10. In a Drawing Room with Tasteful Goatse Wallpaper

Goatse has lost its ability to shock, and I for one pour out my forty of scat leftover on the curb, here at the corner of Jaded Street and Saturation Lane.

I'm not gonna link to it, cause little children read this (it was named a "required blog" for passing the Virginia SOLs), and because chances are you see it about 300 times a day. It's no longer shocking. It has become shorthand for shocking, but the image has lost its power, or whatever power we allowed it to have, anyway.

And while we're discussing totemic images that have lost their magic, let's talk about the sixth most interesting member of the Velvet Underground, the estimable Lou Reed. Here was a man who tried way too hard in his solo career, and subsequently, never really did much of interest to me. His batting average was way below the Mendoza line, way below those of Cale (Paris 1919 wiped the floor with him), Tucker (the 50 Skidillion Watts releases are hella fun), Pfafgen (an ACTUAL degenerate), Morrison (tugboat captain!) and Yule (probably now known as "Doug Yule of Doug Yule Ford", and who I am placing above Reed just to be an asshole).

The one thing he DID do that I unreservedly like is, yes, the popular Goatse of its time, Metal Machine Music. Which when heard today in our landscape of Kevin Drumms and John Wieses and Tom Smiths is really not all that extreme. And which, it could be argued, Reed probably doesn't even remember making. You can read all the Bangs stuff about how it enraged every man-jack and child; I'll assume you know what went on back there. But by the time I got to it, sometime in the mid- to late-90's, it was just another noise record. And a damn good one to boot.

Reed, to this day, still doesn't know how to spin this thing, which can be considered as the one piece of music he did which wasn't slathered in layers of pose; he'll describe it as a continuation of his drone work in the Velvet Underground (oh yeah, "his" drone work, right) and then a couple of sentences later pass it off as some sort of Warholian joke. He doesn't know how to relate to the one thing he did that is just a piece of music. And that's sad, but shed few tears; he's shacked up with Laurie Anderson now, and the two of them wax post-epistemological over blintzes and Sanka.

So what becomes a Goatse? How about a classical re-interpretation thereof? An ensemble called Zeitkratzer somehow transcribed Metal Machine Music, arranged it for classical instruments, and played it, no doubt, at maximum valume in front of an audience who have Goatse t-shirts. The amazing thing is how well it works. Well, maybe not so amazing: they wouldn't have put in on CD if it didn't. Avant-garde classical ensembles have to justify their recorded releases, as opposed to yer more common noise yodels, who can shit out a CD-R at will.

Look for the Goatse version of the Flying Toaster screensaver in yer new Vista service pack. And stare deep into the ruby sun twixt that old man's cheeks, and enjoy the feeling of ironic peace it brings.