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Rapper Luke Sick and producer Vrse Murphy are real hip-heads, the type to make music together just for the love of expressing themselves. Sure, what they want to express – sex, drugs, alcohol and hip-hop – may be a little controversial, but they express it with an undeniable talent and sense of humour despite the subject matter. With the right tools behind them, Luke and Vrse, collectively known as Sacred Hoop, deliver their best album to date with Go Hogwild. Here, the duo eschew the lo-fi format of earlier recordings and come with a professional sound and enough catchy hooks that Sacred Hoop are unlikely to be ignored for much longer. And it's about time for these two, with a huge discography both as Sacred Hoop and as part of various collaborative projects spanning their more than ten years of making music. From Vrse-atile Authority to The Confirmed Bachelors, The Disturbers to Brougham, Miasmatice to The Hoop, LLC, it's time to delve into the myth that is the Hoop.


URBNET How did Sacred Hoop come together?
LUKE SICK I dropped out of college to go to Tucson, AZ to be a dishwasher and DJ for a rap group called Vrse-atile Authority. I'm sure you can guess who the front man was. We did some shows where Vrse would dress up as Colonel Sanders and rap to freaks about how he was gonna turn 'em out. Oak D the barber used to cut hair live on stage; we got footage of all this. Vrse WAS versatile; his talents had no limits. He rapped, played the trumpet, the drums, the harmonica, the piano and many other instruments, but his sampling was something else – it was amazing! Fon-douglas, original Hoop DJ, was in the crew as a rapper named Stax back then, and he introduced me to Vrse, who I thought was a arrogant drunk from the jump.

VRSE MURPHY And Luke's a fuckin' gutter-snob. So, it made it easy to get along and fuck shit up a lot. You heard of good-cop/bad-cop? It was like bad-drunk/worse-drunk.

LUKE Then I made a song with the then-bassist of Third Eye Blind, Jason Slater, who ended up being the producer of Brougham. It was called "Going Ape Shit," and it sounded a hella lot like a shitty version of "Mass Appeal" by Gangstarr. Then Vrse just said, "Fuck it, why don't you just be the rapper, I'll make the beats and we'll change the name to Sacred Hoop," which was already the name of me and Oak D's road-trippin' crew from back then. So I said, "Fuck it, I'm down," and that's kinda the attitude the crew's always had. We asked Fon not to rap anymore and made him the DJ, and he was like, "Fuck it, I'm down."



URBNET What is the meaning behind the name Sacred Hoop? Is it a good representation of the group?
LUKE My homeboy Ruddie Rudd, owner/operator of the Hump Hut in Palo Alto, CA, once used it as peer-pressure to get me to go on a senseless road trip to Tucson, AZ and back in 48 hours. He'd been watching Young Guns and Smokey and the Bandit back-to-back, and busts that speech that Emilio busts on Chavez when Chavez wants to do what his vision told him: to go west. But Billy wants [Chavez] to ride with him down the trail to old Mexico. He says, "If you leave now, you break our sacred hoop, 'cause we're pals," or something like that. It's all about fuck your responsibilities; let's get blurry and cause a ruck. As far as the native wisdom the name withholds, I like to refer to these two quotes from the Sioux priest Black Elk, and they hold significance for us because we view this shit as a way of life that deserves a spiritual equivalent:

"With this pipe," the Grandfather said, "you shall walk upon the earth, and whatever sickens there you shall make well."

Then a Voice said: "Behold this day, for it is yours to make. Now you shall stand upon the center of the earth to see, for there they are taking you." I was still on my bay horse, and once more I felt the riders of the west, the north, the east, the south, behind me in formation, as before, and we were going east. I looked ahead and saw the mountains there with rocks and forests on them, and from the mountains flashed all colors upward to the heavens. Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.



URBNET Why is so much of the Sacred Hoop background shrouded in fiction and exaggeration?
VRSE Facts? About Sacred Hoop? Aha! I love when the real heads say there are no facts about Sacred Hoop. It sounds so poetic and spooky, but they're absolutely right, of course, because there really aren't any, when you think of it. Not a one.

LUKE A very wise man, I don't know who but I'm pretty fuckin' sure he was Jamaican, once said, "Some mon just deal wit' information. An' some mon, him deal wit' the concept of truth. An' den some mon deal wit' magic. Information flow aroun' ya, an' truth flow right at ya. But magic, it flow t'rough ya."

VRSE That man was named Nernelly. He was a bush doctor in Jamaica back in '82.

LUKE Right, of course. This shit is as serious as having a baby born with a terminal disease. It takes a man with a severe constitution and a twisted sense of discipline. We are writing a particularly fucked up story here.



URBNET Why did you start Miasmatic Records?
VRSE We didn't think anybody else would put it out. We were on acid.

LUKE Oak D got tired of being the barber, and he used to roll with us everywhere anyway. So he said, "Fuck it, I'ma start a label, and fuck it, it's going to have a really impossible to pronounce name." So he did, and we put out a handful of releases under that heading. Those were good times, but then Oak D said, "Fuck it, I'ma have some kids." Sacred Hoop salaries are not enough to support drinking habits, lavish travel and child care as well. You kind of have to choose one or the other. And Oak D is one of the most successful men I know with the choices he decided to make and the steps he decided to take. His kids are a blessing.



URBNET Are you content releasing your own music or would you like to sign a deal with a large indie or a major label? VRSE We started The Hoop, LLC with our renegade financier, Dusty Melons. But, we need to get signed. Indie, major, whatever, let's just do it! Like they say in Half-baked: "No window love, go, go, go, b, sell weed…"

LUKE This new trend of self-promotion never really caught on with us. We were much more interested in being notorious rather than famous. It's always been the character of the group and our sound and what I brag about in the lyrics. And our whole lifestyle is incognito: bank robbers got aliases and hideouts, and so do we.

VRSE We're from the Ras Kass "Remain Anonymous" school of thought. We were Northern California indie12"-vinyl music renegades. We took that shit to heart. 'Cause when you press vinyl with samples on it, it's all for the heart. Shit, these days there aren't even enough people who own record players for a piece of vinyl to go platinum. It's like we're headquarters coding messages for only a select few thousand of secret agents in the know to receive. And don't get me started on the sampling laws that basically outlawed the art that we make.

LUKE Yeah, it's like we know our music is good enough and accessible enough to garner widespread appeal, but at the same time it's hard for two guys who came up in this shit the way we did, at the time we did, when there was an unspoken underground honor code to follow… it's hard for two old samurai like that not to commit seppuku, you know what I mean?

VRSE But we still really want a deal… fuck it, any deal.

LUKE I'm willing to settle for a large pizza and a reach around at this point.

VRSE Depends on the toppings.

