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Despite All His Rage

April 20, 2009 12:00 AM

've heard a lot about that moment when a son realizes that he's stronger than his father. Or that he's faster or smarter or more successful. The moment when a son surpasses his father, it seems, is a big deal. I didn't have a father, though. I had Billy Corgan.

Ok, so that analogy is a little much. Billy Corgan wasn't my role model; I didn't want to be like him. No, I had much better people to look up to. But at a time in my life when even my best friends seemed like cruel strangers, the stuff in The Smashing Pumpkins's songs was, well, perfect. I had never heard music that so perfectly captured everything I thought and felt at the time. This stuff was angry, hateful, beautiful, delicate, vengeful, regretful, ashamed, and vulnerable all at once. This was music made by a guy who was frustrated and isolated and lonely and depressed, just like me. This wasn't a guy who was unhappy; this was a guy who could not even understand how others could think they were happy. This was a guy who had seen startling beauty, but it didn't want to have anything to do with him. This guy felt exactly like I felt.

At a time when I felt lost and misunderstood, Billy Corgan wrote that nobody nowhere understood anything about him, that he was lost at sea.

To say that I loved The Smashing Pumpkins is an understatement. I listened to their music to the exclusion of almost everything else. I listened to them and talked about them so much that my friends--the very friends who had introduced me to the band--started hating them. They got burned out on them. But I never did. And I still haven't, over a decade later. I'll go weeks or months without really listening to them, and then one of their songs will come on iTunes and I'll go through and joyfully listen to their whole catalog.

Billy Corgan was not my father. But he played a bigger role in shaping who I am than my father did. So while I'll never know what those of you who were lucky enough to have fathers felt like the first time you beat your dad at arm wrestling, I think I have some idea. Because Billy Corgan has lost his fucking mind.

Somewhere between the extremely decent Zwan, the almost unlistenable TheFutureEmbrace, his apparent affair with Tila Tequila, and his work with the Total Nonstop Action people (which, frankly, I haven't been able to bring myself to watch due to a real fear that it will literally break my heart), the man lost his way. In fact, he not only lost his way, he raped my adolescence in the same way that George Lucas raped my childhood. Only this is worse because Mellon Collie and Siamese Dream are arguably more important to me than Star Wars while Zeitgeist is a much bigger steaming pile of shit than the last two Star Wars movies.

I was sad when my favorite band broke up, but at least they were still respected. Now that's not even the case. At this point, Billy's antics are just pathetic.

So listen, man. I'm one of your biggest fans. I really am. But it's time for you to go away. it's time for you to realize that you're not as good as you used to be and to be humbled by it. It's time for you to make up with D'arcy and James Iha and get them to play with you when you guys are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The three of you and Jimmy, obviously. Maybe then you guys can go on tour again or something. But, until then, please just stop.



5 Comments





Ismael Tapia II said:

It's like he really, really wants me to hate him. Dios mio, man.

April 21, 2009 6:47 PM



morenonesense said:

actually, i think he has always been about the dough. i mean, come one. he was prolly always an asshole, and i loved the pumpkins, too. now he's just an asshole who is not taking his drugs. by the way, i believe i told you this stuff about him bout 5 years ago.

April 21, 2009 10:31 PM



morenonesense said:

No No NO. I just saw the thing he did for wrestling. holy SHEEEETTTTT. wow. wow. i don't even think courtney love would take him back at this point.

April 21, 2009 10:37 PM



Utah said:

And you scoffed at me when i said Dead Eye Dick was the best band of the 90's. Who's laughing now?

April 22, 2009 8:23 PM



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