Read Zombie Spaceship Wasteland Online
Authors: Patton Oswalt
Me:
All right, now let’s give a big welcome to “Wild” Willy Strumston and his Twisted Tunes!
“Wild” Willy
[
tuning guitar
]: Anybody celebrating anything? A birthday? What’s this here in the front row, date? First date? Computer-date fuckup?
Okay, here we go . . .
[to the tune of Janet Jackson’s “Nasty Boys”]
Nazi
Nazi boys
Did you see the way Kurt Waldheim moo-ooves?
Oh you Nazi boys!
(It’s “Kurt,” “Herr Waldheim” if you’re Nazi)
[to the tune of Don Ho’s “Tiny Bubbles”]
Tiny fractures
In the roof of the plane
Makes the ceiling fly off
Makes me shit my pants again
[Breaks the tune to ask the audience,
“Aloha Flight 243? You heard about this, right?”]
Me:
Ladies and gentlemen, here he comes, “Topical” Tommy Tantrum!
“Topical” Tommy
: Oliver North. John Poindexter. I mean,
seriously
. I’m too pissed off to write any jokes about this. You should be too pissed off to
hear
any.
Did you guys read about how the First Republic Bank of Texas has entered FDIC receivership? First off, this is the largest assisted bank failure in history. I guess when they say “federally insured” they mean . . .
. . . Okay, are you people serious? Are you fucking serious? You didn’t read about this? What, was
Marmaduke
particularly deep today? This is a primary, load-bearing beam of the coming kleptocracy being laid in front of our fucking eyes and you want to hear about airline food? Okay, fine, you want to hear about airline food. Fine. Here we go. Happy, family entertainment for everyone . . .
1989[After several pouty, halfhearted airline food jokes
and then a longish piece about the August 8 Myanmar
“8888” incident, Tommy stomps off the stage.]
Blazer:
Whew, what’s that smell? Did they fry Ted Bundy again? Or is that the mozzarella sticks? You’re a sick crowd, I love that.
Yikes, you see that Clint Malarchuk get his throat cut?
This
guy knows what I’m talking about, and this woman’s all, “Tee-hee—what’s a Malarchuk?” He’s this hockey player, got his throat cut open by another player’s skate. Yeah, I know. Gross. Quick, get some ice!
How ’bout that crazy Khomeini funeral? The body falling into the crowd like that? I felt like I was watching a dude crowd-surf at a punk rock and roll show, huh?
So, the Fox network is showing cartoons in prime time now.
Simpsons
or something? I guess they ran out of people to arrest on
Cops
.
Have you seen these Post-it notes?
“Wild” Willy
[
to the tune of Sam and Dave’s “Soul Man
”]:
Drive my dad’s car
In the driveway
Time for Wapner
Each and every day
Eight pieces
of fish sticks
Counting all
of those toothpicks
I’m a Rain Man!
I’m a Rain Man!
[to the tune of Lynn Anderson’s “Rose Garden”]
I beg your pardon
But Pete Rose has got a gamblin’ problem . . .
“Topical” Tommy:
If you don’t want to hear about the Keating Five or the Velvet Revolution, now’s a good time to take a bathroom break.
1990So . . .
Blazer:
Man, you hear Jim Henson died? Yeah, Kermit was speechless. But seriously, folks, Jim Henson was a genius and he’ll truly be missed. There we go—yes, ma’am. A round of applause for Jim Henson.
So, the first McDonald’s restaurant opened in Moscow. You want a McBorscht with that, comrade? Two all-beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a bottle of vodka, huh, Boris? Hey, these people wait in line three days to get toilet paper. I’d hate to see the lines for French fries!
Oh, and you see how Bush raised taxes? Guess I read his lips wrong! Think he’s trying to help Imelda Marcos buy some shoes for her trial? If we need money so bad, why don’t we get Mayor Marion Barry to sell some crack?
“Wild” Willy
[
to the tune of the Fine Young Cannibals’
“She Drives Me Crazy”
]:
He drives Miss Daisy . . .
“Topical” Tommy:
Well, I guess you all missed only the biggest merging of media companies in U.S. History with the merging of Time and Warner Communications. I’m telling you, people, we’re going to end up under one media umbrella and pretty soon the news and the government will all be brought to you by fucking Frosted
Flakes
.
[A drunk in the audience yells, “They’re grrrrrreat!”]
1991Just perfect . . .
Blazer:
Pee . . . !
“Wild” Willy Strumston:
Wee . . . !
“Topical” Tommy Tantrum:
Okay, first off, his name is Paul Reubens,
not
“Pee Wee Herman,” which is a fucking character he plays. I guess the entire country screeches to a halt when—surprise, surprise—an adult male is caught masturbating in a public theater. I mean . . .
[Jokes about the Soviet storming of Vilnius to stop
Lithuanian independence, the Visegrad Agreement,
and the Milosevic demonstrations in Belgrade;
one thrown bottle later, Tommy stomps offstage.]
Blazer:
Yeah, so. How’re you folks doing? Let’s get a round of applause for those Redskins, huh?
Man, Carson retiring, huh? Gonna leave
The Tonight Show.
What’s he got, three weeks left there? What do you think, you still think I have a shot? [
Heavy sigh
] So yeah, so Bush, huh? Puking all over the Japanese prime minister like that? Look, if you don’t like their trade proposals, say it, don’t spray it. And . . .
[Pause]
Of course, next week that joke’s going to be a dinosaur. What else have I got here? Mike Tyson raping that chick, something something . . . I think the punch line was going to be something about being “saved by the bell.” Oh hey, here’s a bunch of stuff about Amy Fisher and Mary Jo Buttafuoco. “I hope this affair doesn’t blow up in my face.” Well, that’s Joe Buttafuoco saying that, now Mary Jo. Who cares anyway, right?