LUKE If you view the whole thing like a cheesy '80s movie, and trust me we most definitely do, take the movie Roadhouse for example. We don't want to be like Patrick Swayze's character: mullet, philosophy graduate, coffee drinker, Tai Chi, refuses a local shot trying to impress the nurse who's stapling his knife wound. We want to be more like the character Sam Elliot portrayed in that movie: bonafide long-hair, wise old drunk that stays up all night trying to woo your lady and sounds cool when he's calling somebody a douche.

VRSE So we want any deal we can get, but we don't want to be Patrick Swayze.

LUKE Right.



URBNET Sacred Hoop continually work with the same artists. Do you prefer to work with familiar collaborators over new people?
LUKE Fuck a collabo. It's a bad vice and I have to work on it, but I'm greedy with verses. I got too many to squeeze other fools in. I'd rather do the whole album alone like Chill Rob G or Guru on Step in the Arena, but my friends are better than me at rapping, so I have to give 'em shine or the art would work against me. I'd work with somebody new if I was genuinely impressed with the way they ripped it, and it was convenient, and they were mellow to drink and smoke burner with. But I don't send shit through the Internet to people I don't know unless the beat makes me feel like the first time I heard "Rock the Bells" by Cool J, and that hasn't happened yet. Wait, what am I saying? We just said "Fuck it" and did two songs with this dude named Wax Factor from England on the beats - Vrse even raps a little bit. They are called "Ten Gallon Hat" and "Float Your Kegs." He's lagged on getting them out because he's had some health issues in his family, but they're coming so check for them. But I mostly keep my shit in the Gurp City set. Be on the lookout for the Hogs of Rap 12". Only 500 made, hand-screen-printed by Gurp City.

VRSE I'm doing a new project with Neila, but she's been a friend for longer than I can remember.



URBNET How did Z-Man get down with your crew?
VRSE He brought wine.

LUKE Him and Eddie K baptized us with Carlo Rossi, burgundy, and lead us to Gurp City.



URBNETVrse, what led to forming The Bachelors with Z-Man?
VRSE It's The Confirmed Bachelors now. Legally we can't be The Bachelors – already got one of those. After we did "N.O.H." for Cue's Hip Hop Shop Compilation and "Cremona" for Sleepover, both featuring Z-Man rapping alongside Luke, me and Z said, "Fuck it, let's record a whole album of shit." It's been recorded for awhile, but we've never officially released it. We recorded a few new tracks that will be added to the original ones and it'll officially be released in October.



URBNET Do you approach beat making for The Confirmed Bachelors differently from producing for Sacred Hoop? Or, do you just make the beats and decide where they'll go later?
VRSE Back in high school I used to get really hot chicks. My standards were high as hell. I used to hold open the door of the 7-Eleven and say, "Welcome to the home of the slurps!" I love observing Scottsdale apartment complex pool areas with binoculars from a high perch now; it soothes my Chi and pumps my 'nads. Yet lately, in the evening, you'll find me in the back bar with fatties on the prowl. I know a guy named Parrot who used to push his way to the front of a crowded bar, get a tall Jack and Coke and holler out, "Let the rapings begin!" He never got none, except for girls with so much acne-scarring that they looked like burn victims. I've had my share of burnies as well. Put it this way, metaphorically speaking: When I make a beat I try not to say, "Let the rapings begin" and scare off all the potential talent, but by the time I'm done with it, it's basically last call and I'm standing next to Parrot trying to see who can say "I can fuck yer muff" the loudest. Things just get crazy – beat, life, everything. It's not me, I swear.

LUKE Remember when Parrot used to say rape's a myth? He'd compare it to Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. That shit was so fucked up.

VRSE And about as funny as a t-shirt that says: Cancer Kills Grandmas Dead.

LUKE Serious.



URBNET Is it different making instrumental music for skate and snowboard videos compared to making beats for rappers?
VRSE That's kinda like asking do I sweat differently when jogging and lifting weights as opposed to playing a match of tennis. The only variable that ever has or ever will change the way a beat is made by me is the ebb and flow of my record collection, the stew pot I fill each particular bowl with. When I make snowboard music for my cousin "Double-Barrel" Darrell Mathes, who rides for VansSnow, I think of all the hot chicks who were ever impressed when I did a keg-stand because I know those are the types that Darrell likes to keep around his teepee.



URBNET Were the beats for the Sacred Hoop albums really recorded in exotic locals like the Bahamas, Mexico and Italy? Is travel an important part of your sound?
VRSE I've been and made beats in all those places you mentioned and other exotic locales and more than once in most places, [although] I'm sticking to the current history already recorded surrounding those albums. It is not my place to change prophecy; I'll leave that job to forces I know nothing about and have absolutely no control over. I will tell you that the beats for Hogwild were made in a beach-side condo in Hermosa Beach, CA called the Pink Taco. Luke came to Scottsdale and we wrote songs during nine months of Rap Camp, then we went back to Palo Alto to refine it and record it for real in a shithole where Luke was hiding out with the Disturbers. I guess travel is important when you keep getting kicked out of every place you choose to hang your hat. Like Fletch says: "I'm a man without a country, Frank."

LUKE My case is still pending, Vrse got off with a slap on the wrist.



URBNET You mentioned Rap Camp. You have a promotional video on your MySpace page for that. What is it?
LUKE It's a camp that Vrse runs every summer out in Scottsdale. It is invitation-only and the enrollment is a very low number. The video on MySpace was shot during a particular summer when Z, Ed, DJ Quest and I were all invited to this prestigious club to wreck shop. The song "Guerrilla Style Splash" came from that Rap Camp summer and a lot of drinking merit badges were earned. This year, I think only Neila has been accepted to flex skills – let's just say there's a rigorous application process that includes the hopeful applicant sending some less then flattering photos – but I'm sure greatness will ensue. I might have to make an appearance as a guest motivational speaker and veteran camper to encourage Neila to see it through to the end of camp because the session is one of toil and hardship. Vrse cracks a whiskey-soaked whip atop a desert boulder of rose quartz and it's on!



URBNET Who are the Disturbers, and what are they all about?
LUKE When I was doing the major label shit with Brougham, I wanted to do some grimy shit, too. So I'd go over to [the house of] my boy who made the beats, Nate Nitty, [who] is also called the Curator and is now employed as Vrse's freelance record finder across the nation, and wait for his mom to go to work and his brothers to go to school and then we recorded all those projects on a shitty digital eight-track. They are, officially: Moe's Strange Hobby, Anansi Spider (Nate got his body invaded by spirits when I was recording the lyrics for the track "Sadness," which became "D.S.L." on Sleepover), Kefu Qan and Negusa Negast. Nate is very spiritual on some fuck up your life with voodoo type shit. Kefu Qan, [which] means evil days – named after the worst famine in Ethiopian history – will give you bad luck if you listen to it. Straight up, I do not jest. I think it is out of stock right now. It's a hard thing to get your hands on and for good measure; no telling what would happen if that album fell into the wrong hands. The track "Cramp in Ya Action" from Hogwild first appeared in a different form on Anansi Spider. Disturbers is a gang, and they also help me with my practice tapes.



