TURBOWHAT?
Sun. February 8, 2004Categories: Abstract Dynamics
I got called a ‘turbodouche’ in the comments to this post at clap clap blog. Can anyone enlighten me on what this means? Should I be consulting my lawyers?
Categories: Abstract Dynamics
I got called a ‘turbodouche’ in the comments to this post at clap clap blog. Can anyone enlighten me on what this means? Should I be consulting my lawyers?
it means you don’t understand each other and any attempt at dialouge is a complete and utter waste of time.
What does the metaphor come from (something to do with showers I assume)??
It’s not really a metaphor. It’s a semi-random insult aimed at, among others, Ryan Adams, by WFMU DJ Tom Sharpling, host of the Best Show. If it means anything, I guess it means “having a Ryan Adams kind of attitude,” which I’ll freely admit doesn’t, uh, mean anything. You had to be there, I guess.
Something to do with showers? Oh right, French.
OK, so I suppose the next question is: who is Ryan Adams and what is a Ryan Adams attitude?
not that kind of douche, I dont reckon
sorry to say…
Uh, doop doop doop. See:
http://newflux.blogspot.com/2004_01_04_newflux_archive.html#107348564623296480
And ensuing linkage.
I think there was a post about the whole answering machine thing at NYLPM too:
http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~tewing/2004_01_04_singlesa.html#107353628968177379
I think I might still have the MP3 of Scharpling using the term sitting on my home computer; if you’re interested, drop me a line, Mark.
I guess you could roughly define a “Ryan Adams attitude” as a “rockist attitude,” if you were so inclined. But I think Scharpling just uses it to mean “tool” or “wanker” depending on your preferred geographic area of slang-source.
Actually, the “turbodouche” thing is more obscure than that – it’s a line from the Best Show skit “Mike Healy Pt. 2”
I think it’s supposed to mean, roughly, “wanker.” And the “turbo” adds intensity to the wanking. Motorik wanking . . . However, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over receiving insults from clap clap readers. I’d take turbo-charged over bland and over-easy any day of the week. “It’s all just music, man.” “The field’s too big to survey and sort, man.” “Who am I to judge, man, and who are you.” People unable to take sides, horizontally and vertically. Or sheer idiocy and lack of critical sensitivity. . . . In short, wear “turbodouche” like a badge of honor, right across the crotch.
Ryan Adams is an American rock star who started out his career in the East Village in the early 90s. Indie types think he’s gotten too big for his britches, that he’s arrogant, etc. So people like to put him in his place . . . . He’s a trad rocker, rightly outside the K-punk frame of reference . . . . Why the clap clap reader would use the same words to disparage you as another used against Ryan Adams eludes me, however, entirely . . . . I’d say garden variety American anti-intellectualism, except that Ryan Adams is not known as a thinking man’s rocker . . . . Most likely explanation: the clap clap reader fancied the term “turbodouche” clever . . . . Not to sound like a semi-fascist riffing T.S. Eliot, but these are hollow people, ones without souls. Too dead to recognize good times from bad.
I’m soulless but a genre! Woohoo!
>Why the clap clap reader would use the same words to disparage you as another used against Ryan Adams eludes me, however, entirely.
Yeh, I got lost there somewhere round about the phone messages.
>Not to sound like a semi-fascist riffing T.S. Eliot, but these are hollow people, ones without souls.
Hey, cool it, Dom! I’m certainly not going to get into trading insults – and ‘hollow… soulless’ is WAY worse than ‘turbodouche’ IMO – but I must confess, I do find Eppy and Joe’s obligatory positivity and healthily balanced critical perspective strangely dis-spiriting.
And it looks like Timbaland’s on our side!!!
But I thought you guys think Timbaland sucks now? 😉
Sucks is going way too far… Becoming stale and mediocre would be closer to it. But the irony of Poptimist’s champion Timbaland _agreeing_ with our anti-Pop sentiments is one that I can’t help but appreciate.
