The Butthole Report
A punk anthem for a shitty situation
On May 2, Lisa Rieffel posted a video of her daughter singing a song. This happens all the time, literally every day, on virtually every social media platform in the universe. We’re talking millions of songs and most of them are terrible.
But only one of these songs is called, “I Wonder What’s Inside Your Butthole” and it is sublime. If you haven’t already seen it, please watch it now.
Dressed in pink pajamas and strumming a toy guitar, Lisa’s eight-year-old kid, whose name is Jolee, delivers a passionate performance. While the tune has all the earmarks of a child narrating her inner thoughts in song (Maybe there’s astronauts, maybe there’s aliens) “I Wonder What’s Inside Your Butthole” has a three-part structure.
First she introduces her query, the song’s main theme and organizing principle (I wonder what’s inside your butthole), then she speculates on the answer (astronauts and aliens), and finally concludes with a rousing demand that’s a heartfelt as any love song (What’s inside your butthole? I always want to know!)
What makes the video so arresting is her performance, which becomes more intense as the song progresses. Jolee bounces on her feet. She slaps the guitar. At the end of the video, she even changes hands and starts strumming the neck of the ukulele. Anarchy at bedtime!
But it’s her punchy delivery of “I always want to know” that transforms the video from cute kid singing a weird song to the first smash sensation of the quarantine.
Don’t believe me? At the moment, the video has 7.7 million views. She is absolutely destroying that chick who lip-syncs Beauty and the Beast. (I like that video, too; but this is Jolee’s moment.)
“I Wonder What’s Inside Your Butthole” is so irresistibly pure in its desire to confront the unknowable, that other musicians have covered Jolee’s song.
Last night my friend Samantha Dunn posted this video of her son Ben performing a punk cover “What’s Inside Your Butthole.”
Ben’s take has big “Silver Bullet” by The Briefs energy. Oddly enough, the video features a group of kids lip-syncing to the song.
Ben’s isn’t the only cover of “I Wonder What’s Inside Your Butthole.” Radnor and Lee give it a surprisingly stirring Simon & Garfunkel treatment.
There are many more covers out there but I caution you against taking a deep dive into them so that it doesn’t diminish the joy of Jolee’s performance.
“I Wonder What’s Inside Your Butthole” is a great lesson in being true to your subject and finding the universal in the personal. If it moves you, it will move others. (In this case, literally.)
Stay gold, Jolee, and don’t take let anyone tell you you’re not a superstar — especially your mom at bedtime.
They Like It, They Really Like It
For those of your who aren’t cursed with the knowledge of how the book industry works, the first reviews a book usually gets are from the three major trade industries: Kirkus, Library Journal, and Publisher’s Weekly. Booksellers and libraries read these publications to determine if they want to carry a book.
Publisher’s Weekly ran a very favorable review of DO WHAT YOU WANT, my book with Bad Religion that’s coming out in August. Even though it was published in February, I didn’t see it until yesterday. Here’s the kicker:
“This testament to the value of hard work and independent thinking offers a thrilling alternative to the conventional rise-and-fall rock narrative.”
Shoot that shit directly into my veins! Naturally, I went nosing around to see if there were any more pre-pub reviews out there and discovered that Library Journal had weighed in as well. They keep their review behind a paywall, but they offer their verdict for free:
“An engaging chronicle of a band that has, remarkably, retained its founding spirit and relevancy many years on. A delightful read for fans of both the early days of punk and those curious about contemporary practice.
Next, I went to Goodreads and found a half-dozen or so reviews from fans who provided a review in exchange for a galley from Net Galley. For the most part, they’re very positive.
Now some people will tell you that Goodreads is for readers not writers and reading your reviews can be a toxic experience. I haven’t found that to be the case.
I’m a passionate reader and use Goodreads to keep track of the books I read. Some years I’m better at it than others, but I always try to say something about each and every book I manage to finish, even if it’s only a sentence. Ranking systems are dumb, but if someone goes to the trouble to share their opinion about something I’ve written, I’m interested in reading that opinion.
Also, I’m in a different position than most authors. While my passion for punk rock has defined the course of my adult life, the fact remains I was hired to write DO WHAT YOU WANT. It’s a dream job, but a job nonetheless, and I take pride in doing my job well. These early reviews are providing an indication that I’ve succeeding in presenting the band in a way that’s accurate, earnest, and engaging without resorting to pedantry or proselytizing.
Of course, we’re still over three months out from the publication date, so stay tuned. If you haven’t done so already, now would be a great time to pre-order DO WHAT YOU WANT.
