We’ve all said some embarrassing and ridiculous things in our life. Even more in not so flattering situations. The bulk of these ranting mad libs mostly end up in the back pages of our memory banks, at best becoming an inside joke for the cruel witnesses to bring up at any moment. Yes, it’s happened to all of us. Our brain’s filter shuts down and for better or worse we run our mouth through the inappropriate and nonsensical stream of consciousness that’s tossed aside any form of judgment. For many good reasons, we try hard to leave the filter on, but what if you could naturally control it and without any help just let the brain go? It takes a strange creative talent to do so, and a couple of them to come up with what we now know as the video behind “Drinking Out of Cups”.
As the story goes, in 2002 Baltimore’s nerdy electro-wizard Dan Deacon recorded the monologue while watching a muted TV, commenting on and lambasting everything he saw. With a comically exaggerated Long Island accent, he introduces you to his various characters like the Tree Meister and Johnny Hammersticks who are either welcomed or cursed with no warning or reason. What’s even more odd is the hostile tone that’s taken as he calls out to everything he sees in a “who the hell are you?” kind of way. This rambling titled “Drinking Out of Cups” would end up on his 2003 debut record Meetle Mice, but it wouldn’t be for another three years that the majority of the world would learn of it.
As a fan, musician and pseudo-comedian Liam Lynch knew well of Deacon’s train of thought monologue. In 2006, with the power of a roughly crafted gecko and You Tube, he used Deacon’s rant and created one of the biggest viral videos of that year. After the release, rumors surfaced that Deacon might have recorded “Cups” with the help of LSD, but he was quick to deny them because yes, he is naturally that ridiculous.
While the fabricated context of how it all went down will always be up or debate, the resulting video is too randomly hilarious not to watch. All the characters aren’t meant for anything more than to enhance the randomness that ensues, with what’s mentioned on the recording appearing as the video plays. Although it derives itself from two very influential musicians, what you’ll see has nothing to do with actual music; instead, it only attests to the brilliant idiocy that can come from such creative minds, one that lies dormant in all of us until the right catalyst sets it off. We’ve all yelled at and mocked what’s on the television, but never like this.
