28

AN OPEN LETTER TO MICHAEL CORCORAN:
ALCOHOLIC MASTURBATOR

"Intellectuals are
the shoeshine boys
of the ruling elite."
-Killdozer

Everybody knows that old men like the Beatles because that was the music they heard when they got their first blowjob. The Beatles were good, but they also wrote a lot of utter crap. There have been hundreds of bands just as good as the Beatles, since. Like, say, Devo. I think that Devo were just as good as the Beatles. The Beatles were innovators, true, but so were the Stooges. A few months ago, you slagged the Stooges album Funhouse in your XLent column. What were you trying to accomplish there? Were you trying to impress some perceived hipper-than-thou crowd by trashing an obscure, but highly influential anomaly like Funhouse? Why don't you go after the Velvet Underground or John Lee Hooker next if you want to snuggle deeper into the bosom of the mainstream. Hardly anyone but the hipsters (and musicians) know who they are, so you'd look like a real authority by slagging on them. There are a lot of old soul artists whose names aren't Otis or Aretha who would score you some brownie points too! "...I was listening to a re-issure of some old Jackie Wilson the other day, and you know, it was very muddy. What was the big deal?"

Several years ago when you wrote for the Chronicle, you said that anyone who cared about rock and roll would have to admit that the Butthole Surfers were one of the most important bands ever, or something to that effect. What? Was that just to keep in good with your drug crowd? You said it, I'm sure it's on microfilm in the