URBNET And how about Brougham?
LUKE Brougham got signed to Warner Bros. amidst the dotcom boom of the late-nineties/early-2000s when everybody and their grandma was getting a deal. We did the demos in two weeks – some of the songs were really great – and then the manager of Third Eye Blind got a hold of it and scored us a deal without ever playing a show. I wanted a DJ, but the label wanted me to have a band like Fred Durst – Kid Rock was in Top Dog limbo and Eminem hadn't come out yet; I didn't have Dr. Dre in my corner to convince the white people that a down-ass white boy could be a bonafide emcee, so I said fuck it and toured with the band and sabotaged the thing every chance I got. Made some good scratch though, and I still got mad love for the Brougham producer and my friend since seventh grade, Jason Slater. We did some new tracks recently: "New Robotic Dick," "Dancefloorgasm," "The Game Remains the Same," shit like that.



URBNET And finally, who is Eons One? And Luke, how did you hook up with him for Underbucket?
LUKE DJ Eons One's other name is Karate Dan. He was the guitarist in a hardcore thrash band called Spazz – Kool Keith mentioned them on Dr. Octagon. But, he's always wrote graffiti and been a beat-digger, a DJ and made beats on an MPC from way back. He's got that old traditional aesthetic. He's the type of guy who buys you a hoodie and Tim boots for your birthday with a card attached that says, "Time to put the armour back on!" Real grimy. He's from Redwood City and I'm from Palo Alto, so heads naturally know each other. He used to go to Cue's Hip Hop Shop all the time when the Bulletproof Scratch Hamsters reigned supreme. We also met at KZSU, the Stanford University radio station, back when that scene was poppin'.



URBNET Was it a one-off project or are there plans to work together again?
LUKE Yes, we are back in the lab with a project called Grand Invincible. We've already recorded an album's worth of songs. We just need someone to mix it. That shit is raw and dope. Think early-90s rap – our style is bonkers – Group Home Living Proof-type shit. It doesn't sound modern; it sounds like rap.



URBNET Is there any difference to writing and recording a Sacred Hoop album compared to these other projects?
LUKE Sacred Hoop is difficult 'cause you have to insist what you are doing is meaningful when everything around you says this is all for shits and giggles. The most impressive way to get your point across is to make no point at all and still effect change in the people who hear it. But that's all bullshit. I'm still just trying to sound like Guru, in the same way that Eric Clapton is trying to be Robert Johnson. Maybe that's how everybody's gonna see it in the long run, so why am I even bothering discussing it? I write like I puff herb: all the time, and it all just ends up blowing in the wind, dude.

VRSE Everybody's gonna say you just called yourself the Eric Clapton of rap. That probably wasn't too smart

LUKE Fuck it.



URBNET Why is Hump-Legg no longer available?
LUKE It's called Hoop-legg, but I like the way you're thinking. That CD was put out by the artist AyeJay, of Gangsta Rap Coloring Book fame. Hit him up at www.ayejay.com and demand a copy. That was a leak that only leaked a little while.



URBNET Why did you decide to re-release Bring Me the Head of Sexy Henrietta?
VRSE For the sake of maintaining an accurate and unabridged history on iTunes.

LUKE Fuck it, that song "Pregnant Toad" will probably end up saving our country from tyranny.



URBNET Go Hogwild sounds more professional with catchy production and hooks. What prompted this direction? Was it intentional?
LUKE When Vrse was scoring the hottest chicks he's ever scored, he was listening to albums by Tribe, the first Organized Konfusion, 360 by Grand Puba, Maxwell, Black Sheep, 3rd Base, Beastie Boys, Diamond D, Stunts, Blunts, and Hip Hop, all De La, first and second Brand Nubian, KMD, Mr. Hood etc. Shit like that. And a Sacred Hoop record takes a long time to make. So, if he was going to put that much time and effort into the thing, he wanted to just say fuck it and make an album that reminded him of a time when he was getting the good ones to keep his hopes up, so we aimed for an album with that kind of density and entertainment. So, yes, that was intentional. And the hooks? Well, I've been doing catchy hooks forever – go listen to "Bathtub Gin" off Retired. And the more professional sound comes straight from Dave Cooley, who mixes shit for the likes of Good Charlotte, but gave us the bro-deal 'cause he knows us from back in the Retired days. He's one of the most sought-after in his field right now, so you know he wasn't gonna serve us any bullshit. He mixed our shit so it could be played against shit like Gwen Stefani and Andy Gibb. Sacred Hoop has never been about not sounding good. Sacred Hoop has always been about shocking motherfuckers by doing things they wouldn't, couldn't, or think they shouldn't.



URBNET What's more important to Sacred Hoop: the comedy or the debauchery?
LUKE The weed.

VRSE And some decent chicks for once.



URBNET You write a lot about sex, drugs and alcohol but you don't use many dirty words that will keep you from getting radio play. Is this intentional? Is it hard to do with that subject matter?
LUKE Sometimes just the topics of sex, drugs and alcohol will get you banned from radio play and MTV shit. Our song "Jenna" off Hogwild where I date the first daughter and murk the President surely isn't gonna score us any points with Clear Channel.

VRSE Sacred Hoop is straight up seditious, and I think sedition is more terrifying to the status quo if you display it too them in a pretty package. It's like, "Wow, that sounds beautiful," but oh my god, it's so threatening. Like in that song "Lie, Cheat, Steal" off Hogwild, we match the beauty of a Rachmaninov concerto with a totally immoral sentiment, just to give those heartless fuckers back what they're trying to shove down our throats.

LUKE You can't pour fear-syrup on constitutionally abhorred prior restraint and call it airport safety pancakes without somebody noticing that you are totally full of shit. We noticed, and we're gonna show you what it feels like to be smiled at and fucked over at the same time with the only tools we thought it necessary to master: records and mics. Shit, look at the Alkaholiks' whole career. Their music was well-deserving of mainstream hype, but they stayed underground to the bitter end, mostly just because their name suggests recklessness. I heard recently J-Ro moved to Sweden.

VRSE Nice move; tits galore.

