I Drink for a Reason (21 page)

From: Garrett Kamps

Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 9:10 A.M.

To:

Subject: David Cross: Building My Backlash

Hey,

So here’s what I think David should write: A piece about the on-the-horizon backlash against him. Last year there wasn’t a
hipster in the house who didn’t want to give Cross a BJ for “telling it like it is.” Now it seems those same hipsters are
starting to tire of his sardonic ‘tude. It strikes me that he’s just about to cross over that line from hipster hero to resident
asshole/punching bag (the TV show, “Eternal Sunshine . . .”, and the Rolling Stone/Spin stuff don’t help). According to the
Self-Loathing Hipster’s Guide to the Universe, David has two choices now: Go underground, provoke a string of rumors re: drugs,
abortions, sweat shops; or embrace the backlash against him. I propose he do the latter in the form of a guest column in these
pages. We could even get Eggers—no stranger to the backlash phenom—involved. Thoughts?

g.

Hi. The above e-mail was sent to one of the guys in the SubPop publicity department to inquire about… well, you just read
it, so you know what it’s about. Apparently there will be some inevitable backlash against me, in part, because of the cumulative
effects of the various projects I am working on. I suppose if I took on just a couple of these projects (“jobs” I like to
call them, in my Protestant work ethic way) that might lessen some of the ill feelings that are slowly but surely working
their way toward me and my sarcastic ’tude, but seven or eight of them in the same calendar year!? Forget it! That’s got “Go
away! I don’t want to see your smirking face or hear your blah blah blahs for like two years, at least!” written all over
it.

Here’s my theory: Backlash and Backlash 2 are “inevitable” because people feel like there is a somewhat vague sense of hypocrisy
to what is now my life. I’ve spent years making fun of people and things both serious and light and have received growing
attention because of that. Thus, I am now reaping the benefits associated—i.e., making money, getting on the guest lists of
shows I want to go to, and fucking beautiful women that are WAY out of my league (and by that I mean my girlfriend, who is
beautiful and WAY out of my league). That’s part 1a. Part 1b is that the more work that I do that isn’t
Mr. Show
or
Arrested Development
adds up to a whole bunch of stuff that, simply put, isn’t
Mr. Show
or
Arrested Development.
Those shows were cancelled. They were great, and I’m happy to have been a part of HBO’s pre-golden years as well as FOX’s
trash bin, but that’s all over.

Now I earn my living by being a sarcastic crank, or “asshole,” which is just one of my many onstage personas (I’m working
on a new one where I amuse folks through gentle self-deprecating joshing, à la Garrison Keiller). I certainly understand why
people would grow weary of my ’tude. I’ve felt the same way about others in my position. And I react with the same eye-rolling,
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. You don’t like the president and you don’t like Hollywood douchebags, I GET it. Say, though, how was
that bump that you did backstage at the White Stripes show in L.A.? I hope it didn’t delay your guest VJ spot on MTV2… jagoff”
to others in my position. And this kind of thing compounds the problem. It seems that my career is entering the “Shut up already”
phase. Those who were with me in the beginning before I showed my true colors as I willingly and exuberantly lapped at the
feet of my indie heroes while preparing to play a game of televised poker with strangers are currently loading their blogs,
ready to trash and deny. This means that I will now be left with just the people who recognize me from
Men in Black
or
Just Shoot Me
to look to for succor. I will while away the hours answering questions about what Will Smith is
really
like and whether Laura San Giacomo’s breasts are really as big as they seem. Hmmm, actually that doesn’t sound like much
fun.

Okay then. With that in mind, I will turn to the aforementioned
Self-Loathing Hipster’s Guide to the Universe
(published by Knopf) and plan the rest of my life accordingly. I can go underground (a real place; it is a cavernous lead-lined
bunker in the Yucca Mountains in Nevada) with, amongst others, the guy from the Manic Preachers and Debra Winger. There I
can bide my time and write occasional op-ed pieces for fanzines and websites under a fake name suggesting that David Cross
is running guns in Columbia or hooked on opium in Karachi. All the while I will be scouring the Internet to see if sufficient
time has passed to quell the backlash. Then and only then will I resurface in Iceland, years later, where I “had been the
entire time.” I will have a full beard, large pot belly, and a moderately successful eco-friendly bookbinding business that
I will have run with my Icelandic wife, Gjo. I will make a brief appearance in the upper left corner box on
The New Hollywood Squares
, where I will renounce my American citizenship and show my new tattoo, then it’s back to the bunker where… man, fuck that.
I’m going to embrace my backlash… make it my own… cherish it and hold it aloft to the heavens like a newborn African babe.
Yes. Bring it, I say. Let it inform me and shape me. Let the backlash give me new insight into the human spirit. Let it take
me to greater heights and lower lows! Let it lift me onto a precipice from which I can see all! Let it change my outfits!
May it swell to numbers too great to print in a family publication! If it means I get to work more, I’m all for it. See you
backstage, fuckers!

