“Cop Kisser”: in which Bobby Joe Ebola gets drunk, calls ACAB
Howdy folks! It’s your old pal Dan from Bobby Joe Ebola and the Children MacNuggits, continuing with our series profiling a different song each week. You can check out our entire catalog of songs in just about any format you can think of, by clicking this link.
Speaking of profiling, this week we’re focusing our mental klieg lights on “Cop Kisser”, a song off of 2012’s Trainwreck to Narnia. Written during the height of the Occupy Wall Street protests, “Cop Kisser” is not so much a protest song as a taunt, aimed at the hyperaggressive masculinity that is normally associated with cops and those who line up behind them to cravenly slobber upon their thin blue lines.
The idea for the song sprang out of Corbett’s head, partly in response to arguments with a family member whose views simultaneously included homophobia and a knee-jerk worship of State power that bordered on the homoerotic. Corbett had most of the lyrics sorted out by the time he read them to me; we had a lot of fun fine-tuning them while we cobbled the music together:
In hot pursuit, ready to shoot
Lights & sirens blazing
Slow it down, turn it around
What I got for you is amazing
Don’t pat me down or read my rights
’Cause I got one thing on my mind tonight
I’m a Cop Kisser — Give it right on the lips
I’m a Cop Kisser — I wanna see your CHiPs
I’m a Cop Kisser — I like the boys in blue
I’m a Cop Kisser — And I wanna go downtown with you
You’ve got a loaded gun and a searchlight on
I’m hoping you’re right behind me
I’m over here and I think it’s clear
I want you to do more than fine me
Don’t pat me down or read my rights
’Cause I got one thing on my mind tonight
I’m a Cop Kisser — Give it right on the lips
I’m a Cop Kisser — I wanna see your CHiPs
I’m a Cop Kisser — I like the boys in blue
I’m a Cop Kisser — And I wanna go downtown…
Turn off the lights
Don’t need no civilian oversight
Tonight you forget your training
On the BART train
Wanna feel your stick up in my brain
And the pain
Of your pepper sprayin’
I’m a Cop Kisser — Give it right on the lips
I’m a Cop Kisser — I wanna see your CHiPs
I’m a Cop Kisser — I like the boys in blue
I’m a Cop Kisser — And I wanna go downtown
On you
In our world, any song that antagonizes homophobes, cops and bootlickers at the same time is a win-win-win.
One thing to understand about this song (and about the band in general) is how much the political and cultural realities of Oakland, CA played into our daily lives. Eager to escape the dreary working-class suburbs we’d chafed under as kids, we’d both moved to Oakland in 1998, and we quickly became immersed in its rich tapestry of radical culture. Not that we were important figures or leaders in any of that; but our band gave us a unique vantage point at the intersection of art and activism. The fact that we didn’t fit neatly in with any particular scene or genre meant we played shows & shared malt liquor with all kinds of people, and were exposed to all kinds of political philosophies and counterculture forces. Our liminal place at the fringes of the punk scene was, it turned out, a great opportunity to learn — and to unlearn the parochial, toxic lessons we’d absorbed growing up. We’re grateful to the many punks, hippies, revolutionaries and artists who patiently introduced us to a diverse culture of resistance — and Oakland has always been a hotbed of radical culture. There were a lot of widely differing ideologies, and vigorous arguments flying in all directions. But there was one action item upon which nearly everyone agreed: Fuck the Cops.
By 2011, The Great Recession was in full swing, and when the Occupy Wall Street protests began, Oakland quickly became one of the focal points of a burgeoning global movement. With both rampant economic inequality and a police force so notorious for corruption and racist violence that it was under Federal oversight, Oakland had a lot to say about injustice.
Occupy activists took over Frank Ogawa Plaza in front of City Hall, renaming it Oscar Grant Plaza in a livid tribute to the young black man executed in 2009 by a transit officer at an Oakland BART station, one of many such killings by law enforcement against the black and brown communities in Oakland. Grant’s killing and the subsequent trial of his killer became a flashpoint for protests, and the anger began to boil over. It seemed like there were marches every week, and frequently these ended in rowdy clashes with the cops. Some late nights I would bike home from shows through dissipating clouds of tear gas, past cars & dumpsters on fire, past small cadres of masked black-clad renegades running down Broadway, the sound of sirens waxing & waning in the distance. When I had the luxuries of time and proximity, I actively participated in marches, but rebellion was all around whether you chose to participate or not. More than once I got locked into local watering holes when violent clashes migrated in our direction and the bartenders shut the doors to keep the fighting outside.
Often at these demonstrations and standoffs with the cops, you’d hear clever little bits of doggerel being chanted to keep the crowd fired up (and to goad or demoralize the cops hiding behind stormtrooper armor and plexiglass riot shields). One that stuck with Corbett and I was “YOU’RE SEXY, YOU’RE CUTE, TAKE OFF YOUR RIOT SUIT!” At first, it seemed like a jokey taunt, especially when shouted by dozens of exultant (and often quite attractive) young women. But when one considers revolutionary history, the moment when the State’s armed goons switch sides is pregnant with transformative potential. The first step of any revolutionary moment, no matter how unlikely or astonishing, is to imagine it. So the mere act of planting that thought in the cops’ heads, as they stood there sweating in their armor hour after hour, the thought of taking off their riot gear, throwing down their shield and gun, and joining the masses of their fellow citizens to wild cheers and embraces, just forcing those cops to contemplate their choice of breaking their oaths at the cusp of revolution, it was a subversive thought grenade they had to dive upon with every new chant.
