By Wil Forbis and John Saleeby

Several weeks ago, a controversy of epic proportions erupted on the Acid Logic guestbook, in which a substantial portion of our readership (two people) left postings indicating that they were refusing to visit acid logic due to acrimonious statements made by John Saleeby in his article about Dave Thomas. (John had stated that he would rather "inject a hypo full of Magic Johnson jism into my head before I eat anything from Burger King.") Allegations ran wild that John was a racist, homophobe and a cat molester. Instantly, celebrity pundits used the media to strike against acid logic. Aaron Sorkin said Acid Logic was the antithesis of everything he thought acid stood for. Rosie O'Donnell claimed a key reason she became a lesbian was to escape a mating pool that included neanderthals such as John. And for the first time ever, I was not invited to Martha Stewart's annual drum and bass rave in Manhattan Beach. Such was the pall that Saleeby's comments had cast onto the world of Acid Logic.

Slowly, I began to realize that our critics had a point. By allowing Saleeby to continue his demonizing of the oppressed, I was giving tacit approval to the ideas he espoused. By providing a forum for the rantings of Saleeby's embittered and wounded ego, I was, in effect, as guilty as John. Once the horror of that observation came over me, I knew that I had to give John the opportunity to work with me and prove that he could be a decent human being. Clearly, the only way we could do this would be to write an article about Yoko Ono together.

Yoko, after all, is everything that John isn't. Yoko is an ardent pacifist while John encourages violence in all its many forms. Yoko promotes tolerance for diversity while John makes every effort to cordon people off into narrowly pre-defined categories and then mock them for their supposed faults. Yoko is a feminist, while John is. well, I'm not sure there's a word for it but I'm pretty sure he thinks women should be reverted to a slave class that should be called upon only to satisfy the sexual needs of whatever male is nearby. (One of the few areas where John and I agree.)

Thus, I encourage you, the loyal acid logic reader, to join us in welcoming a new era in the history of  Acid Logic. An era of peace and understanding, of joy and mutual satisfaction, of singing puppies and dancing kittens. Welcome to INTERESTING MOTHERFUCKERS: YOKO ONO.

I've got to admit, when it came to the subject of Yoko Ono, I was just like everybody else. I loathed her. I thought she broke up the Beatles. I thought her music sounded somewhere in between a the sound of ferret caught in airplane engine and a beer bottle stuck in a garbage disposal. I thought her "art" was incredibly stupid and weak minded. And I thought she was amazingly unattractive, to the degree that I was stupefied that John Lennon, a man who could've bagged any bird on the planet, would waste his time with such a talentless, droopy-breasted shrew.

However, since then time and many bowels have moved on and I've had to change my views. What forced this change you ask? Well, for one thing, I've always believed that my opinions should be in direct opposition to the majority of the American populace. And if the whole of American thinks of Yoko as a screeching, preening harpy, then shouldn't I revere her as a feline, serene goddess whose work had been woefully maligned by the menace of John Q Public? After forming this opinion, I started to make attempts to validate it, beginning with an examination of with Yoko's music. (I recommend "Walking on Thin Ice" as a good compilation of her seventies and eighties work.) And I discovered, it ain't all that bad. In fact some of it was pretty fucking great. While not so esoteric to be unlistenable, Yoko's tunes do manage to have a healthy avoidance of the status quo, which keeps them lively and interesting. As such, I decided Yoko would be an excellent target. erm, subject for an Interesting Motherfuckers article.

Yoko inescapably rose to mega fame in the arms of John Lennon. And when you start talking about John and Yoko, you have to ask some hard questions. Did she break up the Beatles? Would Yoko, a quasi-feminist celebrity, ever have had any recognition, without the aid of her partner, John? Did she really even deserve success? These are the difficult questions that we must ask. And it's even more difficult to answer these questions. But I will try. You see.... oops, I guess my section is up. So it's up to John to answer these difficult questions.

Uhh, yeah, moving past John's aberrations there, let's take a look at some of Yoko's music. Now some people are going to read this article and say, "Darn it, Wil. You spent all this time focusing on Yoko's musical output and not her groundbreaking film, writing, visual or performance art pieces." Well, there's a reason for that cucumber-breath, and that's that still I think all that other stuff is pretty crappy. Especially her performance art. God knows I loath to share an opinion with the mass populace but in the case of performance art, Yoko's or otherwise, I agree with all sane people that it's a giant fucking sham. Performance art is for talentless people who can't make it in real art forms - like painting, music or the most challenging of all: web zine-writing.

