Friday, September 17, 2010

we were born this way!!!

What’s the worst look? Like, what’s the absolute worst way you can make yourself look? Being hopelessly unaware plays a huge role in looking truly bad, doesn’t it? Like, when you’re bald but you’ve got the long flowing locks or when you’re super sloppy and you’re wearing a miniskirt and metal bra, that looks terrible. But what else? There’s a guy in my neighborhood who’s always walking around. He’s real fat and has big swinging, pendulous breasts and he’s also got long hair and a humongous frizzy beard and he kind of dresses like uh…one of the people that potentially hangs out with Robin Hood or something. It’s not quite drag, and it’s not quite ‘back in time’ style, but it’s fucked up and every time I see him, I point him out to my wife and say, “hey, your ex boyfriend is in our neighborhood again” and she says something like “that guy is always around” and I kind of shudder because she’s right. He’s so interesting looking that it’s creepy. Kind of in a weird way he’s doing all the gender and expectation subverting that Lady Gaga has been going for, using nothing but Hostess pudding pies and his love of Renaissance fairs. That’s pretty tight, isn’t it?

I mean, what can you do these days? It’s clear to me that all the good styles have been tried. Therefore the only way to really get ‘out there’ is to do something completely retarded, like wear food or a tent on your face or something. Short of that, you’re not freaking anyone out unless you’re just born grotesque, in which case I hope you’re already totally into freaking people out, because frankly, you’re gonna be doing a lot of it either way, so may as well suit up in rubber tubing and smear yourself with chocolate and just fully go for it, because honestly, limping dude with testicle sacks hanging from your face and neck, you’re not gonna be diffusing any stares with any snappy outfit and erudite conversations about current affairs. Not in the cards, unforch.

I’m personally over the notion of ‘freaking out the squares’. It’s so trite and such a personality trait in and of itself at this point that it’s just as boring as the very uh…’societal norms’ that the whole ‘movement’ is supposedly opposed to. I’m bored of meat bikinis and gender bending and all that. Who cares? Guess who’s been doing shit like that for years? Everyone. Fuck. There’s guys out there (David Bowie comes to mind instantly) who are the same age as MY parents who have been doing that shit since before we were even born. Who cares? Everyone thinks they’re new and dynamic but everyone gets old and hangs up the meat bikini some day and realizes that they’re just like all the other great subversives that came before them: petulant children who didn’t want to hang with the dorks. And fuck…who can blame you/me/them/us? Who wants to hang with the dorks?

Well, the truth is, eventually we all become dorks (or we become mean and isolated, which is worse) and it’s nice to have other dorks around to show you the ropes. It’s not something you can help. You just become a dork no matter what. Yeah, you’re good looking and you like to party and you get all your shit done and it doesn’t matter if you’re still blowing lines at 630 am, by 9 you’re at your computer cranking out bold new ideas and images and pushing the edge of things and making money and DOING it. But guess what? You’re gonna get old. You’re gonna get fat/bald/saggy/scared of kids/too old looking to continue to wear the clothes you like because you’ll end up looking like a clueless Tommy Lee/Pam Anderson Peter Pan typ, so you’ll have to adapt into a more mature style that you don’t really care for or understand and next thing you know you look just like your mom and you’ve got some kids and you can’t even deal with hangovers so it’s easier just to go to bed at 9, because you’re DEFINITELY not getting dynamic shit done after even eating a fucking pizza too close to bedtime, much less snorting a bunch of ketamine and uh oh, the kids are doing shit that seems stupid to you and you don’t want to adapt because you’ve ‘got it figured out’ and the reason you think that is because at some brief fleeting point in your youth, you had it figured out for the second, before the world turned and everything changed and you foolishly think that you’re still some sort of authority about what’s cool, but ooooooooops! You’re just like everyone else. Clueless. And now PRESTO! You’re a dork and you too are bored of these loser kids coming around in their vampire costumes and meat bikinis and punk rock hairdos and trying to freak you out. “oooooooh. Terrifying.” You may be heard to utter from behind your glass of lemonade.

