Country Joe's greeting
A greeting from Country Joe......
Good Morning!
It was reported in the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, Sunday March 28, 2004,
PINK SECTION column POP BEAT that:
" Barry Melton has secured an injunction against Country Joe McDonald
barring him from using the "Fish Cheer. " Melton, "The Fish," owns the name.
McDonald says future renditions of "Fixing to Die Rag" will feature a cheer with
a different four-letter word beginning with F."
I want to say that this report is not true. Barry "The Fish" Melton has
not "secured an injunction" but as people know the "CHEER" has been a problem
ever since its second incarnation at the Shaffer Beer Festival in NYC in the
late 60's as the FUCK CHEER much different that the orginal FISH CHEER that
appeared on the "I FEEL LIKE I'M FIXING TO DIE" LP. There is a GOOD CHEER and
a BAD CHEER and now with the COUNTRY
JOE BAND getting ready to go on the road "the problem" has surfaced again:
how to make all our fans happy?!
At the recent opening of the Tiburon Film Festival I did the FILM CHEER much
to the enjoyment of all but it is easy to see that this would not be a good
CHEER to use at all
performances.
It has been suggested that the FART CHEER followed by "What's that smell"
would be entertaining but it is easy to see that this would offend certain
sections of the audience.
It is true that Barry Melton is "The Fish" and he is not in the new COUNTRY
JOE BAND so it would seem to make sense that we do not do the FISH CHEER with
the current
COUNTRY JOE BAND but then again it is hard to see how the FISH CHEER and
Barry "The FIsh" Melton have any connection. But then again some might ask what
does the FISH CHEER have to do with anything anyway?
This is a fair question and I have no answer to this but ever since the
Woodstock Festival of 1969 with it's movie and record album the second version of
THE CHEER the infamous FUCK CHEER has been very popular. Some attendees to
the festival even reported that yelling FUCK was the high light of the
festival for them. This of course is mind boggling to
me as I always wanted to known as a sensitive poet not a person who taught a
generation to yell an obscene word. But then again it seems to have given
such younger generation acts like Snoop Doggy Dog an opportunity to have a
prosperous career where as before that might not have been possible.
So I am still back to the current problem. It has always been my desire to
just make nice music and be entertaining and perhaps make a small contribution
to World Peace. This June I am to be honored by receiving the WORLD PEACE
MUSIC AWARD!? A large concert is planned for Hanoi Vietnam at whcih people who
contributed towards the end of the Vietnam War with their music will be
honoured. Of course it is because of my
song I FEEL LIKE I'M FIXING TO DIE RAG that I am getting the award but no
one can separate that song from the CHEER that precedes it....can they? So we
are back to the GOOD CHEER vrs. the BAD CHEER thing again.
But it is further complicated by the language problem. In the 80's while
touring Germany I was confronted with this problem while being interviewed on
state owned television and radio. Interviewers often said FUCK when referring
to the song and the Woodstock Festival. But this I found out was because the
offensive word in German is FEIK not
FUCK. FUCK is meaningless in German, while FEIK is not. So you can see what
I mean? I do not know what FUCK means in Vietnamese nor what FISH means in
Vietnamese. How would the Vietnamese Government and the audience respond to a
FUCK CHEER in HANOI? Or a FISH CHEER?
I do know that American GI's found Vietnamese "Fish Sauce" to be a very
hard taste to get used to. There is also the larger problem of
American/Vietnamese relations in the post Vietnam War era. The Vietnamese Government has
expressed a desire to be "forward thinking" and I must ask myself is the FUCK
CHEER or the FISH CHEER "forward thinking" or actually "backward thinking"? As I
will be representing the City of Berkeley, California I must ask myself:
What is the politically correct thing to do?
But as many people know the popularity of the Vietnamese noodle dish PHUC
has swept modern Vietnam and the new American Vietnamese Community and this has
nothing it seems to do with fighting the Vietnam War.
So perhaps the best solution is the introduce a new PHUC CHEER when
performing the old I FEEL LIKE I'M FIXING TO DIE RAG. I know this would be confusing
but perhaps not offensive and "forward thinking" except of course to those
on low carb diets.
But of course this would be historically incorrect perhaps causing
generations in the future to ask: What does PHUC Vietnamese noodles have to do with
the lyric "WHOOPEE WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE"?.
Perhaps bringing the PHUC noodle companies to get an injunction barring me
from ever performing the PHUC CHEER with the I FEEL LIKE I'M FIXING TO DIE RAG
song because it would create the impression that those noodles would cause a
person to "die" bringing groups of suicidal persons to start eating too
large portions of PHUC noodles.
Cheers,
Country Joe McDonald, Berkeley, California, April 1, 2004
From John Roberts: Just note the date this was sent out!!!!!!!!!
