Fat Day Singer `Moves Kind of Funky'

Pakulski, Matthew D. Harvard '94. Height: 5'7" Weight: 155 lbs. From Holworthy, Dunster, the Fat Day House in Somerville, and Cape Cod. Began college as a math major and ended up doing a special concentration--Music for Theater and Film. Likes hanging out with this year's freshmen because "they're not yet so poisoned by Harvard" Sweet, occasionally dorky, and oftentimes overtly obnoxious.

Less than a week ago, my entire relationship with Matt consisted of calling each other by names other than our own. We knew each other's real names, but for some reason had taken to calling each other "Fred" and "Bob" on the infrequent occasions when our paths would cross. "Hi Fred," I would say. "he Bob," Matt would reply. "How ya doing John," I would continue, and so on until one or both of us got bored.

"It's not entirely clear how this ritual got started, but I remember that it definately began in the Union. maybe not specifically when Matt was hawking peanuts and popcorn during "Opening Day" day, but I remember that incident quite well. I ate in the now-defunct smoking room all year, and on "Opening Day" day, Matt was dressed in a red and blue striped uniform that said Harvard Dining Services or something on it with a big sack full of peanuts and popcorn. He stood in the front of the smoking room, screaming at full volume, "Peanuts! Popcorn! Get yer peanuts and popcorn here!" It was quite a sight.

Now, after more than six hours of interviews, this is just one of my many stories concerning Matt, stories so strange, so twisted, so perverse, that only the brave should read on.

Matt Pakulski, The Educated Asshole

It was Fat Day's first concert as such (the band was previously called the Anything Family) and lead-singer Pakulski, guitarist Doug DeMay, drummer Zak Sitter and original bassist Kurt Rosencrantz (who has since been replaced by Arik Grier) were ripping through their set in the Adams House Junior Common Room. Fat Day can only play for half an hour at a time--their mind-bendingly frenetic pace precludes playing for any longer--and about halfway through the set, Pakulski announced that he was going to do something "a little bit different."

Now this was around the beginning of second semester last year, and the rag, Harvard's short-lived ultrafeminist journal, had just run a picture of a woman's vagina, with litcigarette inserted, propped up on a stack of books (such as Moby Dick). The picture was titled "The Educated Pussy" and had caused a small-to-medium-sized stir on campus, as well as some great Crimson editorial cartoons.

"This is my performance art piece," Pakulski announced to the assembled crowd. "The Educated Asshole." He dropped his pants and bent over, and DeMay proudly inserted a lit cigarette into Pakulski's ass.

Perhaps most widely recognized as the lead singer of the punk rock band Fat Day. Also well known as a Science Center technician and an Escort Service driver. (It was Matt, incidentally, who, while he was recording Science B-15, used to shake the camera every time E.O. wilson talked about sex.) Favorite class at Harvard was Music 178ar, Ivan Tcherepnin's "Composition in the Digital Electronic Medium." Maximum Rock `n' Roll magazine described his singing on the first Fat Day single as "a really young male or a female with great vocals."

Fuck you in a friendly sort of way

Watching Mart sing is a little bit likewatching a disgusting, hyperactive little kidperform in front of you. He prowls around stage,bunched over the two microphones he has tapedtogether. He screams and chortles and snarls andoccasionally sings his way through Fat Day's sets,grabbing his balls, pulling his hair, yelling'fuck you' at random people in the audience. Healso often will yell 'fuck you' in the middle ofthe street, but in a friendly sort of way.

A friend of Matt's in high school explains whyhis nickname was (and sometimes continues to be)Squid. "Squids move kind of funkey," the friendsays. In concert, Matt moves kind of funky. Hisbody seems to be knotting up and releasing spasmsof energy in waves.

Explaining his singing style, Matt offers: "Ibasically have all of the energy [of Dough DeMay]and none of the discipline. I can't focus. Sosinging is perfect for me because I can justscream my lungs out."

Smokes pot daily. First got high with hisfreshman year roommate who is now an Orthodox Jew.Describes himself as a "lazy piece of shit." LikesSesame Street and bullhorns.

