April's Fools

(April 02, 2008)

Well, the neighbors came home Monday, so I didn't have to batter down their door with my bare fists to find and destroy whatever evil little electronic device was buzzing thirty fucking times every five minutes for two straight days. Lucky.

Yesterday, April Fool's Day, carried with it one funny joke. I've never much liked practical jokes -- I just never get what's so funny. Most sound like exactly this to me:

Joker: "Hey, I'm moving to Chicago."
Jokee: "Yeah, how come?
Joker: "Um...April Fools."
Jokee: "Um...kay."

Woo hoo? Ha ha?

To illustrate by example: I once had a friend in LA, oh about ten years ago, send me a gushing Instant Message about how he'd just gotten a great email from...I forget, someone famous known for guitar wizardry -- oh, this friend is a guitar player, so the centerpiece of his joke is that one of his idols was emailing him, thereby making him, my friend, happy. So anyway, guy's all "Eddie van Slash (or whatever) just emailed me! He says he loves my tone on that song blah blah blah." So I respond, without actually caring but aiming to emulate the kind of enthusiasm he seemed to be digging for, "That's great, I'm so happy for you!" or some such. Then he responds by saying "Ha, my girlfriend and I are laughing our asses off at how gullible you are, ha ha."

Dude, that's not even worth a halfhearted chuckle. My nutjob boss does that kind of thing every day, April Fool's Day or not. Why, just today, and I'm not even close to kidding:

Boss: I want those two Mac monitors packed up to take with us to Vegas.
Me: No problem.
Boss: (later, while my Admin is labeling the two Mac monitor boxes for shipping) I don't want those two Mac monitors packed up to take with us to Vegas!
Me: Um...kay.

If you guys all think that's just like, the funniest thing ever, maybe I was delivered to this planet in an alien beanpod and do not comprehend this joke you call practical. And I'm a funny fucker! I laugh all DAY. Then again, I do believe a lot of people just don't know what Funny looks like. My guitar-playing friend in LA for one, and anyone alive who thinks Gilbert Gottfried is even remotely watchable even while one is high off one's ass.

Now, THIS is funny. Read on, MacDuff.

Jim, frontman of a local Boston band, posted this on our message board:

From The Boston Herald:

THE N*OISE GOING OUT OF BUSINESS

BOSTON: Local rock music magazine will publish the last issue of the publication's 20 year history this month according to publisher T. Maxwell. "I've been doing this forever and now I need to concentrate on other projects," said Maxwell, 62, of Jamaica Plain. "I guess it started with my anti-war project which is helping to bring the troops home one song at a time."

Maxwell began printing the N*ise in late 1980s after losing a bet with actor Ted Danson on the set of Cheers. Danson suggested that Maxwell write about music instead of trying to become an actor while hanging around the set. "We played one game of rock, paper, scissors. At the end, I tore up my SAG card and bought a copy machine." And for the last 20 years, that magazine featured some of the area's up and coming new talent. But as Maxwell states "only the best talent."

"If there was someone doing something interesting around town, we'd hear about it. Otherwise, we'd flat out ignore it."

The final issue of the N*ise is breaking tradition by printing in color. There will be no reviews in the mag, only a lengthy article about and lyrics from the all new Sgt. Maxwell's Peace Chorus. There are still peace picks and various Noise merchandise available for a limited time.

****

When I tell you that I suffered a hot & frothy coffee snarf over this, believe me.

For the uninitiated: This item is about The Noise. That is the local music rag I was writing for, up until this October when I just couldn't stand it anymore. The publisher, T Max, a longtime local music guru, had so completely re-focused his energies on his music that anything Noise-related was rushed. Bad choices in stories, egregious typo's (more than usual even!), extraneous photos of boobular girls that have little or nothing to do with local rock, purely pathetic Photoshop jobs -- oh, and every few pages, an advertisement for T Max's own "anti war" project. I mean, The Noise was ALREADY a crappy indie zine, but it had a great deal of spunk. Take away the spunk and all you have left is the crappy, yo.

And oh, how that happened. How the crappy prevailed. I can't even look at it anymore. And, apparently, I'm not the only one who has noticed -- my leave happened without much fanfare, but after 11 years SOME people wondered, I'm sure.

Or not. I don't know.

So that post of Jim's is hilarious -- he takes a few grains of truth, adds in a lot of wild inaccuracies (Ted Danson!), and voila -- farcical brilliance.

I don't know what was funnier -- the item Jim wrote or the people's reactions to it. Besides me, only one or two people knew it was a joke!

Ted Danson was in no way involved in the zine's beginnings, T Max isn't 62 (he's got a few years yet before he can boast that), and no, the damn thing isn't going out of business.

Then again, if it's going to remain a hastily slapped-together sidelined distraction to T Max, perhaps it IS time for The Noise go out of business.