War Dreams: Greasetruck Style

When Harold Ramis and Bill Murray visit the Army recruiter in Stripes, the recruiter asks if they are homosexuals. Harold Ramis replies, "No, but we're willing to learn." I like his attitude. It's true that John and Russel didn't really have a clue about the Army, but at least they were willing to give it a try. Occasionally, I feel the same way (not about trying out homosexuality, but about joining the military).



We've been at war for nearly the last decade, and although I don't agree with the reasons we are over in Afghanistan and Iraq, I do feel like I'm less a man because I haven't served. I have missed out on the ultimate experience: warfare. I've never disassembled an M-16 or driven a tank or shot a flamethrower. I've lived in the Middle East, but instead of rooting out terrorist cells and defusing IED's, I was eating cheap falafel and teaching Romeo and Juliet.

 Hopefully, I will always lack this ultimate experience, because though I'm not as old as the narrator of this new Greasetruck song, I am close. It is too late for me, unless the war comes to our soil, and if that happens, I'm definitely screwed. I don't own any guns, and while-- unlike the narrator-- I have shot a gun, it was twenty years ago. G:TB founder Rob was with me, and we were shooting skeet, and we were not very accurate (perhaps Rob can verify, but I vaguely remember someone shooting a bunch of drying towels full of buck-shot holes . . . I'm not sure who it was).

I've got no survival skills to speak of, because instead of learning manly things like how to fix machinery and live off the land and use automatic weapons, I followed the advice of John Cougar Mellencamp and forgot "all about that macho shit and learned how to play guitar." If you listen closely, you'll hear me play an extremely macho solo for the entire length of this song. The style is classic Greasetruck: with pitch-shifting in both directions, and not one but two monologues.

War Dreams by Greasetruck


I dream of going to war.
I dream of going to war.
Bivouac on a foreign shore.
Tell a tale the girls can’t ignore (and they usually ignore me).

I want to drop some bombs (I never dropped a bomb).
I want to shoot someone (I never shot no one).

I’m only half a man-- just like John Wayne and Frank Sinatra.

I dream of going to war.
I dream of going to war.
Pull the pin, hit the floor.
But I just turned forty four. (I spend a lot of time indoors)

I want to be a man (in Afghanistan).
I want to claim some land (I lack in land).

I want to drive a tank through the desert sand.
I want my meals from a can.

I dream of going to war.
Do my tour, get me some.
I dream of going to war.
But I never shot a gun.
(I don’t even know how to load a gun. Or how to take the safety off. Or what to do about recoil.)

I do not own a gun-- I can’t shoot no one
The revolution will come (and I’ll have to run).

I can’t protect my wife and sons . . .
I’m good at having fun-- that won’t help no one.

I need to attend one of those volunteer militia training camps in the Midwest. I don’t know how to shoot a gun or skin a deer or start a fire in the rain or crawl through a trench or protect myself from mustard gas. I don’t own any camouflage. I don’t know how to peel back properly during an ambush. I don’t even actually know what the word “bivouac” means. When the barbarians storm the gates, will I be able to protect my family with absurd songs and humorous anecdotes? With my prodigious vocabulary and my ability to provide synonyms?  Will my knowledge of science-fiction prove useful? This is doubtful.

The revolution will come (I’ll be overrun).
I should have learned to shoot a gun (instead of having fun).
How can you fight the Hun (when you can’t shoot a gun).

I dream of going to war.
I dream of going to war.
But I just turned forty four
I just turned forty-four

So maybe I’ll get a Harley instead. Or a jet-ski. Or a mistress. That sounds far better than combat. I could never deal with one of those Full Metal Jacket hard-ass Sergeants. It’s too late for me toughen up. If I was I was the protagonist of that Cormac McCarthy book, The Road, protecting my son after the apocalypse, the book would be seven pages long. I wouldn’t make it out of the cul-de-sac. My son would end up being a catamite. I really need to get myself some automatic weapons. And I need to learn how to use them.

War and Peace

Once you get married, you realize things will never be like when you were a kid.  When you were a kid, and you did anything well, you got a trophy.  Or a medal or a sticker or a cupcake or a pat on the back or a "nice job there, little guy."

But once you get older, if you do something really great . . . something really totally amazing . . . like remove a giant stump from your backyard or install a ceiling fan without electrocuting yourself, there will be no one there waiting to hand you a medal or a cookie when you get done.  And it's best not to look for accolades from your wife, because chances are that she does WAY more laudatory stuff than you do . . . she probably buys all the gifts for everyone on BOTH sides of the family and does the bills and keeps track of the tax information and cleans things and puts away the laundry and makes the kids lunches and participates in the PTO and does  all kinds of other stuff that you don't t even know about because she doesn’t need constant encouragement and positive reinforcement to get stuff done.  At least that's the case in my house.

As most of us know, the only way you can reward yourself once you are an adult, your only trophy after you swat a wasp-nest out of your porch umbrella and fight five giant wasps to the death, will be to grab a beer.  This is scary because it means the busier and more productive you are-- the more trophy-worthy tasks you accomplish-- the more likely you are to become a fat alcoholic.  It's certainly a paradox, and it seems that men succumb to it more than women.  

