The Emotron

(originally published Nov. 2011)

I’ve a story I like to tell. It’s a band story, a bar story. Out of all the weird things that have happened to me, this one stands out for its Ozzy Osborne-like weirdness. I’ve been meaning to get it down in text for several years — for posterity if for no other reason.

Frankly, I’m not sure if it works in any other format besides standing around at 2 AM, slightly intoxicated, and regaling friends with interesting personal stories. I’m going to give it a go, though.

So without further disclaimers, let me tell you about The Emotron. This story is textually Not Safe For Work.

It was 2007 or so. I was living in downtown Goshen, IN and had been frequenting a local bar, the Constant Spring. One day I headed down for a weekly get-together with friends to play darts and I happened to notice a posted bill in the window. Something about DJ so and so with special guest The Emotron. I paused and looked at the date, because at the time I had been watching a lot of turntablists on Youtube, and was keen on seeing a live act.

I made a mental note of it, and later I called up my friend, Alec. “Hey man, we should hang out at the Spring on Friday. There’s going to be some bands and stuff, but what I’m interested in is the DJ. I’d like to see if it’s a turntable guy. … I don’t know, I think he’s called ‘Emotron’ or something. If it sucks we can leave.” You’ll note I have a bad memory for names, sometimes.

So Friday rolled around and I showed up for some food at the bar before the show. Alec arrived, and it turned out that the DJ was not, in fact, named “Emotron”. He was just some guy. And mainly he played background music. Disappointing. We decided to stay and see if the bands were any good. We picked a table near the stage and grabbed some popcorn and a couple beers.

A guy came out. His act was called Mose Giganticus. He had a stack of electronic equipment, a keytar, and some effects pedals. Mainly it was generic electronica — worth a download maybe. After he played his set (on the floor in front of the stage, mind you) he took off but left the equipment. Smattering of applause from the small crowd that had gathered in a semicircle in front of the stage, enveloping Alec and me at our table.

Next came The Emotron.

The Emotron was a tall, lanky guy with sort of Buddy Holly glasses, a cowboy hat, boots, I think a scarf, and button-down cowboy shirt replete with mother of pearl buttons. He looked as if he were about to go line-dancing. My internal monologue basically went, “Okay, I guess he’s taking the Ironic Trucker Hat thing to the next level. Stage 2 Hipster or something.”

One last detail: I couldn’t quite tell for sure but in the dimness of the stage’s shadow it appeared as if The Emotron was extremely and uncomfortably well endowed. Or his pants were way too tight. Or both. Not that I pay attention to a man’s junk that often, but this was unavoidably noticeable.

Anyway, he starts his set and as he’s singing he starts to sweat under the lights and with all the dancing. He was pretty active as he sang. More electronic music, hard to understand. He used Mose Giganticus’ equipment, minus the keytar. As he was singing he removed his hat and his scarf.

He started the next song, and this time as he sang he unbuttoned and then removed his cowboy shirt, revealing a sort of shiny blue spandex shirt, underneath. Pink and purple swooshes in places, indicating it came from the 80s. I glanced at Alec uncertainly. Alec shrugged with a “well you’ll have that” kind of look on his face.

The next song started, the crowd had gotten thicker around us. It was a little hot and noisy and you really couldn’t hear what he was singing through the distortion. Alec and I were still sitting at our table, cause it really wasn’t a stand-up-and-rock-out kind of set for either of us. The Emotron started to remove his pants.

This answered two questions for me: 1) it was not a strange spandex shirt but was, in fact, a leotard, and 2) The Emotron really was embarrassingly huge. Actually, kind of like he needed to see a doctor about it, because his groin projected a good, I don’t know… 6″ in a general lumpy mass on the front of his pants.

He continued his song. The crowd was still present.

The next song he removed his leotard.

At this point it’s sort of fuzzy for me where he removed what piece of clothing and if it was a per-song thing or he started grouping items together. All I know is he removed the leotard and it turned out he was wearing bright red women’s panties over something like tighty-whities. Also, thankfully he wasn’t an elephantiasis victim, but in fact had simply glued the face of a doll to his crotch. At some point he removed that, perhaps while singing, “As Your Teenage Vagina Bleeds”. Then his socks.

I was struck with a sense of helpless inevitability, and a fearful premonition.

Last, but not least, The Emotron removed his tighty-whities, and all beheld the glory of his crotch. It was sort of incredible. Like, I’ve never been to a strip-club or anything like that, so I was unprepared to just be looking at a nude person all of a sudden. Kind of shocking in its ordinariness. Suddenly penis.

There he danced in resplendent glory, a sheen of sweat coating his body. People in the crowd, strangely, cheered him on. The music was loud and frenetic. I didn’t know what was going on, was this legal, would cops come soon? Ultimately, as his song wound to a close The Emotron grabbed a can of Aquanet from the sideboard, a lighter, sprayed his crotch down and then set his penis on fire.

This is one of the most singular events I have ever witnessed. To this day I’m still parsing it — nothing in my history or anything I’ve heard ever prepared me for a man rather casually setting his penis on fire. And it wasn’t even like he made a big deal out of it. He did it with the same panache and humdrum normalcy as one would shine shoes. He just kind of, you know, did it.

Apparently it hurt a bit because he quickly brushed the flames out. But then he did it again. Then tossed his lighter into the audience, where it landed in our popcorn basket. Seriously.

So that was the end of his show.

I kind of don’t like to add the denoument to this story because it sort of distracts from the main event of Flaming Penis, but I can’t not tell it since the event is a single unit, formed of excruciating memory; I cannot sunder it, the story is a whole piece. Alec turned to me and said, “I’m going to take his lighter back to him.”

I stay at the table and watch as Alec goes up to where The Emotron’s apparent groupies/friends are congratulating him and basking. Alec insinuates himself, gestures to the table, holds up the lighter and says some things. Suddenly an arm is around his shoulder. The Emotron says something to Alec.

When Alec returned the report he gave was roughly: “I told him his lighter landed in our popcorn and I wanted to give it back to him”

To which The Emotron replied, “Thanks man. I have a good feeling about this lighter. You know, when you love something you should set it free. And I set this lighter free. But it came back to me, and you did that. So thank you. I’ve got a good feeling about this lighter.”

Alec stated that all the while he could feel mansweat penetrating the shirt on his shoulders.

At that point I needed a smoke so we went outside. This is the really weird thing about this story — No one was acting as if anything was amiss. Alec and I were debriefing, trying to make sense of what we just saw, and all the other bar-goers were laughing, talking about this party or that, what are your plans for tomorrow, etc. No one was talking about the man who just set his crotch on fire.

I even yelled at the people outside, “Did you guys see what we saw? Did you see the man set his penis on fire?” They all just laughed as if I were a drunk dude or something. But in fact it turns out that only maybe 20 people actually saw the event in question. The crowd was sizeable, but visibility was low since we were all at the same level on the floor. The bar owner had no idea what was going on.

There’s this kind of seminal event, totally outside any realm of experience, and it’s almost like a made-up story. No one talks about it, and that makes me doubt my own memory sometimes. But I’m comforted by the fact that Alec was there to corroborate. He tells it a little differently with flare at different spots, but the gist is the same.

Anyway, that’s The Emotron Story. You cannot unlearn what you have learned.