The thing is, you want to freak people out? For real? Wanna be subversive? Be black. Or be from Iran. Then marry someone’s daughter. There you go. You’ve successfully wigged out the squares for real. It’s funny, all the meat bikinis and upside down crosses and pentagrams and gay sex in the world can’t compare to a black MFA student out to dinner with a white girl or a dude in a turban boarding a plane. That’s what Lady Gaga should do next, for sure: become a black dude and start dating Taylor Swift. THAT would be worth digging, folks.


Listen, I’ve gotta go. I don’t have the time to do this stuff today. I hope you guys have a nice weekend. I’m tired and it’s ten thirty and I’m still in my underwear and I’ve gotta get my kid outside and expend some energy. Also I’ve gotta go get my dogs trimmed up and get their asses drained (it’s an extremely glamorous and appetizing process that all small dogs have to go through.
Then it’s off to have lunch. Anyway, be good to each other.
xoxoxox

19 comments:

Crooks said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Crooks said...

That sentence in the fourth paragraph would give Hemingway's extra-long sentence from "Green Hills Of Africa" a run for its rifle.

Hamilton Martin said...

Even us old farts, every now and then, have to let their freak flags fly.

Neilchair said...

Personally, further to Hamilton Martin's point (and to his name which I desperately hope is real because it's amazing to say out loud... just dripping with Confident Authority and Old World wisdom), I was at a Bad Religion/DKM show a few years ago and was right next to this massive grizzled, grey-haired, fully-inked guy who must've been at least pushing 50 and I thought it awesome that he was in his boots and long shorts. Same with when you see a 70-yr-old with his hair slicked back and his tshirt sleeves/jeans cuffs rolled up. I find a lot of integrity in those guys who keep up the fight even though many their age would opt for the cardigan and loafers.

Ryan said...

"Check out the freaks Mr. McEnroe." -Larry David

Anonymous said...

"Therefore the only way to really get ‘out there’ is to do something completely retarded, like wear food or a tent on your face or something."

http://www.m0ar.org/4070
The 1991 National Beard and Mustache Competition

Jim Ludes said...

Great band name: Meat Bikini

Hamilton Martin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
It's A-Me, Martucci said...

How piiiithy of you, neilchair

Robb said...

For me, personally, "hamilton martin" is evocative of "typewriter guy"

Hamilton Martin said...

robb i just moved up to a commodore 64, shit's hard to lug around tho

Robb said...

Yeah it's a real bummer the current zeitgeist has sullied my enjoyment of your great name by making it impossible to hear Hamilton Martin without picturing "Hamilton Martin", ya know?

Francis McAvoy: Pendulum Breasts said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Francis McAvoy: Pendulum Breasts said...

Well FUCK YOU, sir! If you don't fancy my majestic swinging man-maries, why do always take the opportunity to look?? Do you think I don't notice each and every stolen glance from the corner of your eyes - searing through all the adipose layers straight to my heart, like so many many white hot Kasumi knives through finest Plugra butter? I'm a POET! Did you..know THAT, "BEEeeeeEX" - as your merry little band of enraptured disciples see fit to address you?? A PO--

lagwagon628 said...

Hey Brendan, just wanted to say that Oh Calcutta is a perfect album. good job with that. and lets see some larry arms in st.louis. oh, and when is that fucking dvd coming out?

Garfield Roscoe said...

Sorry to hit up old posts, now that I'm a workin' man, I catch up on my BSC at the end o' the week, but check out La Roux, for what some will call a guilty pleasure. I call it pop perfection.

Sean said...

Hey,

This is the first time I've ever read this blog high. It's incredible. I've always loved it, but this just takes the cake dude.

I love you.

-Sean

Kirsty Girl said...

Hey! Leave Pammy out of this!

Neilchair said...

Ha, I'm never going to live down pithy. I was so convinced I was using the right word. Gotta say... pithy does not sound like what it means, haha. Anyway... I should get going my $3 pack of 20 burritos is in the oven and that value is so plethora in my heart I can't wait to dive into the first bite.

;)