(03/13/2010) /

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Mr. Judy v. Joy, Music, Tattoos, Hootie

Re: http://online.wsj.com/article- /SB125632310821604333.html

Mr. Judy, the curmudgeonly antagonist from the Wall Street Journal story linked above, is meant to make our blood boil—despite the fact that were his particular brand of joylessness to have developed a few years earlier he might have prevented Hootie and the Blowfish from ever occurring, surely no less than an act of kingliness.

In summary: a man whose obsessive compulsiveness practically has tendrils needlessly shut down a longstanding practice space by incessantly complaining to city officials. What we’re meant to take from the story is all there, in the money quote: “It’s an issue of an old fella getting tired of listening to them, with their tattoos, down there having a good time.” His neighbors weren’t disturbed by the same noise, but feared Mr. Judy sufficiently to stay out of his way, and so fuck: more bands, who just want to drink beer and suck at playing music, are back to squeezing their drums into their parents’ basement. The Journal does all the heavy lifting, sets it up so we can easily knock it down—he wants to impose a tax on those who have kids out of wedlock! What a dick!—that we’re obviously meant to fucking despise the old codger, to revel in his villainy. Except here’s the thing: this bullshit ran front page beneath the fold, right under something about an Afghan firefight. Everyone gets ashamed in this one.

Is this what amounts to a feel good story? Probably. Hate is big these days, and the bailouts and wars got depressing. What we need—what music needs—is an archetypal bad guy. A cartoon character. Record labels, many of which have turned to hollowed out and crumbled edifices of their former selves, can’t play the black-hatted landlord with quite the same callousness. Maybe what we crave, more than anything, is a Mr. Judy, a real villain, whose patently unreasonable, piss n’ vinegar demeanor is simple to hate. A two dimensional character to inspire vitriol and, perhaps, poke us in the direction of art in the process.

Conrad Amenta | 10/27/2009 |                

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