I�m cuckoo for �Coconuts�!

Do me a flavor�if you�re in a bad mood, a dancing mood�any sort of mood, really� go download Junior Senior�s song �Coconuts.� It�s so excellent. I mean, the fact that they sing, �Shake your coconuts (coco boys!) / Until the nut comes out, c�mon (coco girls!)� is only a quarter of the delight of this song. I haven�t had a favorite song in ages but Hunior Henior (as Brent and I call them) have taken their pimp hand to that shit. There�s cowbell, a breakdown, mincing. It�s GORGEOUS without the fancy. Yum. It�s one of those songs that proves that being tr�s s�rieux is such a pissy drag. Gimme Richard Simmons over people who copy Flaubert any day.

Being all solemn and important is fine and, well, solemn and important. But I�ve said it before and I�ll say it again: funny is the height of genius and if you can do it in a song that works on many levels, well, shit, we got ourselves some good eatin�. Half a gopher would only arouse my appetite.

I went to high school with one of them half-a-gopher types. You know, the guy who was constantly quoting Important Indie Rock Artists (only back then they were begrudgingly called Alternative�gotta keep the labels straight for the stupid people). I know a fifty-year-old teenager who is still doing that. I guess I can�t blame him for being unfunny. When your biggest concern is appearing a certain way, you don�t really have the time, heart, or constitution to be the Good Humor Man.

The antidote to that bullshit fake my-power-lies-in-my-soulpatch mythos runs naked and free in the Hunior Henior song. It�s this letting go that I love so much about �Coconuts.� It is great musically and not silly to the point of novelty. It speaks to the fact that Hunior Henior are here now, living life, and are going to make a song because it feels good, not because they want Honce and Ponce K�nstler down the street to think they�re keen readers. Instead of allowing the music to flow, people concerned with appearing Important tighten their jaws and brace themselves, screwing their courage to the sticking point, in order to create the Wall of Sound II. They think it�s neat that Phil Spector ended up shooting some actress. They�re probably just upset he didn�t have the good sense to shoot a more Important Actress like Gena Rowlands�somebody with ties to another Important Artist, like Cassavetes�or would that have been a no-no? I don�t get the Fake Inc. monthly newsletter, but I would think they would cover subjects like that��Lay off Cassavetes because he�s really hot right now since that box set just came out a few months ago. Give it a little time. In a few more months he may be fair game because a lot more people will start liking him so we�ll have to shame him. It would be open season on Ray Charles now, what with the Hollywood film and the Oscar and all� that is, if he weren�t black. Political correctness is key, at least on the surface. Make them believe you�re with it and open minded and you�ll have them eating out of your lily hand.�

These fakes are just marketing executives for their own souls; they just tend to glom onto art�that�s what makes them so insidiously disgusting to me. At least if you�re trying to sell me a shitty cheeseburger I know you�re trying to sell me a shitty cheeseburger. But when you�re trying to sell me your art, philosophy of life, friendship, well, my young enemy, that action, Jackson, is just a one-way ticket to heck! If I believed in heck� Then instead, how about fuck you?

I started this hullabaloo in praise of Hunior Henior. Not to write Fakes and the Faking Fakes Who Fake Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Fake. So yeah. Shake your coconuts.

This entry, interestingly enough, was 666 words, until I wrote this sentence.