary Jane Watson score tickets to Saturday Night Live, hosted by Stan Lee because Marvel Comics exists within Marvel comics. In the fictional universe that the heroes punch one another in, there is a company called Marvel that publishes comic books starring the heroes from that reality. There’s a Captain America comic book in the reality where Captain America’s real. In fact, Captain America once drew his own comic book. Don’t think about that.

Stan Lee does a monologue–he is drawn as elaborately coiffed, lean, and dapper–and makes several jokes about meeting with The Thing. It is at this point that one could begin pointing out logical inconsistencies like that tiresome fellow on YouTube who notices errors in films, but one could also remember that this is a story in which John Belushi sword-fights with a 7-foot samurai.

The issue’s not been reprinted since, due to rights bullshit, but I remember every panel. The hero was ineffectual and wouldn’t shut up, and the bad guy mostly paid the hero no mind anyway, and everyone learned a valuable lesson in the end, though no one could agree what it was. It was my kind of story. Thank you for writing it, Stan Lee.

He didn’t. Chris Claremont wrote it, Bob Hall did the pencils, and Marie Severin inked.

Excelsior!

You’re an asshole.

A Warning From Warren

The fires Out West get worse each year, and so do the storms Back East. We won’t discuss what’s happening Down South. Or in Texas. Climate Change is affecting our lives in greater parcel day by day, and this photo displays a tragic byproduct of the earth’s warming: it is November, and Woody Hayes has not yet entered hibernation.

You know the annual schedule, Enthusiasts. During the spring and summer, Woody appears at every single festival on the continent. Pretty much doesn’t stop soloing from April to October, except to deliver his signature blues-influenced vocals, which have been described as “blues-influenced.” If there’s a field and a truck selling vegan burritos, Woody Hayes is there and he’s been soloing for twenty minutes. Turquaz will be on next. They will invite Woody back out to jam on Beer Drinkers And Hell Raisers.

In late September, a shift in the wind causes Woody to briefly stop soloing. It’s time. The world is different now. It is time. He could not explain it, not to you. That it is time is a sub-verbal knowledge. All is changed. Woody goes nuts on catering. Mostly salmon, but also everything else. He puts on 100 pounds in around a month, then returns to his home in the Smoky Mountains that he shares with his wife, Joyce. There, he plugs his asshole with leaves, mud, and moss, and then retreats into his custom-made hutch. He will slumber there, living off his body fat, until summer comes and the festivals begin.

But it’s November, and the fucker’s still awake.

We broke the sky.

A Partial Transcript Of President Trump’s Remarks, 11/10/18

FRANCE – MORNING

“Get ’em together, c’mon. Let’s go. Gather. I’m gonna talk. Where’s Jim Acosta?”

“Here, sir?”

“Take his umbrella away.”

UMBRELLA-TAKING NOISE

“Really?”

“You do not deserve an umbrella. That was an Executive Order.”

“That’s not how those work.”

“I have come out here, very bravely, probably with greater bravery than any president we’ve had. Even the movie presidents. When Indiana Jones was on Air Force One? Very brave! But maybe not quite my level. Not quite. The Secret Service begged me. Begged! ‘Mr. President, please don’t be so bold. Let us keep you safe.’ They said that. But I’m a superhero in a lot of ways. A lot of ways.”

“Mr. President, why are you not going to the World War I memorial service today?”

“World War I was the one without the Nazis. Many people don’t know that. They figure ‘It’s a World War, gotta be Nazis,’ but that’s why they’re not president and I am. World War I was a great world war. Top three. But, as you can see, it’s raining. Area’s known for its rain, buckets of it. And so the helicopters can’t fly and the Secret Service said no. They were very strong in their denials, and that was impressive and it impressed me and so we won’t be going to the service or whatever.”

“How will you be spending the time, sir?”

“Memorials, you know, what are they for? You sit there. Poems and you pray and all of that. Let’s move forward. Forget about the past. And don’t forget that most of the soldiers who fought in World War I were foreign.”

“You were going to Belleau Wood, sir. It was an American battle.”

“Hit Jim Acosta with his own umbrella.”