I will illustrate this theme with a Greasetruck song, but first, here are the top ten things I did in the last three years that were deserving of some sort of recognition . . . and don't be afraid to list your unsung accomplishments in the comments.

1.   Fought, Defeated, and Killed the Squirrels in my Attic.
2.   Fought, Defeated, and Killed the Mice in my Shed. 
3.   Built Greasetruck Studio and surrounding Soundproof Bookshelves.
4.   Successfully Collaborated with Igor during the Production of "Dear Ozzy (Thanks for Nothing)."
5.   Did not Beat my Child when he Maliciously and Purposefully Flooded the Kitchen Ceiling.
6.   Almost Finished Infinite Jest.
7.   Uncomplainingly went to a Broadway Show
8.   Performed Admirably at Ian’s Fifth Birthday Despite Having a Massive Hangover.
9.   Took a Novocaine Shot in Roof of Mouth and Did Not Cry
10. Brought Down Tree Limb With Football

War and Peace by Greasetruck

War and Peace
 

I finally finished War and Peace. Nobody give me no trophy.

Yes, I finally finished War and Peace, but nobody give me no trophy.

Read Gravity’s Rainbow, The Recognitions, Bleak House, Tristram Shandy,

The Origin of Species, Brothers Karamazov.  Didn’t get no trophy.  Not even a ribbon.

Caught and disposed of the mice in the shed, listened to Wagner’s

Ring Cycle-- took me three days-- didn’t even get a t-shirt.  

Or a mug or a commemorative plate.

Little kid swim around in a pool, kick a ball in a goal:

they give him a big gold trophy.  And a nice t-shirt.  

Maybe some pizza too.

I stain the deck, run a snake down the toilet, teach my kids how to ride a bike,

install a ceiling fan but . . . you guessed it . . . no trophy . . .

not even a medal or a ribbon or some kind of little prize . . .

a spider ring or a little soldier with a parachute.

I thought that there would be a whole lot more cheering for me--

call my name, lift me up, bikini girls with D-cups.

You beat Call of Duty 3 on veteran level,

you completed a Saturday New York Times crossword,

nobody give you no trophy. Not even a phone call.  Couldn’t Will Shortz give you a phone call? 

  

You survive a mudslide, a tornado, a hurricane, an oil spill, a flood.

Nobody give you no trophy.  Or even a cool hat. 

Just some misappropriated funding. 

I did not beat my children when the purposefully flooded the bathroom

with malicious intent and it came through the kitchen ceiling.

Them kids didn’t give me no trophy.  Not even a “Thank You For Not Beating Me” note.

I tell my wife I did all the dishes and put them away, and she say:

“That’s fantastic honey . . . you want a trophy?”  

Well yes I do, as a matter of fact.

Not that it’s the thing that motivates me but still, it would be a nice gesture.

Something, anyway.  You get a woman some flowers, that’s her trophy.

Hey, did you bring those beers home for me?  You did?

Why thank you!  That's just what I wanted.

Peaceful Easygoing Guy

We all know (except for teenagers) that the advice and wisdom rock stars dispense is not particularly beneficial or wise.  You know the drill: drink, do drugs, bang everything from a gong to your teacher to a fat-bottomed girl.  Fight the power.  Fight the law.  Shoot someone in Nevada.

Whit, Igor, Dave, and I, plus fifteen session musicians explored this idea in a Random Idiots song called "Dear Ozzy (Thanks for Nothing)." You can read those lyrics and the story of the song here.   If you haven't heard it, give it a shot.  It's long, but it's pretty comprehensive.  See how many lyrics you can identify.  If you have heard it, you might want to listen to it again anyway.  I just re-mixed it and it sounds a lot better.

Dear Ozzy (Thanks for Nothing) by Greasetruck

I don't think anyone has a problem with rock stars doling out terrible advice.  That is expected.  It is what the music is all about.  And if rock stars are dumb enough to follow their own advice and live the life, then they die young.  This has been professionally documented here, but it's much more fun to read about here.

I think in a sick way everyone appreciates when rock stars burn out, rather than fade away.  Artists like Kurt Cobain and Keith Moon and John Bonham and Jimi Hendrix and Robert Pilatus.  We all have our favorites. It is far more annoying when these hotel room smashing, drug abusing, hedonistic, groupie banging, thrill seeking ego-maniacs become hypocritical.  When they suddenly become Zen masters.  When they advise you, as you face life's myriad problems and dilemmas (most of which they don't have to face, because they're sleeping it off on the tour bus) to slow down.  Listen to the music.  Be cool.  Relax.  Take a long ride on a motorbike.  Take a load off, Fanny.  Take it easy.  Get that peaceful easy feeling.  Ramble around some, maybe have a child in back of a Greyhound bus (preferably while comfortably numb).  Just come on by Cripple Creek and we'll win some money at the track and then I'll tear it up and throw it into the air . . . because love is all you need.  Don't worry, be happy.  Don't let it get to you.  Live in a yellow submarine.  Or on a magic bus.  Take a slow ride.