Of course Timbaland thinking pop sucks has nothing whatsoever to do with Tim-produced records not selling as much as they used to! 😉
ummmm, yeah the above comment was over heated. and says more about me than the target. that is, first, i’m the one about to embark on a career for which I have no love or passion. tell myself that i’ll write a novel on the side and drink heavily evenings. second, i’m all too ready to jump into the fray to defend k-punk insofar as my friends at ny press fucked him over. (i recruited mark to improve their music section, and then they ditched their music section without publishing a single one of his articles.) so, this is a semi-retraction. a more judicious comment would have been to the effect that eppy’s reader is anti intellectual. rather than consider thoughtfully how we experience pop music, he wants to end the discussion before it even starts . . . . Actually, I think that how pop music is experienced depends on the setting in which a person normally hears music. I mainly hear music at bars, which means, in my case, music from the past 25 years, as played by djs whom Mark K-Punk or Reynolds would likely oppose as overly tasteful connoisseurs, whether of rock ‘n’ roll, soul, disco/house, ragga, 80s pop. As a theoretical proposition, I agree with K-Punk and Reynolds. But in terms of my actual practice, I’m stuck in the past, my record collection at least ten years out of date, the once excitingly vulgar now encapsulated in good taste. Put me in a club, however, and my orientation changes completely. And then there’s commercial radio, pirate radio, mtv, home listening to cds. In terms of new pop music, I buy new cds based upon what I read in blogs, in the same way as I determine which films to see by reading between the lines of film reviews . . . So, the beginning point for how pop music is experienced must take into account the setting or medium in which the listener generally experiences pop music: (1) large club; (2) small club or bar; (3) commercial radio; (4) pirate radio; (5) MTV or BET; (6) home-listening to CDs and/or computer downloads. Okay. Enough.
The upshot is that if the setting in which one normally hears pop music is a bar, “ups” and “downs” are less noticeable. djs play new records that work with records from past 25 years or whatever. go to clubs, however, and the “ups” and “downs” are more radical, because we hope to get more from a club, something memorable and exciting. listen to commercial radio, watch mtv or bet, then we’re talking pop music narrowly defined and the peaks and valleys are less radically felt because record industry takes edge off music, etc. listen to pop music primarily in your living room, and it’s more an imaginary community rather than rooted experience, as one of woebot’s readers remarked, but also an experience marked by deeply felt peaks and valleys, methinks. and so forth . . . .
and then a complicating factor is that each us experiences pop music in multiple settings . . .
Slight correction: NY Press did publish ONE of my reviews, heh heh….
Er, I don’t have anything to do with the NY Press. I don’t really like them either.
Although I could’ve told you not to do business with Libertarians. Lay down with dogs… 😉
For the record, the current editors of NY Press are NOT libertarians. (In fact, one of their regular writers, Adam Bulger, recently lampooned a libertarian convention that was held in Manhattan.) Not sure about the politics of the paper’s founder, Russ Smith — he’s clearly an ardent Republican — but the paper was sold roughly one year ago to a new publisher, who then brought in the current editorial regime, one of whom I can confidently say is pretty far to the left politically. The current editors acted rather abruptly in dropping the music section, and treated Mark K-Punk poorly in the process. Criticize their actions, object, perhaps, to their gutter-snipe tactics, but don’t misrepresent their politics. But this board is supposed to be about K-Punk and our responses to his ideas, not other people.
the above post was from me, obviously
Um, sorry if I offended Mark, but christ, if I can’t make jokes about editors on the internet, what the hell is it good for? I’m not the one that brought the Press up, and I don’t really care. It’s fine that Dominic wants to defend Mark based on his treatment by the Press, but once again, I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PRESS. Could we keep this about our own words and opinions and stuff, please?
You didn’t offend me, Eppy, don’t worry…. This discussion is in fact becoming surreally detached from me and anything I might have said….