Tynan's Anger

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In a perfect world, Friday would be the day we stop worrying, shut off our brains, and seek the rest and relaxation we sorely need. Unfortunately, in today's world, we're using too busy getting drunk, trying to get laid, and worrying about if our jobs will be there on Monday. To help purge the bad thoughts,I will conclude every Friday on this blog with a story that will hopefully help to put things in perspective, and shut off the delta brain waves without the need for chemical enhancement, a moment Zen you won't get on The Daily Show.

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While my inaugural Maroon Voices blog is now defunct, a clip I once posted from Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael Azzerrad on the Butthole Surfers still stands out:

The night of the [Butthole Surfers] appearance at the huge Pandora's Box festival in the Netherlands, [bassist Mark] Kramer went to fetch [singer Gibby] Haynes for a sound check. "It is firstly most important to state that, on this night, Gibby had eaten an entire handful of four-way acid tabs and drank an entire bottle of Jim Beam before the sound check had even begun," Kramer notes.

[Guitarist Paul] Leary was furious at Haynes for getting wasted for such an important show. "Fuck that stupid-ass motherfucker," he snarled to Kramer. "I hate this fucking band. I swear to fucking Christ on a stick, I hate this fucking band more than I hate myself. And that's a lot. I don't even care if we ever play again. If you can't find him, fuck it. FUCK IT!!!!" With that, he began smashing a couple of guitars with his bare fists.

The festival featured several stages, and Kramer eventually found Haynes at a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds show. As Kramer tells it, Haynes was completely naked, repeatedly fighting his way onto the stage and charging at Cave as hulking security guards punched and kicked him off the ten-foot-high stage and back into the audience, where he would remain for a few seconds before trying to claw his way back onstage again. Finally, guitarist Blixa Bargeld came forward and kicked Haynes in the groin with a pointed German boot. This time Haynes did not get up.

Kramer pushed his way through the crowd to come to the aid of his bandmate, only to find him lying unconscious. "I bend over to see if he is still alive, but he seems not to be breathing," Kramer says. "I poke him in the shoulder. Suddenly, like a volcano, he bursts to life and swirls his fists in every direction, clipping me but good, along with a few innocent girls, and drawing the ire of their boyfriends and the enraged security guards, who are now motivated to leave Mr. Cave to his own devices, descend the stage, and join the boyfriends in administring a thorough and none-too-subtle beating upon Gibby's face, head and shoulders, until he is once again unconscious on the floor."

Or so it seemed. Actually, Haynes was only pretending he'd been knocked out, and as the hired thugs walked away, he rose to his feet and began screaming at them, "DUTCH FAGGOTS!!! GODDAMN FUCKING DUTCH FAGGOTS!!!! A WHOLE FUCKING COUNTRY FILLED WITH NOTHING BUT FUCKING TURD BURGLING FAGGOTS!!!! I FUCK YOUR ASS IN HEAVEN AND HELL!!!! FUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOU!!"

"The ensuing chase and capture was the stuff dreams are made of," Kramer says. "Stark naked like the day he was born, beaten, bruised, bloody, and tripping, this icon of modern music ran like Jesse Owens through the entire complex, down the halls, up the stairs, grabbing beer bottles from people's hands as he went and throwing them down on the concertgoers below. A hail of beer cans, bottles, and miscellaneous garbage rained down upon the Dutch persons as I finally caught up with Gibby just as a throng of the biggest security guards I had ever seen caught up with him, too.

"At this time there were perhaps twenty hands upon him, holding him down, and although Gibby is completely crazy, he is not stupid. 'I'M SORRY!!!! I'M FUCKING SORRY!!!! PLEASE DON'T BEAT ME ANYMORE! I HAVE A BRAIN TUMOR!!! I CAN'T HELP THE WAY I AM!!!! PLEASE DON'T HIT ME AGAIN!!! IT'S AGAINST MY RELIGION!!!!'"

Haynes then made a successful run for the dressing room and slammed the door behind him. Kramer could hear Leary and Haynes screaming at each other inside, and when he finally worked up the courage to open the door, he found the two of them smashing guitars, bottle and chairs in what Kramer calls "the most potent example of bad behavior I have ever seen. To this day, more than fifteen years later, I have no more vivid memory of the effect a life in music can have on a human being."

Moments later a man entered the dressing room and asked if he could borrow a guitar. "BORROW A GUITAR??!!! WELL, WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU???!!! Haynes screamed, eyes flashing in delerious anticpation of forthcoming violence. But the man was totally unfazed.

