The Severed Cortex

Link: http://www.myspace.com/superfunyeahyeahrocketship

I finally caught Super Fun Yeah Yeah Rocket Ship at a lunch show at SIUE for a Livewire event. I've been trying for a couple of months to check out the guy voted best uncategorizable artist in the local Riverfront Times poll, and you'd think that because he's actually a college student in the town I live in I'd have already seen him perform his uncategorizable act. Well, sometimes the timing doesn't work out. The bottom line you ask? I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my entire life. My cheeks physically hurt I laughed so much. I surreptitiously recorded the hour long event on my pocket digital voice recorder and you can hear me laugh a lot on it.

I wasn't too sure what to expect. I thought he might be on a Casio keyboard, but instead he had a laptop played through a small mixing board. He wore basically the same outfit he has on in one of his MySpace pics; pink shoes, multi colored shorts, a suit vest too small, and a tuxedo bow tie that appeared to be a sort of a pinkish maroon color. He ran all over the atrium area singing the hilarious lyrics with what looked to be a Mr. Microphone of 1982 vintage. I'm just going to gloss over the topics he covers in his songs which include comic books, being totally awesome, MySpace, womans' mustaches, Macho Man Randy Savage, and the joy of bodily scents, but I do encourage you to read more. As he sang he either oddly danced flailing his arms wildly, rubbed himself on audience members, smelled their hair, or just laid down on them and sang. He even wiped his sweat on Nancy's jeans. Those affected either laughed or tried to look away awkwardly.

What else did he do?

• He wiped his sweat on the wall by rubbing his forehead on it repeatedly
• He collected various bits of paper and then read them aloud to the audience. He seemed genuinely surprised to hear that Ron Jeremy was coming to SIUE.
• He put an energy bar into his pants.
• He stepped through a plastic grocery bag as if he were putting on pants. When the bag broke and he was left holding pieces of the handles in his hands, he raised both arms triumphantly as if he had just won a game.
• He gave shout outs to his fellow college students as they passed through the student center. Some tried to avoid him.
• He petted audience members.
• He kicked over a piece of furniture, an ottoman of some sort, and then laughed as if he had vanquished a foe, daring it to strike back.
• He had cardboard cut outs of Stephen Colbert and some wrestler I don't know or care about.
• He drank water from a 1 gallon plastic gas can
• He displayed a Six Flags-esque cartoon caricature drawn of him in front of his laptop
• He displayed his World Heavyweight Championship Belt of Rock, which he pointed out he has held for an unprecedented two years in a row

Most of this was completely improvised, mainly because he was trying to fill an hour and he only had about 35 minutes of material.

I don't know what was more fun, watching him perform or watching the look on people's faces when they entered the Student Center. I tried to watch both as best as I could. I distinctly heard one black woman say 'crazy white boy' and laugh as she walked past me. Others rolled their eyes in disgust. Some tried with all their might to pretend like it wasn't going on ... but there was no way to block it out.

Look, most everyone will dismiss this as just so much useless, juvenile, silly noise, and if you feel that way then fine. All I ask is that if you do feel that way, try to think back to a time when you grabbed a spoon and one of your moms pans, and you just beat the hell out of it singing at the top of your lungs. Remember that feeling of just pure freedom? You weren't interested in whether someone liked what you were doing or not. In fact, the thought never even crossed your mind. And what was the result of all that noise? That's right, a giant smile on your face. Some of us have forgotten how to recapture that feeling. Super Fun Yeah Yeah Rocket Ship has not and for that he should be given the credit he's due. He's also got the balls of steel to actually go up there and perform his act, caring little about how much you like it and he should get some real credit for that too. But lets not pretend. It's an easy sell. If you get the chance to see him work a room I'm pretty damn sure you'll have a smile on your face. If not, you really need to lighten up.

Next time I want to see him perform in a bar environment instead of the somewhat sterile Morris University Center.