I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: INSANE CLOWN POSSE-“Bang! Pow! Boom!” (2009).

Since I have posted about Phish already, it seemed like time to listen to an ICP song.  I admit that when their first album came out, they seemed goofy enough to check out their album.  I love a cartoony band that is going to “ruin America.”  But I had heard that their music was just too awful to enjoy ironically, so I never bothered with them (if I had been a few years younger, I probably would have embraced them wholly).  In the book below, Rabin says that their newer stuff is not only a ton better than their early stuff (which he admits is raw and pretty terrible) he says that it is quite poppy.

So I listened to a few of the songs that he mentions (and there are some funny lines), but I decided to focus on this one which Rabin describes as “a groovy throwback number that finds ecstasy in a bleak moral reckoning…finding the joy in the macabre and the celebration in the gothic.  Also, it’s catchy as fuck.”

That’s a highfalutin way of saying that they sing about blowing shit up.  Lyrically the song seems to be about ICP talking to their fans (in the harshest terms possible, which I guess is affection: “Cuz you’re the evilest pedophiles, rapists and abusers/All together we’ve got fifty thousand of you losers”).  It’s an insider tract and if you don’t like it or get it, well, you’re not supposed to.

But aside from the lyrics about rapists and all the cursing, this song could easily be a big hit.  It is, yes, catchy as fuck.

But I won’t be listening to more from them.

[READ: January 2, 2013] You Don’t Know Me But You Don’t Like Me

Every year my brother-in-law gets me cool and unusual books, most of which I’ve never heard of.  This year, he got me this book which I’d never heard of.  I was confused by the title (which is confusing).  The author’s name sounded familiar, but I wasn’t sure—until I saw the A.V. Club connection.  So, at first I thought this was going to be about going to interesting shows or basically having something to do with the A.V. Club.  But, as the subtitle says, this book is exclusively about Rabin’s travels following Phish for a summer and also going to some ICP Gatherings of the Juggalos.

The theme of the book is how most people have never heard the music of either band, but they have formed opinions not only of the bands, but their followers.  Rabin points out plenty of exceptions to the stereotypes, but you won’t be leaving this book thinking much more of the preexisting stereotypes than you already do.  Sure, some Phish heads are doctors, and some Juggalos are employable, but the majority are (despite his best efforts) what you think they are.  But one of the main messages that he seems to promote in the book is that each of these groups have created tribes around them.  And those who aren’t part of the tribe may scoff, but they secretly wish they could be having as much fun as the members of the tribes.  And that may in fact be true.

I’ve enjoyed Phish’s music for years, although I’ve never seen them live.  And as for ICP, I didn’t even realize they were still around—although that Workaholics episode should have clued me in.  Naturally these two bands could not be more polar opposite in terms of music and fanbase (although Rabin did encounter some crossover). So he sets out to show how he can enjoy both groups.

Rabin went to Phish shows because his then girlfriend, whom he calls Cadence, was big into Phish when she was younger.  She wasn’t that into them anymore, but he wanted to re-live her youth (or some crazy thing), so they decided to go see a few shows together.  He really got into it (and the drugs) and decided the following year that he would follow them all summer.

The two of them also when to a Gathering of the Juggalos and had a pretty good time, so they decided to go not only to the ICP Halloween extravaganza but to go to the whole multiday Gathering the following year.

Nothing too much surprised me about the Phish shows—I have heard about the drugs and the atmosphere in “The Lot”, but I have to say that his descriptions of it really turned me off.  I imagined a kind of hippie green space where people smoked pot and played hacky sack.  But Rabin gravitated to a far more sinister scene.  Although he maintained that most people were super nice and friendly (even if none of them would remember your name in 20 minutes) there just seems to be a need to get so blotto that you couldn’t remember anything at all.  He says the drugs made the show even better, although as he reported Trey Anastasio is now clean after getting arrested, so that’s just weird.  I’ll just say that I’m a prude when it comes to drugs and feel like it would be a waste to go to a show and not remember it.

The thing that I find very confusing is that he claims to have gone on the summer long Phish tour because of Cadence, even though she didn’t go with him.  Rabin is later diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but still, what the hell?  He doesn’t call her for days at a time even though he says he loves her.  It’s just weird.  And she planned to leave him, but i don’t see why she stayed.

I did enjoy some of the background information about the Phish guys–I actually never knew anything about them personally.