Normal rock lyrics are often melodramatic and hyperbolic.  I guess that comes with the territory.Those type of lyrics-- the Highway to Hell and For Those About to Rock variety-- are not nearly as annoying as lyrics of the self-help, chill out variety.  There's a reason why The Dude hates the fucking Eagles (although this guy thinks he's wrong).  

And this premise is what inspired the new Greasetruck song.  It's called "Peaceful Easygoing Guy."  I think it's one of my best vocal performances ever.

Peaceful Easygoing Guy by Greasetruck

I'm a peaceful, easy going guy.
Some people might even say I come off as shy,
but if you touch my stereo, I'll poke your fucking eye.
Take my parking spot and you'll die.
I'm a peaceful easygoing guy.

I'm a peaceful easygoing man.
The kind of guy that likes to lend a hand.
But if you're on the beach, don't kick up fucking sand.
Can't you see I'm working on my tan?
Don't make me hatch an evil plan.
I'll kidnap you in my van.
Just like Silence of the Lambs.

I'm a peaceful, easy-going chap.
But ogle my wife and I'll give your face a slap.
I'm not going to take your concupiscent crap.
I'm a peaceful easygoing chap.
Unless you interrupt my nap.

I'm a peaceful easygoing dude.
The kind of guy who sleeps in the nude.
But I swear, if you touch my fucking food,
I'll stick my fist somewhere rude.
The place your wife and I screwed.
Maybe you'd like it there too.

I like . . . I like to relax.
He likes . . . he likes to relax.

I'm a peaceful easygoing mate.
The kind of guy you'd want your girl to date.
But you better warn her not to show up late--
I really really hate to wait.
You can bend down and lick my taint,
if you dare to make me wait.

I'm a peaceful easygoing gent.
Unless it turns out that you stiffed me on the rent
Then, my friend, they'll never know where you went.
You'll be wearing shoes of cement.
Yeah, wearing shoes of cement.

I'm peaceful and easy, it is known.
I like to drink a cup of coffee on my own.
You can tell my parking spot from the orange cone.
Don't ever ask me for a loan.
Like Russell Crowe, I'll hit you with a phone.
Like Joe Pesci, I'll beat you with a phone.

Greasetruck Tries to Make a Better Song than "Horse With No Name."

Greasetruck has produced yet another single, and I will say this about it: it is better than some rock songs. Specifically, it is better than some of the rock songs on this list.


The first step to artistic satisfaction is to set the bar low. Random Idiots was always pleased when people categorized the noises we made as "Music." And so I set the bar very low with this new song, "On the Range." All I wanted to do was write a better song than "Horse with No Name" by America. "Horse with No Name," originally called "The Desert Song," was inspired by a Salvador Dali painting of a distorted horse in a spartan land; the painting was on the on the wall of Arthur Brown's home studio.


But Arthur Brown resided in Puddletown, Dorset, on the Piddle river . . . in England-- which is about as far from desert terrain as can be imagined. Perhaps America should have written a song about elves or faeries or gnomes . . . or pubs.



And though the song has some of the most uninspired and obtusely imagined lyrics in rock history ("The heat was hot", "There were plants, and birds, and rocks, and things") I will admit that it was genius to change the name from the extremely literal "The Desert Song" to the trippier "Horse with No Name," as this opened the door to symbolic misinterpretation and ambiguity.


Here are some alternate perspectives I found on the internet: one guy claims that the song was about the band getting stoned, getting naked and then entering a restaurant and attempting (unsuccessfully) to get served. Although I have found no corroboration for this, I have reproduced it here because I find this theory hysterical and totally unsubstantiated. But if this is the case, why not actually write the song about THAT? That would be an entertaining song. Others claim that the nameless horse is actually "heroin."


My song takes place on a "range," and like America, I recorded my song nowhere near such a landscape. I'm not even exactly sure what a range is. And my journey starts in my kitchen, so again, like "Horse with No name," there might be multiple meanings to my lyrics. Also, my song is mainly two chords, which is true for "Horse with No Name," as well. I believe my song is better, but only you can judge this. To help you like my song more, I have included a list of incredibly bad rock songs. If you don't like my song, simply read the list and think about these songs. Then click on the SoundClick widget and listen again. This activity will make you like my song more, because you will subconsciously (or even better, consciously!) compare my song to these songs, and you will start to realize how much better my song is. I have included the lyrics to my song at the end of the post, but if you can't remember the words to some of these other gems, you'll have to Google them.

Now playing: Greasetruck

Now, I should warn you: these songs are awful. They are all much worse than "Brown Eyed Girl." If you skim down the list and realize that you LIKE these songs, then understand that your taste is skewed and you should never give musical recommendations to anyone (except other who like the songs on this list) and perhaps you shouldn't be allowed to listen to music, unless it's on headphones, so that others don't have to listen to what you are listening to.


1. Aqualung by Jethro Tull. A grating riff. Lyrics that wander between gross imagery and lame poetry, including lines like, "Watching as the frilly panties run." A mixture of heavy metal distortion and flute. A guy who stands on one leg and nestles his other foot into his crotch. Enough said.


