September 19, 2024

"When you guys wrote this song — you know, 'we'll make good pets' — you were talking about if these aliens came and visited us and we suddenly became a planet of pets."

Said Howard Stern to Perry Farrell in 1997:


I found that because I've been reading about Perry Farrell this week and it intersected in my head with all the loose talk about newcomers eating the pets of the people who live there in Ohio.

Here's the NYT story if you need to catch up on Perry Farrell's problems: "Jane’s Addiction to Cancel Tour After Onstage Fight/In a social media post, the rock band said it was halting its reunion tour after the group’s singer, Perry Farrell, hit its guitarist at a Boston show" ("Farrell’s wife, Etty Lau Farrell, said on Instagram after the concert that her husband had been upset throughout the tour about the band’s sound levels drowning out his vocals. He was suffering from tinnitus and a sore throat.... 'He was screaming just to be heard,' she said.")

Lyrics from the song "Pets": "Will there be another race/To come along and take over for us?/Maybe Martians could do better than we've done/We'll make great pets!"

There's always the question whether Martians will eat their pets. I come from the "Twilight Zone"/"To Serve Man" era of thinking about the aliens....
"... the evolution of man.... the cycle of going from dust to dessert... the metamorphosis from being the ruler of a planet to an ingredient in someone's soup...."

But I know the culture shifted from thinking the aliens — real aliens — were dangerous to regarding them as benevolent. Perry Farrell isn't much younger than I am: He was born in 1959. And I've always heard his lyrics as a mournful contemplation of the status of being a pet. It is already horrible for a human being to be reduced to the status of pet. (Is it horrible for our nonhuman pets to be pets?)

BONUS:

41 comments:

Iman said...

The guy’s wound a bit too tight.

Democratic Paychecks for Perks/ Dems for Demolition of Democracy/ fake-cares 4-U said...

I love the composition of that song.
Perry is so silly - I imagine the song writing, drugs and laughing their asses off.

The rule of Lemnity said...

There’s so much material in this post.

Lilly, a dog said...

"Ted, Just Admit it..."

Camera got them images
Camera got them all
Nothing's shocking
Showed me everybody
Naked and disfigured
Nothing's shocking
And then he came
Now sister's
Not a virgin anymore
Her sex is violent

Democratic Paychecks for Perks/ Dems for Demolition of Democracy/ fake-cares 4-U said...

Millions of people suffer from Tinnitus. Probably most rock and rollers.
I can only imagine the freight train and/or ringing in their heads.

RideSpaceMountain said...

To any alien overlords reading this, I would make a great pet. My only request is that you A) don't neuter me and B) farm me out as breeding stock during your benevolent administration of our planet. I don't do leashes, but I'm not a picky eater and have been known to purr on occasion. Call me.

BarrySanders20 said...

Is it horrible being a non-human pet? Anecdotally, it is not horrible to be a dachshund in my house. Mama's favorite, sleeps wherever it wants to. Has one skill: the art of begging.

Democratic Paychecks for Perks/ Dems for Demolition of Democracy/ fake-cares 4-U said...

"teenagers are f**ked up in the head" - deep.

Democratic Paychecks for Perks/ Dems for Demolition of Democracy/ fake-cares 4-U said...

The guitarist in the Stern video in not Dave Navarro. (I don't think) Now I must depart and google the configuration of the band back then.

Lilly, a dog said...

Of course it's not Navarro. Porno for Pyros is a completely different band than Jane's Addiction.

The rule of Lemnity said...

Thinking about what would make us great pets. I don’t have to go very far in the archives… the way we/they frequently violated HIPAA so as to open someone to shame and harassment and cancellation for not getting the shot. Great pets indeed.

The rule of Lemnity said...

The Roman gladiators were as close to a pet… slaves were not pets. Slaves were not expected to entertain.

Democratic Paychecks for Perks/ Dems for Demolition of Democracy/ fake-cares 4-U said...

of course! I forgot about that.

Democratic Paychecks for Perks/ Dems for Demolition of Democracy/ fake-cares 4-U said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The rule of Lemnity said...

A great pet won’t attack anyone unless ordered by their human alien… legally on planet earth by virtue of not having been aborted.

Ice Nine said...

"Newcomers" - jesus...really?

Democratic Paychecks for Perks/ Dems for Demolition of Democracy/ fake-cares 4-U said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Democratic Paychecks for Perks/ Dems for Demolition of Democracy/ fake-cares 4-U said...

wait a second ...wait a second...

"If aliens are watching us through telescopes, they're going to think the dogs are the leaders of the planet.
If you see two life forms, one of them's making a poop, the other one's carrying it for him, who would you assume is in charge?"

-Jerry Seinfeld

Ann Althouse said...

""Newcomers" - jesus...really?"

Think about it. Trump famously said "They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people who live there."

