by Lifeguard of Love
Everybody knows Modest Mouse are douchebags. I’ve
intentionally never looked at their image, because I’m sure if I did I could
never enjoy listening to them again. They were never my music anyway. I never heard them except for that one song on the
radio until I met Slim Volume. The first time I heard them not-on-the-radio, I
said, “They sound like the Beastie Boys on a Carribean vacation.” (!?!?!)
Later, the first time I heard the Pixies (yes, later, it’s my goddamn rock n roll life and I am not ashamed of
it), I was like, “oh, that’s what Modest Mouse is ripping off.” Also, isn’t
there something about a statutory rape? I know statutory rape can just mean
it’s your 18th birthday and you consensually fucked your
still-not-18-year-old girlfriend (we've all been there), but still.
Douchebags.
BUT WE FUCKING FALL FOR IT! Because something about it is so
sincere. [VULNERABILITY AND MANIPULATION] But it’s not
like Built to Spill; girls
don’t listen to it to dream or learn about how men feel about them. Girls listen to Modest
Mouse to imagine what it’s like to be
a dude. And Modest Mouse tell us.
But they weren’t Axl-Rose-style, blatantly-mysogynist
douchebags. They were douchebags for a new era. They were the mopey sad sack
douchebags when interest in safer sex/HIV prevention was fading from pop
culture. (note: I am REALLY into historicizing things in relation to the HIV-AIDS
crisis and HIV prevention propaganda right now). Because they can’t get laid
aside from statutory rape, they resort to displays of vulnerability to make
girls like them. Ted Bundy with crutches.
Modest Mouse’s crutches include: motion sickness, love sickness,
claustrophobia, recreational drug use, low-grade alcholism, not giving a damn, chronic
cough, blasphemy, sleepwalking, fucking people over.
Fuck all those straight-haired brunettes who did you wrong,
Ted Bundy. I’ll love you right.