It just so happens that the world is currently being roiled by clashes between protesters and the machinery of State violence, clashes that could very easily end in either bloody crackdowns, revolutions, or both. In at least a dozen countries, people are fed up and are facing down police and military forces daily in ways and places far more perilous than Occupy ever was. One thinks about the images of defiance in Iraq, Hong Kong, and elsewhere, and wonders what it would take for those cops to discard their riot shields and tear gas cannons, to unmask themselves and turn 180 degrees (physically AND ideologically) to join the swelling mobs of the voiceless and discontented. It’s hard for me to imagine that happening. But then, it’s hard to imagine being a cop willing to club or tase or shoot the people I’d sworn to protect.
There’s a sadistic element to law enforcement, particularly in times of civil unrest. One imagines cops must derive some kind of enjoyment from exerting power over others, and from inflicting fear and pain on civilians. You may never have experienced this personally, but in many marginalized communities in the US, the police might as well be an occupying army. A lot of cops clearly get off on their monopoly of violence, and the infliction of emotional or physical suffering. But what if we could flip the script? If you got off on State tyranny, would its goons still enjoy it? Or would they react the way Steve Martin’s dentist character did in Little Shop of Horrors when confronted with Bill Murray as a masoschistic patient, sneering in disgust as his sadism is reflected back on himself:
I’ll admit it, I’m scared of cops. When a cop walks into the same room as me with a gun on their hip, I know that my chances of being shot just went above zero. Though I rarely have reason to break laws these days, I still get that little chill up my spine when I see a highway patrol car in my rear view mirror. And when I drive past a cop’s flashing lights next to some poor sucker who’s been pulled over, I feel sympathy, but more than that, I feel relief, the the relief of a gazelle bounding away from a pride of lions huddled around one of its unlucky cousins. And along with that mix of helpless sympathy and self-preservation, a bit of shame. Why don’t I stop to help? What if this cop is one of the “bad ones”? Am I the last person to see this motorist or pedestrian free, or alive? Who knows? I’m just glad to get home safely and shut my doors and thank the dark gods that these carrion-birds of capitalism didn’t notice me this time.
And, I shouldn’t need to even mention this, but as a white male, I’m less likely to get stopped by a cop, and less likely to get arrested if I am. Living for 20 years in Oakland, I developed the habit of cop-watching, particularly when I saw a black or brown person being pulled over or detained; if I was riding by on my bike, or it was safe to stop my car, I’d watch from a safe vantage point, where whatever privilege I might have in this world was visible to the cop. No funny business, Officer Friendly. You lay your hands on my neighbor, and you’ll have a witness.
When I’d be at a house party getting busted for noise complaints, I could channel my grandfather and put up a smokescreen of ‘reasonable white guy’ bullshit. Cops would often come right up to me and ask if I was in charge. Because again, reasonable-looking white guy. So I used it. Oh, things are too loud? My goodness, officer, we’ll take care of that, so sorry you had to come all this way. No need for you to look inside the house, there are definitely no wasted queer teen runaways planning Satanic crimes in there, no siree. I don’t know if it helps much, but throwing my perceived privilege between cops and my community over the years probably kept a couple of people out of the back of a couple of cop cars. And that’s something.
Corbett and I were both big fans of legendary rapper Ice-T and his sometimes-so-bad-it’s-good metal band Body Count, and “Cop Kisser” is obviously at least a partial nod to their infamous song “Cop Killer”. Stylistically too, we were going for some of that late 80s metal that lay at the estuary of punk and thrash, a la Guns ’n’ Roses. The metal bands of that era were often pretty regressive in their outlook; let’s face it, metalheads in those days were often scarcely more than longhaired Brownshirts in acid-washed denim. It seemed a fitting juxtaposition to turn a genre associated with toxic heteronormativity on its head.
We had the extraordinary luck to be recording with our old friend Craig Billmeier at Dutch Oven Studio. In addition to being a studio sorcerer, Craigums also moonlighted as our lead guitarist for our full band shows (and in the studio, of course). He immediately got where we were trying to go with the song and helped us flailing acoustic musicians engineer a proper rock tune. Corbett and I both did our best to give our voices a nasty, grimy sexuality that we’d previously imagined you could normally only get from two pounds of cocaine and very tight spandex.
Anyway, where were we? Oh yes: ACAB. Forever and ever. Fuck the implied threat of State violence embodied in cops. But don’t fuck cops.
To listen to “Cop Kisser” and any of our other songs in nearly any format you might want, click here. Stay tuned for more deep dives into our songs, same time next week! Until then, friends and fans, be safe and smart; don’t commit more than one crime at a time if you can help it.
Love,
Dan & Corbett