[Sits on stool]
Man, five years ago, the people who made the news seemed to be world leaders or talented people. You know what they should call the nightly news now?
Tonight’s Biggest Asshole.
[Crowd laughs]
Right? Sometimes, I’m walking down the street, and there’s a guy with half of his ass showing, screaming at pedestrians. I want to say to him, “Hey, if you’d drop those pants all the way, set one of your turds on fire, and throw it at a baby, you could bump the president off the news tonight.” Ah, it’s all bullshit anyway.
“Wild” Willy
[
to the tune of the Newbeats’ “Bread and
Butter”
]:
He likes thighs and eyeballs
He likes brains and cheeks
That’s what Hannibal Lecter eats
Every day of the week . . .
“Topical” Tommy:
Well, I don’t have a guitar like “Wild” Willy, but if I did? And after hearing that bullshit Rodney King verdict? Man, I’d play “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” This is just typical racist mistreatment of blacks by—
[A black guy, drunk and only half-listening to the show,
looks up at the stage and yells, “Don’t even go there,
motherfucker!”]
No, listen, I’m saying that those white police ass-holes . . .
[The black guy yells again, “Nuh-uh!”]
I’m on your side, goddamnit!
[They go back and forth for ten minutes, the crowd siding
with the black guy, before “Topical” Tommy, shaking, walks
offstage, giving the black guy a wide berth.]
Blazer:
. . . and another thing about divorce . . .
“Wild” Willy
[
to the tune of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire”
]:
Bill Clinton president
Intel’s making Pentiums
Showdown at Waco
Bills lose the Super Bowl
[Tries to rhyme “Don’t ask, don’t tell” with “Monica Seles,”
cracks up, and says, “I’m still working on that one.”]
“Topical” Tommy:
Hey, I’ve got my problems with the government—that fucking Waco thing? They burn women and children alive and then say they were doing it to protect children? Yeah, right.
But these religious extremists, bombing the World Trade Center? People, we’ve got to wake up to what the fuck’s out there. Yeah, we’ve got some things here need fixing but if we let a few nut jobs who worship some bullshit desert god scare us into surrender, we’re going to find ourselves under sharia law. You know what that is? Well, I’ll tell you . . .
[Audience groans. One guy shouts, “U! S! A!”]
Blazer:
So, about a year ago, I was at the lowest part of my life. At least I thought I was. Then I found something worse. Dating a Goth waitress . . .
“Wild” Willy:
Yeah, so, uh . . . I know I do a lot of silly-ass songs up here and all, and we have fun, right? We’re all partying together.
But I was, uh . . .
That Kurt Cobain, blowing his brains out like that? I mean, the fact that he could articulate so much pain in his music, you’d think that’d help him through it. And then you see something like that, where you realize, “Man, sometimes having a creative gift like that does nothing to alter your reality.” I mean, if he could write songs like that, and that didn’t help him, what fucking hope do we have? Sorry . . .
[Does a shockingly beautiful cover of “About a Girl”]
1995“Topical” Tommy:
NAFTA? Are you fucking
kidding
me?
GARVIN’S NOW UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT
WILL REOPEN IN SPRING OF 1996
I went back to Washington, DC, to work at a new, national chain club in the summer of 1996.
The first morning I was there I did “Wild” Willy’s morning show. We joked on the air about the old club and the weirdos who used to come in for open mikes. Off the air, he told me how he was married now and couldn’t believe how much he loved the routine of getting up in the morning, doing his show, and then being home in the early afternoon to bring his daughters home from school. He’d stopped writing song parodies years ago, but he hosted regular all-ages shows in Georgetown. He really loved the local band scene. “Can you imagine how cool it would’ve been to be up in Seattle in the late eighties, instead of slugging away in those shithole comedy clubs?” I couldn’t quite agree with him but agreed that Tad, in their heyday, must’ve been something to see.
I drove around that afternoon in my rental car, visiting friends and seeing the sights. I flipped around the AM dial and found “Topical” Tommy’s right-wing radio show. He’d lost none of his anger but, now that he only had to remember six or seven catchall phrases that were guaranteed to set his listeners frothing, he spewed them with a venom that Ian MacKaye would’ve envied. Maybe all those years of silence, and stares, and dismissal from the crowd had secretly eaten away at him, and now he loved knowing he’d always get a positive response. At the mid-point of the show, he and a caller agreed, angrily, about how the blacks had blown all their chances for social justice and reform after the Rodney King verdict.
“I used to do comedy, and I remember trying to reach out and say how disgusted I was with that verdict, and this idiot in the audience was too stupid to know I was agreeing with him! Started shouting at me and threatening to kick my ass . . .”
The caller said, “That verdict was totally fair! They didn’t beat that guy enough!”
“Thank you,
exactly,
” said Tommy. I wanted to call him and bring up the Time-Warner merger, but my cell phone wasn’t getting a signal.
That night at the club, the manager came back to see me in the greenroom.
“Hey, Blazer!” I said, jumping up and hugging him.
“You want any kind of special intro music?”
I said, “
You
pick something. Your taste is better than mine. You turned me on to the Kinks back when I was an open-miker.”
He showed me pictures of his new wife and kids. The son and daughter were athletic and coltish, respectively. The wife was cute, in a sunny blouse and slacks, a tattoo of an ankh on her wrist. The tail of a larger, more elaborate tattoo barely peeked out from the collar of his shirt. The picture was taken at a soccer game in the suburbs.