A Distant Second in Uselessness: Alicia Keys

Oh my stars and garters here's some worthless tripe right here. Y'know goddamn well why the odd smart person likes Alicia Keys; because she isn't utterly abominable. That's a great reason to like something. That's comparable to liking rectal polyps 'cause they haven't gone Big C yet, y'know? Yummy polyps. Like diggin' gettin' a flesh wound instead of a gutshot 'cause it probably won't get gangrenous. Nice, clean, suturable wound. So if Jay Z and Maria Kerry and Fitty-Cen' and all those talentless idiot c*nts are metastasizing poop culture toomers, then the talented Ms. Keys (Senorita Llaves as they call her on the other side of the Mississippi in that other country now) is more a benign thing, eh?

Great. That's great. That's a good reason to like stuff.

I read a review of Ms. K in some drivelrag that called her a virtuoso because she can play a G chord on th' piano. Because she can actually play an instrument. OOOOOOHHH. That's so OL' SCHOOL, YO. You fuckers. You stomach acids. You papercuts. You dillholes. Snap out of it before it's too late. It's you god damn kids, is what it is. Get some god damn drugs and wake up, crissake. You little pansies. You little archconservatives. The Things You Think Are Precious I Can't Understand. Your idols are cardboard cutouts and The Man has you convinced that they don't s-u-c-k.

If The Man could clear another buck-fitty by saying they DID suck, then at least the game would be played in th' o-o-o-o-pen. Glornt. I'm so frostrated I'm stittering. That is the nature of our delicious constuper cultcher. Like how they unleashed those deadly cellphones on us when the technology was still a decade away from WORKING worth a god damn. "Yeah, hi....grrrlaldasfadf...can you hear....zzzzzzzzzzzzzffffffffffoooooooodlf...can you hear me....fffdfadsoerhghg....boy, these cell phones are COOL....zzzzzzzzzzxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxlllllllllldfjfafaf;lsdfk;...........that just cost me ten bucks....sweet...I'm a good consumer now...now I am of Value to the System..brrzz..."

yeah, yeah. I know I sound like Wilfred Brimley as the Cantankerous Oldster. I don't fuckin' care. Wilfred liked Sinatra. I like The Sex Pistols. There's a difference. Wilfred thinks MY generation sucks because we all got our heads bad on Special K and MDA, valuable learning tools as anyone will tell you. I think the NEXT generation sucks because they seem averse to breaking ANYTHING or wrapping their heads around ANY manly chemical that might give 'em an insight or two beyond devoting their lives to being good li'l CONSUMERS like their DARE officer (who is on WalMart's payroll) tells them to.

See, y'all know I'm still coming to terms with the profound injustice of me never being the next John Lennon deserve it as I may. This is salt in the wound, though. I mean, I still get to draw breath and entertain people and record brilliant songs that the little lady and my one remaining (dork) friend like. So that's fine.

But when I have to go through it in a world that calls people visionaries because they can actually stumble through a I-IV-V with their tongue out and the sweat of intense concentration beading their brow I could just cover the surface of this planet in a fine sheen of peptic acid. heck, I wrote a song last week that had a MINOR 7 b5 IN IT!!! OHHHHH!!!! That must make me a fucking AVATAR. Crippledy-fuck, I just spent 4 hours on a stage last night with a bass in my hands and a mic in my mouth and a Big Gulp o' Tequillia at my side and the toothless town of Palmer Mass will ne'er be the same. And I did it without a hot ass (well, it's okay) and NOT CORNROW ONE. Did it with a mic, a 53 year old guitarist who fucking BLAZES and a drummer who RIPS. Sure, lotsa sampling there, Jeebuz knows. And the sawbuck I cleared under the table didn't aid ANY FASCIST WAR EFFORT and didn't contribute a penny to no cocksuckin' (I didn't mean that) "record" label dipsqueek's vacation amongst naked Thai children and their pliant, prehensile puckeroos. And the three hours of sleep I got before I had to go move alternators was the sleep of the just. THE JUST. Just like THE BEEPLES useta do in HAMBURGER.

And I got to say, "does anybody remember laughter?" and one person actually got it.

