Super Party-Boy Has Advice for Young People with "Right-Wing *ssholes" for Parents

Via MKH with a big hat tip to Lisa DePasquale.

AndrewWK is not the kind of guy you'd guess to be a thoughtful man. His songs, which I never heard of before, include "Party Hard" and "We Want Fun." Thus, it is unlikely he will be accused of plagiarism, as was the writer of True Detective, and then claim he got these ideas from Schopenhauer.

His life philosophy is entirely organized around the idea of "party." His twitter feed offers readers dubious "Party Tips:"

He also offers dubious grammar, asking questions such as "Are you party?" or even:

So you wouldn't guess that he had a great deal to say, apart from Party. And, given his perch as an advice writer for the Village Voice, you could see the makings of catastrophe when a reader wrote this to him:

My Dad is a Right-Wing Asshole

Hi Andrew,

I'm writing because I just can't deal with my father anymore. He's a 65-year-old super right-wing conservative who has basically turned into a total asshole intent on ruining our relationship and our planet with his politics. I'm more or less a liberal democrat with very progressive values and I know that people like my dad are going to destroy us all. I don't have any good times with him anymore. All we do is argue...

Don't get me wrong, I love him no matter what, but how do I explain to him that his politics are turning him into a monster, destroying the environment, and pushing away the people who care about him?

Thanks for your help,
Son of A Right-Winger

So you can see where this is probably going.

But it didn't go there.

Instead, it went somewhere pretty thoughtful and even, if I can say so, important.

Dear Son of A Right-Winger,

Go back and read the opening sentences of your letter. Read them again. Then read the rest of your letter. Then read it again. Try to find a single instance where you referred to your dad as a human being, a person, or a man. There isn't one. You've reduced your father -- the person who created you -- to a set of beliefs and political views and how it relates to you. And you don't consider your dad a person of his own standing -- he's just "your dad." You've also reduced yourself to a set of opposing views, and reduced your relationship with him to a fight between the two. The humanity has been reduced to nothingness and all that's left in its place is an argument that can never really be won. And even if one side did win, it probably wouldn't satisfy the deeper desire to be in a state of inflamed passionate conflict.

The world isn't being destroyed by democrats or republicans, red or blue, liberal or conservative, religious or atheist -- the world is being destroyed by one side believing the other side is destroying the world. The world is being hurt and damaged by one group of people believing they're truly better people than the others who think differently. The world officially ends when we let our beliefs conquer love. We must not let this happen....

When we truly believe that some people are monsters, that they fundamentally are less human than we are, and that they deserve to have less than we do, we ourselves become the monsters...

Love your dad because he's your father, because he made you, because he thinks for himself, and most of all because he is a person. Have the strength to doubt and question what you believe as easily as you're so quick to doubt his beliefs. Live with a truly open mind -- the kind of open mind that even questions the idea of an open mind. Don't feel the need to always pick a side. And if you do pick a side, pick the side of love. It remains our only real hope for survival and has more power to save us than any other belief we could ever cling to.

Your friend,
Andrew W.K.

I cut out a bunch of paragraphs in the middle bits, because fair use won't let me quote the whole thing, but those paragraphs are also great.

So, it turns out I labeled him based on knowing practically nothing at all, and it turned out I was wrong.

Below, "Party Hard."

You can't blame me for guessing he was going to be a dummy.

Though now that I see his letter, he does in fact paraphrase Nietzche, on that monster-hunting business.

He also seems to be pushing a Christ-like Love They Neighbor/Mote in Thine Own Eye message, without explicitly saying so.

And his songs are kind of fun, in a Plastic Beer Cup and Head Bob way.

He's got a good spirit. I'm instantly a fan.

From RedEye: One of his appearances on Gutfeld's & Levy's show.

posted by Ace at 11:59 AM

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