the nightly news now?
Tonight’s Biggest Asshole.
[Crowd laughs]
Right? Sometimes, I’m walking down the street, and there’s a guy with half of his ass showing, screaming at pedestrians. I want to say to him, “Hey, if you’d drop those pants all the way, set one of your turds on fire, and throw it at a baby, you could bump the president off the news tonight.” Ah, it’s all bullshit anyway.
“Wild” Willy
[
to the tune of the Newbeats’ “Bread and
Butter”
]:
He likes thighs and eyeballs
He likes brains and cheeks
That’s what Hannibal Lecter eats
Every day of the week . . .
“Topical” Tommy:
Well, I don’t have a guitar like “Wild” Willy, but if I did? And after hearing that bullshit Rodney King verdict? Man, I’d play “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” This is just typical racist mistreatment of blacks by—
[A black guy, drunk and only half-listening to the show,
looks up at the stage and yells, “Don’t even go there,
motherfucker!”]
No, listen, I’m saying that those white police ass-holes . . .
[The black guy yells again, “Nuh-uh!”]
I’m on your side, goddamnit!
[They go back and forth for ten minutes, the crowd siding
with the black guy, before “Topical” Tommy, shaking, walks
offstage, giving the black guy a wide berth.]
1993
Blazer:
. . . and another thing about divorce . . .
“Wild” Willy
[
to the tune of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire”
]:
Bill Clinton president
Intel’s making Pentiums
Showdown at Waco
Bills lose the Super Bowl
[Tries to rhyme “Don’t ask, don’t tell” with “Monica Seles,”
cracks up, and says, “I’m still working on that one.”]
“Topical” Tommy:
Hey, I’ve got my problems with the government—that fucking Waco thing? They burn women and children alive and then say they were doing it to protect children? Yeah, right.
But these religious extremists, bombing the World Trade Center? People, we’ve got to wake up to what the fuck’s out there. Yeah, we’ve got some things here need fixing but if we let a few nut jobs who worship some bullshit desert god scare us into surrender, we’re going to find ourselves under sharia law. You know what that is? Well, I’ll tell you . . .
[Audience groans. One guy shouts, “U! S! A!”]
1994
Blazer:
So, about a year ago, I was at the lowest part of my life. At least I thought I was. Then I found something worse. Dating a Goth waitress . . .
“Wild” Willy:
Yeah, so, uh . . . I know I do a lot of silly-ass songs up here and all, and we have fun, right? We’re all partying together.
But I was, uh . . .
That Kurt Cobain, blowing his brains out like that? I mean, the fact that he could articulate so much pain in his music, you’d think that’d help him through it. And then you see something like that, where you realize, “Man, sometimes having a creative gift like that does nothing to alter your reality.” I mean, if he could write songs like that, and that didn’t help him, what fucking hope do we have? Sorry . . .
[Does a shockingly beautiful cover of “About a Girl”]
“Topical” Tommy:
NAFTA? Are you fucking
kidding
me?
1995
GARVIN’S NOW UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT
WILL REOPEN IN SPRING OF 1996
1996
I went back to Washington, DC, to work at a new, national chain club in the summer of 1996.
The first morning I was there I did “Wild” Willy’s morning show. We joked on the air about the old club and the weirdos who used to come in for open mikes. Off the air, he told me how he was married now and couldn’t believe how much he loved the routine of getting up in the morning, doing his show, and then being home in the early afternoon to bring his daughters home from school. He’d stopped writing song parodies years ago, but he hosted regular all-ages shows in Georgetown. He really loved the local band scene. “Can you imagine how cool it would’ve been to be up in Seattle in the late eighties,
Tonight’s Biggest Asshole.
[Crowd laughs]
Right? Sometimes, I’m walking down the street, and there’s a guy with half of his ass showing, screaming at pedestrians. I want to say to him, “Hey, if you’d drop those pants all the way, set one of your turds on fire, and throw it at a baby, you could bump the president off the news tonight.” Ah, it’s all bullshit anyway.
“Wild” Willy
[
to the tune of the Newbeats’ “Bread and
Butter”
]:
He likes thighs and eyeballs
He likes brains and cheeks
That’s what Hannibal Lecter eats
Every day of the week . . .
“Topical” Tommy:
Well, I don’t have a guitar like “Wild” Willy, but if I did? And after hearing that bullshit Rodney King verdict? Man, I’d play “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” This is just typical racist mistreatment of blacks by—
[A black guy, drunk and only half-listening to the show,
looks up at the stage and yells, “Don’t even go there,
motherfucker!”]
No, listen, I’m saying that those white police ass-holes . . .
[The black guy yells again, “Nuh-uh!”]
I’m on your side, goddamnit!
[They go back and forth for ten minutes, the crowd siding
with the black guy, before “Topical” Tommy, shaking, walks
offstage, giving the black guy a wide berth.]
1993
Blazer:
. . . and another thing about divorce . . .
“Wild” Willy
[
to the tune of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire”
]:
Bill Clinton president
Intel’s making Pentiums
Showdown at Waco
Bills lose the Super Bowl
[Tries to rhyme “Don’t ask, don’t tell” with “Monica Seles,”
cracks up, and says, “I’m still working on that one.”]
“Topical” Tommy:
Hey, I’ve got my problems with the government—that fucking Waco thing? They burn women and children alive and then say they were doing it to protect children? Yeah, right.
But these religious extremists, bombing the World Trade Center? People, we’ve got to wake up to what the fuck’s out there. Yeah, we’ve got some things here need fixing but if we let a few nut jobs who worship some bullshit desert god scare us into surrender, we’re going to find ourselves under sharia law. You know what that is? Well, I’ll tell you . . .
[Audience groans. One guy shouts, “U! S! A!”]
1994
Blazer:
So, about a year ago, I was at the lowest part of my life. At least I thought I was. Then I found something worse. Dating a Goth waitress . . .
“Wild” Willy:
Yeah, so, uh . . . I know I do a lot of silly-ass songs up here and all, and we have fun, right? We’re all partying together.
But I was, uh . . .
That Kurt Cobain, blowing his brains out like that? I mean, the fact that he could articulate so much pain in his music, you’d think that’d help him through it. And then you see something like that, where you realize, “Man, sometimes having a creative gift like that does nothing to alter your reality.” I mean, if he could write songs like that, and that didn’t help him, what fucking hope do we have? Sorry . . .
[Does a shockingly beautiful cover of “About a Girl”]
“Topical” Tommy:
NAFTA? Are you fucking
kidding
me?
1995
GARVIN’S NOW UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT
WILL REOPEN IN SPRING OF 1996
1996
I went back to Washington, DC, to work at a new, national chain club in the summer of 1996.
The first morning I was there I did “Wild” Willy’s morning show. We joked on the air about the old club and the weirdos who used to come in for open mikes. Off the air, he told me how he was married now and couldn’t believe how much he loved the routine of getting up in the morning, doing his show, and then being home in the early afternoon to bring his daughters home from school. He’d stopped writing song parodies years ago, but he hosted regular all-ages shows in Georgetown. He really loved the local band scene. “Can you imagine how cool it would’ve been to be up in Seattle in the late eighties,
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