Kapusta Kristmas

These were called Al Kooper's Kapusta Kristmas albums, and they now cost a fortune on eBay. Due to their limited circulation and high appeal, back in the day, most people heard them on second-, third-, and fourth-generation cassettes, and so most people just called them "Al Kooper tapes." The Kooper tapes not only revealed the darker side of stars like Barry White, Buddy Rich, Casey Kasem, and Orson Welles but they also made a few stars of their own, such as the bluesy and quite probably boozy preacher Prophet Omega and the whacked-out and quite possibly cracked-out music business wannabe proprietor of J&H Productions.

Not only are these tapes huge hits as tour bus entertainment for rock and country stars but comedy writers in Hollywood certainly had access to the Kooper tapes. The running joke in The Simpsons wherein Bart goads Moe into vitriol-spewing rage by getting him to ask for patrons like Al Coholic and such was pretty much lifted verbatim from one of these albums, and Orson Welles' ill-fated frozen peas commercial was likewise borrowed in an episode of Pinky and the Brain. And on In Living Color, David Allen Grier and Tommy Davidson's Funky Finger Productions also seemed to owe a lot of its spirit to the aforementioned J&H Productions.

Hilarious, influential stuff. And now, you can have a Kapusta Kristmas without forking over the $100 the albums are going for on eBay or tracking down a bootleg tape and suffering the usually terrible audio quality — almost all of the best of the Kooper tapes have found their way online. We spent a good chunk of a recent week hunting most of them down, and here are some highlights:

Artist: Buddy Rich

Backstory

: This is perhaps the most infamous of these outtakes, at least in music circles. Rich was a helluva jazz drummer, but let's just say he seems to be a graduate of the Bobby Knight School of Anger Management and a sideman's worst nightmare, as this surreptitiously recorded tour bus tirade attests.

Excerpt: "What the fuck do you think is goin' on here? You had too many fuckin' days off and you think this is a fuckin' game!? You think I'm the only one that's gonna work up there while you motherfuckers sit out there and clam all over this fuckin' joint!? What do you think this is anyhow? What kind of playing do you think this is? What kinda miscues do you call this? What fuckin' band do you think you're playin' on, motherfuckers? You wanna fuck with me on the bandstand?... Shut that fuckin' door!"

Link: http://www.cis.rit.edu/~ejipci/ buddy_rich.htm

Artist: Barry White

Backstory

: The rotund loverman attempts to record a radio spot for a "bee-yoo-ti-ful weekend" at Paul Quinn College in Waco. White and his majestic baritone take umbrage with the copy he is asked to read.

Excerpt: "This asshole fucked these words up, man. I mean, he got words in here he don't even need!"

Link: http://www.campchaos.com/ show.php?iId=834

Artist: Casey Kasem

Backstory

: The "American Top 40" DJ and former voice of Shaggy vehemently disagrees with the song chosen as a lead-in to his discussion of the tragic death of an Ohio dog named Snuggles. Negativland recycled snippets of this rage and interspersed them with "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" on their multiple-lawsuit-inspiring song "U2."

Excerpt: "I want somebody to use his fucking brain to not come out of a goddamn record that is a... uptempo and I gotta talk about a fucking dog dying!"

Link: http://www.empty-handed.com /archive/2004_01_11.html

Artist: Orson Welles

Backstory

: Little is known about when this frozen peas/beefburgers/fish fingers ad was recorded, but rumor has it that it was in Canada in the late '60s. By that time in his life, Welles had fallen far from the Olympian heights of Citizen Kane and A Touch of Evil and was forced to record tawdry radio ads for frozen foods. Yet he remained utterly stentorian to the end, as this coldly savage attack on poorly written copy attests.

Excerpt: "That doesn't make any sense. Sorry. There's no known way of saying an English sentence in which you begin a sentence with 'in' and emphasize it. Get me a jury and show me how you can say 'In July' and I'll go down on you. That's just idiotic, if you'll forgive me my saying so. That's just stupid... 'In July'; I'd love to know how you emphasize 'In' in 'In July.' Impossible! Meaningless!"

Link: http://www.thefoodsection.com/appetizers/2005/04/ orson_welles_on.html