So that leaves ICP.  I knew very little about the Juggalos and their shows and I find the whole thing fascinating.  I had no idea that ICP had a “plan” and that each of their discs was part of a series of “cards” based on some dream that Violent J had.  Or that Violent J had a master plan (even though he dropped out of 9^th grade).  I enjoyed the interviews with Violent J and Fox news anchors who were all up in arms (when are they not) because ICP fans are terrorists or gang members or whatever other nonsense people spew at musicians.  And I was genuinely interested in Violent J’s history–his wrestling connection, his love of theatrics and the whole dream of his plan (even if it didn’t really bear close scrutiny).

Rabin says that each of their albums have gotten steadily better (he even likes the more recent ones), but that the music is basically beside the point now, It’s more about the scene.  And what a scene.  More drugs (there’s a bridge of drugs where you can buy anything–there’s a funny comment about someone “trying to rip off a Juggalo”), all manner of nudity (as in people walking around with nothing on–there’s a comment about knowing someones vaginal piercings a little too well), some violence (someone usually dies each year), and a lot of famous names.  I expected the first three from casual knowledge (and Workaholics), but I had no idea that famous people performed at their festivals.

Some random people who have performed at The Gathering of the Juggalos: comedians Hanniball Buress (!!—and he opened for Ron Jeremy!!!  As in Ron Jeremy headlined the comedy tent over Hannibal Buress) and Brian Posehn (who gets the best quip: “Dude. I’m a grown-ass man.  I’m not going to fucking do mushrooms with you” (231); Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer (which is pretty funny), and Ice Cube.  Ice Cube!  Wow.  Unsurprising acts include Charlie Sheen as host, Ron Jeremy as host, Tila Tequila (remember her?  She got booed off) and Gallagher, who is apparently very very bitter now.

Rabin relates to the fans of ICP because he, like them, grew up in a broken home.  And he understands how ICP is all about family.  (“Family” is a big chant for the Juggalos, but then again, so is “show us your tits”).  But reading this book is all about spectacle.  And no matter how Rabin tries, he can’t male the fans of these groups look like much more than people looking to get wasted (either for a weekend or as a way of life).

So here’s the thing.  I had respected Rabin (without knowing who he was) because of his work at the A.V. Club–an entertainment source I really respect.  But it turns out that during his tenure there, he was actually following Phish, spending all of his money, racking up incredible bills, getting wasted off his ass and behaving reprehensibly.  Somehow during this time he also co-wrote the Weird Al Yankovic coffee table book, which I have not read, but which I fear will now be tainted. And yet through all of this he came out fine, with a still kick ass job.

Throughout the book he talks about how hard it was going to be to write this book.  And I have to say that, inexplicably, it does seem to have been hard.  He repeats himself half a dozen times (telling the names of Phish songs multiple times as if he hadn’t mentioned it before, emphasizing the Talking Heads twice), talking over and over about the drugs he bought and who took them and what they did for him.  He even acknowledges it at some point, unironically:

Here’s the thing about drug stories.  They don’t make sense and they’re not interesting to anybody except the people involved.  (Yes I realize how deeply that statement incriminates me and this entire book) (183).

So yes, he is aware, but that doesn’t stop him or his editor from pushing out a dozen or so of these drug induced tales.  I mean one or two would have been fine, but geez, he never stops about how the Molly made the solos so much better, blah blah blah.  Perhaps since both of his trips were extended, he really wanted to let us feel what it was like to be stuck in this endless hell for so long.

In the end, no amount of justification can make him seem any better than a guy who is really fucking lucky that his destructive lifestyle didn’t destroy his relationship and his job (and I realize now that I am an old man, since that is the message I took from the book–but it’s not like his job was a rock star–Marilyn Manson can act the same way but to me he gets a pass because that’s his job.  Rabin actually had a proper job at the time).  And while he may seem to feel badly about some of what he did, he doesn’t feel that badly about it.

Her’s what’s really confusing to me. In the acknowledgments, he thanks “Danya, the love of my life.”  So why is the whole book about “Cadence.”  If it’s supposed to be true, why did he change the love of his life’s name and then include her real name in the end?  I find that weird, and it makes me call into question a lot more of the book.  When looking on Wikipedia (granted not the most reliable source), it made it seem like he conflated some of the acts at the Gathering of the Juggalos (and there’s a typo where he talks about going to Phish’s Super Ball X, but every other reference is to Super Ball IX–not a major problem, but a major lack of editorship).  So, I’m not sure exactly how much to believe.  And his writing style is very lazy–way too much use of the word “fuck” for emphasis especially in describing the intensity of his trips, man.  Also, the fact that he disses New Jersey out of hand is utterly uncalled for.

I’ll never read the A.V. Club the same way again.