And you know what? Rekkin I'll go do it again tonight. On the white folk's chitlin' circuit. And if there's a Wurlitzer on stage, well, somebody will actually PLAY the fucking thing instead of leaning over it in funny clothes while a computer spits out regurgitated chunks of OLD STOLEN MUSIC by GOOD black people who are BURIED IN PAUPER'S GRAVES MOTHERPHUCKSTER. Somebody with BLOOD in their veins instead of CREE-STAHL will rip it up on tha Wurli. Bing, bam, boom. Tell me whad ah say...tell me whad ah say...folks'll be rockin' and drinkin' and fightin' and meeting their future ex- wifes and -husbands. And taking them home for a first-name-basis headboard bustin' Gruntathon, y'know? Like MEN and WOMEN do. Like goddamn GROWNUPS with HAIR on their bodies do. And the women'll sport real live patches like they used to in good old 70's porno, instead of this creepy pretend-I'm-eleven-and-you're-my-teacher shaved shit that is so spooky and wrong and ghastly and stubbly.

Alicia- I challenge you to a ROCK-OFF. We each get a half-hour with a microphone, a rubber band and a copy of the 1977 Farmer' Almanac in front of 6 dozen mullet-farmers at the Seven-O's in Sunderland. Let's see who can ROCK OUT WITH THEIR COCK OUT. Let's see who can do it without lights and mirrors and cornholerows and can simply entertain like Louis Armstrong or Billie Holiday or Edith Piaf. Let's see who can BRING IT YO. BRING IT YO. I learnded that on MTV. BRING IT YO.

Calling Alicia Keys virtuosic because she pretends to play a Wurlitzer in her video when they should really just cut the bull and show her ass from all angles like people really want (i don't exterclude meself): The Second Most Useless Thing In The World Right Now.

The solution that I promised: shoot her. Put her down and give ME a million dollar recording budget, a national release and some hair. I'll show 'em.

"Pliant prehensile puckeroos"!!!!!! God damn, can I write!! YYYEEE HAAA. It's alliterative, it's fuckin' disgusting, disquieting, and profoundly tactile!

Oh, oh, oh. That's funny. Oh, oh, oh. My underwear is burning. Now I DO have a hot ass. Ow! Ha ha ha ha!! Ow!!! Somebody bring me some water! Oh wait, that's stupid-

I can just piss myself.

See? Solution Upon Solution. The Lightfoot Way.

Fuck, I gotta get on a ballot somewheres. School board maybe. First ruling- all the DARE pussies get pilloried.


 

The Most Useless Thing In The World Right Now

Simply, electing Jerry Springer to be the latest Air America Morning Pundit. Fucking Christ, no wonder the Democratic Party is a retro joke. These fucking decisions, man. Who's making them? Republicans, clearly.

This walking punchline makes Rush look like Bertrand Fucking Russell. What are these people thinking? I mean, we all know Air America is an impotent whinge-fest created to sell anti-W t-shirts, but at least when they had the smart lesbo and Liz Winstead in the morning they had live music on Fridays.

We're supposed to listen to this idiot yap about America's decline? Boy, that somewhat resembles listening to David Duke bitch about the evils of racism. Who on this good green globe is a bigger idiot than Jerry Springer? A bigger tosspot? A bigger Part Of The Problem? A bigger hypocrite? No one is coming to me. No one. And that includes a lot of serious idiot morons. This is what we deserve? We lefties have a vacuum of leadership comparable only to th' Arab world, apparently.

This guy is an idiot. Everybody knows that! It's a conspiracy! The emperor has no clothes? THE EMPEROR HAS NO FUCKING SKIN, JACK. Here's the only lesson to be learned from listening to this idiot: don't bitch unless you have yer own solution. I promise not to bitch unless I can come up with something. It doesn't have to be that good, but it does have to be. Remind me if I don't do this. From now on. Starting now.

Jerry Springer as Air America's new morning complaint jock. The Most Useless Thing In The World Right Now. And probably for a long while.

Until Microsoft Moves Us Forward again, that is.

Oh, the inhumanity. It's like when Bon Jovi came out and I couldn't figure out who the millions who actually bought their beyond-shite records were and then I moved to Southern California. Where people didn't even realize that The Scorpions were a wonderfully well-executed joke.

People. Idiots, all. My headache is beyond the reach of any analgesic known to man.

The solution that I promised: shoot him. Shoot him good 'n' dead. Shoot him, skin him, wear him. It's my new mantra. SHSHWH. Think of all that would solve. The multitiered approach to problem-solving. Shooting him reduces noise pollution, skinning him eases frustrations, and wearing him is just plain planet-friendly.

