Big Black on MTV?

I know we’ve covered this twice already. But since I have a weird and vague, sideways personal connection to this story I feel like I need to chime in again. Big Black, by the way, was one of the highlights of the 25th anniversary of Touch and Go Records. Rob Dyrdek and Steve Albini? Now there’s a reality show I would watch.

This is about as close as you will ever get to seeing the real Big Black on MTV. The only thing doctored on this picture is the addition of Steve Albini’s head. My apologies to Steve.

If you check out the MTV site for the show it’s very apparent that they’ve already done this show at least once before. Hey, if it worked for Bam, (twice) why not again? I can just hear the marketing guy pitching it, “This time we’ll have more homo-erotic overtones, only not on purpose.” Seriously, check out the pics and watch the video. Both of those guys need to go out on a (separate) date or come out of the closet. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

So what’s my personal, vague and sideways connection to Steve Albini and Rob Dyrdek, niether of who would remember me? I was best man at a wedding for Doug Didjit where Albini was the ring bearer. I believe our only exchange was when he told me I needed a haircut. Later on at a yard sale for my silkscreen business we sold him a fun t-shirt that had “FAG” printed in neon pink block letters. Believe it or not, that used to cause confrontations. And Rob Dyrdek? In the late 80’s he used to run with the Surf Ohio crowd, only he was something like 12 years old and everyone called him “Mini Shred.” Anyway, they used to travel to central Illinois to enter our contests and we would go to the early Surf Ohio blowouts in Dayton.

I don’t know where Rob went wrong. The late Jymie George (Surf Ohio & Cow Skates) was always cool to us and seemed like a good chaperone. You can read a pretty funny bit about a guy who claims to not know who Dyrdek is, but had his hotel room after him and found some interesting garbage.