Love,

David Cross

Okay, this is another thing that I wrote before I started writing this book that I wanted to include. I doubt too many people
saw it when it first got posted. Do you know what
pitchfork.com
is? It’s a website that basically reviews music but in a very, very precious and often overly verbose way. They clearly love
what they do, but sometimes it can be a little… oh, sorry. I didn’t realize you said you are already familiar with
pitchfork.com
. Sorry about that. I need to clean out the ol’ ears, I guess. Anyway, here it is. And keep in mind that these are all real
quotes from their reviews. I didn’t make anything up or embellish at all.

H
I
, I
WAS SOMEWHAT SURPRISED THAT
P
ITCHFORK
.
COM WOULD
ask me to participate in this. Here’s why:

The devastating paradox of David Cross’ pre-recorded comedy: Is it funny that everything Cross says is nauseatingly smug,
yelped out in smarmy, supercilious prose? Or is David Cross just a giant fucking asshole?

That Cross is such an immensely unlikable live performer—condescending, defensive, arrogant, patronizing—is both his greatest
asset and his most crippling flaw.

And while the above review of my second CD,
It’s Not Funny
, is certainly more thoughtful than “David Cross? Yeah, he’s funny” or “He sucks,” it’s still a bit shitty. “Immensely unlikable”?
The paradox is “devastating”? How is it devastating?

And that’s just one reviewer, Amanda Petrusich.
^*
There’s another one, William Bowers, who claims to:

…having developed a strange, extra-textual concern for David Cross. Likeminded futon-psychoanalysts fret over his fluctuating
weight, his fitfulness and despondence….

Fretting over my weight? Oh, well. But regardless of their opinion of me and/or my act, they’ve asked me for my Top Ten List
^®
. So here is my contribution to the Top Ten List
^®
for
Pitchfork.com
.

Top Ten CDs That I Just Made Up (and Accompanying Made-up Review Excerpts) to Listen to while Skimming through Some of the
Over-wrought Reviews on
Pitchfork.com

1. While reading over
pitchfork.com
’s review for the Arcade Fire (here’s a brief excerpt)—

Our self-imposed solitude renders us politically and spiritually inert, but rather than take steps to heal our emotional and
existential wounds, we have chosen to revel in them. We consume the affected martyrdom of our purported idols and spit it
back in mocking defiance.

—may I suggest listening to
Until It Happens/You Let It Happen,
by Maximum Minimum. The fourth album (not counting the re-release of the first three 7-inches on HugTown Records) reaffirms
the band’s status as the godfathers of the Taos, NM, “crying scene.” Like a gilded phoenix rising from the toxic ashes of
the death of mercurial lead guitarist, Peter Chernin, Maximum Minimum snarls back like a taunted tiger on steroids (also on
acid). RATING—8.2

2. While reading the Pitchfork review of Daft Punk’s
Human after All
—

Ideally, the physics of record reviewing are as elegant as actual physics, with each piece speaking to the essence of its
subject as deliberately and as appropriately as a real-world force reacting to an action.

—(this is a real, albeit brief, excerpt) may I suggest listening to
Elegant Nuisance
by “ButterFat 100.” With this, their second album since signing with Holive Records, ButterFat 100 return to their psychobilly/emo
core roots. Let its volcanic rapture overwhelm you like a 19th-century hand-woven blanket made of human hair might have done
back in the days when they enjoyed such things. RATING—5.5

3. While reading their review of Animal Collective’s
Sung Tongs
(here’s a brief excerpt)—

“The Softest Voice” layers clear-toned guitar figures upon each other, as Tare and Bear whisper in harmony above, as if singing
to the vision peering back at them from the skin of a backwoods creek. The rustic, secretive manner of their voices and the
barely disturbed forest around them suggests that whatever ghosts inhabit these woods are only too happy to oblige a lullaby
or two. Likewise, the epic “Visiting Friends” gathers in faceless, mutated ghosts (i.e., oddly manipulated vocalizations from
the duo) to hover over their dying fire in visage of nothing better than the tops of trees.)

