After a year-long hiatus, this year we are once again hosting a “Best of Big D” party. It’ll be at the Rustic July 23. You can buy tickets here. For $50, you get adult beverages and food from some of the best restaurants in town. DJ Sober will feed your ears. For another $15, though, you get to stick around for a Jackopierce concert, which starts at 9:30. Me, I will be gone by then. “Why is that?” you ask? Because I have been boycotting Jackopierce since June 1996. Here is a column I wrote for the dearly departed Met on that month:
Maybe you’ve heard of this band called Jackopierce. The two guys who started the thing are from Dallas. They’ve got some new CD out called Wine Is Sour or something like that, and all the urban-adult-album-oriented-contemporary-metal radio stations are playing one of their singles. “Shiny Happy People” I think it’s called. I don’t remember. It’s real catchy, though.
Anyway, don’t listen to it. This is important. When that damn Jackopierce song comes on the radio, switch stations — immediately. If you have to listen to that all-news station to get away from that song, then do it. If you’re driving around, and the all-news station is playing it, too, then pull over to the side of road, and get out of your car. Call a cab. Do whatever it takes to avoid listening to Jackopierce.
And do not buy the CD. If I’m in the Best Buy, and I see you taking that thing up to the check-out counter, I’m going to stuff a sausage down your throat and send a pack of wild dogs up your ass.
You might ask, “Why, Mr. Funny Guy, does the mere mention of the word ‘Jackopierce’ so disquiet your spleen and make you spew bile?” I’ll tell you why, discriminating readers. Jack O’Neill, the “Jacko” part of “Jackopierce,” once made me walk home from Deep Ellum at 3 in the morning, through what is technically known as a “transitional neighborhood.”
Here’s how it shook down: I ran into Jack at a party about a month ago. It was this exclusive deal, thrown by a trendy guy who wears fancy shoes and carries a cellphone. I invited myself.
Well, I’m standing around near the hors d’oeuvres, trying to avoid talking to people, when Jack and I wind up going for the same Swedish meatball. He’s like, “Hey, man, you smoke?” And I’m like, “Smoke what?” And he’s like, “You know. Smoke.”
Next thing I know, Jack and I head out to the front porch, and he pulls out this funny-looking gadget, which I take to be a one-hitter. Me, I rarely touch anything harder than peach wine coolers, but not every day do you get a chance to burn the funny stuff with a rock star on Fancy Shoes’ front porch. So I one-hit it.
About 10 minutes later, back in the party, I notice that I am extremely hungry. My mouth is dry, too. And while Jack and I were on the porch, all the other guests decided it would be clever to pull on a joke on us. Every so often, everyone would simultaneously stop talking and stand perfectly still for about three beats. It kinda scares me.
That’s when Jack and I decide it’s time to leave. We get a ride from someone down to Deep Ellum. On the way there, Jack smokes like Marshall Dillon’s gun. Me, I just sit there and try not to fall out the car window.
We get down to Deep Ellum and pile out of the car and hang out at the Dark Green or the Bone Room or something like that. All these girls keep coming up to Jack and saying, “Oh, I just looove your music,” and, “Can we go have sex in the bathroom?” Stuff like that.
After a while, I realize that not only can the girls somehow tell — perhaps because I lack a certain rock-star pheromone — that I’m not in the band, but they also do not want to go have sex in the bathroom with a funny guy. So I tell Jack I’m heading across the street to see this band called No. 86. “Fine,” he says. “We’ll meet at Club Street Bar at around closing time.”
What happened after that, I’m not entirely sure. In an effort to fix my mouth, which by then tasted like a brown shag carpet, I drank a couple beers. Or maybe a dozen. Then I got a little lost and had to pay some panhandler $2 to lead me to the Club Street Bar. No Jack.
I walked to the Expo Diner and had a $2.99 chicken-fried steak breakfast. Which left me with one penny. And no ride. So I walked home. The whole way, I kept looking over my shoulder and wondering what would be worse: to get rolled by some amphetamine-crazed gang initiate or to get picked up by the cops for looking like a fuddled, no-tip-leaving frat punk.
I got home around 5 a.m., I had blisters on both feet, and My Fair Lady was not overjoyed to see me.
That’s why, if you care at all about truth, justice, and Manifest Destiny, you will boycott the evil Jackopierce and refrain from having sex with Jack O’Neill in the bathroom.
And remember: Let’s get hooked on fishing — not drugs!