LUKE The Beatnuts were an original sound whose mainstream potential was sadly proven by J-Lo's theft of their "Off The Books" beat, but it's hard to earn that triumph when one of your most recognizable lyrics is, "A crazy rapist smellin' like much vagina." But as an underground head, that's what makes Beatnuts the fuckin' greatest, and same with the Wu-Tang Clan. And those are three groups that we were greatly inspired by, especially for the writing and recording of Go Hogwild. I guess Amy Winehouse is making it a little easier on all the drunks like us now, but I dunno. I don't really care if they play it on the radio or not. The rap I like wasn't not played on the radio because it was dirty, it wasn't played because the whole culture was not accepted by the mainstream at that time (can y'all put down your iPods long enough to remember the term "subculture"), so growing up I always thought it would be that way for our group, too. And I guess it has. Me and Vrse got our hands full just loading bowls and mixing enough drinks to keep these tunes churning out and that's what we're gonna keep focusing on. Someone else is gonna have to figure all that other shit out 'cause as far as Sacred Hoop is concerned: Fuck it man, it's not our bag.

By the age of twenty-four, Vrse Murphy has already secured himself firm positions in both the social and corporate hierarchies of the big city.  He is about to become the top level software director of a major handheld database company, he is engaged to an intellectual sexpot, Denise, and he is known as a swell guy by just about everybody who gets to know him.  This cookie-cutter existence, however, makes many of Murphy’s so-called friends plot against him to satisfy their jealousy.  Santiago, went to college with Vrse and got recruited by the same company in a package deal upon Murphy’s insistence but still works at an entry level position, envies Murphy’s early career success; Johnny Claymore is in love with Murphy’s fiancée and so covets his romantic accomplishments; his neighbor Rudnick is merely spiteful that Murphy is so much more fortunate in life that he is.

In a plot devised by Claymore, Santiago covertly cooks the company’s books in Murphy’s favor and creates a paper trail that leads straight back to Murphy’s garage and trashcans where Rudnick has planted enough half-shredded evidence to indict Vrse on charges of corporate espionage.  In the wake of these accusations, Santiago manages to criminally align himself with the company’s chief financial officer, Gawain Naughtier, and they agree to stealthily allocate company investment funds to hire outside contracts that don’t exist in order to line their own pockets.  While no evidence proves that Murphy was approached by another company and asked to spy for them, the hard evidence planted by his enemies is enough to get him convicted.  On the day of his wedding, Murphy is arrested for his alleged crimes.

The corporate private dick hired to investigate the accusations against Murphy, Willard Galen, sees through the plot to get rid of Vrse and is prepared to set him free.  At the last moment, though, Galen realizes that clearing Murphy would mean revealing the embezzlements of Santiago and Naughtier.  Naughtier is Galen’s father.  Terrified that any public knowledge of his father’s immoral activities will taint his image as an objective, discreet, and, above all, honest investigator, Galen delivers the judge a scathing report that gets Vrse sent up the river for the maximum fifteen years.  Despite the entreaties of Mr. Sternwood, Murphy’s kind and honest boss, Murphy is sent to an infamous high security containment facility where the most dangerous organized crime and political prisoners are kept.

While in prison, Murphy meets Liam O’Connell, an Irish mobster and gentleman philosopher, who claims to be a political prisoner rather than a criminal.  O’Connell recognizes pure Irish blood when it’s in his face and teaches Murphy everything there is to know about the O’Connell Guards  and organized crime in general; history, philosophy, culture, hierarchy, languages, gestures, etiquettes, respect, compassion for a fee, bought loyalty, vengeance, and punishment, turning him into a veritable made man over the fifteen years of tutelage.  When old O’Connell grows mortally ill from syphilis, he calls to Murphy from his cell and bequeaths unto him a large treasure hidden in an abandoned subway tunnel with the stipulation that Vrse promises to uphold the code of the organization and use the money to exact his revenge on his tormentors under the guidance of the ancient consequences of the horrible combat between men who prosper.  A year after O’Connell’s death, Murphy is released from prison.

Murphy returns to the city and heads straight for the subway tunnels, finding O’Connell’s enormous treasure which includes a fully-stocked designer wardrobe complete with top hats, capes, canes, alligator shoes, and jewelry, domestic and foreign identification, keys to a Bentley, and over fifty million dollars comprised of diamonds, gold and platinum bars, and currency of various origins.  He receives the treasure as a sign to follow O’Connell’s code of vengeance and sets out to reward those who have tried to help him and, more importantly, to punish those who have hurt him.  Disguising himself with slicked back salt and pepper hair, a greasy mustache, and the wise guy accent he picked up in the joint, taking the name of Martino Suer, he heads back to his old home and pays a visit to Rudnick, who is now struggling to make it, currently on house arrest for his fourth DUI.  From Rudnick he learns the details of the plot to frame him.  In addition Murphy learns that Denise has married Johnny Claymore.  Even more frustrating, he learns that both Santiago and Claymore have become rich and powerful and are living happily on the west coast.  As a reward for this information, and for Rudnick’s apparent regret over the part he played in Murphy’s downfall, Vrse spares his life without explanation, giving him a platinum bar.  Before leaving the city, Murphy anonymously saves Sternwood from financial ruin.

Ten years later, Murphy emerges in the French Caribbean, calling himself Count Turf, in honor of his purchasing the 1951 Kentucky Derby winner’s entire living bloodline.  He seems to be all knowing and unstoppable.  On the island of St. Bart’s Murphy ingratiates himself to Harold Claymore, son of Johnny Claymore and Denise, by saving him from a staged mob of shirtless, RPG-wielding motorboat pirates.  In return for the rescue, Harold introduces Murphy to west coast society.  None of his old cronies recognize the mysterious Count Turf, Martino Suer, as Vrse Murphy, though Denise does.  Murphy is thus able to insinuate himself effortlessly into the lives of Santiago, Claymore, and Galen.  Armed with damning knowledge about each of them that he has gathered over the past decade, Murphy sets an elaborate scheme of revenge into motion.

Claymore, who has become a well-recognized porn mogul, is the first to be punished.  Murphy exposes Claymore’s darkest secret: Claymore made his fortune by ordering the murder of his former mentor and partner, the Greek porn pioneer Albert Zorbas, and then her forced Al Zorbas’s daughter to do skin flicks when she was still underage.  Al Zorbas’s daughter, Penelope, who has lived with Murphy as his personal assistant ever since he got her off drugs and away from the smut industry seven years earlier, testifies against Claymore in court, irreversibly ruining his good name.  Ashamed by Claymore’s violence and indecency, Harold and Denise flee, leaving their tainted fortune behind.  Claymore commits suicide.

