February 07, 2004

We interrrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you the following encore presentation

So the tour begins. I'm going to try to blog from the road, though that can be more difficult than it sounds, as I've explained before. Starting today, though, things are going to be pretty crazy, especially in the first "get acclimated to living like dogs" phase, so don't be surprised if there's a bit of a lull, posting-wise.

In the meantime, in lieu of something new, here's a kind of blast from the past. Back in the year 2000, when the MTX was on the road as part of the Lookout! Freakout! Tour!, I did a little promotional tour diary feature for emusic. I think in the end I only ended up sending in four or five installments-- writing in tour mode was no easier back then, and I'd had a lot less practice. It's no longer posted on emusic, as far as I know, and I get a lot of requests for the text of this particular one for some reason. So here it is. Just imagine it's 2000 AD. Or change a few of the names and it might as well be now.

Sept. 25, 2000

Dear Diary,

There's an old joke that goes: "for good old fashioned hospitality, you just can't beat the slave states." Just a joke, but it's funny because the juxtaposition of sentimentality and brutality rings true. The South is crawling with guys in trucks equipped with guns who'd just as soon kill you as look at you; but they'll serve you some great biscuits, too. Only in the South do you get people coming up to you after the show to complain that there weren't enough fights, and then asking you to autograph a sticker "for my mom." But one thing you realize when you've been driving around the country for awhile is that, outside of San Francisco, Manhattan, and parts of Seattle, the entire USA is the South. It doesn't matter where you are, North, South, East, or West; Ohio, Vermont, Iowa, Minnesota, Oregon: there's always going to be a shirtless guy driving along-side you in a pick-up, screaming something like "hoo-eeee." Every other person you meet will eventually fix you with a cold, steely stare and say something like "you boys ain't from 'round here, is ya'll?" It's like 95% of the country is a Jeff Foxworthy HBO special, vaguely funny, inherently disturbing. Well, everywhere is south of somewhere, I guess.

Anyway, north or south, the Lookout! Freakout! Tour! is a punk tour. How do I know? No monitors, baby. When you can't hear yourself sing, you sound a bit retarded no matter how hard you try not to. Every song sounds like the Elephant Man is singing "you've been so kind to me..." And at each show, the singer of each band leaves a little piece of his or her throat behind, quivering painfully on the stage. It doesn't get much punker than that. But the show must go on, and it does go on. And my band has once more transmogrified into a new form: a power-trio fronted by Bosley from Charlie's Angels. Check it out. It "rocks."

Remember how I said before that an important part of being in a band is hanging out with your friends being all anti-corporate and stuff? Well, that's kind of what it was like in Boston, minus the anti-corporate part. We saw a lot of people we hadn't seen in awhile, like Maddie the Tight Pants fanzine girl, and my good friend Joe Queer, with whom I had a long and uncharacteristically cogent conversation. He ended up joining us on stage to sing "...and I will be with you" which the Queers have been covering lately. Somehow during the two and a half minute song he managed to high-five every single member of the audience, which was an impressive feat, to be sure. I guess there's an extra part of the song that the Queers don't do, so when we got to the part where he didn't know the words, Joe just started singing "the fucking Queers, the fucking Queers..." It was a moment of pure poetry.

All was going well, until I noticed someone setting up a table with pamphlets, buttons, and T-shirts that had great big swastikas all over them-- there was even a T-shirt with Adolf Hitler's face on it. Alarmed that some neo-Nazi group had crashed the Lookout! Freakout! Tour!, I ran over to try to put a halt to this appalling concession stand. When I got closer, however, I noticed a banner on the table that said that it was "anti-racist." The T-shirt that I initially thought advertised some bizarre Nazi basketball team turned out, on closer inspection, to depict a stick figure throwing a ball-like swastika into hoop-like trash can. All became clear. It sounds weird, but it's true: some people wear swastikas because they approve of Nazis, and some people wear them because they *don't*.

I'm sure you've noticed this paradox about the Hipsters of the Revolution: for people who make such a point of being anti-racist and anti-fascist and so forth, they sure seem to like wearing a lot of swastikas. I know they mean well, but it's still pretty disturbing when you see these people walking around: you don't know whether to hide trembling behind a sofa or to shake their hands and congratulate them on their unobjectionable political views; and by the time you figure out which is the best course of action, it could be too late.

