Wiggle and Squirt

[00:00:00] This is the Canon camera I use, the lights, turn them on, everything's focused there, and magic happens. Magic! Toneta appears again!

[00:00:11] We're enriching ourselves off of the neoliberal charity complex. Mr. Tax Rye off of food that's not suitable for human consumption, Sutter. We've got Mr. Jason, not my job.

[00:01:35] Not my problem. Not my job, not my problem. Robinson over here on mic too! Welcome to the show, everybody! You can tell it's a special, special, special kind of night. Bryan is on fire! Alright, the What's Hot Classic this week, the print edition of In These Times came out this month. In it, House of Decline had a new comic, and it drove people on Blue Sky absolutely bug-fuck-nuts!

[00:02:03] Originally posting the print edition is lemondropathome at lipstick-lemondrop.bsky.social Huge credit! Because they post holy moly at houseofdecline.bsky.social in inthesetimes.com? This has since been reposted and quote-tweeted about 2,000 times in total. Lemon Drop at Home has this to say about the response,

[00:02:28] Good to know that P.O.S.M. saw this in his print issue and knew to come to me immediately with the news. This House of Decline comic is The Adventures of Bloodless Quant. Those of you not in the know, Bloodless Quant is someone who uses charts and data, but does not care a wit about what it actually represents. A woman comes up to this Bloodless Quant caricature. Bloodless Quant, please help! I can't afford to feed my family!

[00:02:54] That's lucrous! The stock market is at an all-time high! But groceries are... You should make savings if you don't have economic literacy. Here's a chart explaining why your fears are unfounded. And then later, a young child in a backwards hat... What are we having for dinner tonight? And the mom responds, Chart. Chart for Dinner was then born a wonderful shorthand for people who, in response to people's real economic problems, throw a chart at you and say, Nuh-uh.

[00:03:24] And so... It is an entire genre of posting. Chart for Dinner posting thus was born at tylerfromtheinternet.com The best part of Chart for Dinner is that the people it's pissing off can only respond with extremely Chart for Dinner shit. And so, NeoLibs, reading a funny comic, I am filled with the rage of a thousand suns. All I can say for certain otherwise is that I refuse to self-reflect even slightly. Talking down to people is the only answer left. Yeah.

[00:03:54] And we're talking about a few specific people, of course. We... I don't want to name them because they love to name search on the internet, but we'll stancil. And folks like him. Toad.host economy didn't come through, so I have to have half a graph for dinner tonight and the other half tomorrow. Going fucking hog wild over the chart. I love... For dinner. I work at Chart for Dinner place. Jesus Christ, man. I know.

[00:04:19] I mean, the whole entire rant before we started recording that I had was basically Chart for Dinner. Right. And that's why I was like, we've got to get this down on paper because... Yeah, because I literally had a... I don't even fucking care. Yeah, let's look. We had a team... No, you can put it on here at this point. I... You know what? They fucking... Whatever hell I get or whatever hell they get is well deserved. Okay. Had a team building meeting off-site today.

[00:04:44] One of the things involved are our day analysis, who for the record I think is actually a very nice person. Oh, I'm sure they are. I think they are fantastic. They're actually like, I think one of the realest fucking people I work with. However... However, they had to earn their keep today and they did a thing called like a data party and they were like, yeah, you notice in the room there's four corners. Each one has a different level. We're going to do some multiple choices. You can see her on the entrance here on one side of the entrance is a true and a false. But the thing is like the work we do, it's like guessing like guess the poverty rate of the people we help.

[00:05:14] And stuff. And it's like this feels really fucked up. How many people had to eat chart for dinner this month? Yeah. Yeah. It's like what is the poverty level of like the single moms that we help? And shit. And how many... How many... You know, it's like... It's important information. But as you put it, like we probably... It feels a little gross to gamify it. Yeah. Ooh. I'm all about good information. But it definitely felt like we're trivializing.

[00:05:44] And maybe I'm naive and I can complain about my mom thinking the world is much more fair and reciprocal than it actually is. I think I'm at fault despite my overwhelming cynicism to a lesser extent, much lesser extent. I don't know, man. Like I just kind of think like you shouldn't chart everything and then not listen to... And not really deep dive down to the chart. Because there was a lot of information that was expressed to us on charts that people were like, oh, okay.

[00:06:12] And it's like, no, there's actually some real shit here. And it's really illuminating to the work that we do. But we're too busy being like, how many volunteers think our employees are nice? Is it 90%, 91%, 50% or 70? Cool. How does this make me more money and help me help more people? Chart for fucking dinner. Chart for dinner. You're a liberalism for dinner. If we just means test the poverty, it will disappear. That's right. Right.

[00:06:41] So a nice little interesting note that I saw this week. I thought this was just fun and it's a nice excuse to talk about going back into the archives for an early episode. Do you remember Jerk City? Of course. One of our first episodes. It was about Jerk City, which is a comic built out of IRC chats in a program called Microsoft Comic Chat. Well, Microsoft Comic Chat is now open source.

[00:07:07] So this is the official Microsoft open source, open source at Microsoft dot com. And it's today we're excited to announce the open source release of Microsoft Comic Chat. The chat client that automatically turned conversations within Internet Relay Chat into comic panels featuring illustrated characters, speech bubbles and expressions and helped introduce the world to a little font called Comic Sans. Yes. Yes. Nineteen ninety four. Microsoft topographer Vincent Conner did create it.

[00:07:34] A reference also the Akewood comic where they find him and curb stomp him screaming. The sickness is within you. Yes. The curb. But this also influenced the style and content of Jerk City. Jerk City, if you're not familiar, if you don't remember our fifth episode, why would you? It's a web comic created by Michael Lopp, Tristan Farnan and two others known only by their handles Deuce and Pants.