Galen’s punishment comes slowly and in several stages.  Murphy first takes advantage of Mrs. Galen’s sexually repressive insanity, subtly tutoring her in the uses of rat poison.  As Mrs. Galen wreaks her havoc, family members fall sick, and Murphy plants the seed for yet another public expose.  In court, it is revealed that Galen is guilty of attempted infanticide, as he attempted to bury his illegitimate baby while it was still alive.  Believing that everyone he loves is dead and knowing that he will soon have to answer severe criminal charges, Galen goes insane.

For his revenge on Santiago, Murphy simply plays upon his enemy’s greed.  He opens various false credit accounts with Santiago that cost him vast amounts of money.  He also manipulates Santiago’s unfaithful and dishonest wife, costing Santiago more money, and helps Santiago’s daughter, Suzette, run away with her rock band.  Finally, when Santiago is nearly broke and about to flee without paying any of his creditors, Murphy has the Bahamian mobster Kimo Arthur kidnap him and relieve him of his remaining money.  Murphy spares Santiago’s life, but leaves him penniless.

Meanwhile, as these acts of vengeance play out, Murphy also tries to complete one more act of goodness.  Murphy wishes to help the brave and honorable Thaddeus Sternwood, the son of the kind handheld database executive, so he hatches an elaborate plot to save Thad’s fiancée, Jessica Galen, from her murderous and sexually insane stepmother, to ensure that the couple will be truly happy forever.  Murphy gives Jessica a pill that makes Thad believe she’s dead and then drags her off to hide on the island of St. Bart’s.  For a month Murphy allows Thaddeus to believe that Jessica is dead, which causes Thad to long for death himself.  Murphy then reveals that Jessica is alive.  Having known the depths of despair, Thaddeus is now able to experience the heights of ecstasy.  Murphy too ultimately finds happiness, when he allows himself to fall in love with the adoring and beautiful Penelope.  And then he has to ditch her ass and make beats for Sacred Hoop (which he's secretly been doing the whole time anyway), drinking himself to death, happily ever after.  THE END

The Post-Columbine Security in No Sco:

unsung goons of the early-millennium safety gestapo

or

Jenna Jameson And Mike Tyson Doing Business In North Scottsdale!

 

In North Scottsdale, Arizona, there seems to be nothing left to do but fornicate.

And film it.

In a recent interview, Mike Tyson, who relocated to Paradise Valley (just east of central Phoenix) following his bankruptcy, said he was looking to get into the adult film business and was currently talking to porn diva Jenna Jameson’s company in an effort to seal a deal.  The direct quote had him saying something like: “I just got off the phone with a guy named Jim.” 

What else would an aging champion, a-tad-womanizing, somewhat-cannibalistic warrior, do with the twilight of his notorious career?  Besides, all he has to do is jump on the 101 loop and head up to North Scottsdale to Jenna’s hideout.  What’s the big deal?  He was once the most feared man to engage in hand-to-hand combat, he got convicted of rape, he did his time, lost a handful of comeback fights, and now he’s gonna go digital and blow nut in the face of the entire world.  It’s perfect.  It’s like America’s own inescapable fate.  Be my guest, Mike.

The real question is: What the fuck is goin’ on in No Sco?

The months spent in air-conditioned homes and black-bottom pebble-tech swimming pools has left the inhabitants dull and ape-ish.  One too many Cadillac margaritas in the distilled water mist of an outdoor patio bar will have even the most vibrant man feeling like an internet savvy, post-middle age half-muscle/half-parrot-head with bowels full of misused Levitra and a camera on a tri-pod strapped to the back of a brand new yet freshly dropped Harley Davidson.  Tribal tattoos are still the thing to get.  Their tans are lizard and permanent.  Divorce is a casual fiesta.

            Mostly they talk about the credit card debt which serves as a flimsy foundation for their track-home mortgages, high ass gated-community dues, and SUV leases.  They are more annoying than the “new rich” found in say Silicon Valley or the entertainment industry (e.g. 50 Cent, Britany Spears, Carmen Elektra, Dave Navarro, the guys who started Google, etc.).  Nope, this is No Sco.  They are the new “ain’t we supposed to be rich” (e.g. pornstars and anybody else still wearing a Von Dutch trucker hat and not feeling guilty for spending $40 a pop on a fad that lasted exactly one summer).

            The land they live on is not for humans.  It’s exclusively for George Lucas’ uncivilized, Hun-like “Sand People” who roam the deserts of Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine (remember how they barbecued the Jawas in the original?).  Fully-stocked mini-malls inhabit whole blocks of sparsely populated areas, where places of business like KinderCare and Gymboree forlornly wait (at the mercy of millions of dollars in market research) for newlywed couples to produce toddlers in need of their services.  But nobody’s trying to get pregnant.  Everybody’s pulling out for the money shot.

            The kids that do live here are supposedly uninspired zombies, labeled by the authorities as nothing more than mere Vanilla Glade huffers, and most of them have, by the good fortune of the controlling powers, accepted their predestined lower station and acted accordingly.  They go to a school that’s like a huge correctional facility; comfortably housing the 2,500+ student peasantry.  Most of the porn gets made while the kids are tucked away in that school.

The Memoirs Of A Zero-Decade Security Specialist

On my first day as a North Scottsdale Unified School District Security Specialist, I arrived at Cactus Branch High School at 7 AM and received a tour of “the compound.”  My escort was the “Captain” of the security staff, one Ed “Duke” Guzman.  I was well aware that the security staff didn’t officially have or even necessitate a “Captain” position per se, so I gathered that the Duke was, how should we say, self-appointed.  We cruised the grounds in Duke’s electric golf cart while he took a mammoth Copenhagen lipper and held court about his days on the rodeo circuit and the ranch he owns in Montana on an eight buck an hour wage.  He said the two women on the “force” (I assumed he meant security staff) were “gossiping hairdressers,” but his partner, Pete, was cool and “all the way professional.”  He also pointed out places to catch naps and kids smoking during lunch, as well as a housing development backyard visible from the warning track of the baseball diamond where he swore a woman “frequently sunbathed—ass and titties naked.”  He was a good six-foot-four with a belly that stuck out three, and my first impression was that every square-inch of him was chockfull of horseshit.  One of those guys that only lies when he opens his mouth.  My intuition was further cemented by a custodian who later told me, “Watch out, he’s a fucking backstabber.”  Then the custodian told me about the time that he caught two students “doin’ it” in the rafters of the theater building.  I asked him if they were filming it.  He shook his head and asked back, “Why, what’ve you heard?”

            After the tour, I was introduced to the campus police officer (since Columbine, every public school in the U.S. is required to have one—as well as one “security specialist” per 250 students, but Cactus Branch had just five for over 2,500 students—half of what is required by federal standards).  As my glance traveled from his shiny gold badge to his semi-automatic nine-millimeter Glock pistol to his bare knees just below his bun-hugger navy bike-cop shorts, I realized he was the real thing and made a mental note that the sack of dank in my pocket should be left in the glove-box for the remainder of my employment at the school.  The cop navigated the catacombs of the concrete bunker encampment on a police-issued mountain bike, weaving in and out of the ant trails of swarming, conforming sand children.

