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Volume CXXXII, Number 14 |
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Weezer vs. wet sock
JAY KANG
COLUMNIST
Weezer: Pinkerton 100 stars!
Rivers Cuomo, tortured artist extraordinaire, claims that the biggest mistake of his life was writing and performing the songs for Weezer's second album Pinkerton. He claims to hate the cult that has arisen around the album and although he still reads the fan mail that still comes in by the bushel-usually penned by young male victims of heartbreak who claim that Pinkerton saved their lives-he says that the adulation that these letters contain causes him a lot of grief. He is sorry that he ever wrote such a self-indulgent album.
I am in the Pinkerton cult. For a period of three or four months, it was the only album I bothered listening to. I listened to the tracks in this order: track five: "Across the Sea," track seven: "El Scorcho," track one: "Tired of Sex," track three: "No other one," track eight: "Pink Triangle," track nine: "Falling for you," track two: "Getchoo," track four: "Why Bother," track six: "The Good Life," then track five again. I avoided track ten "Butterfly" because its sappy remorsefulness killed the point of the album. Sometimes you have to edit against the authorial intent, I guess.
The rest of the album, especially when listened to in the order I suggested, makes you so wonderfully angry that you grip your steering wheel with two fists, drive too fast and scream out lyrics like, "God damn, she's a lesbian, I thought I had found the one!" and "Why are you so far away from me! I need help and you're way across the sea!" Sometimes you start out all soft and go, "at ten I shaved my head and tried to be a monk…I thought the older women would like me if I did..." Then the drums come in and you go booshbooshboosh and get all choked up when you sing, "You see mom, I'm a good little boy…good little boy…"
Then you're driving twenty miles above the speed limit and still accelerating, "It's all your fault mama! It's all your fault!" Driving fast and Pinkerton: works every time to cure the mean reds.
I'm going to write my own letter to Rivers Cuomo. It will go like this:
Dear Rivers,
Thanks for Pinkerton. I am in the cult. There are three of us at my college. I think that you're pretty great. Don't you think, though, that you're being a bit of a tortured asshole when you say that this album is the biggest mistake you've ever made? And doesn't the fact that you hate it because it is self-indulgent and tortured make you more self-indulgent and tortured? It's like when you read Walden in high school and were like, "Yo, if Thoreau wants me to not listen to anyone and question all authority, then why should I listen to his stupid ass? HAHA!" Remember how stupid that kid was in class who kept saying that and how he's now in some stupid grad school somewhere, wowing his stupid professors? That's what you sound like these days.
Pinkerton is self-indulgent but so are all of your biggest fans. We are all bitter little boys that fell in love with your big guitars. Most of us are smart, but socially awkward. So are you. And most of us had a hard time getting over something, just like you did, and for whatever reason, your songs helped us get through it.
I imagine that all of your letters regarding Pinkerton read similarly to this one. It's because you achieved something rare in art with this album. Like J.D. Salinger did with The Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey, (two books that inspired their own cults) you invented a form of adolescent therapy for the kid that can never quite get over themselves. Salinger retreated to the hills of New Hampshire because he couldn't bear to see what he had created, but couldn't write in any other style. I predict that you'll make your own retreat soon, reports are that you already have begun to grow your hair in weird ways and act more tortured than is really necessary. I hope that you get over it and keep producing great music. Pinkerton-styled, not the Green Album or Maladriot. Both of those are terrible.
Anyway, thanks for everything,
Jay Kang
Today (a wet sock): zero stars
If I hadn't stepped in that puddle, today would have gotten more stars. But not only did I step in a puddle, I slipped on the ice underneath it, which got my pants all wet. I was pissed so I stood there for a while staring at my foot.
Then this old guy comes up and goes, "What are you thinking about?" I said, "My wet foot." He said, "Oh, I thought that you were contemplating some great universal truths," to which I said, "No. I was trying to decide whether or not to take my sock and shoe off and hop to the Union."
There was an existential pause, so I continued, "I suppose the alternative would be to walk around with a wet sock till the bottom of my feet feel like jello and the bottoms look like corrugated sheet metal that's been painted the color of my skin," He said, "Carry on," so I did. Which brought me to the Union hopping on one foot all the way up to the bookstore where the only socks they had were these f-ed up booties with smiling Polar Bears on them.
While I was standing in line, I remembered this scene from Adaptation which sucked and involved Meryl Streep being on some porn site and I wondered if those were her real jubbies. Which after some research, I found out they weren't.
That only worsened my day, which doesn't make much sense because I don't even think that Meryl Streep is hot anymore. Then I went to the bathroom and as I was peeing, I started to think about that old guy asking me about universal truths. I heard some water hitting the ground and a wet warmth on my leg and realized that my pee had been splattering off the edge of the urinal and all over my leg.
I tried washing it out with water and soap but that only made it look worse. So I put my leg underneath those hot air dryers and this dude came in and shook his head at me. I think he thought I was trying to get off.
What a crap day. But it's only half over, so hope springs eternal. Maybe I will get home and Weezer will be playing a concert in my living room.
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