If you know the secret, however, it *is* possible to tell an actual neo-Nazi from a harmless left-leaning anarchist-hipster. You just have to examine them closely. They wear almost exactly the same uniform: the main difference is that the swastika on the hipster's T-shirt has this tiny red line running through it, as though to say "I love my swastika... NOT!"

Or let's take another example: at the local punk rock show, a person with the letters "KKK" emblazoned on a jacket or armband asks you if you can spare any change. But don't run from the room screaming till you take a closer look. If there's a minuscule "no" above the three frightening letters, you have a "politically engaged" hipster on your hands, and not an actual member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Occasionally, you run into the trickiest one of all, a T-shirt bearing an enormous swastika underneath some fearsome phrase in German. This looks bad, I know, but don't panic and run off to phone the Wiesenthal Center right away. Rather, get out your German-English/English-German dictionary and a good elementary German grammar, such as Schaum's Outline of German Grammar or Hammer's German Grammar and Usage. Then, from a safe distance, attempt a quick translation. If the shirt turns out to say something like "Achtung! I think this symbol is very, very, bad," you can relax. He may not smell all that great, but this person is essentially harmless; he just wants everyone who happens to be carrying a German-English/English-German dictionary to know that he is opposed to Nazism, Fascism, racism and other bad stuff like that.

Of course, as political statements go, coming out against Hitler and the KKK isn't exactly going out on a limb. But they are taking a stand, and trying to look cool at the same time, which is a pretty difficult thing to do. Plus, you've got to hand it to them for choosing to belong to a subculture whose fashion accessories and iconography, when properly decoded by a skilled interpreter with access to the appropriate research materials, reveal such a thoroughly sound, albeit uncontroversial, position on the question of whether Nazis are good or bad. (In case you're still confused, they think they're BAD.) I hear they also disapprove of cancer and birth defects, though I'm not totally sure.

Posted by Dr. Frank at February 7, 2004 05:10 PM | TrackBack
Comments

The bit about touring in the South reminds me of something that happened on the Big Black Bugs tour. This was my first tour ever, and I guess the second for MTX.

We were driving through one of the Southern states and got pulled over for something or other -- I think the vehicle codes of many of these states expressly forbid having California plates.

The two highway patrol troopers were straight out of Dukes of Hazzard -- right down to their hats. There was even one relatively smarter one (like Roscoe), who was nominally in charge, and one relatively goofier one (like Enos).

So they were giving us the typical "you boys ain't from around here, what're you doin' in these parts" routine. We told them that we were a rock band from California on tour. Upon hearing that, the Roscoe trooper got a nasty gleam in his eye -- I'm pretty sure at that point he was thinking fondly of the "squeal like a pig" scene in Deliverance.

Turns out that Roscoe's keen investigative instincts had led him to believe that he had caught us in a lie. A few days before, in a feeble attempt at irony, we had bought an "If it ain't country, it ain't music" bumper sticker at a truck stop, which Roscoe had noticed on the back of the tour van. Now Roscoe was sure he had us: "If y'all are a rock n' roll band from California," he asked in his best "now I gotcha" voice, "then what are y'all doin' with a country music sticker on your van?"

At that point, he decided that further questioning was in order. I guess because Jon Von was the oldest and also the registered owner of the van, Roscoe figured that Jon must be the leader of the band/criminal gang. So he took Jon Von back to his police car for one-on-one questioning.

Of course, we were all terrified at this point because there are few people in the world who are likely to make a worse impression on an already suspicious hillbilly highway patrolman than Jon Von, particularly in the close confines of a police car.

Unfortunately, I don't remember what happened next -- maybe Frank does. It must not have been anything too terrible, because I have no recollection of of chain gangs, sweat boxes, etc. So I suppose, dear reader, that this story ends kinda lamely. Sorry!

Posted by: Aaron at February 7, 2004 06:17 PM

Aaron -- I'm waiting for the movie. :-)

Posted by: Wes at February 8, 2004 04:03 PM

I'm starting an anti-pizza, -puppy dogs, -rainbows and -the Beatles club. I'll just have to make sure the shirts are clear, I guess.

I was about to try and defend folks in "The South" as you describe it, but I think a closer look at most of the bands coming out of California reveals we're the ones with the right attitude.

Posted by: Dave Bug at February 9, 2004 04:50 AM

i thought it was really weird but very intresting

Posted by: desi at May 6, 2005 05:17 AM