UMBRELLA-HITTING NOISE

“Hey! Stop that!”

“This is what the Democrats want. This is what all Socialists want, and all Democrats are Socialists. Democrats, and everyone knows this, want to require you to cook and clean for Mexicans instead of the other way around, the right way. And this Me Too, Me Three, whatever it’s called, this is insanity. Insanity. Imagine being accused of something that happened in your past, lying women doing things like that. It’s not what those great men buried out there in the pouring rain died for. Great men, some of the best, maybe ever.”

“Mr. President, it’s not pouring.”

“It is. It’s actually raining a lot harder than it seems. This is sneaky rain. See, the drops are wetter than regular raindrops, so the overall water delivery is the same. It’s a wonderful thing. Sneaky rain. Rare, but that’s what this is. The helicopters can’t take it. Probably made in the district of Mia Love, a loser who lost her race because she was so nasty to me. Very ugly woman. Maybe a wig. A lot of them wear wigs.”

“Sir, Marine One is a modified Sikorsky VH-3D Sea King. It’s amphibious. It can take the rain.”

“American rain. Not French. Listen, the North of France in November in the rain? Not for me. South of France, much better. There are some lovely properties around here, but no one wants the hassle of dealing with the French. The accent makes you want to shoot yourself. And then you got the EU, which is a ripoff of the USA. Clearly. Clearly, they’re stealing our intellectual property. Whenever I finally meet my Attorney General, I’m going to instruct him to sue the EU. The military isn’t out of the question.”

“Mr President, are you threatening military action against Europe?”

“I hope not! I hope I don’t have to, but we’re looking at documents and there’s a lot of angles on things. On one side here, we got Poland, and then there’s Italy and Austria. Denmark. You know, you got Denmark. It’s complicated. A lot of people don’t understand it. Obama didn’t. Neither did his wife, who is a terrible person. And maybe a man. I don’t know. A lot of people say. You see her shoulders and you think, ‘Maybe. Could be.’ Definitely no supermodel like Melania. Probably a man. Michelle Obama is a man and I might have to go to war with Europe.”

“You talked yourself into that pretty quick.”

“Hit Jim Acosta with his umbrella some more.”

REPEATED UMBRELLA THRASHING NOISE

“Knock that off!”

“Someone else. Abby.”

“Is there a reason you couldn’t drive to the memorial? It’s only an hour away.”

“This is a terrible question, probably one of the worst I’ve ever been asked. You are CNN?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m pulling your license.”

“What?”

“Bing bang bing. Hand it over.”

“My driver’s license?”

“CNN, which I never watch, is full of some of the worst liars and fake news that anyone’s ever seen. Go all the way back, yellow journalism or Rome or World War I, and there’s never been such fake news. Bad for America. CNN is bad for America. Just be fair! Look at the black employment. You have a job, Abby! So there’s black unemployment. The market? The market is exploding. Investors call me up. ‘Thank you, Mr. President. You’ve given me my retirement. You’ve helped me with a kid that’s sick or whatever.’ Every day. And Sean Hannity calls, too, and he’s a bright guy. Was a construction worker, now he’s worth millions. Very smart. He can’t stop raving about what a job I’m doing, and that is such a nice compliment from him. But I don’t get that from CNN.”

“To re-ask a question of Jim’s: how will you be spending the time of the memorial today?”

“Very dumb. Abby, that’s just dumb. My location is a top government secret. Our enemies know where I am, they send over a missile, boom bam bop I’m toast. Not on my watch. Not on my watch. I can’t talk to you. Your news is too fake.”

“Sir!”

“Jim, I already talked to you.”

“You didn’t answer my questions.”

“Hit him again.”

UMBRELLA WHOMPING NOISE

“Cut it out!”

“God bless the troops, our troops, all right, that’s it.”

To Lay Me Down

He will do this until he cannot. A stool can be provided. The Blues guys all got stools when they got old, except for John Lee Hooker, who always had a stool because he was always old. Bobby will be provided a stool again, and then he will continue the tour. Never will Bobby be without a next show. And he will ride into the halls of Valhalla…ah, Jesus. Bobby?

“Sure?”

