Pillsbury Dough Face

There are exactly two things I like about John Mayer.

1. Reading interviews he has done or quotes he has quipped that validate my humble opinion that he is a raging dickwad.

2. His guitar face.



I have never liked John Mayer. I remember when "I wanna run through the halls of my high school, I wanna scream at the toppa my lungs!" came out and I thought it would be the pop song of the summer that adult contemporary fans would love. You know, a song along par with "Breathless" by the Corrs. "Bleeding Love" by Leona Lewis. Or something edgy, like "Clocks" by Coldplay! I figured he'd be a one hit wonder, at best, and that would be that.

Then that atrocity "Your Body Is A Wonderland" came out and all bets were off. My revolting roommate at the time who was a raging slut loved this song, and would play it every weekend while she reminisced about the last random dong she had taken inside of her. So that's one thing. The other is the lyric "your bubblegum tongue." I'm a very visual person, and I tend to see imagery in a very cartoonish style at times, so imagining John Mayer chewing on my slutty roommates tongue like a wad of Hubba Bubba grossed me out, to put it mildly.



So his first record comes out, we get the class reunion song, bubble gum tongue song, and maybe one other single on the charts and it's decidedd: this dough boy is the king of easy listening. No big deal. A lot of musicians make a decent living this way. Barry Manilow, for example. Or Peabo Bryson.

But NOOOO! John Mayer now has to tell the world incessently from that point on in 2002 until about 5 minutes ago that's not his deal. That's not his sound. This man is a blues guitarist! He swears to God!!

I ponder this and I wonder about those other people from the celebrity past who has insisted to be known as one thing when we, their public, know them as what they really are.

Perfect example: Jennifer Love Hewitt.



How many articles did you read on her in the late 90's or early 00's where she'd swear that people only referred to her as "Love?" I can think of several dozen. The journalist would be like, "We met up with Jennifer Love Hewitt inside the lobby of the Chateau Marmont (but really, those closest to her refer to her as only Love)..." and seriously? No they did not. This was a poorly executed publicity thing where you know Jenny's agent was confirming an interview with Sassy or something and saying that her rider included diet coke, sun chips, and a mention in the article to please please please call her Love.

I'm not buying it!

Another example: Puff Daddy.



First he was Puff Daddy, and to his friends, Puff. Then he was on trial for attempted murder and J Lo dumped him, and to make the public forget that he somehow got off without a scratch while Shyne took the heat for him, he changes his nickname to P. Diddy. He claims it's because that is what Biggie called him, but hello? Nobody asked you where the origin of the nickname came from, we merely wondered why you changed it. It's not going to make us forget you were on trial for attempted murder.

Then he switched it to Diddy. How do I know this? I think he held a press conference about it or something. Or he made an announcement before an episode of Making The Band, I'm not sure. Anyway. You're name is Sean Combs. Stick with that, it's the nicest sounding name of all.




John Mayer decided to show us all that he was a heavy rock 'n roller with his second album so he cleverly named it Heavier Things. Singles included "Bigger Than My Body" which is a dorky song to say the least and "Daughters" which is a ballad about birthing babies. Heavy.

It was about this time around that the John Mayer Is A Cheeseball backlash began. I would hear all these people, fans of Mayer, argue that he is really not a pop star. He is really a blues guitarist. And allegedly a really good one. And for a second I believed it, in fact I almost left an FYE with a John Mayer LP because the guy who worked there helped me find a Pet Shop Boys import which led to a really smart discussion about new wave bands I'd never heard of and wanted to download when I got home was a JM fan and he almost convinced me to buy Heavier Things. Almost. Sorry for that run on sentence. Onward.

Then I start reading John Mayer articles and I see the same thing I saw with Jenny Love; the writer always bringing up how the dude is a balls out thrashing riffing rip roaring blues guitarist.

His third record gives us the single "Waiting on the World to Change" which won a Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocalist. Quite petulantly I rest my case.

Then he disappeared for awhile, and started dating Jessica Simpson Sexual Napalm and hanging out with Pete Wentz and he emerged with Travis Barker style full sleeve tattoos and Tyler Durden hair. It was then my dislike turned in to downright loathing, but two things very quickly made all the animosity go away. One was the preposterous things he said in interviews. I didn't read the Playboy one, but the Rolling Stone article was enough to make me want to choke him sadistically.

The second of course, are his guitar faces.