            Then, I discovered a diamond in the rough.

            The cop leaned his bike against my thigh and asked me to “man his vehicle” as he walked over and confronted a particularly adorable cretin in a hooded sweatshirt with the words “Poke Smot” sewn onto the front of it.

            “Hold it there, missy,” the officer demanded.  “Whatchu tryna say with that sweatshirt there?”

            Without batting an eye, the fourteen-year-old girl replied, “It’s a character from PokeMon.”

            “No, it is not!” cried the cop.  “It means Smoke Pot, and you’re not fooling anybody!”

            “But—“

            “No buts.  The dress-code clearly states a strict prohibition of any garments advertising or condoning controlled or illegal substances, or of course, any, umm, shirt, blouse, or, uh, tank-top that is prone to expose the, uh, yeah, mid-drift area.  Now take it off and to the office, and never wear it here again.  You can pick it up after school.  I can’t believe your parents or perhaps parent let you out of the house like that.”

            “Lemme just ax you one question,” the girl said, pulling off the hoodie, walking backwards towards the office.

            “Okay, shoot.”

            “If you can read it with the letters all mixed up what are we doing here trying to learn how to put them in the correct order?”

            And with that, she spun around and offered us the back of her head for emphasis. It was like spotting a glittery needle of defiance in an otherwise mundane and subordinate haystack.

            The Duke quickly ushered me through a cloister to a dark cell that served as the security office, so he could sit me down in front of the computer and show me “how to fill out a proper incident report for such reprehensible criminal activity as we just witnessed.”  While Duke and his partner Pete (a 70-year-old security guard back from his second blood dialysis that week) were arguing over which font the campus pig would regard as the most official, I entertained myself by thumbing through an amateurish filing cabinet filled with Polaroids of trespassers and previous incident reports.  As soon as I realized the goldmine I was sitting on, I excused myself to the bathroom and made a bee-line for the copy machine.

            I now request that the copies I made of seven of Duke’s most typical incident reports be entered as evidence—people’s exhibit 1 through 7.  As you will soon see, it’s obvious that the Duke did not successfully complete the curriculum he promised to uphold and protect.  The selections are reprinted verbatim as they appeared on the original reports—neither edits nor corrections have been made regarding grammar, spelling, and/or form.  The moments he adolescently describes can only have happened in North Scottsdale to a guy like Duke Guzman.  Enjoy as we explore the guise of total protection purchased with your overeager, scaredy-cat tax dollars.  Or maybe you’d rather just stick to making porn, dad.

1.

            At approximately 11:40 a.m. Michelle a DBHS Security radioed that there was a fight between 3 students in the main mall. Mrs. Bryson and I (Duke) arrived at the same time; the fight was broken up at the time. Bobby Lyndon was standing between Michelle and I pointing his finger at someone in the crowd. At the time I was not sure if he was part of the fight. I intended to pull him back to protect him from the fight he said “get your fucking hands off of me, don’t fucking touch me, fucking fat ass” I asked him for his ID, He then open his wallet and said “here’s my fucking ID.” I said pull your ID out. Then he replied, “There the fuck it is” I took it from his hand and I told him come to the office with me get your stuff. He said, “fuck you asshole” more sternly I said grab your stuff NOW! He then got his stuff and then started to the office. Half the way to the office he got on his cell phone and called someone and stated, “there was a fight and some fat security guy grabbed my arm, you need to come get me.

 

Duke Guzman

2.

On the day 18, of March 2005, I Ed A. Guzman (Duke) a Cactus Branch High School Security was patrolling the upper west parking lot with another CBHS Security Pilon R. Smith (Pete) when we had noticed a Cadillac Esclade Lic. #DGH-925 which Jared Scarboro a junior here at CBHS he was parked in an angle that took two parking spots. At approximately 9:05 a.m. I radioed Michelle Dixon another CBHS Security to go to his classroom and have him move his Esclade.

            Upon Jared Scarboro arriving at the upper west parking lot he had stated to Pete and I “what’s wrong with my car, my car is a $65,000 dollar car it’s worth more than any other fucking car in this lot, it’s worth more than the whole fucking parking lot.” I told him “if every other kid in this lot has to park in one spot then so do you” he replied “then I will buy two fucking parking permits” I stated “they won’t give you two” then he stated to Pete and I “you guys are fucking idiots”

                                                                                    Sincerely,

 

                                                                                    Ed A. Guzman (Duke)

                                                                                    & Pilon Pete Smith

                                                                                    Cactus Branch High School

                                                                                    Security 2005

3.

            On day 4, April 2005 I Ed A. Guzman (Duke) a Cactus Branch High School Security noticed a teacher Mr. Diller a CBHS Biology teacher was acting unordinary. As watching him I noticed that he was very fidgeted and couldn’t sit still, he was twitching, scratching his arms rapidly, basically bouncing off the wall.

            As my experience here at CBHS, he gave me a concern to the students and the staff members. I proceed to tell Sue Ann Boolsey our Deputy Principal on April 5, 2005 of the situation and what my feelings were as far as my experience. To me this teacher was to be under some kind of substance (drugs) to my knowledge could be the use of speed/meth

(methamphetamine).

            The signs that I look for in a person that is under the influence of substances are as follows, they can’t sit still, scabs on the face (tweeker scabs) the rapid scratching of the arms, always being nervous and twitching always wondering who’s watching you.

                                                                                    Sincerely,

 

                                                                                    Ed A. Guzman (Duke)

                                                                                    CBHS Security 2005

4.

            On April 8, 2005 at approximately 3:45 p.m. I Ed A. Guzman a Cactus Branch High School Security, was walking out to my truck when a student’s father approached me and stated “Hey you work here don’t you?” yes I do. “I am looking for my daughter, she’s trying out for cheer leading” I said then she’s probably in the main gym in the 7000 building.

            “She’s been coming home at 3:00 a.m. with this kid David Slatin, and telling me they were watching a movie with his parents” okay “do you know my daughter?” sounds familiar she’s a good kid. “I think this kid David has been expelled for drugs or something” really, could be, I don’t know him that well, or why he doesn’t go here anymore. “My daughter’s mom is a fucking whore she’s gang banging 3 different guys, she’s fucking 33 years old, I’ve been 2 years of a divorce” he said that he trash man that he owned his own trash removal service. He also asked about Jeff Baker and all I said, “please don’t take me there”

            Told me that his daughter gets out at 5:15 p.m. and all I am going to do is have her get in my truck and not David’s car and she’s coming straight home.  All I figure is being a cheerleader she would be having a whole new group of friends to hang with.  He aasked me about if huffing air-freshener and meth were a problem in this school I stated “yes it is a problem” asked is there classes on how to tell if your child is on them. “There is probably classes at the clinics, hospitals, or you can call the campus police officer here at the school and talk to him.