Your amplifier is sleeping on the job.

“Oh. No. Just looks that way. Experiment in sound. We’re asking sonic questions.”

Such as?

“‘How does it sound?’ That’s a big one. Huh. Y,know I guess there’s only one sonic question. It’s a complicated one, though.”

Looks it. How goes the Wolf Bros shows?

“Well, they ain’t throwing stuff at us. That’s, you know, the bottom line. Everything is secondary to that. Every show I play in 2018 is better than any show in the 70’s because no one is hurling unopened cans of Pabst at my head.”

It was a barbaric decade.

“Now, see, it wasn’t the Deadheads. They’d throw shit, but it would be roses or joints or whatever. It was when we played somewhere where the audience was just coming out to see the show and party. And they’d drink Gallo wine and take reds. This, uh, this made them excitable. And vicious. Like, uh, spoiling for a fight. One time a guy hucked a full pony keg at us. It took out the drum kit.”

How did someone manage that?

“Up in the mezzanine, the crew found the pieces to a…what’s the thing that isn’t a catapult?”

A trebuchet.

“There you go.”

Someone brought a trebuchet to a concert?

“This is what was reported to me in the van after the show. But, you know, it’s not like some dude chucked it.”

True.

“Or coins. Every once in a while, a half-dollar would come whizzing out of the darkness. And, uh, I didn’t think I deserved that. No one does, if we’re honest. Some people would argue that it would be all right to throw coins at evil dictators. But, uh, I’m not an evil dictator.”

You are not. You should not have coins thrown at you.

“Gotta say: I prefer the theaters full of well-behaved rich people to the fields full of shirtless yokels.”

No argument.

You’re So Square, Nephew; I Don’t Care


Nice! I like that shirt, Nephew on the Dead.

“Yeah? You into Queen?”

Hugely so.

“Uh-huh. What’s the second verse to The Fairy-Feller’s Master Stroke?”

What now?

“Who opened for them on the Day At The Races Tour?”

Why are you asking me these things? It was Thin Lizzy, by the way, but what’s going on?

“A lot of people say they’re Queen fans, and what they mean is that they have the Greatest Hits album. Filthy casuals.”

Nephew!

“I’m messing with you. I have no idea who Queen is. You know I don’t choose my own clothing, right?”

I forgot. You sound so mature sometimes.

“The Guy put this on me. He was giggling the whole time.”

He and your mom have worked out a rather strict arrangement of how much goofy Rock and Roll bullshit he’s allowed to dress you in. If it weren’t for her, you’d look like a tiny merch table and have a mural of KISS fighting the Planet of the Apes in your room.

“That sounds terrifying.”

In the dark, to a baby? Wow, yeah. I’ll tell him not to do that. How’s the walking coming?

“Dude, I walk so good. I can walk to anything I want to walk to. Just gotta be level ground. And clear. Gotta be clear. The other day, I wanted to be by the window. You know the window?”

I do.

“Love the window. I’m by the front door closet looking at the doorknob. Then I wanted to be by the window. When I try to walk across the room, my giraffe is on the floor. You know my giraffe?”

I do.

“Love my giraffe. And I couldn’t decide whether I should stop and pick him up or step over him, so I kinda did both. I went ass over teakettle.”

You’ll get better at everything. Don’t rush it.

“Gotcha. Who is this Queen person on my shirt?”

It’s a band. They played loud and were from England.

“Ah. Pass.”

You haven’t even heard them.

“I might have. It all sounds the same to me. Y’know what I dig?”

What?

“Baby music! I get up and dance, man. Acoustic guitar, some silly lyrics: that’s my jam. Maybe some harmonizing. I love that stuff.”

But why?

“Why do I like Baby music? Because I’m a baby, dummy. The corpus of material and method of presentation has been pared through evolution over years. Baby music was perfected, and essentially weaponized, sometime in the 1990’s by the CIA through their asset, Codename: Raffi.”

What?

“Messing with you. I like Baby music because I’m a baby! Bouncy and happy and repetitious with silly lyrics.”

You should listen to Phish.

“I’ll make a note of it once I learn to write.”

Love you, buddy.

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