[00:08:01] It publishes daily and has since the year 1998. It does still exist. However, they did get sued over the name Jerk City because a Jamaican jerk spice company had that name. Are you fucking kidding me? No. And so they had to change the name of the comic. It is now called Bone Quest. It's Bone Quest. Bone Quest dot com. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I want to read about the two finger method for judging a watermelon.

[00:08:29] If you get three fingers in, she's loose. And you can clap. Boy howdy. The two finger method apparently is... I'm so sorry. That's okay. Now I want to know. I'm jacking off right now. Yeah. Let's see here. A perfectly ripe watermelon should have dark green stripes about the width of two fingers. I can't help out a couple things. A rifle and you put two fingers up to it. Uh huh.

[00:08:56] And if the dark area between the pale stripes fits between both fingers, you found a winner. Hold up to the stripes on it. And if the dark one is that big, this illustration here from Mera Wintraub. And it is. Yeah. You just put your hand on the vertical so that the lines are vertical right and you put your fingers line up with it. And if the dark patches are as big as two fingers are wide, then there you go. We're ready to rock. This feels like a bullshit article. Personally, frankly, but... You know about slapping the watermelon.

[00:09:26] It's supposed to make a sound, right? It's got a specific sound. Really resonant. Yeah. I think. I think it's supposed to be really resonant. It's been a while. But yeah, you can look at the rind and you can tell if it's going to be sweet, if it's going to have a lot of seeds or not sweets. If it's real bright, if it's got, you know. Yeah. But BoneQuest.com today, 27th of July, 2026. God, comic number 9993. They are rounding up to their 10,000th comic that will be in the next week, a week from today.

[00:09:55] That'll be August 1st through the 6th. They're going to have a special on BoneQuest.fm, by the way. But this today's comic, learning about... This is the deuce standing in what appears to be Mars from Watchmen. And it says, learning about atoms. And it turns out women are mostly empty space. Heyo! BoneQuest.com still has it. But yeah, you can make your own now.

[00:10:19] You can go to ComicChat or Microsoft.github.io slash comic-chat and get yourself the original ComicChat 2.5 or a modern build built on Windows 11. So you can get yourself a version of that. And you can use those very same characters and make your own Jerk City comics and go hugo-go-go-go-go-go. Hug-go-go-go.

[00:10:42] Speaking of hugo-go-go-go-go-go, this Wired article, Jason Partom, people are getting off to porn about ICE raids. You heard that right. On July 8th, this article begins, Twitter account at Superiority Mail posted an update about ICE's ongoing crackdown on immigrants, describing the conditions being thrust upon detainees.

[00:11:04] Quote, over 68,000 held in ICE detention centers around the United States, many of whom lack access to food and water and any means to reach contact with their loved ones. Reads the post, which also includes a video. Only, the video isn't news footage from inside a detention center. It's a 14-second clip of a white man masturbating in a ski mask. Yes, I do have the post. Thank you for asking. And yeah, it's from at the Jake Laker.

[00:11:33] Holy shit, those balls are flapping. Yeah. Today, he learned how to make them clap. The original video comes from the Jake Laker blue star no 18. Okay. And yeah, it's, he's on a couch with a skull mask on. I'm not gonna lie, the difference between this and a Drew toothpaste post and Mary, alright? The daylight between them is much smaller than you think. Much, much smaller.

[00:12:01] So this particular account at Superiority Mail, their bio reads, American straight white males, American flag emoji, ice emoji, eagle emoji, football emoji. Joined October of last year, currently has 10k followers. But it is mostly really homoerotic porn. Oh! Yeah, there's just a muscle bound dude naked and it says white power F the N word. Here's a post from the 20th.

[00:12:28] Actually, this is a Howling Mutant tweet. Almost. Your dad jerks to your stories about getting bullied in high school. He's so glad your classmates call you the slurs that he called the gays back in the day. And it's another 30 second video of a guy jacking his dick with a finger in his ass. That's just an old fella enjoying himself. I don't know. Geez. Let's see. There was one that in particular that I was like, what the fuck? Oh, here we go. Quote tweeting at Jimmy J for the win. Back in March.

[00:12:58] But quote tweeting just now. The original tweet, Wikipedia now describes some cities in Gaza in the past tense. Male superiority retweeting a quote tweet from Maga God J of someone just nutting. Just a gif of a guy nutting. What a weak stream. They wish they could bust nuts like us fucking weirdos. That's right. I'm not really impressed with any of the stuff I'm seeing here. This all looks very... I'm sorry. Hold the phone. Yeah, hold on.

[00:13:29] Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. You wanted me to bring back shot.jpg baby? Here it is. Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. So, there's a man with a... He's got a real puffy foreskin. But it's midnight sec for my baby girl. It's him having a real dribbling nut over some sliced... Oh, Scott. These are really brown sliced bananas, by the way.

[00:13:58] Yeah, they've been out in the air for a little bit. Well, they've been waiting for him to finish. Again, dribbly. We're dribbling here. Jesus Christ. Anyway. You can't do this. You're just going to spend the whole day looking at weird, far-right gay porn. Yeah. So, the Wired article continues. Accounts like at superiority male belong to a niche porn sphere on Twitter where users project and find sexual pleasure in pro-maga messaging.