I live to problem-solve. Clearly. SHSHWH. Next I'll tackle illegal immigration. Actually, I'll do that now. 'Cause it's so brainlessly easy.

Just wait ten or twenty years. Pablo ain't going to WANT to creep into Arizona.

THE TRAFFIC'LL BE MOVING THE OTHER FUCKIN' WAY, WON'T IT??????????????

Glorps. I'm going to smoke some carpet now.

 

Back to Th' Heep Real Quick-

Look at the li'l fella all the way on the left. Can you imagine how much shit he must have taken from his blow-addled, fringe 'n' fleece sportin' bandmates? Oy vey. I bet he got his ass kicked multiple times by the mulletmeister on the right. Whatta tosspot that fey dribbler is.

That's gotta be one of my favorite rock 'n' roll modifiers. I first heard "fey dribbler" used by Mal Thursday of The Malarians to describe, oh, probably Bowie.

YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE

Funniest comment of the month has been won by EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH for conjecturing that one might find a "pile of flake the size of a sleeping chihuahua" in Black Oak Arkansas' dressing room. GAHHHH HAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!! Jim Dandy is chortling in his rocking chair at the Sylacauga Retirement Home For Second String Southern Rockers (The SRHFSSSR). And dreaming of his booger sugar 'n' groupie glory days.

Your Lightfootie (registered trademark) is in th' mail and your prize may be reclaimed here.

mad props yo.

You Know Me By Now

Try to imagine what this does to my psyche as I toil in piss-stained bars night after night.

Eh?

Were I Dracula no garlic could be so fetid, no sunlight more an affront, no cross more an insult.

Terrorists, Do Your Duty already. Allahu Akhbar, motherfuckers.


 

I'm finally starting to understand...

...what happened to me in 1979 and what it means.

Oh, Baby J., I couldn't even deal with my confession this week until now.

Aw, criminy, Baby Poopus.

I couldn't even face doing my Mea Culpa this Sunday. It's taken me this long to even work up the stones to do it now. Why? Well, nothing new, really. It's just that I'm such a moron that it hurts me to confront it. Ouch, ouch, ouch. The way I go about my life away from music is just painful. It does my self-esteem no good to talk about it or to confront it in any way. Ouch, ouch. I'm like the Three Stooges without the punchline. I'm like Inspector Clouseau but I never get my man and I'm not cute. Sometimes the only way I can get to sleep at night is by convincing myself that I'm a saboteur. I'm here to fuck everything up to lash out at the man. Yeah, that's what it is. That's what it is.

The property damage, expense and general mayhem that I incur is biblical. I'm surprised it doesn't make the paper.

and yet, when I pick up an instrument or sit at a mixing desk, it's like the skies open and a choir from On High sings a massive G major chord with an added ninth that slowly and majestically sweeps through a B minor like the Saint Matthew Passion to resolve on a D major. It's like the last time I did LSD (I was dosed by some bastard at a beer garden in San Diego swear to god) and I kept cold booting and cold booting my Mac over and over just to hear the pretty music. Priiiiinnngggg...priiinnnggg....

why did you do this to me, Poopus? Why did you give me the tools to create the sublime and then array the universe against me that I should be forced to dwell in the ridiculous? I'm like the guy in Confederacy Of Dunces but with self-awareness and it hurts, Baby P. It hurts a lot.

I've been fired from more jobs than most people ever hold, Creepus. I've quit jobs just because I felt sorry for my superiors who couldn't work up the gumption.

Picture Paul McCartney trying to run a Novell network. Picture Keith Richards trying to ship and receive. Picture Elton John trying to sell car parts. Why, baby creepus, why? Why you do this to me? Why you do this to me, Dimi?

I just want to please. I just want things to go smoothly. I don't lack enthusiasm. Maybe that's the problem. A surfeit of enthusiasm. But I stumble and break and crash and fail and fuck up. I'm a musician, Baby C. I can't do this stuff, Baby C. Why can't I just be what you made me to be, huh? I can live on 15 a year, Baby Fuckus. It's not the money. 22-23 would do me, y'know? I don't need much. I just need to have a little pride. I just would like for once to be known as a person of skill and competence instead of a blithering Einstein who couldn't get a physics gig and had to park cars instead.

