re: My Merrily Mirthful Melodic Melange -- Myriad Musical Miscellania

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On to the music of today. The shitty, shitty music of today. The teenage-girl garbage fest that passes itself off as music that has infected our culture. This shite is insidious. It has spread quicker and farther than AIDS in Africa. There’s no escaping it. Traditional bastions of male-dom are being invaded by this teen chick music. I was in the chair at the aforementioned Mexican barbershop and they were pumping Miley Cyrus. Worse, I was at a sports bar in the San Antonio airport at nine A.M. trying to enjoy a preflight Bloody Mary and Lady Gaga was blasting from the speakers. Because there’s nothing guys who frequent sports bars in Texas during prime hangover hours enjoy more than the music of Lady Gaga. My travel companion, Mike August, asked the bartender to turn it down. The bartender replied that he wasn’t allowed to.

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my buddy Daniel was in town and we made plans to go out after the show to a high-end steak joint in Manhattan called STK.

Before we even sat down, I was annoyed. The jams were being pumped. I looked over and saw a live DJ on a riser at one end of the place. When the waitress came over to take our order, she had to shout the specials at us like you do at your deaf grandmother when you visit her in the home. “IT’S NOT A TRADITIONAL CRAB CAKE . . . NO, CRAB CAKE . . .” I shite you not, the techno was so loud I had to act like a UN interpreter between the waitress and the guy sitting next to me. “SHE SAID THAT ONLY COMES WITH TWO SHRIMP, SO WE SHOULD PROBABLY DO THREE ORDERS!” We all got a nice side order of tinnitus with our asparagus.

And they were not just any jams. No, this DJ was doing it mash-up style. So not only were we treated to Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe,” but it was mashed up with the bass from “Roxanne.” And to add insult to injury there was ten seconds of relief when they played the intro to Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.” I thought, “Oh, thank God. Finally, a little Sinatra in a New York steak house, the world is right again.” And then came the Alicia Keys.

And that’s the point. How about some Sinatra or jazz? Would people light the place on fire and throw chairs through the windows if you played a little Dave Brubeck? Is this a steak house or a fashion show? I came here for a porterhouse and some mashed potatoes, not a rave.

Of course I had to talk to the waitress about this. I asked, “Do people like the music so loud they can’t hear the specials?” She gave me two very unsatisfying answers. First she said, “I know. Everyone complains about it.” Then why don’t you do something about it? Is there a city ordinance that the music must be louder than a jet engine? The second part of her answer was worse. When I asked why the DJ cut Sinatra, she said the owners wanted it that way to make the place more friendly toward women. I thought, “Women or eleven-year-old girls?” Because that’s who this “music” is appealing to.

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I was at an event at the Tribeca Film Festival and the white DJ, who I’ve lovingly dubbed DJ CrackerJew, was pumping up the jams as if the room was full of thirteen-year-old girls with learning and hearing disabilities. I went up and asked him politely to turn it down and he said no. I asked, “Do you see anyone dancing?” He replied that he didn’t. So I asked again if he could turn it down and he said no again. Then I snapped, “No one likes your shitty music.” He said, “I do,” and turned it up. I wanted to find this guy’s parents and kick the shite out of them. Just never stop kicking them until my shoes were covered in teeth and blood. Can we get black people DJing again? White guys have too much to prove.

Seriously. Remember when party DJs were lovable black guys in Run-D.M.C. sweatsuits whose shoes were untied? (Unclear if they were trying to cultivate a look or if it was the morbid obesity that prevented them from doing so.) They played some Temptations, they played some Marvin Gaye, they dutifully honored the “Walking on Sunshine” request, and then went the frick home. Now they’re spindly, obnoxious white guys in front of a Mac laptop with their hats on crooked looking like a cheap Chinese bootleg of a Beastie Boy. This guy doesn’t seem to notice he’s in a room full of people whose average age is fifty-one and average skin color is Meryl Streep. This is just jacking off, they don’t care what their audience wants to hear, as long as they look and feel cool doing it and get to take a coke break once in a while.

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