The Butthole Surfers, and Joy
I’m having a “What the FUck” moment this morning because my friend JMS texted me at about 10 PM last night—or, I should say, he sent me an IM on Instagram—and I didn’t see it until this morning, because I go to bed stupid early these days, and I then get up stupid early. In fact, I was up before 4 AM this morning, and the first thing I did was look at my phone, and then I looked at Instagram, and as soon as I saw I had an IM from him I immediately thought, “Oh no, who died NOW?”
…because that’s the only thing JMS has bothered to IM me about in the past…oh two-ish years? Or maybe about 18-ish months? Or no, closer to two years.
[Edit: I’m going thru and systematically changing certain people’s “whole names” from these posts, because…I don’t know why? Courtesy? I mean, not that it matters. If certain people read these, they’ll obvs know exactly who I’m talking about which is an example of a thing I can’t really care about even if I wanted to; so, I don’t know why. I guess courtesy. Sure.]
I mean listen, I really don’t fucking care that JMS has not otherwise communicated with me, though I don’t mind IM’ing with him on Instagram, I don’t otherwise need to communicate with him.
Here’s the thing about JMS: I love him, or something, but I would not give a flying fuck if I never saw his face again. My love for him is…from another era of my life, when I used to care about seeing chaotic people who were sure to bring anxiety and potential disaster into my life. I do not care about that happening anymore, other than to say that I do not really want it to happen anymore.
IN FACT, if JMS showed up on my doorstep, I would ask him to leave, and if he refused to leave, maybe I’d call the police, which is a completely benign thing to do, because the police in my city have essentially stopped responding to calls of that nature altogether. Allegedly it is because of defunding, which is definitely not at all the real reason, due to how Portland was the only ‘burg around here that was defunded at all, and my county recently got extra funding, and then the defunded-funds from Portland were actually completely re-instated, which to be honest—listen, I’m a big yowling liberal, but I’m not even in favor of “defunding” the police for a bunch of reasons but uh, but uh,
but uh, you know what? Let’s not “go there.” My incredibly unpopular opinions about…everything…probably have no place in this discussion right-this-second. Because this is about JMS, and about the Butthole Surfers.
That’s the name of a band. In case you didn’t know.
So, here’s the thing about JMS-in-the-past. I don’t know about JMS now, to be fair, but JMS-in-the-past was often combined with things like excessive drinking, or maybe even certain drugs, such as cocaine, and things like prostitutes.
I have no moral qualms about any of those things, for the record. It’s not because of moral qualms. I am perfectly fine with those things existing, but I don’t want to be around them at all.
The reasons I don’t want to be around them are like a hyper-inflated version of why I can’t fucking stand making smalltalk with co-workers or boring people or self-involved people: because people who are excessively drunk are boring to talk to, and being drunk sometimes makes people more self-involved, and often get really like, dumb, in a comprehension kind of way, which adds to the potential insufferableness of talking to a drunk. People who do cocaine are even more boring to talk to, like a lot more, because cocaine makes people incredibly self-involved, and then meanwhile, prostitutes are most likely not exceptionally smart people, (I mean sometimes they might be, but I’m talking about most likely, here, just to be fair, you’re probly not going to have a great discussion about sociology with a prostitute, and there are lots of sociology-related reasons for this), —and prostitutes, for sociology reasons, are highly likely to have certain weird personality traits, which might sometimes be called personality disorders, for sociology-related reasons, reasons which are largely related to things like class and income and trauma and other sociology-related things, which means that quite frankly, prostitutes are probably very boring and in some cases, self-involved and dumb, in a comprehension-kind of way, to talk to, but like, nobody really pays them to talk, so this is all pretty moot, really.
Like, not to be a total dick about whether prostitutes are “dumb” or “smart,” I mean are most likely to be, but do you see what I’m getting at, here?
Like, okay, so I am one of those “introverts” or “ambiverts” who fucking loathes talking about incredibly boring, superficial, self-involved shit. I don’t really enjoy things like, uhhhh drunkenness or being high for its own sake, I never have enjoyed it, [edit: at least, I have not enjoyed it for decades] and I don’t actually drink at all anymore, and listen, if I’m going to be around other people, I want to talk about smart interesting things with smart interesting people. Okay? OKAY?
With the very rare exception of very rare live music events that almost never happen, I really really do not want to be in environments that could possibly include any person who does things like go “WHOOHOOO” out of sheer….extroverted delight.
Ugh.