[00:14:25] Wired identified a dozen accounts varying in reach and influence. Some had tens of thousands of followers. The tone in many of these posts mirrors the extreme rhetoric often championed by the White House. In January, at male supremacy 13, whose bio reads Nazi-fascist and war is porn posted a list of things I jerk off to, which included bombings of Gaza LGBT rights being denied, gender inequality and environment slash plastic pollution.

[00:14:51] In a video from my last October, clips of white men engaging in various acts of straight and gay sex flicker like a highlight reel as Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA plays in a giant text overlay in red, white, and blue reads, join ICE today. Oh boy. Speaking of dads, Brian Johnson is back at it again. This post from Twitter, I just cloned myself, dot dot dot, as a newborn.

[00:15:19] With this clone, I can become my own blood boy, test therapies on the clone, grow organs for transplantation, develop new treatments, inject young cells. Here's the thing. Not unless we know this is bullshit. He didn't say you could fuck it. Oh. Can't space boost it. Oh. Interesting. Interesting. Well, this was reposted to blue sky by RFK's brain worm dot blue sky dot social.

[00:15:44] And then their reply to their own post is, he attached this image, which makes it look way morbid than it actually is. Here's a little baby with a lit candle in the full Hulk schnoo me me me costume, the hat with the little tassel and the thing, and red sunglasses looking like baby Bono. I don't, I don't understand what's happening. I don't know, man. That guy's got some fucking problems. That guy comes from circumstances. He has to have. Oh.

[00:16:15] Crypto. Scamo. Crypto Scam of the week. You're listening to 48 minutes of dogs barking the podcast. And now it's time for the crypto scam of the week. Guess what? Some people lost some fucking money. And people are just like, well. All right. Yeah. That's just pretty much. Well, that sucked. Anyways, here's the 80 millionth fucking Pepe coin. Anyway, here's Wonderwall. That's right.

[00:16:42] Coming from Coindesk, balance stable coin collapses 99% after a $1 million exploit drains its Bitcoin vaults. According to, again, the Coindesk, Sharia Melwa and Jamie Crawley co-working on this story. Balance coin, a low circulation algorithmic stable coin meant to hold a dollar peg. Translation for non nerds out there. The value is supposed to stay a dollar.

[00:17:09] It crashed more than 99% on Wednesday after an attacker exploited a pricing flaw in the protocol behind it. The token, which traded near its $1 peg a day earlier, fell to about, and I'm not exaggerating here, .0014 cents, erasing all or nearly all of its roughly $3.5 million in nominal value.

[00:17:35] The actual attacker's profit was only around $912,000. Drained from 42DAO, which is the governance entity behind balance protocol. The project runs a system where users lock Bitcoin backed collateral to mint this stable coin and vaults are liquidated if the collateral's value drops too far.

[00:17:58] So what happened was, the attacker manipulated the protocol's oracle, which is the external price feed it relies on, to write out an abnormally low Bitcoin price. So they faked a price feed. The contract accepted the price, didn't check it, and then lets the attacker instantly liquidate multiple vaults that should never have been eligible, then swapped the seized collateral for profit. Crazy bones. Crazy bones.

[00:18:24] This article also makes mention of open AI models breaking out of test environments to compromise hugging face. I think that's all bullshit. Let's get that out of the way, like right away. The hugging face thing is all nonsense. Don't, don't, don't believe the hype. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't believe it's real because the AI didn't start spewing slurs. If it started just like calling people China man and stuff, I'm like, oh, it's totally, it's totally sentient. Oh, it's over.

[00:18:53] But yeah, that's the very fact that like you tell a computer, hey, the price is different. And it goes, oh, okay. Oh, okay. I've learned that nothing in league capitalism should be expected as anything else other than people falling for the wall inspector. Oh, absolutely. Yes. I don't really know. There's much more to be said about this one. These stable coins have always felt weird to me. The value of this thing is always going to be a dollar. Okay. But so is a dollar. What is the benefit to me?

[00:19:23] What's the use case for this? There isn't one as far as I can tell. I have never seen it. And the many times I've asked that question to people who are, you know, super pro crypto, I haven't received an answer. That's what I would consider legible. The fuck does that mean? You know what, dude? You just don't have fun staying poor. Okay.

[00:19:43] Actually, it's funny that I don't bring too much to the table for crypto scam in the week anymore because I'm not in that world as much as far as, you know, as far as like observing it, like as a, like a fucking terrarium. But the amount of people that I still follow, like on social media, they're very pro crypto. The number of them that really fucking hate Trump now, just being like objectively, fuck this dude. Is it because he's fucking with their money?

[00:20:08] But the thought was he was going to be the crypto president, everything fucking pumped until the inauguration. But he fucking like enriched himself. Like what? $600 million off. World Liberty Financial. Yeah. And Trump coin and Melania. Mm hmm. All that shit. It's just all fucking crazy. Rug after rug after rug. He's the, he's Mr. Rugpole. They're calling him Mr. Rugpole. Folks, you've never seen me drain liquid. You've never seen a white boy drain liquid like this before.

[00:20:35] I was hitting that tornado cache before they, for the block even finished. That's right. It's just miserable. Everything is miserable. You know, you know, I'm going to tell you something. I can't say I've really enjoyed living in late capitalism. Yeah. But pre late capitalism was pretty sweet. Like at least fast food was, remember when fucking Jack in the box tacos were two for a dollar? Oh yeah. Yeah. Now they're like what? Two for $2. Yeah. It's two for $2. Yeah. It's fine. No, it's not man. It's not.

[00:21:04] They took something away from you that could never be returned. He's a return guy, but for the, but for the Jack in the box tacos. I think is wrong. The, the feel that about necessities, like food, I'm not talking about white birth rates. I'm talking about it. No, I understand. Remember when like a pound of like 75, 25 ground beef that smells like wet socket only costs like three bucks instead of 10. Yes. It wasn't that long ago. It wasn't. Yeah. It's fucked man.