"The people who live there"? The "they" who are (allegedly) doing the eating are ALSO people who live there.

Did we all lose track of that? Why do we speak of new residents as if they are not residents? You may object to their presence, as Trump does, but the ground for objection can't be that they DON'T LIVE HERE. He's trying to get them NOT to live here.

Ice Nine said...

None of that pertains to my obvious point, which has nothing to do with Trump - your use of the silly euphemism "newcomers" for these interlopers, substituting it for "illegal aliens" or even for the more recent dumb soft-pedaling term, "migrants."

Ice Nine said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ice Nine said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Yancey Ward said...

"The guitarist in the Stern video in not Dave Navarro. (I don't think) Now I must depart and google the configuration of the band back then."

Porno for Pyros was Farrell's new band after Jane's Addiction broke up in the early 1990s. Navarro moved on and joined The Red Hot Chili Peppers for a period of time. After that point I sort of stop paying attention- have no real idea what any of them did for the last 30 years.

Democratic Paychecks for Perks/ Dems for Demolition of Democracy/ fake-cares 4-U said...

Yes. But the drummer is still cute!

rehajm said...

Don't let her try to sidetrack you with her silly semantics, the kind our corrupt government used to stretch the meanings of words in immigration law to justify an invasion for this year''s election and next years' census...

David53 said...

Heh. My ears are ringing right now. Most of the time it's not loud enough to bother me. At least it's not voices.

rehajm said...

How is Howard still here?

Tina Trent said...

Iggy Pop is getting weird. Like Quiet Storm soft jazz spoken poetry weird.

Sad. The first concert I saw was Iggy in his dog days. Best live show ever.

Tina Trent said...

Question: how many illegal immigrants live within a mile of you in Madison? My guess for me is at least 300. And no, they don't pay taxes. And few of them work after the first anchor baby. Which necessitates bringing in more illegals.

Enjoy your cheap chicken. I pay for it with my property taxes. State taxes. And we both pay for it with our federal taxes.

I know perfectly well whose dog I am.

tommyesq said...

Wondering whether Martians will eat their pets (us) - as always, the Simpsons got there first:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0QcdgeI5Rs

stlcdr said...

There seems to be a lot to consume in this single post. The thing I'll comment on here is regarding the little stage spat - why is this such big news? It seems I'm hearing about it everywhere, including local radio. Maybe I'm out of touch with 'new' music and bands - are they even a new (as in the past 5 years) group?

Lilly, a dog said...

They are not new at all.Jane's Addiction is a legendary and influential Alternative band from the late 80s . They first broke up in 1991, when their farewell tour was the first Lollapalooza festival They get back together every once in a while until they remember that they hate each other, and break up again.

The rule of Lemnity said...

New arrivals is associated with aliens of the outer space kind.

Blair said...

His wife's "explanation" for his behavior is the dumbest, most gaslighting BS I've ever heard. It's impossible for the band to play "too loudly", that's why they have monitors. If Farrell can't hear himself on stage, that's the sound engineer's fault, not the rest of the band, and that's why bands do sound checks before a show. No, something else was bugging him, unless he really is struggling with his tinnitus, in which case he has bigger problems than anything Dave Navarro may have done to him.

Iman said...

Nothin’ from nothin’, but a few years back I watched a video of a Jane’s Addiction show… not sure of the venue but the way they began just had me sitting there mesmerized in front of the screen:

Loud raucous music (“Stop!” was the song), nearly naked ladies dancing/writhing on stage, fireworks shooting off… I just sat there watching it all… astonishing! How do you top that!?!?, I wondered.

Smilin' Jack said...

“"The people who live there"? The "they" who are (allegedly) doing the eating are ALSO people who live there.

Did we all lose track of that? Why do we speak of new residents as if they are not residents? You may object to their presence, as Trump does, but the ground for objection can't be that they DON'T LIVE HERE.”

When did Trump say that they don’t live there? He’s objecting to the fact that they DO live there.

Smilin' Jack said...

Humans would make lousy pets. If the aliens have any sense they’ll take our dogs and turn us into Solyent Green.

Melania Trump signals support for abortion rights: ‘No room for compromise’ said...

@ Tina T
Iggy Pop, part 1
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/broken-record-with-rick-rubin-malcolm-gladwell-bruce/id1311004083?i=1000596162326

I enjoyed the conversation Iggy had with Rick Rubin -- perhaps you will too.

Static Ping said...

I do very much enjoy that song. It is the only song I know by Porno for Pyros, though.

So, does Billy Pilgrim from Slaughterhouse Five count as a "pet"?

Will Cate said...

When I heard about the onstage fight between Ferrel and Navarro my first reaction was "Who do they think they are -- the Kinks?"

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Who hasn't wanted to take a swing at Dave Navarro?