Wednesday, January 16, 2008

"We're pinheads now. We are not whole."

And here I'm always such a know-it-all. Some things I learned reading Are We Not Men? We are Devo! by Jade Dellinger and David Giffels:

- Ernie Anderson, the influential Cleveland horror movie host (and father of Boogie Nights director Paul Thomas Anderson) did the voice-over announcing for ABC in the seventies. He's the one who pronounced it "The Loooooove Boat" in the promos.

- The title of "Jocko Homo," the song with the theme-music chorus "Are we not men? We are Devo," was taken from a 1924 anti-evolutionary pamphlet by B.H. Shadduck, author of works like "Puddle to Paradise" and "Gee-Haw of the Modern Jesu." They're scanned in online at http://bhshadduck.tripod.com/index/id10.html. The pamphlet itself translates "Jocko Homo" as "Monkey-Man" (as in "monkey men all, in business suits..."), but I can't find any information about the relationship of the "Monkey" in "Jocko" and the notion of "jocks," or the lack thereof.

- One of the early Devo manifestoes was an article called "Readers Vs. Breeders." That text is also available online at http://www.cleveland.com/music/index_story.ssf?/music/more/local/cle/3a/readers/index.html
Not that I'm opposed to anybody for their reproductive choices, but still, ha!

No comments: