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Crude Stories: Meet the Beastie Boys

Question: What tips would the Beastie Boys offer a girl who wanted them to like her?

Beasties: Any girl who has a job, wear’s men’s size-19 boots, has huge ears, and has an inclination towards snowmobiles.

Question: And what tips do you have for breaking up with a girl?

Beasties: It’s only been once or twice that the group had a relationship with one girl when we all knew about it. The three of us would take her out to dinner, then the three of us would bring her back to the house and she would have to go from room to room, because we don’t like to see each other naked. Ad-Rock went first and Mike D likes to go last. We broke up with her by changing the lock on the door; putting an ad in the personals of the Village Voice that said we didn’t want to see her any more; and putting up a billboard in Chinatown telling her if she ever came to our house again, we’d beat the shit out of her with a stickball bat.

“Hello, fair farm maiden, these bastards here are the Beastie Boys, and I need to use your phone,” Sean said in an unusually polite tone.

“We don’t have a phone, but I reckon we have a pickup truck,” she offered.

“Oh great, let’s hop in,” the group said in unison, untangling themselves from the remains of the pyramid. And they did.

“Where you going?” she asked.

“Detroit,” they answered.

“Detroit? Why I’ve got tickets to see the Beastie Boys in Detroit tonight!” she cried.

“We are the Beastie Boys,” Mike D, Ad-Rock, and MCA explained.

“Oh, that’s right. Well, then there shouldn’t be any problem. But wait, I can’t go without my copy of Extended Sexual Orgasm by Tom Cushman,” she whined.

“Why, Tom Cushman’s right here,” they said, and she climbed aboard.

A look of excitement crossed Hurricane’s face. “I bet you got some fresh eggs here,” he said, as they sped off down the dirt road.

“Eggs?” the farm girl whimpered, with tears in her eyes. She then proceeded to tell a three-hour story of a horrifying plague that had befallen her family. It was a drought that had killed all the eggs on this once happening egg farm.

The Boys, tears streaming down their faces, looked at each other, and realized there was only one thing to do: EGG AID. They gathered all the townspeople together: the shopkeepers, the farmers, the fishermen, the carpenters, and even the Partridge Family. And together they formed an event that would never end.

There was much wine and festivities while the children sang and the Partridge Family played. All was gay — yet, in these crowds there was a man who appeared out of his element. Ad-Rock approached him. “Aren’t you Jimmy Randolph, who does those TV ads for the Albert Merrill School?”

“Why, no I’m not. I’m Carl Douglas.”

“Carl Douglas … hmmm. Don’t you do that song ‘Kung Fu Fighting’?”

“Well, yes I do, and here I go.” With that, he began singing and running towards the stage. Remarkably, the Partridge Family knew all the chords, and Danny Partridge joined Carl for one magical verse: “There were funky Chinamen, in funky Chinatown, they were choppin’ them up, and choppin’ them down, it was an ancient Chinese art … “

Dave Scilken could not help but turn to the camera and remark, “Interesting that Chinatown plays such a recurring theme in this episode.” And play it did.

The show finally ended, and it was the great success that everyone had hoped for: the eggs had been saved.

“Our work here is done. We must move on and let these bastards rejoice,” Sean waxed philosophically.

“Wait, let’s ask my friend Mr. Douglas if he’d like to join our merry posse in our quest. Hey, Hong Kong Fooey,” Ad-Rock cried, “can we borrow your equipment? We’ve got a gig tonight, and we left our equipment two hundred miles back in a van with our roadie.”

“Who’s your roadie?” Carl asked.

“Cey.”

“Cey? Why, you must be the Beastie Boys.” And strangely, they were. Carl continued: “Don’t you guys live in Chinatown?” And yes they did, and there was much rejoicing.

With Carl Douglas navigating the pickup truck, they found themselves in Detroit in no time.

Question: What places have you been to that won’t let you come back again?

Beasties: We’re banned for life from Holiday Inns all over America, and Eastern Airlines. You punch our names into the computer on any terminal and, we don’t know what it says, but they won’t sell us any tickets.

Question: Do you belong to any clubs?

Beasties: A.A.

“Why, Mr. Douglas, you’re quite the navigator, aren’t you?” said a bewildered Ricky.

“Yes,” he replied. And he ran off screaming naked into the night, never to be seen again.

“What a strange person,” Hurricane surmised.

“Alright bastards,” Sean snapped, “we’re on schedule as usual … SEVEN HOURS LATE! We’ve completely missed soundcheck and we’ll be lucky if they let us play.”

The boys could only then watch in amazement as their roadie Cey arrived in the van with their equipment. “Cey, you puzzle me,” MCA admitted. “You have driven like the wind.”

Cey could only smile. “Ah yes, good friends, you seem to have overlooked chapter six, page 113 of Bulldog Brauer’s steaming text Extended Sexual Orgasm and Van Maintenance, in which he describes the Kegel exercises as applied to auto mechanics.”

Sighing, the group was awed by Cey’s brilliant manner. “Very impressive, you bastard,” Sean spat. “Now apply yourself to this equipment, and get it inside.”

Question: Who’s influenced your business decisions?

Beasties: We base a lot of our career moves on fortune cookies. We realized, having lived in Chinatown, that they can mean life or death. We’ve tried to write a rap song using all the fortunes we’ve gotten. “You shall be awarded some great honor.” “It takes a truly good man to have confidence in the goodness of others.” “Excellent health is a part of your next phase.” You see, these fortunes are all pertinent to our lives.

Equipment in hand, the group pushed forward into the hall, finding it completely packed with fat old men, and women with thick mustaches.

“This is great! We’re really hitting a new audience,” Mike D celebrated. “We must finally be crossing over. Wait, what is this song?”

“It sounds like ‘Oh Bondage, Up Yours!’ by X-Ray Spex, but who’s playing it?” Ad-Rock asked, revealing an inquisitive nature to rival that of Mike D’s.

“I don’t think that’s the question, young Ad-Rock. I think the question at hand is, why is there another band onstage? ” MCA said.

“And they’re really fat,” Bosco added, taking a breather from his French horn.

Question: If you could be somebody else for a moment, who would you most want to be?

Beasties: Jason Brauer of Extended Sexual Orgasm, because Mrs. Brauer and us have something we have to settle. Mike would like to be a gynecologist.

Sean reappeared from the overweight crowd he had disappeared into only moments before. “I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is we’re not late. The bad news is that we’re an entire day too early, and you bastards have ruined my entire life once again.”

“It’s not that bad, Sean,” Cushman decided. “This band is really good. Who are these guys?”

“GOOD EVENING LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE’RE THE GUESS WHO. HOW MANY OF YOU REMEMBER ‘AMERICAN WOMAN’?”

“Yo, I totally know this song,” MCA screamed, singing and dancing at the top of his lungs.

But if that wasn’t strange and bizarre enough, Ted Nugent arrived at this historic concert in a 70-foot limousine, accompanied by the mayor of Detroit, who was wielding a large, golden key.

“Hey guys, come here!” Ted yelled, beckoning them to join him and the mayor.

“O.K. Ted,” the Beastie Boys replied.

“This large golden key to the city is for services far and beyond the call of egg duty,” the mayor announced. “May you be prosperous and learn from your own wisdom.” And it was at that point that Ted Nugent invited the entire posse, including the Guess Who, back to his personal yacht for paella and margaritas. And there was much rejoicing!

This story originally ran in the March 1987 issue of SPIN.