Ow, ow, ow. It hurts like the clap and the years stretch ahead in an unbroken line of idiocy. I have stood here before inside the pouring rain, with the world turning circles running 'round my brain. I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign; but it's my destiny to be the king of pain.

What am I going to do, Baby Poopus? What's a Lightfoot to do? Is this what Joan of Arc felt like when the voices stopped? but she only had to go on for a li'l while until Cochon toasted her like a marshmallow. I have years and years unabated with no voices. Best case th' Angel o' Death comes swiftly, saving me from years of regret (not sweet) and those who have shortlived faith in me thousands of dollars in property destruction.

I won't stop trying to be a good musician, Creepster. But th' thing is, when I read yer good book it's full of crap like this; here's your brain but don't think with it, here's your dink but don't fuck with it; here's your mouth but don't speak with it.

I guess I'll just soldier on, Fuckster. You mean little rotter. You rapscallion. You bad song. You reality show. You PT Cruiser. You Citronetta. I've visualized and visualized but I ain't realized. I see and I see but I don't be.

Please, Jeebus. Please help me stop breaking everything and bring instead the sublime that is within me to the table. You mean little cock ornament.

Oh- and I take back everything I said this week. Of course. This included.

Love ya and amen,

bobby lightfoot.


P.S. This was really funny. Especially the fucking Police lyric. I'm laughing through the tears and snot. glub blug glub. Hee hee. King of Pain indeed. Earl of Grey is more like it. Marquis de Bad. Duke of Cornhole.

Sheriff of Nothingham (when I do my Rutles of XTC, this will be their comeback single).

Mayor of Pimpleton. Duke of Hurl.

COTTON IS NOT THE FABRIC OF MY MOTHERFUCKING LIFE YOU DICKHEADS

Just So I Can Feel A Little Better About Music in 2005:

 

 

 

 

Love Means Never Having To Wear A Sari.

 

I always suspected I would wind up a tragic figure...

...I just thought this would be tempered with renown.

We Could Not Fucking Believe It.

Did you ever hear of The Lyres? This was a Boston group that grewout of the ashes of the great late 70's punk rock band DMZ. The were on Ace of Hearts and they were pretty happening for 3-4 years in the mid-to-late 80's. Sorta garagey, sorta Kinks, sorta Animals. Vox organ, syncopated back beats, all that.
So the front guy Mono Man (real name Jeff Connolly) got his name from being a huge 60's punk record collector in college. When he was out of smoke he used to try to trade old records for weed, his selling point being, "it's mono, man."

What a character. Not necessarily the nicest guy but that was sort of his charm. These guys were more colorful than your average band. I think my band when I was a greenie, The Malarians, was maybe even more colorful.

We opened for The Lyres once in Montreal at Les Founfouns Electriques which, wonderfully enough, means The Electric Buttocks. I was twenty and I gave a ridiculous interview before our show, intimating that our entire band was on heroin. I was always trying to figure out how to get copy space back then, before I learned that you do that by giving a publication money in the form of buying ad space. Simple.

it's all like that. Anyone who has tried to sell a record or two knows. It all cash. And it all flows downhill....ultimately....to radio. Either by more ad time purchased or plain old graft and payola. Maybe that changes now. But it'll always flow downhill somewhere.

So, we were opening for The Lyres at Pearl Street in Northampton when I was twenty or twenty-one, and there was the usual alcohol and drama with them. The guitarist actually whipped it out at one point and pissed off the side of the stage. We could not fucking believe it.

After the show the manager of the club was understandably livid and threatened to withold the guy's money.

So Johnny Bernardo, the drummer, asks if he can have the guitarist's share if he mops up the piss. We could not fucking believe it.

I remember opening for The Lyres at TT the Bear's in Cambridge on New Year's of 1987 and Mono guy was wearing this cat mask that covered the top of his face. He was so cocked on Sea Breezes that he was staggering and falling off the stage, and he was actually drooling all over his chin he was so plastered. So he's wearing this mask and drooling and falling over his Vox. Some people just seem to understand that this is Entertainment, you know? If Mono Man thought you'd wanted to see a bunch of guys who look like they're on their way to bowling night, then he'd tell you to go to the fucking bowling alley.

We could not fucking believe it.

Johnny went on to form The Upper Crust, for god's sake. These are people of import.