Thursday, May 29, 2014

Macauley Culkin as Lou Reed. Not. "Take a Bite on the Wild Side"

Stop me if you've heard this one. It's about a kid actor, kind of homely, who got famous for slapping Old Spice on his pubescent face and popping his eyes because it stung. The rest of the movie, "Home Alone," had the kid running around a lot and showing that he could follow directions...not that he could act.

After he became famous, he turned into a a bit of a brat, and then a has-been. Then people felt sorry because he looked like a geeky vampire. They worried he'd have an early demise like some other child stars, and go suffocate himself in a pair of Dana Plato's panties or something. What to do? Well, living in Manhattan, having his picture taken in any nightclub he stumbled into, Big Mac developed into a "hipster." Cool. Er, kewl. Now, to make it pay.

Maybe he remembered how kid-star Billy Mumy became half of Barnes and Barnes and had a mock-hit with "Fish Heads." That could be the reason he ended up banging a stick and tooting a kazoo as the lead member of "The Pizza Underground," which is just about to the Velvet Underground what Barnes and Barnes was to Frank Zappa: not competition.

Inane hipster nightclubs (mostly in dorky Brooklyn) seemed to welcome The Pizza Underground, and guffaw over vaguely remembered songs re-written to be full of pizza references.

"Hey dudes, let's go see how that Macauley Culkin kid grew up to be SO sardonic and hip and doing this groovy put-on of shouting PIZZA a lot. And like some asshole who puts too many toppings on his pie, he just can't stop himself from putting too many pizza phrases into each song! So bad it's good, huh? Peace out!"

ROTFL. Har har. LOL.

That's the joke. Child actor trades on his very dim fame in "Home Alone" to become a "Does he still look like shit?" freakshow act. Wouldn't singing songs about PIZZA be hilarious...after being lubed up on the two-drink minimum? Or will everyone throw bottles at the pretentious bastard?"

It seems the Incredible Culk did go from being a Brooklyn titter to getting hit (on stage in England). Well, some people can take a bad joke, and others can take a bottle and throw it at a guy who ain't really that funny at all.

Your download below is an audience in Brooklyn yocking it up to a Pizza-fied version of "Walk on the Wild Side," sung while Lou Reed was dying of liver cancer. There's an in-joke here that might need to be explained. Culkin substitutes "Famous Ray" for Candy (Darling) as one who "never gave it away." "Famous Ray" refers to Ray's Pizza, a once-trendy pizza chain in New York. It was so famous that various pizza joints tried to confuse tourists and get them to come to...Original Ray, Original Famous Ray's, Ray Bari, and various Ray-clones. (There was never actually a Ray...the original guy was named Ralph, and the opportunists included guys named Gary and Joe!)

PS, among the many obnoxious things about NYC is the insistence that it's not only home to the world's best pizza (which may be true) but you're a fuckin' spud if you go THERE instead of HERE. "There's this place in Brooklyn…" "No, there's John's on Bleecker…" "No, that's too flat…the REAL thing is Sal's Pizza…just don't trust any of their delivery boys because there WAS that rape incident…"

But I digress, as I really can't stomach talking about The Pizza Underground any further.

Listen. You can be just like Culkin. You don't even have to download his amateurish and obvious "Take a Bite on the Wild Side." Just smack yourself in the face with some Old Spice, take a lot of drugs, dye your hair a sick color of yellow, and then substitute 'PIZZA" or "MOZZARELLA" or "SAUCE" or "CRUST" in ANY song you like. Like...a Bob Dylan song:

"Mama take this MOZZARELLA offa me. I can't use SAUCE any more. It's gettin' TOO SPICY to see. I'm knock-knock knockin' on PIZZA CRUST…"

Har har har har har. The world really would be a lot more pleasant of Culkin remained…HOME ALONE.

Stay home alone and groan to... Take a Bite on the Wild Side

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