Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Blowing-on-the-soup-to-cool-it-down-ers.
Remember this battle? Mr. Hansen has finally fired back. From the letters section of the February 2004 issue of Esquire:
Almost a year has passed since writer Tom Junod's story about the Flaming Lips ("Have You Met the Lips?" [.rtf file] March 2003) suggested that indie sensation Beck might be a bit too self-important. (Okay, we might have called him a dick.) We figured the melancholic hipster was brooding in silence, but to our delight, it turns out he was just taking time off for reflection and healing.
Thanks for breaking the news to the world, as the title of your article on the Flaming Lips a while back states, that "Beck is a dick." Your insights really brought to light the depths of my character and showed all the world who I truly am. As I do blow off a copy of your magazine backstage and burn through the $200+ million I made off my last record of folk ballads, I have been given cause to reflect on what may be important in my life and what may be irrelevant.
Like last week, when, during my shopping spree at Louis Vuitton, I started thinking about how cool it was when I was broke and drove that old Chevy with the brakes that didn't work and had no money for food. I was so much more of a real person back then, before I got my twelve-hundred-foot yacht with helipad, my ten-car garage, my mansions with fourteen Greek columns across the front and a dozen life-size status of myself on display. I was so much more in touch before I had my own personal pants valet. I really should learn how to put my own pants on again and get back in touch with "the people."
As you know from those celebrity profiles glutting the TV, out lives are so complicated, having to manage our retinues of assistants, beard-pruners, back scratchers, temperature-control specialists, face misters, spoon feeders, phone dialers, fly swatterers, shoe wearer-iners, blowing-on-the-soup-to-cool-it-down-ers, and cuticle managers. Your article made me realize that you really don't need all that stuff, and it's not cool to be all spoiled and famous and a superimportant person like me. I am really going to turn things around and do something meaningful with my life now, like publish a magazine with Britney Spears's butt on the cover. That would probably be "keeping it real" and leaving something noble behind for posterity. After I burn another thousand-dollar bill and mistreat another underling, I'm going to do just that.
Thanks, Esquire, for changing my life for the better. Keep up all the neat stuff you do!
BECK HANSEN
Los Angeles, Calif.
posted by Linus |
7:42 AM
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