"I'm Alex Chilton," the man answered calmly.

Haynes was flabbergasted. After a long pause, he methodically opened the remaining guitar cases one by one and guestured at them as if to say, "Take anything you want."

Just before they went onstage, Haynes chugged an entire bottle of red wine; moments into the set he dived straight into the horrified crowd, which parted like the Red Sea. Haynes knocked himself unconscious on the floor, to warm applause from the theater's security team. "I look down at Gibby," recalls Kramer. "He tires to move, but the collapses as vomit begins pouring from his mouth."

After the gig Haynes was irate about having been unconscious for most of the show and insisted on getting paid within five minutes or he'd be "taking it out on your Dutch testicles!" Haynes snatched up the fistfull of guilders and stuffed them in a pair of pants in his guitar case, but almost immediately forgot that he had been paid and went on yet another rampage, streaking naked through the fesival complex and screaming that he'd been ripped off.

"FUCKING DUTCH FAGGOTS!!! A WHOLE FUCKING COUNTRY OF COCK-SUCKING QUEENS!!!! YOU FUCKING BEAT ME UP AND THEN YOU RIP US OFF!!! WHICH ONE OF YOU FAGGOTS STOLE OUR MONEY??!!!! FUCKING DUTCH FAGGOTS!!!!"

Yet another chase scene ensued, and yet another pack of Dutch goons wrestled Haynes to the ground, and yet again he profusely apologized. "After which he is released once again," Kramer says, "and once again dashes through the halls screaming obscenities while grabbing beer bottles from people's hands as he runs and hurling them against the brick wall."

"Those fuckin' Dutch," Leary explains, "they kind of get you pissed off after a while, man."

"We thought we had just ruined our careers by botching this show," [drummer] Jeffrey 'King' Coffey says. "Of course, the Dutch loved it -- 'The mayhem it is beautiful, it is wonderful, every song erupted into chaos!'" The next day the local paper ran an article about how the Butthole Surfers were the sensation of the festival. "So of course, every time when we came back after that and just played music, people would be horribly disappointed," says Coffey. "'[In Dutch accent] How come you do not beat up people?'"

[Maroon Voices via Poor Mojo]

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Labels: brain detox, Butthole Surfers, drugs, gibby haynes, insantity, netherlands, Nick Cave, paul leary, pigfuckers, rock 'n' roll

Back in March, I posted on the effect known as "the Whammy"—that utter loss of words and coherency you get when you meet someone who you deeply admire. At the time, I noted that "If I am going to make it as a journalist, I have to get over the whammy" and doubted if I ever would. Now, 7 months later, I can report that if I'm not completely over the Whammy, I've at least made enough progress where I can overcome it to an acceptable level.

In the past two days, I have talked to two people I deeply admire who have a significant influence on my recent life in terms of what I do and how I do it. When I returned to New York after graduation, I was hesitant to pursue theater criticism actively, and needed some motivation and direction. Then I saw Mike Daisey's How Theater Failed America, which was all the inspiration I needed to make my decision. Earlier this night, after attending a press preview of Daisey's new show, If You See Something, Say Something, I made a point to introduce myself to him, after corresponding with him briefly on the internet previously.

Yesterday, I spent 20 minutes on the phone with Jim DeRogatis. Between his biography of Lester Bangs Let it Blurt, his definitive 90s alternative rock collection Milk It!, and his continuing vital work at the Chicago Sun-Times, DeRogatis has been one of my prime spiritual inspirations in music criticism ever since I began seriously pursuing the path. We talked about Lester Bangs, Pitchfork, and the spirit of rock criticism, and I not only found him to be as personable in conversation as in writing, but with views that corresponded so perfectly with my own.

I still had a bit of the whammy in both cases. I was still somewhat awkward, with more ideas in mind than I knew how to articulate, and in both cases a little nervous to present myself. But in both cases I initiated the conversation, and in both cases I was glad I did afterwards. Most importantly, however, in each case I was myself, and not afraid to be that. I didn't worry about being some pipsqueak fan/wannabe, nor was I in awe of this person's imagined aura. This is significant progress over even a few months ago, when I must have been the first "journalist" ever to weird out Gibby freaking Haynes out of my awkwardness. There are a handful of musicians, actors, and other celebs who due to previous interviews or interactions I would be too ashamed to show my face to. But they're becoming fewer and farther in between. And that's progress on the Whammy front.

Labels: gibby haynes, jim derogatis, mike daisey, neurosis, self-absorption, the whammy