I mean, well, the most recent exception to this was the time, about two-and-a-half years ago, when I saw Flipper live with David Yow on vocals, and that was okay, and I didn’t mind that people in the audience were going “WHOOHOOO.” But listen, I watched the show from a chair in the corner, and when an old “friend” of mine showed up in my personal space and drunkenly tried to drag me into the crowd after I repeatedly told her that I was really very happy to watch the show from the chair in the corner, I eventually grew rage-filled, because she would not relent, and then I essentially told her to get fucked, (actually what I said was, “YOUR EXPERIENCE IS NOT MY EXPERIENCE,” I said this very loudly into her ear, and then she staggered backwards and looked at me with a confused/dumb look on her face, which made me even more rage-filled), and she said something shitty but I can’t remember what, and I don’t want to scour my brain trying to remember what she said, though she also gave me a thumbs-down and like did a “razzie” at me, and then she sent me a highly insincere text apology the next day, which made me more angry for some reason, I guess because it was such an abominably dumb apology, and then I drop/blocked her on all social media and ultimately I deleted her phone number and blocked her from ever contacting me ever again.
Well anyway! So yes I am a drag and also, I’m cool with being a drag.
(OMG you can actually see my stupid friend in this video of the event, haha. She shows up around 1:31:17. She has her hair in a ponytail. She was completely shitfaced at this event and I was so fucking mad at her, because she used to be smart. She used to be interesting to talk to. So I’m mad at her for annihilating a person who used to be smart and interesting to talk to, and replacing her with a person who would not respect my boundaries and was frankly kind of a giant, slurring bitch about it, and who also staggered around with a confused/dumb look on her face.)
(I’m just—listen, you know what, I’ve just lost all patience for drunks.)
Oh, so, here’s what JMS’s IM said: “You need to listen to more Butthole Surfers. Hairway to Steven, in particular.”
This is pretty interesting and also a little weird, in a way.
Many, many years ago, I had a Butthole Surfers tape stuck in the tape player of my car, so it was the only tape I could listen to when I was in my car. The tape was not Hairway to Steven, it was Rembrandt Pussyhorse.
I listened to a lot of Butthole Surfers, many, many years ago. But Hairway to Steven was never my favorite album.
The first time I ever heard the Butthole Surfers was also the first time I ever took LSD. The song I heard was “Sweat Loaf,” which is not on Hairway to Steven, it is on Locust Abortion Technician. (EDIT! I think the song was actually “Moving to Florida,” Which is on Cream Corn from the Socket of Davis. So, also not on Hairway to Steven.)
Yeah in fact, Hairway to Steven is probably my least favorite album of theirs, though it is okay. The main thing that album is good for is like—drunken anthem-yelling. Right? I mean, I guess so.
You know what, I used to really love the Butthole Surfers.
Here’s something: the only really good time I ever had taking LSD was that first time, and I don’t know why. Every time after that first time was either relatively benign, compared to that first time, or else it was a bad time, so I stopped ever taking it. Like, listen: there’s nothing you can do to just make your brain enjoy drugs or not enjoy drugs. Your brain has a mind of its own, if you’ll forgive me for making up a weird little expression. Look, I don’t enjoy smoking pot, and there’s nothing I can do about that. I don’t seem to enjoy drinking anymore, either, and so I have stopped doing it entirely. And I’m okay with that.
Here’s something: in a subsequent message exchange, JMS asked me if my personality seems different since the car accident, and I told him that I seem to be happier, but I don’t know why, and I keep theorizing that the traumatic brain injury might have jarred something loose, maybe. Probably not, but what if this was true? I mean, it might just be because I haven’t had a job for so long, but it’s—significantly different. The way I seem to be happier now feels like something I genuinely don’t have any control over. I don’t know why I’m happier, I feel like this is just something my brain has done, some switch was flipped. My brain has a mind of its own.
The first time I ever took LSD, I was bewitched by the world in a way I never had been before. And, oddly, the way I feel since the car accident reminds me of a much subtler version of that feeling. I am able to feel joy, which I could not feel for a long, long time. about a year after my 2009/2010 divorce, it all guttered out, and then subsequently I was—incapable of feeling it, and I tried and tried to figure out some way to feel it again, and nothing worked. I was like that for years. For roughly a decade, I was like that, and I had no idea what to do about it. I meditated, I went to therapy, I tried several different medications, I read dozens of self-help books, and nothing worked to make the joy switch back on. It was just—gone. I could occasionally feel a kind of pleasant sort of quasi-happiness, but I could not feel joy.
But now, I can feel joy again, and I don’t know why. I can feel bewitched by little moments again, which I could not feel, for over a decade. And I don’t know why.
I was fucking bewitched the first time I ever heard the Butthole Surfers, which might be because it was the first time I ever took LSD. Which I believe was in either September or October of my junior year of high school. Probably October. I felt extreme joy, the first time I ever heard them.
