FROM THE GUT: A Rotten Affair
Gutfeld, Greg
T'S A REALLY SAD THING whena14-year-oldboyisahead taller than you, but for me, it's not just sad, it's a reality. My nephew Garrett, whom I haven't seen in six months, has experienced a growth...
...Don't get him started on Nelson Mandela, in Rotten's mind a terrorizing thug romanticizedbytheignorantleftandglamorizedbya stint in jail...
...It's why the Sex Pistolsmattered,andwhyeverysonghewrotecontained what he calls "value...
...It's for that reason that when Garrett's birthday approached, I purchased "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here'stheSexPistols"ashisgift.Idon'tthinkhewanted it,butIdon'tcare.WhenIgottheSexPistols'debutalbum nearly30yearsago,Iwasonly15orso,andtheLPscared thehelloutofme.JohnnyRotten,theleadsinger,seemed astreeturchinshotstraightoutofhell'sinnercircle,and theenormouslyuntalentedSidViciousappearednothing morethanwalkingsewage.Butthatamazingrockrecord, in a matter of months, changed the way I looked at the world, the notion of "phoniness" or more importantly hippies--thephoniestpeopleonearth...
...And here's why: We are suddenlyhitwithastenchsopowerful,westartgagging andcoveringourmouths.It'sasifacesspoolbrokewind...
...And you never hear your basic sensitive and outspoken Hollywood celebrity-theonesmouthingoffaboutBushandright-wingreligious nuts--speaking out against the way gays and women are treated in Islamic countries...
...Truly a Yank--he prefers Steve Miller over Sting...
...I can deal with the former, but not the latter...
...Rambo lectures me that the war wasn'taboutslavery,butsovereignty,andthattheSouth treated blacks far better than the North ever could...
...Greg Gutfeld, former editor of Maxim (UK), Men's Health,and Stuff,ishostof RedEyeonFoxNews...
...My nephew Garrett, whom I haven't seen in six months, has experienced a growth spurt that has relegated me to a pudgy Smurf in his presence...
...How can I not admire a man who believes Americans are the most honest people in the world, and America is the greatest place to live (I am almost positivehesaidthat,butIwasdrunk).He's livedhere now for 30 years, and has no intention of leaving...
...He said as much on a British talk show, and it got him banned for years, he tells me...
...I triedtofollow,butIwasonmysixthdoublevodka...
...Bono has done no good...
...In that sense, Johnny Rotten--the thinking Sex Pistol,asopposedtothenihilisticSidVicious--isreallynothingmorethanalouderandmoremusicallytalented Reagan...
...It's no secret that the punks happened because thehippiesfailed.Bykillingthesilly,bucolic,utopian hippy ethic, the punks allowed for a sober reassessmentofallthat'60scrap.Andtheresultwasarestoration of America's faith in itself, a new embrace of genuine reality and not some Shangri-la over the horizon somewhere...
...And he also believes, like me, that the real cause of terror is not religion, but lack of fun...
...What happens when your parents get you everything you want...
...ROTTEN HATES EVERYTHING intellectually lazy, fromthefatandstupideditorsatRollingStone totheHollywoodliberalsheencounterseverydaybackinhisVeniceBeachcommunity...
...something that makes themthemostdishonestgroupofpeoplealive.Atleast suicide bombers are truthful about their intentions...
...Some of the hippies now look a little like punks--lots of piercings, tattoos,andshavedheads--butinmybooktheyarenot punks, they're still scummy hippies...
...And they'll rip you off if possible...
...It's a bloody simple question...
...Youwouldn't believe the idiocy," he tells me on his umpteenth beer or vodka drink...
...With one less tooth...
...These nutty extremists just need a more active social life...
...Nearly all modern pop music lately is awash in whiny boredom derived from idle luxury...
...Hippie culture was always the most evil and false kind of lifestyle--laziness, selfishness, and emotional violencewrappedupin"whycan'twegetalong"claptrap...
...They advocate peace and love, but these greedy liars just want your money for drugs and, sadly, never antiperspirant...
...When he smiles, his mouth reveals a huge gap...
...If you're not familiar with "emo," and as a reader of this magazine, I would be worried if you were, it's short for "emotional," which really means "crybaby, self-involved tripe...
...He wanted the Sex Pistols to play in Iraq, not just totroops, but to the people of Iraq...
...Not even Rolling Stone...
...Because they're cowards...
...Johnny Rotten might be the most honest person in music--unafraid of saying things that send the left into epileptic seizures...
...You hate them and get your nipples pierced...
...All I ask is, where is the money...
...Some of themarepouncingontouristsforchange,whileothers simply slump on picnic benches, glaring...
...Hippies loved fascists, and would kill you if possible-CharlesMansonprovedit.F R O MT H EG U T 4 2 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 A Rotten Affair by Greg Gutfeld I O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R 4 3 Johnny Rotten understood...
...You don't hear Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen volunteering to do the same...
...I don't care if they hate us, but we have to do it...
...And now I see the culprits--a group of hippies-filthy and wasted dancing to a portable radio...
...I am now walking with my wife Elena along theSanta Cruz boardwalk in California, and it's a beautiful day.Theshore'samusementparkisjammedwithhappy families,busloadsoframbunctiousteens,and--withan exception of me--no drunks...
...Iwouldn'tbesurprisedifdeepdown,someofthose musicians were (or are) conservatives (even if they don'trealizeoradmitit).Becausetheyhadnoillusions...
...I am probably nuts--but I always sort of thought that the punk movement made Ronald Reagan more than a bit possible...
...And that got us Reagan, and ended the Soviet Union...
...G R E GG U T F E L D HowcanInotadmireamanwho believesAmericansarethemost honestpeopleintheworld,and Americaisthegreatestplacetolive...
...Like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, conservatism was realist, urban, and tough...
...Rotten may be the only rock legend who understands the threat of Islamofascism and is willing to go there and face it, without security and not behind a barbed wire fence...
...But no one would sponsor us...
...I am back in New York, and he's now sitting next to me at a bar, and we're getting drunkwithhisbuddyRambo,mywife,andafewofmy co-workers.IhadJohnnyonmyshow,RedEye,and hemaybeafarcryfromthewild-eyeddervishfrom the '70s--the frontman of the only band (outside maybe the Ramones) to single-handedly make socialist intelligentsia appear irrelevant and intolerant--buthecanstillintimidatethehelloutofyou...
...We've decided to walk towardthepier,linedwithrestaurantsandgiftshops,so weheadtothestreet.Whenwecometoabaronthecorner, we notice there aren't as many families as there were only a few blocks earlier...
...Johnny and his good friend Rambo are obsessed with American history, primarily the Civil War and black Confederates...
...He also has a girlfriend, and listens to "emo...
...I spendtwentygrandontheseteeth--andthesadtruth is I lost this one on a cherry pit...
...The punks may have been rude and snotty, but they were just so much more real--so much less delusional and besotted--than the hippies were...
...Imagine me at a parent/teacher conference trying to explain to them how to speak properbloodyEnglish...
...To him, Mandela is only equaled in idiocy by Bono, who Rotten believes has done nothing to help the poor in Africa--those starving millions he keeps soliciting money for...
...He wants to change the world, despite having done a lot of that already...
...Rotten isn't...
...If you were to take, say, Jeane Kirkpatrick, circa 1982,andsitherdownwithJohnnyRotten--I'mpretty sure they would agree on more than they disagree on.YoucertainlycouldnotsaythataboutKirkpatrick andSimon&GarfunkelorJoanBaezoranyoftherest of that unwashed crowd of dippy boneheads...
Vol. 40 • October 2007 • No. 8