So with that out of the way, let's spec out some choice Ono compositions. Yoko was doing quite a bit from her teen years into the sixties, but I think her best stuff came after the John Lennon merger. Lennon's presence managed to give her a grounding in rock (starting with the Plastic Ono band albums) which made her stuff more accessible. Albums like "Approximately Infinite Universe" and "Feeling the Space" had fairly traditional 70's rock/pop combined with Yoko's ethereal lyrics, omnipresent Japanese accent and offbeat sense of composition. Another seventies album, "Fly" is worth noting if only because it has, dig this, Yoko singing the blues (on the tune, "Midsummer New York")

However, better stuff was yet to come. In 1980, John and Yoko released the acclaimed "Double Fantasy" album. A sizeable chunk of this album is John and Yoko making musical doe eyes at each other, (I will eat a live baby if I ever have to hear "Dear Yoko" again) but Yoko's got some great cuts on here, like the freaky "Kiss, Kiss, Kiss" (featuring the sounds of Yoko having sex, which probably sounds a lot like Yoko doing the dishes.) and the kooky "Walking on Thin Ice.*" Yeah, "Double Fantasy" was good, but if you want a seriously concentrated dose of Ono-strangeness, nothing beats the 1981 album, "Season of Glass." While "Double Fantasy" was mostly happy, luvy-duvy nonsense, SOG (produced by fellow weirdster, Phil Spector) is all about what's really important in life: loneliness and fear. (John had just been plugged by Mark Chapman.) The songs are disjointed and angular, often featuring Yoko singing a straight vocal line while backed up by her own wolf-howl harmonies. "No, No, No" has Yoko reprimanding an un-named lover for his patronizing attitude. And after hearing a song entitled "She Gets Down on her Knees," you gotta forgive Yoko for stealing John away from the Beatles. Right, John?

Look, Forbis, I don't hate Yoko  Ono for taking John Lennon away from The Beatles. I hate her for keeping him away from Cheap Trick. Pull up a chair, kids - Forbis, pull up your pants - and I'll yell you all about it. Ah, yes - 1980. I remember it like it was just yesterday. No, yesterday they busted Forbis for hanging around the fitting rooms in the Boy's Department at JC Penny's. 1980 - John Lennon was coming out of seclusion to make his first record in years and hired Jack Douglas, the best record producer to sit in the same room with a member of Aerosmith without getting physically ill, to hang around the control room making faces while Lennon and the engineers did all the work. Looking back on it all, Lennon should have went to Memphis and hired Jim Dickinson and I should have stayed at LSU and gotten a degree. And Mrs. Forbis never should have left Little Wil all alone with Uncle Buzzy that fateful weekend. Young Yoko Says: John Saleeby is a BIG POOPY HEAD! (Ed note: See John, you can fuck with me all you want, but as the guy who edits and lays out this web zine, I always have the last word. I HAVE THE POWER!!!- Wil) While fetchin' a cup o' joe for Massuh Lennon one mornin' Jack "Banjo" Douglas suggested that Lennon employed Cheap Trick, whom Douglas had discovered playing in a bowling alley.  (Hey, didn't I already tell you punks this story before? It all seems so . . . familiar.) Anyway, Banjo suggested that Fab Four Eyes hire Cheap Trick, The Best Goddam Band In America, as his back up group on the record. Great idea! So Rick  Neilson, Cheap Trick's lead guitarist and songwriter, and Bun E. Carlos, the drummer, were called in to meet with Lennon while Robin Zander and Tom Peterson, the good looking guys in the band, sat around a hotel room in Jersey. (Hey, they may look good but who wants to hear them talk.) John, Rick and Bun hit it off like gangbusters while sitting around making S'mores and watching "The Love Boat" but I do not have to tell you what Missus Yoko had to say when John came stumblin' in at two o'clock in the morning with a big ol' Water Buffalo hat on top of his head and Bronto Burger breath, do I? "John! You no stay out all night with Cheap Trick people no more! You be good boy make record with Yoko then go home give Yoko foot rub, teach Sean barre chord!" Then she took a big sushi dump, opened up a secret passage, and went into a dungeon where former members of Badfinger were chained to the wall begging for bread and water. "Me pour molten lead down pop musician rectum! No music but Yoko music!" Now, just imagine if Lennon had given Yoko The-Cynthia-Treatment and left her for Cheap Trick: John Lennon And  Cheap Trick would have been the most successful act in the history of the entertainment industry, Power Pop would be the dominant genre in all of music, John Belushi would be the host of "The Tonight Show", Johnny Carson would be President Of The United States, and I'd be the producer of "Late Night With Howard Stern". But noooooooo, John Lennon had to listen to Mother - Yeah, he was the kind of guy who called his wife "Mother", that's how cool your Messiah was - and got Jack Douglas to scrape off Cheap Trick so he could make his crappy record with Yoko Ono and the kind of studio musicians you hear making all kinds of cornball noise every time they go to a commercial on the Letterman or "Saturday Night  Live". Not that I blame Yoko Ono for any of this - John Lennon chose Yoko Ono over John Saleeby getting to have a nice life and now he will just have to live with the consequences of that decision. Giggle.

