If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s people who arbitrarily find something to complain about. Especially when it involves pointless grousing about other people. I HATE PEOPLE LIKE THAT.
Right, you guessed it. I was being ironic just then. Some people do that for a living. Me? I’m ironic in my spare time. Actually, it’s not merely a matter of personal whim. We’ve just taken on a marketing consultant recommended by our somewhat lackluster label, Loathsome Prick Records. I would tell you her name, but she told me her name must never be spoken. In any case, she – I will call her “Noname” … which rhymes with Edamame in my tiny mind – is going to help us “position” Big Green in the international indie music marketplace. That’s something our label tells us we need to do, like, RIGHT NOW.
Okay, so… part of that new positioning is that we should start being more ironic. I know what you’re going to say, and I am appalled… APPALLED that you would even think of such a thing! No, really… I know that we’ve been living, breathing, writing, playing, singing, exemplifying irony for more than two decades now. I know that our entire first album, 2000 Years To Christmas, and its follow-up, International House, were both frantic fits of festering irony. Trouble is, from a marketing perspective, none of that counts. It’s more about being seen to be ironic. “Noname” is insistent that we apply at least half of each waking hour working on ostentatious displays of irony.
My response to that has been, well, typical for me. I put Marvin (my personal robot assistant) on the case. Never send a man to do what a personal robot assistant can do for him – that’s what I always say, without a hint of irony. I asked Mitch Macaphee to program some irony into his sorry ass, and Mitch obliged, punching numbers into his little hand-held remote, pointing it at Marvin and saying the magic words: Obey! Obey! Marvin wheeled out the door and into the streets of Little Falls, dodging shoppers on a mission to ironyland. Sure enough, when we went out to the grocery store for some day old bread, there was Marvin, in front of Magillicuddy’s Hardware, ringing a bell and wearing a Santa-style hat, an old paint bucket on the sidewalk in front of him. Was he raising money? God, no. He was demonstrating the absurdity of a world in which robots in Santa garb can panhandle out of season without even raising an eyebrow. In short, he was practicing… that’s right …. starts with an “i”.
Here’s something else that starts with an “i”: I’ve had it with this for the nonce. Noname be damned, I’m hitting the sack. (Or perhaps merely mocking those who do so in earnest. Who can say?)
