Musicians With Annoying Fans, volume 1

Elvis Presley When the King fell off his throne in 1977, with his polyester bell-bottoms around his ankles, he instantly transitioned from music legend to interplanetary cultural icon.  Few things help a show biz career more than early death.  Just ask that hack, Jim Morrison.

Elvis’s fans, already a little kooky, switched into overdrive when they heard the news.  Especially women who were teeny-boppers when Presley first became famous…  They started crying in public, throwing themselves into shrubbery, launching into mourning-seizures, and buying up as much tacky Elvis-related crap as their trailers would hold.

And now it’s the daughters of those women, carrying on the family tradition.  They, too, want to be remembered as a person who really liked a singer – that will be their legacy.

These daughters of the originals are often the same distance across, measured at any angle.  They usually cut hair for a living, purchase and display framed art that needs to be plugged-in, and pop their gum.

There are also a few male Elvis fans, generally falling into two categories:  latter-day hipster rockabilly jackasses, and rosy-cheeked mama’s boys who “just never found the right girl.”

Grateful Dead Somehow a mediocre 1960s hippie band, who managed to release two decent albums in thirty years (both in 1970), developed a large cult following that transcended mere fandom.

Their gang of pungent hangers-on eventually turned the annual Grateful Dead summer tours into traveling carnivals of late sixties nostalgia, outdated clothing, public drug use, and bad songs only longer.

Before band leader Jerry Garcia went to that great manssiere shop in the sky, so-called Deadheads would follow the band from town to town, set up tent cities in a nearby field, smoke weed and play hackie-sack, engage in open-pit defecation, and leave the landscape littered with the wrappers off organic Earth food.

To be fair, their latter-day fans – subdivision “hippies” (“I want to be different like all my friends!”) — apparently hijacked the ideals of the original Deadheads, and subverted the whole thing.

The music became secondary, as the band’s followers began playing dress-up, getting stoned off their Birkenstocks, and going on the prowl for no-strings sex.  How utterly revolutionary!

In the end it was little more than lifestyle theater, smothered in a mellow hempsack vibe, maaan.

Jimmy Buffet Sorta like the Grateful Dead for office workers:  Jimmy Buffet, for many, is an annual excuse to leave the variance reports behind, drive down to the local ampitheater, and get bed-shitting drunk in wicker shoes and a Mr. Howell hat.

If novelty songs about booze and shellfish are your thing, then maybe it’s time to unleash your inner Parrothead?  Me?  I’d rather insert my penis into an oscillating fan.

Buffet fanatics don’t generally follow him around like the Deadheads used to do, because they have responsibilities.  I mean, the garage door still needs painting, little Ashley has her dance class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and who would maintain the variance reports??

So they demonstrate their devotion by purchasing Buffet-themed vanity plates, and bolting them to their Honda Accords.

And that means they’re just a little bit wild, and capable of  almost anything.

Jonas Brothers I know very little about the Anus Brothers, but assume they’re wholesome, safe, and play mildly rocky pop songs so light and inconsequential it all evaporates into the air like rubbing alcohol.

How’d I do?

Yeah, I don’t know much about the so-called band, but their fans bombard my websites with spam.  Every day (not nearly every day, but every day) I have to delete a dozen messages or more, from frenzied Jonas Brothers enthusiasts.

And what’s the deal with that?  Are they evangelizing, trying to create converts?  Attempting to drive traffic to their fansites?  Wanting to turn every conversation toward their favorite gang of lip-synching pretty boys?

I don’t know, and don’t care.  But if you don’t knock it off, I’m totally going to delete you from my Facebook friend list.  Like, I’m not kidding.  I’ll delete you and have all my friends delete you too.  Then I’ll start telling everyone you like Dave Warden!

You think I’m joking?  I will destroy u!!!!