[00:21:34] It's, it's, it's full of piss. Well, you know who else is full of piss? The topic of tonight's main story. That's right. We are talking tonight as a special apology to Brian for our, my immortal episode. I agreed that we should do one of the strangest and most interesting musicians to ever show up on YouTube. Someone for whom has been banned from YouTube many times, a proud Canadian, Anthony Jeffrey, better known as Tonetta. Brian, when did you first hear Tonetta?

[00:22:02] I want to say the first time I heard about Tonetta was from like Andy white and Andrew Elsner from tilts, which is about the best introduction to something like that. Like it was very much like this weirdo fringe music that wasn't too far removed from like the frogs and conceptually on some level, even though it's a different medium, not too far

[00:22:26] removed in some ways from the nonsensicality of like Longmont potion castle. Yeah, I am definitely with you on that. They do feel of a piece where Longmont is all about pissing people off, just getting a rise out of people. That's his whole deal. Tonetta on the other hand, seeks only to make music for himself and to bring joy to people. Anthony's a strange fella. Let's put it that way.

[00:22:52] Born in the 19 four late 1940s in cabbage town, Toronto, Ontario. I grew up a fairly normal life in Ontario. Decided to take up upholstery like working with furniture. Oh, like Jack White. Yeah. Give me all the drugs. The hardest futon to bust on. All right. So the hardest futon to be nutting on the futon. Feels good.

[00:23:21] Feels good. And so, you know, fairly normal life. He had a wife and kids. He was kind of doing a tradesman's job. And like most tradesmen, he liked the cross dress. Yeah. It was the 1980s. He was playing really weird lo-fi music, making music just for himself. And then, yeah, right around 1983 or so, his wife filed for divorce, took the kids. And it really probably, you know, kind of messed him up. Or his kids were eight and ten.

[00:23:50] It wasn't until YouTube came around where his music started to get a bigger and bigger audience. So 2008 was the first YouTube channel. And one of the first videos was a masterpiece. Yes. Entitled, Pressure Zone. Tynetta appears, mostly nude, in a, I got panties, I guess. It's like somewhere between panties, but in a hammock they put some makeup on their nipples. Giant nipples.

[00:24:18] Real pizza powder on me. A long redhead wig and a chalk white face mask dancing along to this song that they created called Pressure Zone. I'm going to play you a little bit of Pressure Zone. I will warn you, some of the lyrics are a little nasty. Who does a Weezer B-side from Green Island? Yeah.

[00:24:46] I can't wait to put it in my mouth, my eyes. I'm so horny I could choke and choke on a cock tonight. And so forth and so on. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's... Yeah, I can't wait to... More sophisticated frogs. I can't wait to put it in my mouth, up my crack in my ass. I'm so horny I can choke and choke on a cock tonight.

[00:25:15] Oh, I was like trying to explain Tynetta to my girlfriend. I was like, oh, she's like the frogs. And she's like, what? And I'm like, you know the song that was like, uh-huh. Homos. Uh-huh. Homos. And she's like, okay. I'm like, but it's like weirder. And we like spent probably like a good hour just watching Tynetta videos on YouTube. Yeah. And I think I ruined her a little bit. Different in the other ways that I ruined her by just being a terrible person. She was like, I like this song.

[00:25:45] And then she'd be like, I don't like this song. Well, what song did she like? She liked Drugs. Okay, Drugs. Great song. What's the GMB Showers or something? Okay. And then there was one that was like about having like a nice cock. GMB Showers is also the video where he appears in a weird leather helmet with face paint on and kind of a diamond wipe in the middle of moving. Let me be your dream tonight. Let me be your dream tonight. You won't last a week if you don't release.

[00:26:15] So please release it all over me. I got no complaints as long as it rains. Let me be your dream tonight. Let me be your dream tonight. Let me be your dream tonight. Let the rain on my face, I won't complain. Dump it on me all night. As warm as it is black. I won't complain. I can handle your crime. Let me be your dream tonight. That's right. He's got no complaints as long as it rains. Amazing and weird. I mean, someone's absolutely dog shit. But like I was trying to explain to someone else too.

[00:26:44] I was like, you really listen to the growlers or like No Bunny? Oh yeah. Yeah. It's basically like, I think No Bunny is a little bit more like lo-fi Chuck Berry in a way. Yeah. Yeah. 81 inch prime ass. Is that the one? No, but why not? 81 inch prime ass. With the opening line, I'm going to tickle your ass with my tongue. As you know, I'm well hung.

[00:27:09] I'm going to tickle your ass with my tongue. As you know, I'm well hung. Going to make you laugh. Wiggle and squirt. With just one push you'll say, ooh that hurt. Tickle your ass. Tickle your ass. Tickle your ass. Tickle your ass. Tickle your ass. We do love our Tonetta around here.

[00:27:35] Now the Guardian in the UK in 2010 spotlighted Tonetta saying this, YouTube has given us the keyboard cat, Justin Bieber and that crying fella who thought we should all leave Britney Spears alone. Now we have something far greater and more noble to thank the video portal for the glorious, if slightly obscene, wander that is Tonetta. Not much is known about this mysterious phenomenon except for the fact that he's in his mid to late 50s. Again, this is 2010. It is called Tony and lives in Toronto.