 

Ed A. Guzman (Duke)

5.

            On April 11, 2005 between 1^st and 2^nd passing period. I Ed A. Guzman (Duke) a Cactus Branch High School Security was in the Cafeteria waiting for the elevator. As I was glancing up to the main floor I noticed a chair coming over the rail, I picked the chair up and proceeded to get the elevator A few minutes went by and Mat Towne a CBHS janitor came down the elevator. I asked him if he knew who threw this chair over the rail, he stated “don’t worry about it I’ll talk to the student” I said “tell me the student name” he said “no, give me the fucking chair and I’ll talk to them” I said “Mat, I am taking the chair to the Administration” then he mumbled and walked away.

            Then Bart Onassidy another CBHS custodian came down the elevator and we did not have words. I then got on the elevator and proceeded to the office.

                                                                                    Sincerely,

 

                                                                                    Ed A. Guzman (Duke)

                                                                                    Cactus Branch High

                                                                                    School Security 2005

6.

            On April 13, 2005 at approximately 11:15 a.m. I Ed A. Guzman (Duke) a Cactus Branch High School Security was working in the upper west parking lots along with Betty Cardassian another CBHS Security.

            A student by the name Martha Enyoe was leaving the lower west parking lot.  Betty radioed attendance and did verify that this student was able to go. “Attendance verified, that she was able to leave but she needed to come to the attendance office first and sign out.” The student made a right out of the parking lot to the main drive and proceeded to Via Linda, instead of going to the attendance she went west on Via Linda.

            I drove up to Betty and asked if I can talk to her she said, “no, I not need or want to talk to you” I told her “Betty, when something like that happens with a student, we usually have them park there car again and have them walk to attendance and sign out, instead of driving around so therefore are butts are in the right.” Then she became really disturbed and started yelling at me “you are a back stabber repeating her self over and over aloud” there were students out in the parking lot. Then she was stating “I need witness, I need witness in order to talk to you this went on 4-5 times, you are back stabbing son of bitch, you follow me, I not work with you, I try talking to you months ago and you back stab me.”

            I even offered to go to Bryson’s office so we could talk “no”

                                                                                    Ed A. Guzman (Duke)

7.

            On April 14, 2005 I Ed A. Guzman (Duke) a Cactus Branch High School Security was radioed by Assistant Principal Carol Bryson.  I was requested to go to room “4002 and retrieve Steven Hunter Student #245943 and escort him to her office. As I was walking with him he seemed to be very tired and his words were slurring, eyes were glassy, pupils were enlarge, and red. I asked him if he was okay he stated “he was just tired” to me he had seemed to be under the influence of a substance.

            I then escorted him to his vehicle along with Mrs. Bryson

 and did a vehicle search. On the right passenger side of a Silver Grand-Am Lic. 3H4146, under the seat there were 2 packs of Camel cigarettes. In the console I found a bottle of Visine, and 3 matchbooks. Then we escorted the student back to the office.

                                                                                    Sincerely,

 

                                                                                    Ed A. Guzman (Duke)

                                                                                    Cactus Branch High

                                                                                    School Security

                                                                                    2005

 

So there you have it—It has been proven: NOTHING COOL HAPPENS IN HIGH SCHOOL ANYMORE.  This is the perverted land just north of where Bob Crane, Hogan’s Hero and admitted underground gonzo porn aficionado, was murdered in his sleep.  The case remains unsolved.

            This is No Sco.

            Right after my incriminating copies and dank sack were securely stowed in the glove box of my air-condition-less ’91 Ford Explorer, a monsoon rainfall began to dump and continued to dump until the end of lunch, flooding the parking lots, courtyards, and sports fields.  In the cafeteria on lunch duty (which consists of “you can’t take food into the main hall” repeated eternal), I saw a brutal “got milk?” poster with Steven Tyler of Aerosmith’s big, open mouth donning a thick milk mustache.  For chrissakes, it looked like a gosh darn bukkake facial!  Grotesque.

            At the end of the day, I drew parking lot watch and was fortunate enough to observe a rather poignantly peculiar yet regal and menacing sight.  The star quarterback of the varsity football team had convinced his porn mogul father to hover his private helicopter over the field to fan it dry before the home opener later that night.  And, as the blown water beaded up on the windshield of my golf cart, my thoughts went out to the boys in Baghdad (like Arizona’s own football hero turned martyred soldier, Pat Tillman) witnessing similar chopper landings, and I just wanted to let them know to give it all they got and not to worry about us, because we got the home front on a disgusting lock down.  The porn’s in the mail, fellas.  Forget the WMDs.  God Bless the land of DPs, A2Ms, and anal creampies with or without cum-swapping!  Our freedom is so important.  It can’t be jeopardized.  Without it, what would we do while the kids were in school?

            Some weeks later, I was asked to resign with an investigation pending after some students began printing out and distributing internet pictures of me taking bong hits admired by underage girls with the school’s field trip mini-bus parked in my driveway (long story).  But, before I retired, I became the only cool thing to happen in high school when I won a bet with the custodians by doing what was deemed by them impossible: “breaking through to the other side” and sleeping with the saucy, young Spanish teacher (who I assumed replaced the tweeker that the Duke sniffed out).  She had grown up in Nogales (a border town).  She was an eager giver, and her apartment was also in No Sco.  So, of course, we filmed it.  Wait till they download that shit!  I want to eat your babies!

The apartment building is cozy and dung-colored.  Five little identical two-bedroom units, standing side-by-side separated by toilet paper walls, and the people within: degenerate.  The rectangular boxlike structure backs up to a similar complex, and the alley between the two has been sectioned off with 7-foot-tall plywood fencing to create a jail cell-sized patio for every residence.  The walls between the apartments are so thin, if your neighbor comes down his stairs you think he’s coming down yours, and the brushing of teeth is a common morning buzz.  Most of the occupants hate each other, and the ones who don’t only obliquely tolerate each other in the shack of a coin-operated laundry room.  People know each other’s names, but they don’t interact directly.  They subtly compete with each other, and everybody’s dirt poor.  The rent is outrageous.

            Dan in unit four wakes up to his neighbor Peggy’s declaration of ecstasy at 6:30 am.

            “Pile-drive your elephant trunk cock into my sweaty, little hole!”

            Dan rolls over onto his back and begins to masturbate halfheartedly.  His wife, the frigid Cathy, snores next to him, undisturbed and unaware.