—why not listen to
As I Became We
by “Tishara Quailfeather.” The virulent and hermetically sealed pinings of the world’s only triple-gold-selling Native American
artist living in an iron lung. It’s as if newly dead, and thus still pure angels, reached down into the Virgin Mother’s throat
and gently lifted out the sweetest and most plaintive sounds man will ever hope to hear in this life. RATING—7.17

4. While reading the review of Blonde Redhead’s
Misery Is a Butterfly
(here is but a brief passage)—

The word “lush” doesn’t quite capture the fluttering whirls of strings, keyboards, and delicately plucked guitar that open
“Elephant Woman”; I’d go so far as to label such enveloping richness of instrumentation “baroque,” perhaps even “rococo.”

—give a listen to
Turndown Service
, the forthcoming album by
DotCom.com
. Hopefully this foray into the electronic sector of the British no-fi/wi-hi scene (with apologies to Dr. Reverend Billy)
is only a temporary diversion and not a full-fledged career move for Bix Xhu and friends. With a nod to early Creatures via
the Monks,
DotCom.com
manages to wrench what little empathy one might have for the entire British working class (nothing you wouldn’t find at an
“Alive with Pleasure” show) and sashays it right up and down Trafalgar Square. RATING—6.22

5. While reading the review of the Boards of Canada’s
Music Has the Right to Children
—

The incredibly simple melody of the short “Bocuma” becomes a lump-in-the-throat meditation on man’s place in the universe
through subtle pitch shifts and just the right mist of reverb. The slow fade-in on “An Eagle in Your Mind” is the lonesome
sound of a gentle wind brushing the surface of Mars moments after the last rocket back to Earth has lifted off.

—why not listen to
Only the Proletariat Flosses
by Screaming at the Mirror. With a truncated syncopation and approach that rivals only Tosh Guarrez pre-“FartFlap,” S.A.T.M
has taken steps to dismantle what was previously only dared mantled by the great Gilda Thrush when she fronted Cycle Clause.
It’s as if Genghis Khan got together for breakfast with Oliver Wendell Holmes and Virginia Wolf and ordered just a bowl of
homemade granola and then skipped out on the check. RATING—11.–111

6. When you’re enjoying the review of the M.I.A./Diplo album
Piracy Funds Terrorism, Vol. 1
(here’s the beginning of that one)—

Santa Claus, the Virgin Mary, and Terrence “Turkeytime” Terrence just got the shaft this holiday season. Why bother with presents?
2005’s Tickle Me Elmo was supposed to be a chicken-legged Sri Lankan with so much sex in her self-spun neons you might as
well get wasted off penicillin with Willie Nelson at a secret Rex the Dog show.

—(Huh?) check out University of Blunts’
Dirty Dirty Dirty Dirty Dirty Dirty.
It’s like a 505 Groovebox as designed by someone who reads only Braille. Actually, to clarify, only if that same designer
got caught in a transformer with Brindle Fly and decided to travel fifty years into the future and bring back what might have
sounded retro thirty years from now if the future takes it’s more than lugubrious, predictable course. RATING—4.001

7. Hey, are you reading the review to the Mountain Goats CD
The Sunset Tree
—

As one would hope from a songwriter as smart as Darnielle, “The Sunset Tree” comes from a 19th-century religious song, “The
Tyrolese Evening Hymn.”

—why not have the latest Wittgenstein’s Mistress CD playing in the background? On
Gift Code,
WM’s latest offering, we find flutes aflutter, strings a stringin’, and melotrones a melotronian. In what is likely to be
remembered more for its chorus of “Get on the bed, bitch… now!” then it’s subtle and rich tapestry woven (most likely by candlelight)
and suffused with an undercurrent of malaise and ennui, the titular track bends, breaks, and ultimately regenerates into a
malevolent whirlstrom of angst and twee. RATING—Four Point Six and One Half