Razorcake Issue #19

Let me show you something. What doyou think of this? [Hasil reaches over besidehis chair and picks up a plastic turtle. Hepresses a button. Music starts to play fromthe turtle’s plastic shell, and its arms, head,and tail start to move. The song is somethinglike, “You got to slow down/you’removing too fast/you’ve got to slow downand let the moment last/you’re working toohard/you know it’s true/you got to slowdown and make time for you.” Words ofwisdom from a plastic turtle. He sat the turtleon the floor and it walked a little, thenpaused to sing the lyrics, then it would startto walk again.] Boy, who ever made this, itstail, head, feet everything moves.Somebody’s done a lot of work on that.Bradley: I’ve seen the singing bass, singingHasil: Well, that Slop, I made that fordrunks, ‘cause I played so much in thejoints. It used to be beer joints. There wasn’tno clubs up in here at all. They’d comein thinkin’ they could dance and just fallin’every whichaway. I said, “I’ll fix them up.”Yeah, it is. That’s the reason I made thatSlop, so you could just go left or right orfall down or anything you ran into. Hell,they liked it, so that’s the only thing thatcounts.Bradley: How about the Hunch? How’dthat come about?Hasil: Well, years ago I had two girls withme all the time, back in the ‘50s. That wasbefore they started any of this titty doings,and they were good dancers. I already hadthe songs made up. They said, “Haze, let’sHasil: He looks like a robot, don’t he? He’sgot that phone hanging down in the front.Bradley: He’s got a drum machine that heruns with it, too, I think.Hasil: He’s got them push buttons on thefloor.Bradley: He’s got some crazy stuff that Idon’t understand, but there’s a band up inPortland, Oregon, I think, and they callthemselves the Hunches.Hasil: Yeah, yeah, I heard about them, but Iain’t seen them yet. Jim was telling meabout them. He said they put on a prettygood show, too. He seen them out there inGeorgia when they came through there. Youlike them Straightjackets?Bradley: Los Straightjackets?Hasil: Yeah, they gonna be in MinnesotaHeck, when you don’t know what you’re doing,you’re liable to come out with anything.deers, and singing turkeys, but I ain’t seenone of these. Where’d you pick it up at?Hasil: My girlfriend sent it to me, fromMinnesota. Everybody likes that thing and Ido, too. I got them fish. I got all kind oftalkin’ things, sanging things, and walkingthings.Bradley: I’ve never seen that one, though.Hasil: It’s something else, ain’t it? Theydone a lot of work on that, man. Everythingon that moves. There’s a lot of figuring outto get that thing to do all that.Bradley: You’ve got a lot of stuff around inhere.Hasil: I lost all my stuff out there in myhouse, the Hasil Motel, everything in it. Ihad it loaded. See that picture, at the bottomover there, over top that Harley Davidsonstereo over there? That was my room, butthe whole house was thataway. Looked likeyou throwed it in there.Bradley: What happened to it all?Hasil: It all ruint on me. I moved out andthe thing went to leaking and all that, and itall… well, I didn’t have time to get it allout.Bradley: Did there come a storm or something?Hasil: No, the house was getting old andwent to leaking and all that. Over the years,it just kept leaking and leaking and ruint itall.Bradley: My friend Megan wanted me toask you if you still got women fighting to sitnext to you?Hasil: Yeah. That’s the reason I hide outaround here. I don’t get out.Bradley: You know most all these peopleup and down through here?Hasil: Yeah, I know ‘em all, yeah. It don’tpay to get out sometimes. They too crazy.Them women will run you crazy, I tell you.They will if you don’t watch ‘em.Bradley: I try but they get to me sometimes.What about the Slop and the Hunch?(two dances Hasil pioneered)66go with you and do it.” I said okay. So Itook them along and people just went wild.They could really do it. I tell you I ain’tseen nobody dance the way they coulddance. They was good at it.Bradley: What’s it mean, the Hunch? I’veheard things, but I want to hear it for real.Hasil: Don’t feel bad. That judge over atCharlotte, big judge, he didn’t know what itwas. My lawyer had to tell him. He said,“Can you believe he didn’t? He’s eighty oreighty-two years old and said he don’t evenknow what the Hunch is.” He said, “Oh, thesecretary had to go tell him what it was.”Bradley: What about younger bands? Yougot a Bob Log III picture on the wall.Hasil: I met him in LA. We played at thatrecord shop. I can’t think of the name of it,but it’s a big record shop. He opened up forus when we was up there putting on shows,and playing that record shop and everything.Bradley: Was it Amoeba?Hasil: I don’t know. I can’t remember. Ibeen through so much, man. It’s hard toremember anything. It was a big recordshop, though, a real big one. We had a ballthere. That’s were I met him at. I’d heardabout him, but that’s where I met him.Bradley: He’s good, huh?Hasil: He smoke that pot like it’s going outof style. I said, “You smoke up?” He said,“Yeah, buddy.” Have you met him?Bradley: Through some friends of mine,the Immortal Lee County Killers. Theyplayed with him in LA and I met him.Hasil: You met Bob Log? What’d you thinkof him?Bradley: Well, I’d never seen him playbefore and my buddy JR says, “Bradley,this is Bob. Bob, this is Bradley,” and I said,“Pleased to meet you,” and then I walkedaround front and he came out on stage in ajump suit with a motorcycle helmet on, andstarted out all boom boom boom boomboom…sometime this coming week. My girlfriendsaid, “Yeah, they told me where they gonnabe up there.” They’re friends of mine.They’re crazy with what they do. I’ve seenthem on TV a lot. They’re on the late showsa pretty good bit.Bradley: You ever been on TV?Hasil: Uh huh. Yeah, different channels,different disks, I couldn’t tell you what all.Bradley: I haven’t seen it but I’ve been toldabout a video.Hasil: The Wild World of Hasil Adkins,they call it. People like to hear it, they do.Everybody that’s seen it said, “I liked that.”Bradley: I was in LA and I tried to find it.You’d figure you could get it in LA.Hasil: It’s on the market. It’s pretty wild,but it’s pretty good.Bradley: When I talked to you on thephone a while back, you said you beenworking. What all you been working on?Hasil: Everything. I’m a mechanic a lot. Iworked on a lot of cars, but it’s too hard.I’m getting up in years. I work on themsometimes, just not too much. I’m mostlyworking on this big room with a twelve totwenty piece band. Buddy, that’s a full-timejob trying to figure out how to play it alland that’s all at the same time.Bradley: You want anything from thestore?Hasil: You could get about a twelve pack ofbeer, Budweiser. That don’t make me feeltoo bad. Sometimes it don’t. When you goout, go down the road, right down there onyour right. It ain’t too far down.Bradley: My buddy one time told me thatBudweiser stood for “Because U DeserveWhat Every Individual Should EnjoyRegularly.” Budweiser.Hasil: This is about the best beer you canget. Everybody drinks it.Bradley: My friend Megan said that in thatvideo you was jumping on a car for percussion,and she wanted to know how youfound out that a car made the perfect per-