That was in 1989, the first time I ever took LSD… which was an extra-terrible year, though the LSD thing was right before my life really got extra-super-terrible, because it was about a month, maybe even just a couple of weeks—before my first boyfriend died of suicide.
Yeah but even prior to that extra-terrible thing, my life was already pretty extra-terrible, in part because of how I had to testify in court against that same first boyfriend, which was pretty goddamn awful. I was sixteen, and testifying in court against your first boyfriend, with your parents in the courtroom so they have to hear all the details, is really extra-terrible.
I don’t want to explain about it, I realize now. Have I written about that here, ever? I wrote about it in the defunct memoir-thing I was trying to write last year, and I definitely don’t want to write about it again. I mean how my life was extra terrible when I was 16, and the things about the testifying-in-court, and you know—all that.
Including, all that about how he died of suicide a few months after I had to testify against him, and he left the suicide note addressed to me, and then, you know, all that became extra-super-terrible.
That is, in some ways, what the Butthole Surfers sound like to me. Wait, I don’t mean that they sound like my life being extra-super-terrible, what I mean is that they sound like teenage me trying to cope with my life being extra-super-terrible.
Yes, they don’t sound exactly like LSD-joy anymore. They sound like very painful teenage coping. A lot of the music I listened to back then sounds like that, though not all of it. The Butthole Surfers, though, yeah that’s kinda mostly what they sound like.
But I mean that’s okay. It’s okay and it was good that they existed in my 1989 universe. It was good that I got the Rembrandt Pussyhorse cassette for Christmas that year, from my sister, and it was perfectly fine and okay that the cassette tape then got stuck in the tape player of my car the following year.
Yes but I still love a lot of punk rock and heavy, sludgy music from my past. I am super into the Melvins lately, for example. I really enjoyed that Flipper show. I seem to be listening to a lot of Sonic Youth lately.
The thing about the Butthole Surfers, though, is that they are from a time in my life when a lot of people would pile into my car, and then we would all scream along with the tape that was stuck in the tape player. I don’t enjoy listening to the Butthole Surfers by myself; individually. Not in the same way that I enjoy listening to Sonic Youth, or some other sludgy sort of noise-thing, because they weren’t exactly meant for like, sheer listening enjoyment, at least—not in the same way that I think Sonic Youth was meant for. They don’t shake me down into my bone-marrow, in an individual way. They’re meant for group experience, for extroverted delight.
I don’t know….you know what? I don’t know what I’m talking about, really, but…that’s how I feel about it.
Now, the weirdest thing about all this (I said that it was a little weird, JMS’s IM), is that I was actually wearing a Butthole Surfers T-shirt yesterday, after not wearing that T-shirt for years. It smelled musty when I put it on, because I hadn’t worn it in so long. And I thought, after putting it on and noticing that it was just a little musty—huh, yeah haha I never listen to them anymore,
…which makes it pretty weird that I got that message from JMS late at night, after not hearing from him in awhile.
Isn’t that kind of weird?
Listen, a thing about how I can feel joy again is, I believe, semi-related to how I’m just shamelessly talking shit about JMS, and talking shit about my dumb drunk friend from that Flipper show. I believe it’s related to me not giving a shit if I just outwardly express my annoyance and anger about things; it’s related to me not giving a shit if I am a drag.
I used to have an incredible amount of anxiety about being a drag, about being a bad person with a bad attitude, about hurting other peoples’ feelings, about being a person who was maybe responsible for making other people miserable; about, you know, having once had a suicide note addressed to me.
But I don’t have so much anxiety about that anymore, and I don’t know why. I don’t know if something got shaken loose in my brain. Or if it’s just because I haven’t had a job in so long, and I haven’t been forced to make smalltalk with incredibly boring or self-involved co-workers whose feelings I must take pains to protect. Because: job.
Yeah when I get a job again, everything will maybe change.
I love the Butthole surfers, but I don’t really need to listen to them anymore. They are from another era of my life, like JMS.
I also don’t need to ever see JMS anymore. Even though I love him. Or something.
He’s still IM’ing me right now, even as I type this.
Listen, I don’t mind IM’ing with him on Instagram.
That’s about enough interaction. He can go “WHOOHOOOO” out of sheer extroverted delight in other spaces, where I do not reside. I’m fine with that. I just don’t have any desire to be there when it happens. Because I’m a drag. A drag who is really just filled with fuckin’ joy to be able to experience joy again.
Maybe I’ll want to listen to the Butthole Surfers again when I get a job, and everything maybe changes?
I sort of doubt it. Yeah, I sort of doubt it.