music nite... i was also listening to this one and thinking abt how the opening section sort of sums up the desire to self-sabotage that i find most moving in pere ubu: david thoma starts off with a cute little aside, which the crowd laugh at, then abruptly shifts into a weird affected voice, which they also laugh at, then continues just kind of digressing into a gertrude stein tangle, until the response is hesitant and uncomfortable - when's he gonna start? - which if ofc the moment to actually launch into the song. also louden wainwright is here for some reason. it was the style at the time.
i can't really blame anyone who fell off after they released an album called "why i hate women", although i think thats a very funny thing to call a rock album (in the same giving-the-game-away sense as frederick seidel titling a poetry collection "widening income inequality"), but there is something beautiful to me about the idea that repeatedly trying to shoot yourself in the foot could be the process by which you find the moment that's exactly right. the fool that persists in folly becomes wise.... - lacan, xenogears