Life is Too Funny I Think Ill Shoot Myself

GOF 005 1984
Life is Too Funny — I Think I’ll $hoot Myself
Girls On Fire
(updated with new info on October 25, 2018)

Cover and tape images, and audio transcription are taken from Al Margolis' personal copy of the cassette, which he received directly from Leslie Singer in the mid-1980s

Review by Robin James from the first issue of Sound Choice magazine, January/February 1984. Scan courtesy of Jerry Kranitz.

Review by Christopher Rankin in Unsound Magazine, issue #4, Spring 1984

Leslie Singer's LISTENING NOTES for
Life is Too Funny — I Think I’ll $hoot Myself

Time for the out of tune guitar, disruptive sonics and anti-folk vocals.

1.
Hideous Pants

— a song about hideous pants.

Hideous pants, sickening slacks, hideous trousers
I didn’t know that they would make me so sick

Hideous pants, sickening slacks, hideous trousers
I didn’t know that they would make me so sick

I bought them on sale
Only $14.89
Brown corduroys, they look so hideous

Hideous pants, sickening slacks, hideous trousers
I didn’t know that they would make me so sick

I bought them on sale
Seemed like a good deal
Brown corduroys, turned out to be hideous
I hate them

Hideous trousers-
I didn’t know that they would make me so sick

I bought them on sale
Only $14.89
Brown corduroys on sale, turned out to be horrible
I hate them

Hideous pants, sickening slacks, hideous trousers
I didn’t know that they would make me so sick
Hideous pants, sickening slacks, hideous trousers
I didn’t know that they would make me so sick

I guess-----------------------

2.
Jessica Savitch
— a song about 1980’s network TV anchor Jessica Savitch who died tragically in a car crash.
I combine the car crash and celebrity thing. Very Warholesque.

TV personality
Her husband killed himself
Now she’s dead in car crash

TV personality
Her husband killed himself
Now she’s dead in car crash

TV personality
It fits me to a tee

TV personality
Her husband killed himself
Now she’s dead in car crash

TV personality
Her husband killed himself
Now she’s dead in car crash

TV personality
It wasn’t NBC
It wasn’t ABC

TV personality
Her husband killed himself
Now she’s dead in car crash

3.
My Groovy Apartment
— a poetic meditation on the interior decoration of my SF apartment on Van Ness Avenue known as the “Trips Room.”

My couch is black
My phone is white
My sofa is black
My telephone is white

My wall is black
My door is white
My couch is black
My phone is white

My sofa is black
Black as the night
My telephone is white
As the California light
My wall is black
Black as the San Francisco street
My door is white
White as chicken white meat

My sofa is black
Black as my cavity
My phone is white
White as me

My wall is black
My door is white
My couch is black
My phone is white

4.
*****
— starts with two bad politically incorrect jokes told by me in a very clinically hysterical manner.

Then goes into an Americana version of “Swamp” by the Talking Heads with inserted commentary about Fellini and his film Toby Dammit.

(Starts out with a joke that is in very bad taste and a microagression against people with severely impacted mobility. Note to my 20 year old self- this is not funny at all.)

Then it goes into my interpretation of the Talking Heads song “Swamp.” I added one original part right after the first line:

The song starts- “Let me tell you a story, the Devil, he’s a man”

And then I say:

Except in this Fellini movie I saw at a birthday party once.
The Devil was a woman, a beautiful woman, of course.
Like they all are in Fellini movies.

(The movie was Toby Dammit and it was being screened at home during my cousin Larry’s 12th birthday party. His birthday is on Halloween so his parents threw him a Halloween themed birthday party. They rented what they thought were safe scary/horror movies for the kids to watch (this is before the advent of home video).

I don’t do all the lyrics to the song including the final verse. I just leave it off with some wordless words that sound like nanananananana woohoo rrrrrraaaaeeee.

5.
My Ironing Board
— very similar out of tune guitar and disruptive sonics as “Hideous Pants.” It is all about how expensive my ironing board was at the time — $30. This is in 1984. I think $30 would be considered expensive for an ironing board now in 2018.

My ironing board
Cost me thirty dollars
Ironing boards are not cheap
Cheap are not ironing boards

My ironing board
Cost me thirty dollars
Ironing boards aren’t cheap
Cheap are not ironing boards

My ironing board
Cost me thirty dollars
Ironing boards aren’t cheap
In case you haven’t guessed
Cheap aren’t ironing boards

My ironing board
Cost me thirty dollars
Ironing boards aren’t cheap
Cheap they are not
Don’t kid yourself
Ironing boards aren’t cheap
They cost a lot
They cost a lot

My ironing board
Cost me thirty dollars
Ironing boards just aren’t cheap
In price that is

6.
South of Market
— a section of SF that used to be cheap and rough. Now South of Market is expensive and rough. The song is a simple ditty about art school with me smacking my chewing gum at the end.