            “I’m impaled on your turd sword!”

            The “turd sword” imagery kills it for Dan, and he rolls over on his side to spoon his wife and cup her sleeping breast.  She shudders awake.

            “Danny, it’s too early; let’s sleep a little longer.”

            “I can’t; Peg is impaled on Larry’s turd sword again.”

            So, Dan gets up and spanks it in the shower and then goes downstairs to rip bongloads, waiting for his wife to scurry off to work and thinking about how to battle those pesky neighbors.  As soon as Cathy vacates, Dan puts on porn and cranks the rent-to-own surround-sound.  Dan doesn’t work.  He’s like many of us: waiting for something besides work to happen.

            Dan goes to Costco and buys an industrial tub of potato salad and a toilet plunger.  He leaves the porn rocking while he’s gone, but turns it down when he gets back.  He’s got a better idea.  For the next hour and a half, Dan busies himself recording snippets of female porn moans and quotes, one after the other, onto an audio cassette, filling up the whole tape, both sides.

            Dan flips the tape deck on auto-reverse.  He peels back the plastic lid to the tub of potato salad and positions the microphone directly above it.  Then alternatively working his finger on the PLAY/PAUSE button and thrusting the toilet plunger in a violent downward motion directly into the yellow potato slop, he creates a tremendous moist, suction-like fucking sound as well as mega-loud female hollers of satisfaction and encouragement.

            “Dump that cock into me!  Dump it!  Dump it!  Dump it!”

            It’s only up to Dan to supply the male improvisation and commands.

            “Uuugggghhhh!  Take it like a whore!  Ugh!  Oh yeah?  Back then they didn’t want me, ugh, huh, now I’m hot they all up on me!”

            It’s the loudest fuck the apartment building has ever experienced.  The crowd is on their feet.  And they all saw Cathy leave for work at 7:30.  They can only assume that Dirty Dan’s got a young chippy up there getting rectally re-built.

            Larry’s already in his car on his way to Chinatown to get some roman candles, liters of Astroglide, and a dive bar whore.  The war has only just begun.

By Luke Sick

            Hey, kids!  You wanna be in a rock band, dontcha?  Damn right!  It’s only just your god-given right as a goshdarn American.  Yeah!  But for now, it’s best if you let me do all the thinking.  Remember: I know what I’m talking about, and I’m on your side.  I’ll pull your coat to how it’s done, youngblood, step-by-step:

            First of all, don’t bother begging your mom to buy you a guitar.  You and I both know that will only result in her saving up Marlboro miles for a plastic red kazoo that she’ll try to pass off as a harmonica that won’t get here till well into the first phase of your chemotherapy treatment.  Besides, instruments are for lame people who want to try and have integrity and want to spend all their time practicing, and you just want to get chicks.  Right?  Of course, so instead promise your mom you won’t torch the shed again if she lets you purchase and download the program GarageBand for your silly iMac.  It’ll work.  Go do that right fucking now!

Got it?

Okay.

Now noodle around on that sucker for about an hour until you’ve mastered it (clinical tests, conducted by Steve Jobs himself, have shown that silverback gorillas held in captivity have produced records comparable to the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds only hours after being passively introduced to the program—just imagine, what you, a fully-driven human, will be able to achieve?).  So how does your track sound?  Pretty fucking awesome?  I thought so.

Okay, now you gotta call all your friends over.  The bigger and stupider your band, the better.  Get completely torked on your dad’s stash of domestic light beer and let everybody have a chance on the mike; even Jeff’s creepy fat 30-year-old babysitter who always wants to hang out and doesn’t mind that you guys smoke pot and do whip-its in front of her.  Ask her to flash tit.

What are you going to sing?

I’m glad you asked that.  I don’t have enough room here to write out all the lyrics, so I’ll just give you the titles which should be shouted as the choruses and you can just mumble your way through the verses:

The first song you record should be called Only Rich People Know What Love Is, quickly followed by the barn dance ballad, Rich People Have Better Sex, and then drop the stadium anthem, Rich People Are Having More Fun Than You Right Now.  Do you notice a theme developing?  Here are four more titles to round out your demo: Rich People Don’t Die, You Get More Stoned If You’re Rich, Rich People Always Win When They Gamble, and Rich Tit Don’t Sag; oh yeah, and my personal favorite, Rich People In England Say Shagged If They Fucked Another Rich Person.  Make that five, eight total.

Are you done mixing your opus yet?

You are?  Then get that shit up on MySpace, homey!  Which brings us to an ever so crucial question:  What are we going to call the band?  Step aside son, let daddy handle this one.  Well… cheering for the rich is a classy marketing ploy (that’s hot right now and has been since the turn of the millennium and doesn’t look like it’s gonna get cold anytime soon), and I like the demographic we’ve pinpointed, but we gotta keep it street, we gotta cater and desperately stay connected to the cultural roots that you cryptically claim subconsciously nurtured your raw and untainted genius.  So, we need a subversive moniker that contradicts our corporate intentions and looks kick ass in white on a black shirt.  I’d go with OF INFERIOR BIRTH, ‘cause, dude, it just sounds like hardcore cred.  Say it with me: OF INFERIOR BIRTH.  The title of your major label debut will be: Heir Apparent.  Feel me?  The eternal chiming of your dark and twisted internal dichotomy (which comes through so lucidly in your lyrics) is the sound of motherfuckin’ cash registers, cousin!  Feel me?

The only pictures of the band on the MySpace page should be exclusively of the members’ genitalia to spark controversy and a sexy edge from the jump.  Which brings us to performing live—

Don’t sweat it.  Just bring your iPod to the club, plug it in to the P.A., and lip-sync your songs, and don’t even try to fake it with mikes and instruments in your hands.  Just stand up there with your iPod in your hands and play all your songs in a row while you and your friends walk around, get drunk, trip on acid, act stupid, and yell at people.  It’s always good to know that a bitchin’ cover song is only a light massage of the click wheel away.  Whenever anybody tries to denounce you for lip-syncing, repeat this exact response immediately everytime (note: don’t forget the Huck Finn-style aints, it’s important that you sound uneducated), “Fuck you, everybody that was on The Ed Sullivan Show, American Bandstand, Soul Train, and Solid Gold lip-synced, and you can’t tell me those people ain’t straight up legends.  Now what, bitch?  Who wants to get up there and do all that archaic sweating and concentrating anyway?  Fuck that, that ain’t punk rock.  Rock ‘n’ roll isn’t about workin’ hard, it’s about looking good while you ain’t doing shit.”

And say it with conviction, ‘cause you are one hundred percent, absolutely correct.  Now put on your white belt and get to rockin’, ya little suburban half-dick.