[00:28:05] According to legend, he's been making his own music since the 80s and instead of playing shows, he records homemade videos for each song in his living room. In 2008, again two years before this article was published, he began posting them online. Stick his name into a YouTube search and you'll be rewarded with hundreds of videos. His funky jams accompanying a singing style that's like Iggy Pop if he'd taken up a career as a lounge singer instead of a rock and roller. While the videos themselves are often accompanied by the kind of special effects last seen on

[00:28:34] the 1978 Christmas Top of the Pops. Very British reference for you. But you won't stop to admire the distinct VHS quality of the recordings for long because what will grab your attention is the man himself. Tonetta, you see, loves to dress up. Sometimes in a full dinner suit and tie, occasionally in a nice little mini skirt and woolly leggings. More often than not, he'll be in a severe state of undress. The number of looks this man can get out of a belt, a pair of black briefs and some tights is impressive.

[00:29:04] A strange combination of repulsion and intrigue attends Tonetta's style. The well-toned for a man of his vintage, the sight of a middle-aged man in a thong with tights over his face, gyrating slinkily and singing about rubbing his bone or the manifold qualities of a 41-inch bottom. It was 81-inch. Correction there. Take some acclimatizing, too. It's probably his lyrics that got him barred by the YouTube censors last year. Not many modern protest songs begin with the line,

[00:29:33] She forgot to piss, he forgot to shit. Is that a love song? That is, it's gotta be. Yeah, what else could? It's not about buying a fucking Mercury Cougar. In among his catalog, it says his, there are thoughtful songs about racism, about Obama's election, and in My Bro, a touching song about a friend's suicide. Meanwhile, with Drugs, Drugs, Drugs, he's written the most upbeat rock song about narcotic abuse imaginable. God, it's so fucking good.

[00:30:03] Drugs, Drugs, Drugs is good. Let's go ahead and just give you a little taste to that here while we're at it.

[00:30:08] It's the strokes.

[00:30:51] For every YouTube comment, the article continues, that finds Tonetta hilarious or repellent, there are dozens, from people who have discovered that beyond the shock value, there's a genuine outsider pop artist. MIA, Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry have all successfully courted controversy lately, but Tonetta is the real deal. A pop revolutionary who doesn't give a damn about making money or what people think of him. Punk lives, and it's wearing a thong on YouTube. Thank you, Guardian UK.

[00:31:21] Johnny D there, right? Johnny D. I mean, I've read this article, and I was like, oh, this is really good. I think it doesn't take it too seriously. Right. But also finds a way to cherish it. I mean, you have to appreciate Tonetta as someone who is just going, sometimes literally balls out for his art. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, re-familiarize myself with the hits a little bit. And I was, I just was like, oh, this sounds so contemporary in a way,

[00:31:50] because like this has like, yeah, you got the growlers, you got no bunny. Mm-hmm. There's just so much stuff that, that came out in the last 10, 15 years that feels like a little bit of Tonetta. Well, I mean, considering how long he's been around making music since the 80s, putting it online since 2008, it's 2026, 18 years later. Maybe people who first discovered him in 2010, they're in bands now and they're making that music.

[00:32:17] 2011, Cain Trainor writing for The Quietus had an interview with Tonetta at this point, you know, again, 2011, Tonetta is 63. So that would mean this year he would be turning 78 or 77. 77 going on to 78. Yeah. This does say since his wife left him in 1983, he's lived a reclusive existence. That was the year he stopped watching TV, quit listening to music and began recording songs using cheap guitars from the 60s and a vintage drum machine pumping the same starting beat.

[00:32:47] Ever since he's been compelled to crank out tunes with a pair of tights on his head, gyrating blindly towards inspiration. And yes, there are three records, 777 volumes one, two, and three. They are compiled tracks from 26 years of prolific output, combining bursts of poignant pop genius, the aforementioned Drugs, Drugs, Drugs, Big Rig, GNV Showers. I think Big Rig is the song I'm thinking of. What is it the one? Let's go, let's go, let's go. Alright, let's take a break from the human race. I'm going away to meet a sunny day.

[00:33:16] I've been coming and shit already running. I'm coming to the tune of you. What you got is what I want. What you know is where I go. Who you are. This is Tom Waits song. Yeah, this one fucking rules too. Like he's recording himself in the mirror, but also on the TV. And also the bass line, fucking. Tanetta starts the question. You've seen my stuff, eh?

[00:33:44] And the interviewer responds, I have, yeah. A lot of people don't like it. They call me this, they call me that. It's hard to judge people. You think so, eh? I would have thought about it if that's true there'd be more subscribers. There's 1680 subscribers. Is that good or bad? That account's only been up for a year. The interviewer asks, before YouTube had anyone heard your music? Tanetta responds, to be honest with you, no. Not really. I started on YouTube in 2008. I'd never heard of it. Somebody told me because I used to pass up my cassettes, right? Like in Toronto, right? Because I'm from Toronto.

[00:34:13] And someone said, look, I'll help you. I'll open an account. Once it got on YouTube, it was getting attention. Whether it was good or bad, it was still getting attention. They closed down the first account, ToneTone444. Once you get three violations, they close you down, right? Then we opened up Tonetta777. Three violations again, they closed it down. A lot of my subscribers got pissed off about that. They started putting my stuff up on their own accounts so YouTube couldn't touch it anymore. Then I opened up TJ1479 and that's when Dirk got in touch with me last year. But they kept closing me down.

[00:34:42] Right now, I got two violations again. Mad intake of breath. It doesn't really make sense. Dirk opened up a Facebook fan page and they closed that down too. I think I had 2,000 fans on that. How does it feel to finally have an audience? Um, well, it's not really a live audience. No, but you have a following, a fan base. It feels good. It feels all right. It gives me something to do, I guess. I don't really know. I do it because I like playing guitar and horsing around. To me, it's fun.