2. Summer of '69 by Bryan Adams. Who calls a guitar a "six string"? I hope the best days of your life were not spent with this song playing in the background.


3. Rock and Roll Fantasy by Bad Company. Yes, you have achieved your dream as a rock star, but are you so unimaginative that your rock and roll fantasy is pretty much a rock concert? Which is your job, which you probably do a hundred times a year. The jesters make it sound surreal for a moment, but they only get one line. And after recounting such a mundane fantasy, do you need to repeat what it is so much? Bad meta is the worst.


4. Jukebox Hero by Foreigner. So many bad Foreigner songs to choose from. Pretty much the same problem as "Rock and Roll Fantasy," only even more annoying because Lou Gramm is singing.


5. Abracadabra by Steve Miller. "I want to reach out and grab ya." If the song is about magic, then why does the narrator need to grope the "angel" in "black panties"? It was tough to choose just one awful Steve Miller song, as he did rhyme "superstitious" and "suspicious," and then, in Homer-esque fashion, "suspicious" and "suspicious" in the godawful "Rock'n Me," and he rhymed "El Paso" and "hassle," and "Texas" and "facts is," in "Take the Money and Run," but "Abracadabra" sucks on a higher plane than those other trite songs.


6. SSSSuuusssuuduiooiisssuuuuusu by Phil Collins. That's the string of letters I had to Google to find the lyrics to "Sussudio." There is only one way to do justice to how bad this song is:


There's this girl that's been on my mind
All the time, Sussudio oh oh
Now she don't even know my name
But I think she likes me just the same
Sussudio oh oh


Oh if she called me I'd be there
I'd come running anywhere
She's all I need, all my life
I feel so good if I just say the word
Sussudio, just say the word
Oh Sussudio


Now I know that I'm too young
My love has just begun
Sussudio oh oh
Ooh give me a chance, give me a sign
I'll show her anytime
Sussudio oh oh


7. A Day in the Life by The Beatles. Just testing you. This song is good.


8. Kashmir by Led Zeppelin. Obtuse lyrics about an exotic land. A minor gypsy scale with a chromatic progression. Led Zeppelin. It all sounds good until you press play. I would rather listen to Ozzy Osbourne chewing off the head of a bat than this pretentiously monotonous dirge.


9. Saturday in the Park by Chicago. This is just a visceral hatred. I don't know why, but I think that I might even dislike the people who like this song.


11. Pour Some Sugar on Me by Def Leppard. It seems like the narrator is getting some kind of bodily fluid poured all over him. Possibly his own ejaculation. Plus, it's got really annoying drums and chorus.


12. Kiss on my List by Hall and Oates. "Out of Touch" is also really really bad. Do you need a song to get either of these sentiments across? They seem too trivial for the medium. It's sad that more of their songs weren't like "Rich Girl," which is the best eighties tune that was actually released in the seventies. Great song.


13. On the Range by Greasetruck. Pretty bad, but the lyrics are slightly better tan "Horse with No Name." Here they are. You be the judge.


On the range . . .
I saw something strange.


There was a burning ring of fire and a pot of boiling sauce,
smoke and charcoal filled the air, I knew that all was lost.
I gasped, I clawed, I sucked and then my face fell toward the food.


I hit my head on the floor, and I finally understood--
sparks flew from the Heavens and burned above the swaying grass,
my horse spit out his stirrup, turned and gave a violent laugh--


there was a cavern full of darkness and a lady with no clothes,
a clown atop a burro with a yellow bulbous nose.
Three men were eating sausage from a rusty metal tin,
while jackals gnawed on rotted meat spilled from a garbage bin.


I smelled sadness and desire and a perfumed pack of whores.


I saw sixteen red faced devils round a fire roasting s'mores.
My dog stood on his hind legs and he pointed at the moon,
he said "now the tide is low, but waxing will come soon."


Then he ran into the blackness and I heard a low pitched growl,


and he came back walking proudly-- in his mouth there was a trowel.
He was followed by a mason wearing white from head to foot,
layered with wet plaster speckled with a blackish soot.


"I buried Tutankhamen," said the mason, then he fell,


and the ground cracked wide open and a fire sprang from Hell.
My horse it bucked, I flew, I knew it was the end,
but a chicken grabbed me with his beak and said to me, "My friend,


you have been just shy of madness, you have been inside the maze,
you have seen the darkness lit up, you have wandered through the haze,
you have climbed atop the mountain, you have seen the pickerel crawl,
you have talked to thorny cactus, you have heard the lizard's call


and now to end your journey, I'll reveal one final thing
to give your life some meaning, make your journey form a ring
several rules to live by and a final word of truth,
something you can chew on with your single gold capped tooth.


So listen like a child, like a hunter with a bow,
listen while I tell you, I will tell you very slow--
when you think that you are thinking, when you thought that you have thinked
when you pluck your ukulele, did you pluck the note you plinked?


when you touch upon an angel do you feel her gauzy wings
when you ride on through the desert, is the desert full of things
or are things what we make them-- is the desert full of sand?
Is the reason we have touching the same reason we have hands?


