One of the most popular Pork Pony stories ever produced was a group effort spoofing performance art. It's been away far too long. Unloosen Awareness Month revives our mock requiem for a long-gone boom box. Youth be warned: there's a bit of explicit language. Photos by Alex Kinnan and Jack Anderer.
Recently, the performance art duo of Ernest Tremor and abeISS experienced a horrible loss: their boom box and long-time compadre Lenoxx Sound ceased to function. What you are about to experience is a transcription (with photos) of the enlightening and, well, interesting eulogy they delivered at their "funeral" for the aforementioned sound system.
PRELUDE TO REQUIEM: (by abeISS)
Lenoxx Sound, you were the light. Lenoxx, you were the light. Sound, you were the light.
SHUTUP SHUTUP SHUTUP!
EULOGY 1: (by Ernest Tremor)
CORPORATIONS HAVE INVADED OUR ANUSES.
A body is surrounded by sickness: this sick race of human beings, under nourished by the fruit of love and sex and sex. The sickness known as disease, the mighty claws of cancer and AIDS pluck the lives from the sick people around us and given us flues. Corruption, that sickness which infects all it touches either by assimilation or strangulation or assimigulation. The sickness we call loneliness, that wicked ailment, which seeks to rob us of beauteous sexual pleasures and clean dishes. And now you, dear Lenoxx Sound have also been swept away by sickness.
MEAT IS WORSE THAN MURDER; MEAT IS RAPE.
Through your ears, you did not hear of illness, for your ears were not ears at all, but were antennae and microphone jack. Your kind nose smelt not sickness' acrid odor, for your nose was not a nose; nay, it was a rear vent that let the air enter your body and cool your inner parts. With your humble mouth, you never tasted the putrid flavor of that cornucopia of death sickness serves to us daily, for your mouth was only hungry for the audiocassettes you supped on. And your eyes, they saw not the twisted and crooked visage of disease. Your eyes fooled all who gazed upon you for your eyes were not eyes, they were the speakers which society's need for a message had so horribly abused.
SATAN: THE SNUGGLE BEAR. SATAN: YOUR STREET. SATAN: THE SILENCE.
But, alas, sickness saw, smelt, tasted, and finally touched you, robbing you of life and leaving only your sticker laden plastic and metal husk, pieces of which will sacrificed in order to create a sculpture railing against the constructs of the sick corporate society we live in. If you were alive, you'd play the soundtrack. Most likely something by Diamanda Galas.
EULOGY 2: (by abeISS)
spin shriek torn speakers: WAIT:
BLACKNESS
meat meaty meat:
DARKNESS
stickers tattoo this plastic shell of mine:
BLACKNESS
sound waves of love: BREAK: ancient acid D batteries
DARKNESS! DARKNESS!
darkness red light fades
BLACKNESS!
blackness words slow rewind stop click rewind stop cli:
darkness.
EULOGY 3: (by Ernest Tremor)
Remember.
Remember that in the boom box nirvana, the plastic is replaced with gold, the gold is replaced with the bones of the gods, and we need not worry about the gods bones being replaced because it's about time those twisted bastards lost something for a change.
Or so it shall be for our fair Lenoxx Sound, the grandest $60 ever spent.
Remember: of Wal-Mart born.
Remember how the reaper watched you from your first day? How he did salivate and fantasize of cleaving your synthetic flesh with the sharp blade of his scythe. Evasion was yours. Nary a fine dodger as you was seen. Whoa! The gods did envy you and they made love to your image in vain.
Remember, in vain?
Oh, how their hunger for sex paid off, for now you sit at the sides of these gods and lay in their beds and make demands of their eunuchs. Inside of you is eternity's D-cell battery.
I am speechless. (Nevermind the fact that I can say "I am speechless" or this sentence that I'm typing right now.)
One of my favorite reactions to this piece was also one of the most common: it seems almost too authentic. If you've ever witnessed performance art, it is in fact this pretentious and annoying.
Admittedly, today was the first time I had read this piece in probably two years or so. One of the things I had forgotton is just how funny the photos are. The guys we got to play the performance artists hit it out of the park. Maybe one of these days I'll dig up the original pictures and repost bigger versions. The pained expressions are just priceless.
This was/is one of my favorites ever posted. This makes me glad that there are no performance artists within 75 miles of my location, actually. Having said that, I'd like to know how they physically sent off their box, or perhaps it is enshrined somewhere or attached to a necklace worn, in turn, by these performers. Maybe float it out on a flaming model canoe or cremate it and snort the ashes/residue?
This even holds up under 2007's fairly rigid standards.