Nah, not this one.
Rather, I’d like to stress that while Rob Harvilla of the East Bay Express might have the best intentions, I never refered to Mark E. Smith as “psychotic”. Many words come to mind, but “psychotic” is certainly not one of them. For the purposes of setting the record straight, here is the full text of my correspondence with Mr. Harvilla.
i’ll be attending tonight’s warriors/cavs game and assessing the musical content therein, after reading your postings about stern’s complaints re: in-game music, cuban’s silence experiment, etc.
i was wondering if you’d like to comment on this phenomenon as part of my column. do you share stern’s view that “welcome to the jungle” and such has overwhelmed and cheapened the game itself?
Not really. I mean, the game itself is unchanged. I’d prefer to go to a ballgame without that sort of extraneous stuff going on, but people like to be prompted, pumped-up, cajoled, etc. I don’t begrudge them that, nor do I let it influence my enjoyment of the game itself. If I did, I would’ve stopped going years ago.
are there go-to sports tunes (“let’s get retarded/it started,” “rock ‘n’ roll part 2,” etc) you wish would be retired?
hmmm, all of them? Though given that Gary Glitter is compensated each time “Rock’n’Roll Pt. 2” blasts over a stadium tannoy, perhaps the venue operators could substitute The Fall’s “Glam Racket” instead. Few patrons would know the difference, and instead of lining the pockets of a convicted child-sex pest, America’s sporting institutions could lend some financial aid to Mark E. Smith — a great friend and role model to young people all over the world.
are there personal favorite tunes of yours you’d like to see replace those old cliches?
I’ve often thought some of Drunks With Guns’ finest compositions (“Wonderful Subdivision”, especially) would really work for professional football.
is there too much music/distraction at your average sporting event, or not enough?
Generally too much though as I said before, I have no quarrel with anything that turns on other groovy people (said in Rick Moranis voice). However, I think White Sox organist Nancy Faust has performed some unusually inventive and at times, otherworldly interpretations of contemporary hits.
I heard a casio version of Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle” at an NHL game recently that was vastly superior to the band’s patented Superchunk-minus-the-idiosyncracies formula. So that wasn’t bad.
do you have an opinion regarding the controversial “hot dog cannon”?
I don’t think we should be using it on the Iraqi insurgents, if that’s what you mean.
this is a gray area, perhaps, but within a quote (usually presumed to be spoken out loud, not e-mailed), a parenthetical aside is understood as an editorial note to qualify or explain something the reader may not understand. sometimes the (psychotic fall frontman — ED) tag is used to make clear it’s an editorial addition, but i find those a bit jarring. breaks up the warm legato flow of your verbiage, etc.
so i hope most folks will get that the “psychotic” addition is mine, rather than yours. to completely clear the air, though, if you’d like to provide a one-word substitute for “psychotic,” we will happily amend online. we will accept any word that is not “sexy.”
graciously,
(fey douchebag) rob harvilla
easy for you to say, Rob. You don’t have any (psychotic) frontmen looking to take you out. And by “take out”, I don’t mean to the movies.
I’ll settle for “handsome”.
GC
if mark e. smith is actively menacing you on my account, i would be happy to personally explain the situation and exonerate you of all responsibility. my imposing stature tends to intimidate and pacify potentially violent people, and by imposing stature, i don’t mean “as an alt-weekly columnist.”
PS: the new “intimate” oakland A’s seating arrangement is ass.
I’ll second the motion re: Drunks With Guns.