Rock and Roll: Impatience

When we begin, the Microsoft Office Suite of Software clipart library contains only one entry for the category “Nature.”

Rock and Roll

When making a performance, the title should always come first. “Rock and Roll” will be our title. The piece will be about rock and roll. Months later after a few false starts, one member says: “Why are we so impatient?” Then: “Why is your generation so impatient?” (quick shift from complicity to accusation). The title becomes “Rock and Roll: Impatience.” By the time we mount the piece there will be four or five natures in the clipart library.

PowerPoint/Concert

The band is late. They refuse to take the stage. Messages are relayed from dressing room to audience. “Paul of Tarsus said: ‘The world as we see it is passing.’ Thank you.” “Rock and Roll: Impatience” is a PowerPoint presentation. A PowerPoint presentation consisting of a single slide. Or the performance is an AC/DC concert. PowerPoint presentation as a concert. The templating of culture. The choosing of fonts and colors, animations and transitions. The sly limiting of choice in your software package’s unlimited options. The set list. Mary is AC/DC front man Bon Scott. She sings “You Shook Me (All Night Long).” She sings “Highway to Hell.” The audience joins in on the chorus. Everyone knows “Highway to Hell.” We promise over and over: “This is the last song we’re gonna do for you tonight.” At some point it will be the last song.

Bon Scott Dies after a Night of Drinking

Tyler, now as Bon Scott, chokes on his own vomit. Pukes over and over—bright pink cutout puke. Puke labeled “PUKE.” He dies. Bon Scott Death Text performed with plywood guitar cutouts and accompanying movement. (Guitars must later turn a shiny bright pink.) When I think about you this is what I think about: I am passed out in the backseat of a car after a night of drinking and I am preparing to choke on my own vomit—there it goes—and there. Did you see that? I’m choking on my own vomit right now. Like this...and this is my final message: When people die in cultural product, grand thoughts seldom make an audience sad. But a list: groceries, porches, T-shirts, Tyvek—accumulation becoming verse. While you in the backseat are conjuring up the Microsoft Office suite of software. Rock and roll, ROCK AND ROLL. Entourage, Word, and Excel 10 for Windows. Sadness flashes across your brow east to west. East to west east to west, moving like everything east to west. (Click here: a graphic arrow points to a diagrammatic horizon line.) And Microsoft PowerPoint of course, the industry standard software for business presentations. Chest tightens now. Gasp. You think: a clipart highway, a clipart nature, a clipart glass of clipart water, a clipart middle age, a clipart mid-career, a clipart middle America. YOU THINK I HAVE BECOME A CLIP ART TABLE FULL OF MULTIETHNIC BUSINESSMEN POINTING AND SAYING: “THIS.” Bon Scott dies. Soon thereafter he joins Lucky Pierre.

Boeing

On 4 September 2001, the Boeing Company relocates its corporate headquarters from Seattle to Chicago. Boeing gives money—big money—to Chicago arts organizations. The war begins. Boeing continues giving away lots of money. One night after an argument about arts funding, we decide that Boeing will be the corporate sponsor for “Rock and Roll: Impatience.” Or rather, unbeknownst to Boeing, we tell the world that Boeing is Lucky Pierre’s corporate sponsor. Boeing is the nation’s number two defense contractor. Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen International arranged secret rendition flights of terror suspects. We are at war. We (AC/DC/LP) sing the mission statement from the Boeing Company website. Later during an interview:

INTERVIEWER: Mr. Scott. Have you taken money from the Boeing Company?

GHOST: Tyler. It’s Tyler Myers.

INTERVIEWER: Mr. Myers? Have you taken money from the Boeing Company?

GHOST: You know Michael, it’s easy to refuse money that’s never been offered to you. You have no right to feel superior.

INTERVIEWER: Good point. Can you tell me who you wouldn...