If I sound like Lewis Carroll," said the chicken, "then I am."


And he dropped me like a Muslim drops a slice of fatty ham,
and I fell upon my horse and this waked him from his dream
and he looked at me and said, "Now is the time when we should scream."


But I was just a cashew in a bowl at a saloon
and if you hadn't waked me, then very very soon
a hungry gap toothed hooker would have put me in her mouth
and riding her saliva, I would have headed south.


and then my horse he he whinnied, he broke my grip and rode
and I saw my house a'burning and red truck in the road.


I saw something strange.

Did I Choose Greasetruck? Or Did Greasetruck Choose Me?

There once was a man who said, ‘Damn!’
It is born in upon me that I am
An engine that moves
In predestinate grooves,
I’m not even a bus, I’m a tram


by Maurice Evan Hare


The topic I am addressing here is one that philosophers have batted around for thousands of years: free will versus determinism. Do we make choices or are our actions purely pathological? Are we a bus or a tram? Do we slide along a predetermined track, regretting our "choices," which were actually simple cause and effect? Or do we somehow transcend the laws of physics, does our consciousness ever give us the ability to come to, as William James called it, to make a "genuine choice"-- one that is live, forced, and momentous-- and then actually control which road we take into the woods? Or-- possibly the scariest scenario of all-- are our brains quantum machines, that simply express the chaos, probability and randomness inherent in the universe? Does (to Einstein's chagrin) God play dice? And if this all played out again would it be completely different for no reason at all?

I was plodding through a rather dull philosophical book tangentially on this subject, when I realized that my other blog, also called G:TB (Gheorghe: The Blog) had the answer. Specifically, Zoltan's G:TB post about being a Bills fan; it is called "A Bills/Browns Preview, otherwise knows as a study in self-loathing," and it details his "abject misery" as a Bills fan. Why is he a Bills fan? Sports are supposed to be fun. Rooting for your team is something one does in their leisure time. It is an avocation, a hobby. A choice. You can choose to do it or not, and you can choose who you'd like to root for. You CAN do this if you wish. But most people don't, and they don't exercise this choice.

The book is called "Ethics of the Real" by Alenka Zupancic. Its purpose is to formally reconcile Emmanuel Kant's rather dogmatic moral philosophy with Jaques Lacan's obtuse theories of "the Real." One of the few things I actually understand in the book is this summary of Kant: "man is not only much more unfree than he believes, but also much freer than he knows." Zupancic then goes on (with some ridiculously complex diagrams) to explain that what Kant means is that our actions may be purely pathological, but once we can examine them as such, once we can look at them in such a way in retrospect, then we arrive at some higher level of freedom. Though we had no choice in the past, that's just the way we behaved, we can now regret those actions, and determine what we ought to have done, and thus we begin to have some control over our future.

If you think too hard about it, the idea disappears in a cloud of its own self-reflexive smoke, but the important thing here to remember is that Zoltan continues to root for the Bills. In fact, there is a certain moral cachet involved in rooting for a terrible team, in sticking with them through thick and thin. They are having trouble right now in Haiti relocating people to shelters. These people can choose to move, they would be better off if they could move, but they won't move. I heard one Haitian man on NPR remark, "You can't force Haitians to do anything." Obviously, you can't force Zoltan to do anything either. At any time during his tenure as a Bills fan, he could have defected, bought some new bobble head dolls, switched his trash can, and made up a creation myth of fanaticism: his favorite uncle is from Dallas, his birthday is the same day as Eli Manning, whatever . . . people don't question the crazy voodoo shit people invoke when they say why their allegiance is to a particular team. But he didn't. For some reason, the path he chose was the one he started on (when you write about philosophy, it's really easy to end sentences with prepositions . . . something up with I will not put).

I was lucky to be born a Giants fan. I have enjoyed four Super Bowl appearances and three wins (for Zoltan's sake, I won't mention Super Bowl XXV). I was also born a Yankees fan, which is ridiculously good luck, such good luck that I actually gave up rooting for them. How did this happen? Why didn't I end up a relatively miserable Jets/Mets fan? The only explanation that I have is that my Sicilian grandfather, a barber in New Brunswick, preferred a close shave. The National League players were fond of facial hair and my grandfather thought this was a disgrace to the uniform (though he died when I was young, one of my earliest childhood memories is him criticizing Dave Parker's beard). The Yankees were generally clean shaven, until the Bronx Zoo era . . . Chambliss, Munson, Lyle, Martin, Jackson . . . those were some mustaches.

A few weeks ago, I was an ersatz Jets fan; I went over a neighbor's house and watched the Jets beat the Chargers, and I was struck by how much phoning back and forth there was as the game went on-- Jets fans calling each other in disbelief, sarcastically claiming they would blow it, but also excited that they might win. I don't remember doing this as a Giants fan-- you expected them to figure out a way to pull out the game, because (usually) they did. But I could have been born in Cleveland, fondly remembering the Bernie Kosar days.