[00:35:11] I'm just sharing it with other people. Hell yeah. That's all that matters, right? He's talking about, you know, I don't think anybody's making big money. Right, but I knew people that like when he was pressing vinyl. Yeah. Yeah. That were like, fuck it. Oh, dude. We gotta have it. Yeah. Very stoked. I mean, it's kind of like how people are treating Wesley Willis in the 90s, maybe a little less problematically. Yeah. Cause I have heard so many stories from musicians that have toured with him or were friends with him.

[00:35:39] It was like, he was such a sweet, gentle person. Yeah. But you'd be on tour with him and he would be so kind. And then the people who came to see him were not, did not understand the beautiful person that was on stage. Yeah. They didn't understand what they were, who they were actually in the presence of. They just wanted to see like the weird guy. And it's like, no, he was, he was much, he was the beautiful, weird guy. If we're going to call him that. Right. He was a beautiful, gentle soul. And he wrote rock and roll McDonald's and was very protective of the people that he cared

[00:36:09] about and was, you know, just the world was too beautiful for Wesley or too cruel for Wesley Willis. Yeah. I think the world is still kind of too cruel for Tonetta. I mean, yeah. What if Tonetta had gotten the beer can instead of that translate? I don't know. Who knows? I'm going to put the can in my ass going down to bush gardens. You suck off the Clydesdale.

[00:36:40] Yeah. Come on. Bush. Go to hell. Oh, Tony. Call us baby. 314-246-9766. Tony, please. Come. We'll put you up at the house. Come on. Come on. Come on down. Come on down to the bush gardens. Yeah. So that we're going to have you suck off of Clydesdale. Did I tell you about the time that we went down to the holiday lights and they had us

[00:37:08] posed, you know, when the pose in front of a Clydesdale and one of them had a fucking boner. Hell yeah. Let's go. And one of the handlers just went up to the Clydesdale and a closed fish punched it in the dick to make its dick go back inside of its body. I've heard that that's a way you deal with it. Yes. Yeah. But it was like how you punch someone. Slug bug. It was like, it was like, don't make fun of my cousin for being gay. Only I could call him a f**k. Oh. Oh. It was like, no, that's my person. No, you don't get to abuse that person. Oh.

[00:37:37] High school bully. Like, hey, that's the person that I'm no. Very different. Yeah. Okay. You get to, you get to, listen, he plays tenor sax and man, he sucks. However. All right. Don't f**k with them. They're good at tenor sax. Right. Don't f**k with them because they play tenor sax because they're actually good. This guy, he's, he's dragging it down. Yeah. So I'm going to f**king make him eat dirt and pour milk in his underwear and shit like that.

[00:38:04] It was a real like high school bully ass f**king like closed fist punch. In the f**king, in the f**king darts. Right in the d**k. Yeah. But anyways. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think, I think Tony would like this story. Can you come down and jerk off the Clydesdales and then punch him in the d**k? Come on down. The same way. Let's turn that up. We love you. But yeah, in this interview, I, there's just some, so many choice quotes that Tony says, you know, is asked about, you know, you gotta be true to yourself.

[00:38:30] And he goes, it's got nothing to do with getting more views of the cross dressing, but I'm not going to stand there with just a shirt and tie on. People don't want to see that. I tried. They say, we want to see hide. We want to see flesh. I guess they like a slutty look. So I guess it's a bunch of guys or gays perverts watching me. What do I care? If it turns them on. When asked the important question, why don't you play live shows? I've never done it before. This is a 63 year old man who's been making music for 40 years, if not longer. I don't know if I could. I don't have the nerve.

[00:39:00] I'm not sure of myself. That's why. But I've been offered shows. Plus I'd need a band. I do all this stuff in my apartment, like an eight track Fostex. And I punch everything in. I play the guitar, the bass. I put in the rhythm. I sing. I need at least four people to get my sound. I don't have these people. But you seem confident in the videos. Yeah, because there's nobody watching me. You're behind curtains. It's simple. It's easy. There's nobody there to judge you or throw eggs or tomatoes. I think you'd find people would like it. I go to pride every year in Toronto.

[00:39:28] He says five people yelled out the name Tanetta. I don't know these people are nothing. They came up and said, oh, yeah, we saw you on YouTube. One girl said her boyfriend has my album. They said, look it. If you play one of the pubs here, people will come. Some people say it's kind of pop. They say it's pop music. I don't know what it is. Maybe you're right. People will come. I guess. I don't know. What does your ex-wife think? Well, I don't know. I haven't talked to her since 1983, but she knows she's got to know because my kids know.

[00:39:56] I haven't seen them since 1983 since they were eight and ten year old. Two boys. Once I got on YouTube in 2008, right? One of my kids emailed me right away. But when I started putting on dresses and stuff, he stopped. He said, you're embarrassing me. What could I do? I do appreciate that he was like my wife to force me, took the kids. I'm gonna make weird ass fucking music instead of most dudes now where it's like, I'm gonna get into like MMA. Yeah. Yeah. Or I'm gonna buy like a Stratocaster and just do like a C-Raver. I love my baby.

[00:40:27] Type of bullshit. Man, man, man, man. Man, man. Man, man. Man, man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is a nice end to this piece because again, it's this interview and he's talking about how would you like to be remembered? How would you like to be remembered? I think I was born with a gift, eh? I don't think I could stop if I wanted to. All I know is the reason I'm doing this is when I die, I don't want my music to die. When I die, I want my kids to know what I was all about. And it's kind of working because they know me now. All these years, they haven't seen me, but they still know. Years ago, my wife said, I don't want them taken after you.