1000 Memories with Ryan Doty
Today’s interview is with Ryan Doty. I don’t know Ryan, but he sent me his story after reading the first interview two weeks ago. Ryan lives in Austin, Texas, where he works as the Marketing Director for a solar installation company. He also does graphic and web design for entrepreneurs and small businesses. He’s married to musician Wendy Colonna whom he bonded with for the first time at a Bad Religion concert in 2004. I love his story because it highlights a crucial part of the Bad Religion story: skate videos.
JIM RULAND: What’s your favorite Bad Religion song or album?
RYAN DOTY: Like many, I discovered Bad Religion (and punk rock music in general) from skateboarding. It was the early ‘90s. Four to five years before punk would officially hit the mainstream with Dookie, Smash!, Let’s Go. I was a middle schooler living in the heart of “flyover” country. Trends and social movements took a year or more to reach the midwest from the coasts. We were still listening to hair bands and rocking out to Bon Jovi. I, myself, had recently gotten into Faith No More. Nirvana’s Nevermind still hadn't taken MTV and the mainstream by storm. We were on the cusp of a movement, and looked down upon for our participation in skateboarding, a fringe activity for the town misfits.
Skate shops had not yet emerged in small town Indiana in the early ‘90s. We had to order our "real" (as in non-department store child toy) skateboards and official Thrasher swag from a mail-order catalog. I guess it all started with one skater, but for some reason everything we got came from a Texas skate shop. Funny side note: everything we ordered from Texas was always mistakenly shipped to Lafayette, Louisiana before making its way to our homes in Lafayette, Indiana. So there were some delays with our orders, but this is before Amazon Prime and our instant gratification consumer society.
When our orders arrived, it was better than freaking Christmas to us. With all of our skateboard, trucks, bearings, wheels, oversized ugly sweatshirts and pants orders, they sent stickers & VHS skate compilations. Some were very crude, unlabeled, almost home movies style videos. Others were a little more polished and professional. Blind (Video Days - the absolute best skate video - directed by Spike Jonze), Plan B, H-Street, Alien Workshop, and other company-made videos were our way to see new tricks and witness the best in the sport, but it also became our main way of hearing music new to our ears.
The first video that I got (one of the more amateur-made videos) had a soundtrack that forever changed me and my group of friends. Songs from Suffer, No Control, & NOFX’s S&M Airlines made up the majority of the music that completely distracted us from the low-quality scrambled video. My friend and I replayed that VHS like a cassette tape; just for the music.
We eventually scraped up some money, skated to the mall, and went straight to Musicland to get some cassette tapes. I bought No Control, and he got Suffer. We wore those tapes out. They were the soundtracks of our own skate videos. They were the soundtracks of our lives. We studied the lyrics. And it’s Bad Religion. Some studying and research is required. We had to know what they were saying with such haste.
“No Kyle, I’m pretty sure he’s saying ‘Forbidden Beat’ not ‘For Bill and Pete,’” my favorite misheard lyric. After learning what they were saying, we had to know what everything meant as well. Listening to these two albums was an education.
When CDs became the medium for music consumption (after a Christmas that seemed to provide everyone in our town with CD players), we went back (this time to Sam Goody) and I bought Against the Grain, and my friend got Generator. Years later when I got my driver’s license and a job, I got all their albums, and I’d find out the exact date the newest one was going to come out, and I’d go to the store and get it the day it was available.
Then punk became a thing. Skateboarding was mainstream. Jocks were dyeing their hair. Skate shops were everywhere. You could buy Rancid shirts at the mall. This turned some in my group off, but I wasn't one of those that discarded punk and skateboarding for being popular. I wasn't punk enough to believe in "selling out," but then again, punk to me was always the music and the message, not the hair or clothes.
To this day, Bad Religion is still my favorite band. A day rarely goes by when I don’t listen to them. I’ve found a way to work them in many of my playlists. I’ve shared them with everyone I’ve hung out with over the last 29 years. They were my first concert. I’ve seen them live dozens of times in different places around the country. My now wife and I bonded over them 16 years ago, and have been seeing them live together ever since. I buy all their albums. I purchase their shirts and swag. I read all of Graffin’s books and listen to his solo projects. I support them. Bad Religion is the one thing in this world that makes me a giddy fan-boy. They’ve helped to create a thousand memories for me.
How Deep Is Your Love?
Thanks to everyone who ordered a copy of my zine OUR LOVE CUTS DEEP. The last few days I’ve enjoyed seeing people post the cover on their Instagram Stories.
I’ve shipped about a quarter of the limited edition run of 100 zines, which you can order through my Etsy store.
(Also, if you want a copy of OUR LOVE CUTS DEEP for free, upgrade to a paying subscriber of Message from the Underworld, send me your address, and I’ll put a copy in the mail today.)
That’s it for this week! Let’s do our part to stay home and keep our communities healthy. If you’ve had your fill of murder hornets this week, here’s something bee-related that’s a little more mellow.