Even if I was born a few miles to the south, in the wilds of South Brunswick, the home of this guy, then things might be different. I might be an Eagles fan. The Mason Dixon line of Central Jersey is between North and South Brunswick, and although Jerry is a traitor to his town and Giants fan (I'm sure there's a story there), I feel like South Brunswick is where the predestinate groove of Eagles fanaticism starts. No choice in this, it's a matter of birth. I didn't hate the Eagles growing up-- it was fun to watch Ron Jaworski and Harold Carmichael, but I was detached. And though it doesn't rival the Confederacy and the Union, there is certainly some animosity between North and South Brunswick ( we always beat up on them in sports, and Jerry occasionally goes into an obtuse rant about North Brunswick, which goes something like this: . . . after we mangia on da zeppolis at da Carnivale Italiano letsa go to da Bruswick square mall in our Irocs and buy some a da chains and den we gotta playa do golf at Tara Greens).

Anyway, this was long winded and confusing, so I've boiled it all down to a Greasetruck song. It's called "Stuck," and I'm going to call it the final word on this debate and move on with my life. It's pretty much a straight blues number, but I'm proud of the lyrics. Not only do I mention several famous philosophers, but I also include the housing crisis, genetic disorders, autism, infidelity,and how short Rob is. Enjoy.

Now playing: Greasetruck

There are things you could do.
You could be someone new.
There are choices you could make.
There are roads that you could take.
You see a glass half full.
Your eyes obscured by wool.


Son, you better thing again.
Son, you better be a man.
You're stuck.
There's nothing you can do--
you might as well give up.
There's nothing you can do.
You're shit out of luck.
You're fucked.


Stuck in your time and place.
You'll never fly in space.
You'll always have that face,
so just listen to the bass . . .


Stuck with the stuff you did,
stuck with your autistic kid,
stuck as a Cleveland fan,
stuck with your spray on tan.


Stuck with the color of your skin
and your stupid bank card PIN.
You'll never grow no more.
You're stuck at five foot four.


Stuck with that house you bought,
and with that lousy shot.
You'll never own a yacht,
your blood, it likes to clot.


Stuck with your losing team
and your lupus gene,
by the time the Browns have won
you'll be dead and gone.


Stuck with your smoker's cough,
your body's getting soft,
and if that's not enough,
your wife is running off.


But look on the brighter side.
At least you can say you tried.
No one will know you lied.
Life's a just a downward slide--
Hobbes and Hume both decry
free will, so take their side.
Embrace life's one way ride,
your fate is bound and tied.


Or take Emmanuel Kant,
embrace his German chant.
Once you know, you're not--
you see you're stuck, so stop,
look back, regret your path.
Recalculate the math.


But that's no way to live.
Best to forget and forgive
yourself for all your acts
calm down, try to relax.


Do not look in the cracks.
Do not think on the facts.
You know what's at our back.
Maybe have yourself a snack.

Greasetruck Tackles Time Travel: Because the World Needs Another Song About Time Travel

The first thing to remember about time travel is that you are doing it right now . . . just rather slowly. You are a time machine. The best way to illustrate your time traveling power is to fuck over your future self. An easy way to do this? Take a trip to the tattoo parlor and get a ridiculous tattoo. A tequila worm or Garfield giving the finger or the name of an obscure band or, if you are particularly daring, the name of your college girlfriend. Then step inside your skin and wait. Eventually, your future self will be pissed off by what you did in the past. But fortunately, your future self can't hop into a time machine and go back in time and punch you in the face. Other ways to fuck your future self: start smoking, spend all your money on exotic pets, or pierce your testicles. Or get a REALLY bad tattoo.





For an in depth look at time travel, read Chuck Klosterman's new book Eating the Dinosaur. He has an essay devoted to the topic.


The best time travel movie ever made is Primer. I won't even attempt to explain the plot, but this chart helps. Ha!


Here the six runner-ups to Primer: 12 Monkeys, Time Bandits, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Terminator 2, and Memento.


The best time travel scene is from the original Planet of the Apes.


And the best song about time travel is by Greasetruck. The competition is one of the most annoying songs ever: "The Time Warp" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.


The song is called "Past Me," and it reverses the old adage, "if I only knew then what I know now." In this song, Past Dave comes to see what his future self is like and he is disgusted, but what can he do? This is how his life turns out. And it was based on Past Dave's choices. So how can he complain? Past Dave is lucky he's got a future self at all, and though he may be disgusted by what he's turned into, it's not really his decision any more. And he has to assume some responsibility for how things turned out. Imagine if your past selves had input into your life now? Those past selves are idiots! They got you into this mess in the first place!

Now playing: Greasetruck

Click above on the widget to hear the song. It's SFW (as long as you don't care if you appear to be retarded). The lyrics are below. I'm proud of the opening, I think it sonically captures what it's like to travel through time. I pretty much yelled the lyrics in one take and ran them through an amp simulation . . . I'm sick of trying to sing. Maybe someday Random Idiots will make another song. In the meantime, Greasetruck would like to thank all the fans for putting up with these recondite topics, and Greasetruck promises that the next song will something everyone can appreciate. Seriously. The next Greasetruck song is going to be about food. Everybody likes food, right? Almost as much as William and Mary basketball.