[00:40:56] And they were doing that, eh? Hopping, hopping in the back of my motorcycle, wearing leather jackets, getting their ears pierced at eight years old. She put a stop to it. She got rid of me. That's all. I think that's basically what this story is all about. She didn't want them taken after me. We're a different class. Even her mom, even her father says we're one cut above. So they thought we're a better class, I guess. Now some people, he talks about people covering his music. And this is where I'm going with this because it does have a local angle for those of you in St. Louis.

[00:41:23] Do you think you'll warm up to the idea of playing live one day? Dirk Scott, Tony says, a Tonetta tribute band called the Growlers. Apparently he's promoting the new album in record stores and he's getting the band to dress up as Tonetta. And he wants me to be there. He was willing to pay for the flight. I could stay with him, but I just turned it down. I heard the Growlers and okay, they did my songs, but it doesn't sound like me. It's not the same. When people redo songs, it's never as good. You have to have the same artists because it's their feelings.

[00:41:50] You have to have that hate and love and all that stuff in you to do things. I think you build character as the years goes on. This brings me to a wonderful local angle, a band named Talk. God, I fucking love Talk. Talk was great. Talk was two brothers all playing fucking red knob fucking Fender amps. I mean, there is a whole just a gear they use is fucking mythical in a local band.

[00:42:19] Yeah, they used to fucking promote their shows. Let me put put out how fucking weird these guys are in a way that I really appreciate. They used to promote their shows of the Firebird by taking like a mannequin's head and writing the date on the side of it. Put that there at the front door on the desk and would have like a fucked up hair. And then on the side of the head would be like talk with one lone car and like flesh vehicle at the Firebird August 18th, 2010. Just weird fucking shit.

[00:42:46] I remember they did a show where they set up a bunch of vintage TVs and video game consoles. And so you could play like SNES, NES, Atari 5200 games while the bands played. Yeah, I was at that show. Phenomenal. Amazing. So this band Talk, they decided from one of their records they were going to do in 2015 was Talk Does Toneta. It is eight tracks long. It has some amazing versions of Drugs, Drugs, Drugs.

[00:43:14] 81 Inch Prime Ass is on there as is Dominate and Lady Gaga and Still a Slave. Again, January of 2015. Now, Talk kind of broke up. The brothers kind of went their separate ways. Matt performs as himself now. It's the Matt F. Basler band. He still does weird videos on the Internet with the gigantic pepperoni nipples from the Toneta video. Yeah, it's amazing. He does the giant pepperoni nipples. And Brian will play with him. They will. Yeah. It's just they're not Talk, right? It's just it's Matt.

[00:43:44] But Talk, please fucking go listen to Talk. Amazing stuff. Amazing people. Play a little bit because I hear their version of Drugs, Drugs, Drugs. Perfect. Let's do it. Here's Drugs, Drugs, Drugs by Talk.

[00:44:25] Fucking amazing. I love Queens of the Stoney or Cross. Acaiis. Acaiis. It's very like proto stoner rock in a way. I just I mean, I have a lot of love for Talk. I have a lot of love for Brian and Matt. Have them do this and have it. And this is totally up their alley. Yeah. Like if I had never knew this existed, I've been like, I bet these guys like Talk. Because I mean, fucking was it Matt that did the Santana shit? Yes.

[00:44:55] He was the one who played Smooth by Santana at 12 times in a row at a live venue and then added as the encore Smooth by Santana. Yeah, it's it was brilliant. And he got a lot of a lot of press for that. A lot of people did cover him. If you haven't seen it, by the way, a little bit of what I was looking into earlier was this YouTube channel called Second Person View. It's an eight minute little mini documentary about Tanetta with interviews with the man himself, with Tony.

[00:45:24] Really fascinating watch came out a couple of years ago. It only has 18000 views. I think it needs a lot more. It's an interesting story. Here's a guy who lost everything and built something out of nothing. Quite literally a guitar he's had since the 60s. And just I'm going to write whatever the hell I feel like. I'm going to perform it in my own weird way. Here I am. Warts and all. This is me. This is Tanetta. I feel like it's really unfiltered.

[00:45:52] I think there's a sincerity to it. But again, there's stuff to it that's like politically incorrect and weird. Yeah. But I mean, Amin Schumacher, Frogs also have that element. But I think also Amin Schumacher Steels is still an amazing record for all of its, for all of the weird shit that is not correct. Have you ever listened to Amin Schumacher Steels? Top of my head, no. But I mean... Have you ever heard of House of Guitars?

[00:46:19] And it's like one of the places on the East Coast you go to. Rochester, New York. It was like one of the places you went to in New York State for vintage guitars and stuff like that. And one of the owners, Amin... Amin Schubrock. Schubrock. He had a really fucked up life growing up and made all of these really weird records. And Shawrock Steels is one of my favorite weird indie records. Hmm. Is like a legit 70s indie record.

[00:46:47] And the opening song is just like this really heartfelt thing. And then in the end, he talks about getting out of jail and there's going to be no more N-words putting razor blades in my water or whatever. And you're like... Okay. Stuff can be really ugly and fucked up and offensive. Yeah. But if there's real honest pain, I'm not saying it gives a pass, but that context is important. Because you listen to that record, I don't think that guy... I don't think he hated black people.