Wanna study sculpture
Wanna study space
Then I found out it’s called
Architecture

Wanna study sculpture
Wanna study space
Then I found out it’s called
Architecture

Wanna study sculpture
Wanna study space
Then I found out it’s called
Architecture

Wanna study sculpture
Wanna study space
Then I found out it’s called
Architecture

7.
Life is Too Funny
— an art school protest song with the refrain, “I’m not a rich art school student.” Frankly, I’m not sure that I ever met one.

I can’t believe all the shit people say
I’m not a rich art student
I don’t go to SFAI
I don’t go to SFMMA that much

I can’t believe all the shit people say about me
I do not attend the SFAI
I don’t go to the SFMMA that much
Not that much

I can’t believe all the shit people say all about me
I am not a rich art student
I do not take classes at the SFAI
I hardly ever go to the SFMMA
I don’t go there that much

I don’t believe all the shit people say about me
Because it’s untrue
Because it’s untrue
Because it’s untrue
I don’t go to the San Francisco Art Institute
Totally untrue
It’s totally untrue
I’m not a rich art student

I don’t believe all this shit that people say about me
I’m not a rich art student
I don’t go to SFAI
I don’t go to SFMMA that much

Not anymore than anybody else does in this town
Anywhere, anyhow, hmmmm.

8.
Florida
— a ballad about the state of Florida. It is a hot state and a long state. Not sure where the audio bit at the end came from but I like it—“The world is almost rotten.

My grandparents, Grandma Sylvia (she funded the tan pickup truck purchase) and my Grandpa Louie (my father's parents) moved down to St. Pete from Washington DC circa 1970. I was very close to them and have a lot of good memories of both of them. To this day, I still remember advice that both of them gave to me when I was a child and an adolescent. When I was 11 and 12, I spent both of those summers with them in St. Pete. I fished, played chess and read library books with Grandpa Louie and Grandma Sylvia taught me America style cooking. My grandparents were hardcore bridge players and would take me with them to their games. All kinds of people would be there playing bridge. I used to do small pencil sketches of their faces especially those of the younger hippie looking guys while sitting near my grandparents. I think that one of them noticed me sketching his face and kind of dug it. I think that I was supposed to be learning bridge but I could never get that interested in it. I have fond memories of those summers. When I first met John Hricko, he showed me photos of his two sisters who both lived in Tallahassee and how whenever he went there to visit, everyone played bridge so thereafter he and I would swap Florida stories. I did that song for him. As I recall he really enjoyed it.

Florida is a hot state
Florida, da, da is a long state
Florida is a hot state
Florida, da, da is a long state
Florida is a hot state
Florida is a long state
And Florida is very old to me
Florida is a hot state
Florida is a long state
And Florida is very old to me
Florida is a hot state
Florida is a long state
Florida is a hot state
Florida is a long state
And Florida is very old to me
Florida
Florida
Florida
Da, da, da, da

9.
Camus' Crashing, Burning, and Eating Hungry Man TV Dinners
According to my Life is Too Funny — I Think I’ll $hoot Myself master cassette tape case, this piece was originally entitled “Always Eating the Same TV Dinner”. I think that this is a humorous riff on the David Bowie song, “Always Crashing in the Same Car” on his album Low.

photos from Unsound, Vol. 2, Number 1

— audio from a performance that I did at Club Foot in SF on November 18, 1983. The SF duo The Dave along with our mutual friend, John Hricko, held the tape recorder and provide commentary.