Past Me


If you knew then what I know now—so what?
But if I knew now, what you knew then . . . well.
If the Past Me, if he could see,
what I’ve become, the things I’ve done--


He’d build a time machine, in order to perceive
What had become of him, but he would not believe
He’d want to laugh at me, he’d want to torture me
He’d want to put me down, out of my misery.


You’d think I’d be surprised, but I’ve been expecting him.
Hell, the idea was mine . . . I ask Me, "How you been?"
So sad to disappoint, Past Me would want a joint.
But my kids would smell the smoke, and my wife can’t take a joke.
But look at my counter top! It’s made of solid rock!
I can come home and cook, got friends on the Facebook.
I’ve got a little phone . . . equity for a loan.


Past Me is not impressed. Past Me is past depressed
I am his future self. I built a nice book shelf
Past me he doesn’t care. Past me looks at my hair.
I see a tear drop fall, his future’s bleak and bald.


I talk about our kids, how they look, the things they did.
Past Me, he doesn’t care, he interested in knowing where
I keep the fishing gear, my new snowboard and all the beer.
I say, "I'm sorry Me, I don’t have what you need."


And then he stubs his toe on a loose Lego,
and so he starts to swear. I say, "Hey think of where
you are, there’s kids around." He looks at me and frowns,
gets in our time machine, heads back to where we’ve been


I yell before I go,"Please Buy Google’s IPO!"
But it’s too late he’s gone, back to where he thinks it’s fun.
And to get back at me, he knows just what to do.
He’ll get really stoned and go and get a bad tattoo.
And Future Dave, well I'll have to live with it,
rest of my days spent showing off a giant squid.

You've Got to See Us (Driving Round in Our Prius)

There is a long tradition in popular music of singing about automobiles. The car, like rock and roll, is loud, powerful, adventurous, and sexy. And not only is it sexy, but it is also (especially when you are young and don't have a swinging pad of your own, and especially in the '50's and '60's when cars were BIG and had trundle seats) a great place for sex. It is both the theme and the setting. This post is certainly not a history of the car in music-- there are plenty of places you can read about that. Here is a great list, and here is a LONG list, and here is an excellent little history. 

I am going to discuss something more specific, and honestly, I think my thesis is groundbreaking, so bear with me. And, as an added bonus (or punishment, it's all a matter of taste) I have written and recorded a Greasetruck song to illustrate this theme.

If I were going to make a general list of my favorite songs about cars, I would wax poetically about "Bitchin' Camaro" by The Dead Milkmen and "Joe Stalin's Cadillac" by Camper Van Beethoven and "El Camino" by Ween. But though those songs are quirky and funny, they only allude to the sexual power of the automobile in our culture. They certainly prove my point, but I'm going to use more obvious examples to show you something particular and profound about the automobile. I assure you, you will never be the same.

I further need to limit my thesis to rockabilly car songs. And again, I can't afford to be general. If I were to get into my favorite rockabilly songs about cars, then hands down, my favorite is "One Piece at a Time," which was written by Wayne Kemp and sung by Johnny Cash. It was the last Johnny Cash song to reach number one on the Billboard charts. I love the song because the hero, a working class guy at the Cadillac factory, steals a Cadillac part by part. He's patient, clever, and creative. He perseveres, not only over the years, but also over difficult engineering dilemmas-- and the song specifically addresses these; it explains how they drilled out the frame so it would fit the engine block, and the general asymmetry of the car. And then, after all this work, there's a great plot twist at the end: when he registers the car at the DMV, it takes them all day to type up the title because it is so difficult to determine what year and make the car is.

This difficulty in determining if the car is new or used or something else entirely addresses a classic philosophical dilemma-- if you were to replace parts in your own car, piece by piece, when you had replaced every part, would it still be the same car? Or would it be a different car? If you were to replace your brain, synapse by synapse, with circuitry-- circuitry that worked essentially the same as your brain-- say at a rate of one percent per day, when would you cease being you? Or would you still be you? Or a would you be a clone of you? But that's the subject of another song.

The song that inspired me to get to work on my own rockabilly car song was originally done by Charlie Ryan and the Livingston Brothers, but it was made famous by Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen. It's called "Hot Rod Lincoln" and it starts with a spoken couplet: "My pappy said, "Son, you're gonna drive me to drinking if you don't stop driving that Hot Rod Lincoln." This song tells the story of a drag race, and again, it alludes to the power and sexuality of the car, but it's not the perfect example. The reason I need to mention it because when I heard it on WRSU the other day, the lyrics to my own rockabilly car song came to me in a flash. I’m not going to claim it’s the best song I’ve ever written, but it is definitely the fastest song I’ve ever gotten down on paper—from start to finish it took me five minutes to write. It came to me in a dream, like the way Mohammad received the Koran or Joseph Smith received the Golden Tablets of Mormonism or George De Mestral thought up Velcro.