Jesus Christ, John - "No music but Yoko music?!?" I ask you for a thoughtful, soul-searching analysis of the work of Yoko Ono and you send in a series of half-truths, pornographic Late Show jokes and accusations that I'm attempting to fondle children. Well, you're finished here at acid logic, do you hear me? FINISHED! Right after you turn in those 564 additional articles you've been working on. Then you're out the door!

* Available only on the remastered version.

What do you think America? Leave your comments on the Guestbook!

Wil Forbis is the pen named shared by such noted authors as James Ellroy, Katie Roiphe, and Jim Thompson. E-mail him, I mean, them, at acidlogic@hotmail.com

View Wil's Acid Logic web log, a stirring endorsement of sex with pandas!

John Saleeby wrote for The National Lampoon while he was in high school, was a stand up comic in New York, and has contributed to the net humor zines Schmuck.com, Campaign Central, and the legendary American Jerk. He's on medication now so he's probably a little nicer now than he was when you met him earlier. Email - jacksaleeby1@hotmail.com

Meet some other Interesting Motherfuckers: Ray Walston by John Saleeby From My Favorite Martian to Mr. Hand. Mitch Hedberg by John Saleeby The last of the comedy greats! Al Jafee by Wil Forbis Mad Magazine's cartoon master. GG Allin by Wil Forbis Even punks loathed the performer who pushed past the bouderies. David Allan Coe by Wil Forbis Country's obscene outlaw walks the line. Bernie Casey by John Saleeby The blaxploitation star who rose from the ghetto of professional football. Bret Easton Ellis by Tom Waters Peruse the critical overview and interview with the fiction superstar. Phil Lynott by Wil Forbis Thin Lizzy's frontman rose from the streets of Ireland to the heights of rock stardom and then descended into the pit of drug abuse. Louis CK by Sean C Tarry Marvel at this stand up's ability to phrase the opposite of every song. Sho Kosugi by Wil Forbis Fear the power of the Ninja! Fear it, Bitch! Bill Hicks by Cody Wayne The mind expanding comedian gets his due. Warren Zevon by Xander Horlyk A literary look at "a moralist in cynic's clothing." Pam Grier by John Saleeby Sweet Christmas! It's the queen of blaxploitation, Foxy Brown herself! Jack Webb by John Saleeby When he created the elite police unit of "Dragnet," Jack Webb laid the first blow against the scourge of America: Hippies! Doris Wishman by Wil Forbis The prolific adult film maker, whose work includes the classic Chesty Morgan movies, is probed and prodded. Dave Thomas by John Saleeby Wendy's Dave Thomas was all about Biggie Fries, Frosties and love. Spike Milligan by John Saleeby Read up on the life of the British comedy scribe. Toshiro Mifune by Wil Forbis The Japanese actor who slashed his way through a thousand samurai movies. Nina Hagen by Wil Forbis The Wagnerian Banshee who created the blueprint for punk/funk/opera. Bob and Tommy Stinson by John Saleeby Get to know the real talents of eighties punk sensations, The Replacements. Tom Savini by John Saleeby The king of latex gore. And there's even more on our main page!

Additional info about Her Yokoness: Instant Karma bio on Yoko: Should be of interest for people who want actual facts and substance about Yoko. Yoko-ono.com: Her personal page where she dispense her lethel martial arts killing techniques. Interview with Yoko: Yoko lays the dirt