[00:47:16] But what he says, fucked up and ignorant. Like I don't think that's like a hateful dude. I think a fucked up guy. I mean... You could be ignorant. There's... You know, I hate to put the whole... There's between ignorance and hate, but there is sometimes. Particularly when you look at shit from the 70s and 80s. Right. Well, I mean this guy at the time of the recording wasn't that he just got out of jail? Yeah, it was like a weird statutory rape law thing where he was like 19, the girl was like 17. It says, at the age of 17, he was sentenced to three years for committing 32 burglaries.

[00:47:46] No, there's... No, wait, there's something else that he talks about in his music. But that part actually fucking whips ass. I'm sorry. Yeah. I'm sorry. That part's really fucking cool. 32 burglaries? Including, it says here, a church. Yeah. Grocery stores, hardware stores, schools. Yeah. Convicted of safe cracking. Actually, that fucking rules. He was sentenced in Elmira. He served a year and a half before being released on parole. Okay.

[00:48:15] But him and his brother started House of Guitars, which was and still is like a very sought after and well-respected guitar shop in Rochester, New York. Yeah. Some really great commercials on YouTube from like, I think the fucking Ramones did a fucking Yes, they did. Yes. Hot dog. There was like hot dog shit, dude. Yeah. But his record, Armin Schumacher steals, rat fucker. Rat fucker is probably my favorite one of his. Okay. It's so fucking weird.

[00:48:41] A lot of people would like to see Armin Schumacher dead, which is the cover is him with a bullet hole in his head and blood running on his face. God, it's just like, what happened to fucking weirdos like that? I mean, I know we took Leia out of the gasoline. They're all just online now. Yeah. And not a lot of them are any more talented than Toneta or anybody, but like they're now just like yelling about Anthony Fauci instead of like writing songs. I think this shit's super fascinating. Yeah. It's super fucking interesting.

[00:49:09] And like, I think him and his son do like a radio show in Rochester, like on like a community radio station. Like, just like, fuck man. No one gets to live a life like that. To make those choices and to be punished for it and still make something respectable out of your life. I don't think people get those second or third chances anymore unless you're like, you know, super fucking like an average fucking dude doesn't get that anymore. No, you gotta be like a fail son or somebody's, you know, somebody's cousin or some shit.

[00:49:37] Those guys living authentically being weird and just doing weird shit. I love to see it. I love to hear about it. For me, these are the guys. This is the real shit. Jack White could never. No, God, no. The last two releases by Tonetta were self-titled and the Christmas album same year 2019 has not released a record since. No Tonetta on Spotify. No Tonetta on a lot of the major music services. Talk Does Tonetta is out there still so you can hear the talk versions.

[00:50:05] You can hear Gary Wilson, Gary Pitcare, American Death Cult covering some Tonetta songs. And of course, on the recommended playlist when you search for Tonetta, that's right, the frogs. Hell yeah! The lemons. Yeah, bong water. Some great outsider art, some great outsider music. I highly recommend that to you all. If you have not, if you've enjoyed the Tonetta you've heard tonight, go get yourself. I look at a clock and I wish to turn the water. Oh my God! I come! That's right.

[00:50:35] Jesus. I used to just like sit there and this is my eyes be like, the frogs! And you're real! Tonight! God. Well, if you want to talk to some other weird dudes online, hey, it's us. Brian, tell people where to find you on the old internet. Oh, jeez! Oh, jeez! Oh, piss off shit! Oh, cum! Cum! Smegma! The sanatorium! Vomitorium! Vomitorium!

[00:51:02] If you want to find me on the internet, you can head on over to Twitter and Blue Sky. I'm over there at iShockEdBoer. I-S-H-O-T-G-U-I-D-B-O-R-D. You can also find me on Instagram as amusicphotographer. If you want to check out my well curated portfolio of people with their mouths opening, you have it at assholemusicphotographer.com. If you want to check out my wildly neglected sub stack, which, God, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it.

[00:51:31] If you want to check out the last and only good media website, left and screwy St. Louis, you head over to the artsstl.com. Jason? Yeah. Where can they not keep all the drugs away from you? That is video crime. V-I-D-E-O-C-R-I-M-E. Chances are if there's a video crime online, that's me. We're talking Twitter, Blue Sky, Letterboxd, pretty much anywhere. You can also find me as part of a podcast that's not this one. It's called Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Pals. There, I play a fictionalized version of horror icon Stephen King. Two seasons await you there.

[00:52:00] Midnight-pals.simplecast.com. Or search anywhere you find your podcasts and search Midnight Pals. If you'd like to get a hold of this show for whatever reason, give us a call. 314-246-9766. That's 314-Ahoy-Poo. If you'd like to spell with your telephone. The invite is still open, by the way, if anybody does know Tony, anybody does know Tonetta, give him a call. Have him call us. We'd like to hear from him. Conversely, you can call and tell us your favorite Tonetta song and or story. We'd love to hear from you.

[00:52:29] If you don't feel like talking on the phone, that's fine. Shoot us an email. Jason at the number four, the number eight minutes of dogs barking.com or Brian with a Y at the number four, the number eight minutes of dogs barking.com. If you'd like to support the show, we so appreciate you. Keeps us in beer money. That is patreon.com slash four eight minutes of dogs. There you will find our weekly bonus episode called Thanks I Hate It. Plus some other various fun stuff for you. Do that thing.

[00:52:57] Patreon.com slash four eight minutes of dogs. Well, that about does with the program. As we always say at this time, namaste, good luck. Give mommy a good gut fucking drugs, drugs, drugs for me. And hey, eat the knife.

[00:53:09] Then after it's over, after about five minutes, I'll close the video and I walk back over here. And Tonetta vanishes. Do you have bright pink? After all four inches. Do you have bright blue and blue? There's no heat, but there's no heat.