The kind of rockabilly car song I’m talking about is when the car obviously represents sexiness and the engine obviously represents the sexual act and the driving represents full on doing it (riding, as they say in Ireland) and the car is also the place to have sex in. So you've got the outside of the car, which is a phallus itself. And compare a sports car to a minivan-- which is more phallic? Which will snag you more snatch? The humming throbbing engine is obvious enough as a symbol, but the smooth leather interior is symbolic as well. The folds in the seats, the new car smell. You’ve got both the male and female apparatus here. The outside is male, and the inside is female. Your driving a penis while sitting inside a vagina.

Now this is the paradox. The car is the thing and it is the setting for the thing. The long sleek body of the the fifties vehicle, with it's odd attachments, fins and such, is the male genitalia. And everyone knows what that greasy engine represents when it's trucking along. And the shiny smooth inside of the car, leathery with plenty of folds, is the female genitalia. You get inside and it has that nice smell (if it's clean) and a lousy smell (if it's not.) But the car is also the place to have sex, so it is the penis, the vagina, and the bed, all rolled into one.

So the car is having sex with itself, inside itself. There’s something deeply philosophical about this, and maybe that’s why cars are so deeply embedded in our culture, and so often sung about. Before I had this epiphany, I hated cars-- I thought they were loud, annoying, dangerous, overblown, and an environmental disaster-- and perhaps that’s why Greasetruck has only recorded one song about a car, and it's not very sexy at all. It's called "George Bush Stole the Plans for My Air Powered Car" and it features a monologue about how George Bush and Bill Clinton like to ride around together in a pneumatically powered car and visit nudey bars. But I have seen the light, and now I understand why public transportation will never make it in the United States (although trains are pretty sexy when they go into a tunnel). Now Greasetruck will attempt enter the car rockabilly pantheon, but the competition, is to say the least, stiff.

The archetype is Chuck Berry’s “No Particular Place to Go.” The narrator and his girl are simply “driving around” with no particular place to stop and have sex, so of course, they park “way out on the Kokomo" and decide "to take a stroll.” The lyrics are ambiguous. Is the stroll into the woods? Into her pants? The next lyric helps: the narrator is foiled because he “couldn’t unfasten her safety belt!” I appreciate this because I didn't learn how to undo a girl's bra until I was thirty-six. Does the safety belt represent her bra clasp? Or is it just the car's seat belt? That seems unlikely, considering people didn't wear seat belts back then. Perhaps it is a chastity belt. I'm sure Chuck Berry didn't specify so it could be all these and more. I wish I could be so playfully obtuse in my lyrics.

I am also partial to Chuck Berry’s "Maybelline," both for the content-- a high speed car race with a cheating woman-- and the use of the verb "motivating," as in, "I was motivating over the hill/ I saw Maybelline in a coupe de ville." The race is a sexual contest—a courtship ritual, like when male elks butt antlers or peacocks strut with their tail fanned or when basilisk lizards do those crazy dances-- and Chuck Berry needs his engine to run fast and powerful to court a girl as wild and sexy as Maybelline. So he's in the phallus, racing his engine, but she's in a phallus, and racing her engine, and maybe not with him. It's racy because "Maybelline" is an assertive powerful woman who makes her own choices. Once again, "she done started doing the things" she used to do. The narrator can't control her sexuality-- and he's having enough trouble controlling his own engine, but he does catch her at the top of the hill-- the climax of the song, and it's all downhill from there. And now, with looser censorship laws and new technology to assess, Greasetruck will try it's hand at the genre. Though I know I can't compete with the greats, I believe my new song conquers new territory; it is the first rockabilly song celebrating the sexuality of the hybrid vehicle. It's called "You've Got to See Us in Our Prius." Hope you enjoy it. Feel free to offer your own automobile analysis.

You've Got to See Us (Driving Round in our Prius) by Greasetruck

You've Got to See Us in Our Prius

So if you need to pick up chicks,
then a cool set of wheels is your fix:
a Lamborghini or maybe a Porsche.

Something sleek and something fast--
the chicks will think that you're a blast
but maybe that's not your style at all.

Maybe the chick you want to impress
likes whole grains and patchouli scent.
Maybe she just got back from saving the whales.

Then the car you want runs really quiet,
Let's put the world on an oil diet.
I'm talking about 78 horsepower here.

Hey baby, you've got to see us,
driving round in our Prius,
The wind blowing back my Moonbeam's hair.

But I got to tell you something if you don't know:
hippie chicks don't dig fellatio . . .
something to do with not eating any meat.

And the car's too small for full on screwing,
so you can guess what we've been doing--
I feel like I'm back in the tenth grade.

Well, look at me I've come real far:
getting hand jobs in an electric car.
Who could guess what the future would bring?

So if you see a Prius driving real slow,
and my smiling face in the window,
you'll know what's going down in there.

We'll be driving this little car forever,
can't sell it cause of the stains on the leather
actually, you would think it would be faux-leather, but it's not.

So we're driving this thing come Armageddon.
Driving this thing to my grand-kid's wedding
I suppose I'll be doing Viagra then.

Getting hand jobs in my electric car--
who ever said i wouldn't go far?
I know all you guys are all turning green.