poster courtesy of Willam Davenport

While that same damn old loop of a car crash plays in the background, I’m on stage eating a TV dinner. This show was organized by Bill Davenport and some other folks involved with Unsound
magazine. Davenport's band Problemist performed, with No Trend and Boyd Rice's Non too. It was a Hungry Man Veal Parmagiana TV dinner that I ate onstage. The crowd reacts nicely to it all—again they knew what they were up for when they walked through the door. I had been reading Michael Kirby's book on Happenings. I think I was inspired by reading how everyday activities were incorporated as performance, as art. I was also reading about Warhol films like "Eat" and "Sleep." In addition, I liked the idea of how to define when is a performance or pieces is over. Jackson Pollock was famously asked, "How do you know when a painting is done?" I also think that to get up and eat in front of people without politely offering them anything to eat as well was kind of anti-social and confrontational. Meanwhile the sound of the car crash was playing away so the noise was there to keep it all trucking along.
I work in a diss on Rough Trade Records which I’m glad that I did as they burned some friends of mine when Rough Trade US declared bankruptcy in the late ‘80’s/early 1990’s. The crowd really cheers that one.
After all the artificial traffic/car crash looping/ostinato sounds, I wanted to end the album with some breathing room and more "naturalistic" sounds while still maintaining the motor vehicle theme. The phone ringing was one of those fortunate "accidents." I loved having the bells in there to symbolize the last line from the famous John Donne poem, "No Man is an Island" (an early answer back to existential dread), "And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee."[*] And then one hears the closing of my apartment door which symbolizes death/the end (the closing of the casket) and the closing of album...
* Meditation #17 By John Donne From Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

Problemist at Club Foot, November 18, 1983. Photo courtesy of William Davenport.

Editor's Note
On October 7, 2018 I wrote the following to Leslie:

By the time Life is Too Funny — I Think I’ll $hoot Myself was recorded you had been living in San Francisco for a year and more. What happened during that year? You have talked about your job and your adjustments to that. But surely your life consisted of more than your job! Tell me about the amazing shows and events you attended, the people you met, etc. Had you started working on films yet? You talked in Truly Needy about how the SF scene was so different than the DC scene... that people didn't seem to go to shows as much, but stayed home and did tapes and zines and films.

Did you attend any wild parties? Was there a lot of drug-taking, pot-smoking, drinking, etc. among the people you associated with? Did you maintain your straight edge ways during that first year in SF?

On the Diary of a Shiteater page you talked about Brett Kerby had given you a hard time about doing songs about your job and mundane daily stuff instead of songs about the soul and weighty topics. Did you maintain contact with Brett and Rob throughout 1983, or did the connection start to fade?

You have talked about how you had been inspired by Michael Kirby's book, Happenings, to delve into the mysteries of the everyday. A few days ago I was talking with a friend about how if I did have any religious belief it would be Pantheism — the idea that the spirit of God resides within all things, that God and The Creation are one and the same... That within the smallest molecule or atom we find the universe. Is this what you were perceiving or experiencing/exploring through your songs dealing with "sickening realism"? AT THAT TIME did you find "the everyday" sickening? Or were you celebrating it?

THIS WAS LESLIE'S REPLY:

Yes, what did happen in 1983? I’m glad you asked. When I think back to those days, it is like a strobe light set to a very slow flash speed so that while there is a lot of action going on in the dark, the strobe light catches and illuminates a single frame of the action and freezes it. Then it goes dark again. Here are the frames I can catch right now from that 1983 into 1984:

Before Brett moved back to Northern VA [in November 1982], he and I went see the Meat Puppets at the On Broadway. Brett and I were put off by how the SF punks moshed— too much kicking and punching— someone could get hurt like that. The DC punks that we were used to being around would just shove and push in the mosh pit. Not that he and I would get into the pit, mind you, but at least it didn’t seem as needlessly brutal as what the SF punks were doing. I forget who else was on the bill. The Meat Puppets were good. The guitar player/singer brother was funny. At one point, he complained that he had a hair in his mouth which was funny since most of the crowd had no hair— they had cut it off!

Then Brett left and I met Denise Dee. With her I saw the Bush Tetras, the Fassbinder film, Lili Marleen, and tried heroin. Luckily I found H to be a big bore. Denise’s scene was a bit druggy. Once she and I visited a friend of hers who was into drag and also H. He was living in a tiny studio apartment on lower Geary Street. He seemed to be pretty high during our visit. He was playing the first Culture Club album (which was the first time I really heard their music) and kept saying how thanks to them it was okay for boys to have sex with each other again. I guess that he meant that punk had kind of put a damper on that. This is just as AIDS was starting to get attention at least in SF.
Then through Denise, while she is scoring H, I bought some speed. So I got to be a speedfreak for about a week. I remember being on speed while driving Clara, Killer and friends down to the Rosicrucian Museum in San Jose, CA. Clara had a brief period of heavy fascination with Rosicrucianism. This is before I got into Erik Satie. The museum was pretty ridiculous. A lot of fake King Tut looking stuff and they kept announcing the Super Bowl scores over the PA system which killed the holy vibe. Then we all went to a great Thai restaurant afterwards. That was the end of my speed days.

