Do you put mayonnaise on your french fries?
Our first single is out in the world! Plus, you learn that I am, in fact, a MT kid.
Maybe it’s the slipperiness of mayonnaise. The viscous, cum-like, off-whiteness.
Or that in its most basic form it’s just emulsified egg yolk and oil - two rich, cholesterol raising enemies of health. Something about how gross it seems in theory, but how pleasing it is to our taste buds makes it a strangely controversial condiment. Combined with deep fried starch? Oh is that too indulgent? I want to know if you can handle that much grease. Because I am also delicious and overwhelming. I’ve had people ask if this is a pro-mayo or anti-mayo song. It’s a “Are we worth the potential heavy stomach and heartburn to follow?” song.
Next time you’re on a first date or making a new friend, ask them how they feel about mayonnaise. Weirdly, it’ll get you to the core of their personality. I’m just gonna say, I’ve never had good sex with picky eaters.
Freshman year of undergrad, our theater department did a production of The Last Five Years — a two-hander musical by Jason Robert Brown in which we follow a couple’s five year relationship. The twist is that you see the relationship from Jamie’s point of view from beginning to end and from Cathy’s point of view from end to beginning. Their timelines intersect once in the middle of the musical when Jamie proposes to Cathy. It shows how disconnected their relationship was, or something.
It was directed by our Art of the Theatre class’s professor, and in his class my friend said something to the effect of, “I was confused because I didn’t realize their timelines were going in opposite directions until the end.”
He responded, “Didn’t you read the director’s note in the program?”
I think art has somewhat of a responsibility to be self-evident but a little director’s note doesn’t hurt anybody.
I grew up loving the little booklets that came with my CDs, obsessively scoured the internet for queer and punk zines of the 80s and 90s on my journey to self-discovery, and have boxes and bags full of theater programs that I would never let Marie Kondo touch.
So of course, our first single, Mayonnaise, came with a little zine with a “director’s note” about the song (above).
(just as an aside, I’d like to give a shout out to MYSELF for the amount of work that went into all of this. I hand-drew and wrote the zine, and hand-collaged the cover art. Yes those are real fries that I meticulously lined up, and “Mayonnaise” is written in mayonnaise. The fries bag we’re emerging from is an actual McDonald’s small fries bag that I doctored up. And our bodies were individually cut out of photos I printed out. I know nobody asked me to be extra like this, but I put in a lot of thought and work into this release and I NEED IT TO BE KNOWN THANKS)
This song is as much about intimacy as it is about a condiment.
Or the fear of intimacy.
Being suspicious of vulnerability.
All of that packaged in a silly and catchy tune about food.
I honestly don’t think this song best represents our sound as a band - it’s kind of an anomaly, an extremely chill song in the midst of our other rockin’ and rollin’ songs. But of all the songs that we recorded for our upcoming EP, I think it’s best captures the ethos of first president of japan.
Since we’re on the musical theater train, there’s a line in one of my favorite musicals, A Strange Loop by Michael R. Jackson, where the protagonist who is trying to write a musical about a young gay Black man trying to write a musical about a young gay Black man trying to write a musical about a young gay Black man trying to write a musical etc. etc. etc. sings, “I’m into entertainment that’s undercover art” as (some) voices in his head demands explanation for why he isn’t successful yet.
And that line is the compass with which I focus my intuitive choices for first president of japan. (I am bad at strategy but my gut is attuned!) I identify as jester first, band logo second, and maybe singer third but that’s more of a codified title. It is extremely important to me that everything we do is a little bit stupid with a dash of confusing because that’s where tiny chasms in what we accept as reality can start to crack open. We want to catch you off guard while you’re thinking about mayonnaise.
I think it’s unfair and even masturbatory for me to always be doing metaphorical jazz hands while shrouding myself in haze and calling it art, expecting people to GET anything. Ask me sometime why so much of fpoj merch has my face on it. I will in earnest tell you it’s because I’m the logo of the band. Or, I’ll go on a whole rant about Walter Benjamin, Brechtian theater, and Simulacrum and Simulations blah blah blah, roll your die. That’s the sort of cognitive dissonance that I hope Mayonnaise offers.
It’s just important for my future theater students to understand that in this love story between my brain and heart, Silliness’s timeline moves chronologically and Pretention’s timeline moves backwards. Their timelines intersect in the middle at first president of japan.
Thank you to everyone who’s bought a “physical copy” (a lighter that comes with the zine) of Mayonnaise your support and $$ mean SO MUCH TO US.
If you want to listen to it, we’re streaming everywhere! Here’s a Spotify embed because that’s what I use…
But better yet, you can buy the track and support us on Bandcamp! Make sure to check out the mini doc shot and edited by Mark Benjamin!!
Thank you to you always for receiving my word vomits.
Now that we’ve got the ball rolling, more music and zines to come!
What else is up with fpoj??
On 4/6 we’re playing at 3 Dollar Bill, legendary queer night club in Bushwick at a fundraiser for Brooklyn Ghost Project hosted by Advocates for Trans Law Students at Fordham Law School!! I did not DREAM we’d get to play 3DB so soon, and to support such great orgs! Yuhhhh ✨
We’re playing a 4/20 showwww 💚💚💚💚 at King Killer Studio in Park Slope. Hardcore bands abound, get your earplugs and sneakers READY.
5/8 we will full circle come back to Bar Freda (if you remember, our debut show was on 5/2 last year, at Bar Freda!!) to kick off the beginning of Taurus season.
5/12 is my birthday and I love my birthday so please, mark your calendars 😜
We have more shows in May but I’ll share that in the next nonsense!
For now, I’m gonna go eat some fries…
Big Love,
Non