McCarthy: I Am A Wallet
(Midnight Records, 1987)

We hear plenty of conspiracy theory about right-wing cultural shills meant to entice Lefties over to their side. But what if the opposite existed? According to every post-Hegelian theorist, it must. A musical Trojan horse of a band with the nonsexual sensuality of the Smiths and the bittersweet jangle of R.E.M., who could inject a sublime political virus into its eagerly distracted listeners. A virus of contradiction; a head-on collision of phrases alternatingly placating and arresting. The earliest computer viruses operated on the same principle: simply give a machine two conflicting instructions, with equal truth weight, then kick back and watch the fireworks. It will blow a Hegelian gasket trying to reconcile them.

I would give all of my heart to you if only I could
If I had a heart to give I’d give it to you
And I’d give no thought to her if only I could
But I’d like something to eat
And I’d like somewhere to sleep
It breaks my heart but I’m afraid it’s true
We’re all money’s fools
It’s so bad but it’s the way of the world
Look at that kindly old soul asleep in a ditch
Is it a crime to be bad when it’s not worth being good?

This is from McCarthy’s song “The Way of the World.” The album that this song is from, I Am A Wallet, vomits out the history of the pop lyric in one wrenching dry heave after another. The impulse to turn your head is natural, but you’d miss the bits of undigested history cooling on the sidewalk.

The first lyric of the song sets you up for a Frankie Valli-style “you’re too good for me” rehash, a la ‘my heart is but a plaything to you.’ The second line makes you double back: “If I had a heart?” Maybe the history of the pop lyric is one of substituting the symbol of a heart for the lack of a real one. If this is the real ‘heart of rock n’ roll,’ maybe rock itself has no heart to give. The next line hammers in the hypocrisy. It pains my valentine heart that I can’t offer you this symbol of commitment because of my other real commitments (i.e., three hots and a cot). It’s the old joke:

Q: What do you call a musician without a girlfriend?
A: Homeless.

It’s sad that love is a commodity. It’s even sadder that the jilted fuck-buddy of the song will turn commodity into love, buying romance novels, crying, listening to Frankie Valli, who is always ready and willing to give his non-existent heart at a price more affordable than the cost of subsidizing a freeloading drummer boyfriend, even if he was real, for all intents and purposes. But sleeping on your couch, to him, is like the kindly old soul asleep in the ditch, as the lyrics reveal. He has no aspiration to be a Jack Kerouac, an angelheaded saint here to anoint you with his benevolent dick. He has found better accommodations. And is it such a crime to be bad, when it’s not worth being good? Wake up. Your only recourse is to use other people the way I used you. If McCarthy had written the screenplay for "Indecent Proposal," the entire script would have fit on one page.*

What’s devastating about McCarthy is the tension between the acidic satire of their lyrics and their insinuating melodic foils. They provide an amazing rejoinder to the early-‘80s hardcore bands that immediately preceded them. These bands’ equally bold attempts at Swiftian social satire devolved into self-parody, weighed down by crude riffs and embarrassing jingoism that sunk them as soon as they left the harbor, cheap champagne still dripping from their prows. Hardcore sloppiness dissipated that element of -seduction- that is essential for true satire, like the hungover grind of a garbage truck scaring away seagulls from a dumpster. I mean, you’d have to be a terminal idiot not to find the phrase “Kill the Poor” at least sarcastic, in and of itself, if not satirical. But paired with a clumsy, ear-bending shitstorm of punk noise, you could EVEN be a terminal idiot and still “get it.” And when everyone “gets it,” it ain’t satire – it’s just clownishness. This is why the Dead Kennedys, while absolutely hilarious at times, were not successful satire. Hardcore bands like the DK’s operated under the assumption that their music had to be as ugly as what they were protesting against in order to compete with it. Naturally, this kind of clubfisted wankery would automatically cast any accompanying text into doubt, regardless of where the rhetoric was aligned.

This is a good opportunity for me to lay it all out, formally, for the record:

The Hierarchical Structure of Cultural Satire

1. The smart people get it instantly. The rest never get it, not because they’re too dumb, but because it was intended for smart people alone to begin with. No one ever even told them about it.

2. The smarties get it, as usual. The Great Unwashed (dry cleaning -isn’t- washing) don’t. They take it as a face-value reinforcement of their belief system (cf. “All In The Family,” or The Frogs’ It’s Only Right and Natural.)

3. The smarties get it, and so do the groundlings (who now own the Globe). Nothing happens.

4. The smart poor people are now becoming bored, and are boring the rest of us, in the way that they always get everything, and in the way that smart people are always so damn poor. But then. Idiot Nation cycles through the first 3 steps within the -same- piece of culture. Then, one by one, they realize that this piece of culture does NOT reinforce their belief system after all. They shit their pants. The smarties shit their pants, too, in amazement and joy. The Idiots get their pants dry-cleaned. The smarties send their shitted pants to the Village Voice.

~

*[McCarthy, “An Indecent Yet Modest Proposal That No One Has A Problem With. Do You? Maybe You’re Gay, Then.”]

(Casino. Insane harmony of slot machines in the background.)

Robert Redford: (large bulge in pants) “Your wife looks pretty good.”
Woody Harrelson: “Thanks. She’s my most prized possession.”
Demi Moore: (lovingly punching him in the stomach) “Our only remaining asset, you loafing pothead.”
Woody: “Plus I love her like the dickens.”
Redford: (tent rising in pants) “I’ll give you $10,000,000,000 to fuck her.”
Woody: “I see your point. I dunno. What do you think, honey?”
Redford: “…But you can still keep the whore, obviously.” (He hands Woody a free drink from a passing bar matron) “Tell you what – I’ll make it $1200.00. And that’s my final offer.” (cocks the brim of his cowboy hat)
Demi: (looks puzzled for 2-3 seconds) “Sounds good to me.”
Woody: “I get to keep her, right? I mean, we’re in love.”
Redford: “We’re all in love.”

[An Army cot is hastily dragged out by several bar matrons. They are of the ‘New Las Vegas’ and are wearing placards declaring “I AM NOT A WHORE” in Magic Marker. They’re all talking on cellphones, distracted. The pit boss stands slightly offstage, holding a bullwhip. Redford is already stark naked with a huge digitally-enhanced hard-on. He looks awful. A passing matron replaces his actual cowboy hat with a huge digitally-enhanced one.]

Redford (fucking Demi and quoting Gang of Four): “The problem…of leisure…what to do…for pleasure…”

[Woody is at the cashier’s window, getting an advance against Redford’s credit.]
Woody: “I’m a millionaire, baby. Want to get high?”

[Demi’s moans harmonize with the din from the slot machines.]


You can watch the movie twice in the same amount of time it would take to listen to The Pop Group's "We Are All Prostitutes" 7”. Now that's modesty. As Steve Martin once put it: "I believe that love is the most beautiful thing that money can buy."



posted at 3:26 AM