Then Clara and I hung out one night in The Haight and I tried cocaine. There were always parties in the Haight where they would play the Tom Tom Club non-stop and folks would have original James Rizzi’s (he did the cover art on the first two Tom Tom Club albums) artwork on the walls. (John Hricko lived in one of these apartments for awhile with a married couple. Then some weird sex and/or drug thing happened and he moved out to the flea House on Capp Street.). Actually my coke experience was with one of those let’s stay up all night talking and doing drugs while remembering nothing by the time you leave at dawn. When I went into work on Monday, one of the financial advisors/salesman called me via the inter office phone to be friendly and asked me what I did over the weekend. I told him that I tried coke over the weekend but it wasn’t that good. It kept me up but I didn’t get high. He said that was too bad and that he would hook me up with the good stuff. Luckily, that never happened...

Before I met John, I met Philip Perkins while waiting in line at a New Music show featuring Joan La Barbara, Lou Harrison, Paul Dresher, amongst others. Because of my work schedule, 7 am to 4 pm, I had to stop going to punk shows but I was moving out of that scene anyway. I do remember being bummed to miss the NON/Boyd Rice show at the On Broadway. Clara went and said the show was great and that Boyd was giving her the eye afterwards but I think she found him to be a little bit scary so nothing happened there. I did make it to the Mark Pauline/Survival Research shows. One was a video screening and the other was the actual machines. After reading about him in RE/Search Magazine, I had a lot of great expectations but the machines didn’t seem that scary or loud. The scariest thing was knowing that he blew his almost his whole hand off doing that junk. John knew his girlfriend from when he lived near the Rough Trade store on Sixth Street. I think I met her once. She was nice and seemed to be way more womanly and grown up than me though we probably were’t that far apart in age. John and I used to wonder what their sex life was like with Mark and his blown apart hand.

Through John, I met Greg and Nancy of The Dave and hung out with them. They were a wholesome, good influence compared to Denise’s scene. I remember going with them to the Red Vic movie theater in the Haight to see Chris Marker’s film, Sans Soleil. Now that I think about it, it was Nancy who first told me about the San Francisco Cinematheque. The SF Cinematheque had been around since the late ’50’s/early ‘60’s. It’s where I got see all the old time experimental / structuralist films by Kenneth Anger, Marie Menken, Hollis Frampton, Kurt Kren, Barbara Rubin, Stan Brakhage, Jean Genet’s Un chant d’amour, and Super 8 films by current makers like Nina Fonoroff (who I found out later on was Frank [Kogan]’s big relationship before me), Scott Stark, Janis Crystal Lipzin and others. (The book Radical Light: Alternative Film & Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-2000 which came out in 2010, contains info on this film scene and the video scene that came after.). So between hanging out with The Dave at the SF Cinematheque and borrowing Clara’s Super 8 camera things just took off from there.
Through out all of this I was still in touch with Rob and Brett. By time I met Frank in 1985/86, communication had tapered off but Brett and I remained in sporadic contact until 1992. Seeing him and Jimbo perform that last time was the end of the road for all of us. It was “Let’s get drunk and cuss and make a mess”. What a waste.

I agree with you about Pantheism. I think that I was always there but it has only been recently thanks to my reading of and listening to John Cage that I am fully conscious of and am able to embrace it. He expressed those same thoughts and sentiments through his Zen Buddhist practice. I think that Thoreau and what could be considered Pantheism in his writings was a big influence on Cage as well. It brought it all together. So my “sickening reality” is really a existential celebration and dread of life’s paradoxes and conflicts. My interpretation of Kierkegaard’s The Sickness Unto Death and Sartre’s Nausea. (I think that at some point there was a Girls on Fire song about Sartre but I don’t know what happened with that.)
But paradox and conflict are inevitable in this realm and that is okay.

Grandma Sylvia's American cooking tips:
Put some chicken thighs in dish, open a can of tomatoes, pour it over the chicken and then put the dish in the oven for about an hour or so- there's your main course. Open a box of jello, dump it into a bowl, open a can of fruit cocktail, dump that in, put it the fridge to set and there is your dessert. Be sure to have a small basket of rye or pumpernickel bread and butter on the dinner table at all times. For vegetables, open a can of LeSeuer Sweet Peas, heat up in a small pan, once hot, dump the contents into a serving bowl. For breakfast, the night before, open a jar of pimento olives, dump it into a bowl containing a brick of Philadelphia cream cheese, blend together and put back in the fridge for the next morning. Serve as a spread on toasted rye or pumpernickel bread. Grandma loved her electric can opener that she bought with those green S&W stamps.