All American, Knute Rockne

Matt does not write a lot of Fat Day's songs,and some of the songs he has written he seems alittle sheepish about. ("Doug doesn't like a lotof the words I write," Matt says, "because I writea lot of stupid shit. But he respects some of thesongs I've written.") "Knute Rockne," a song fromFat Day's first 7" single, is a song that Mattwrote and is not sheepish about, a song withrather interesting origins.

"I was reading this book at my mom's house inCape Cod," Matt says. It's noon on a Wednesdayafternoon, and Matt is visibly high. His eyes, notnormally sparking and bright, are scrunched upinto little red balls. When I went up to his room,he came out giggling, and the whole Fat Day housesmelled of slightly stale pot smoke.

"It was called Prairie Earth, I think,by William Heat Moon or Half Moon or something.And there was a story in it about Knute Rockne andhow he was in a plane that collided in mid-airwith another plane. Everyone died, there were bodyparts everywhere, and since it took the ambulancelike an hour to get to the scene people pillagedthe seats and cushions. They might also havestolen body parts. They never found certain partsof Knute Rockne.

"So I wrote this song about the story called'Knute Rockne' and then junior year I realizedthat me and my friends called 'taking to coach'getting high, you know, like, 'Let's go talk tocoach,' or 'I just talked to coach.' So then Irealized that Knute Rockne was a coach and somaybe the song was subconsciously about pot.

"You know, whenever I go home, I can never findthat passage in the book."

Single white male. Favorite recreationaldrug is Robitussin. ("The main problem is that youoften puke like an hour after you do it whichmeans you lose it.") Favorite music in high schoolwas pink Floyd, Meatloaf, and the over to oneside.

Bagpipes, etc.

Matt and I are sitting in his bedroom on thesecond floor of the Fat Day House; there are pilesof clothes and CDs on the floor, and a cat issitting in the window.

"I always want to hear some music," Matt says,pushing around a pile to CDs. "Oftentimes I don'teven know what I want to listen to." Matt has 500CDs. "I have a hard time picking out music." Hedecides on a disc of the Peking Opera Company. "Igot this at Briggs and Briggs. They have a lot ofweird music there."

Matt is constantly surrounded by music. Heplayed the bagpipes for years, although now theymainly just sit in his closet. He is alwaysexperimenting. Music, playing and performingmusic, is his passion. "I like to drive a lot," hesays, as a man in the Perking Opera emits a seriesof short bark-like screeches. "But performing isreally what I love to do. A lot of time when youget caught up won't know what's going on you'rejust doing it. That's the best part aboutperforming--the more you can separate yourselffrom thinking about what you're doing and just becompletely doing it, the better it is."

Past jobs include stints as a Papa Gino'sdelivery boy; a produce truck driver, ababysitter, and a Freshman Union worker. Careerambitions are to play with Fat Day for a year ortwo and possible because I'll have a degree fromHarvard. Just got to keep paying the bills." Lovesto drive and therefore wants to get a job drivinga taxi.

Total Facial Reconstruction

Any discussion of Matt would need to take intoaccount his intense appreciation for almostcomically graphic violence. I wish I didn't haveto take this into account; I have a weak stomach.

But in my first interview with Matt, he showedme his favorite book--Total FacialReconstruction, by Richard Start, M.D. Itcontains the most disturbing, grotesque pictures Ihave ever seen, page after page of unflinchinglyclinical photos of people whose faces have beenmangled beyond recognition. These shots areaccompanied by case histories and the appropriate"after" shots, being after, as it were, a skingraft from the armpit to the cheek or the removalof a bone aberrantly protruding from some poorsoul's chin. The introduction says that it "is nota book to save or keep on the shelf. It deservescare ful reading by the practicing plastic andreconstructive surgeon." Indeed.

Matt had told me that the book was kept on thefloor in the bathroom, and laughed as I doubledover, trying to get me to look at a "great shot"of a young girl who had undergone a series ofoperations that lasted over five years.

"This band--we've always liked gory low-budgethorror films, like 'Pieces' or 'Demons.' We're allpretty into blood and gore." Matt tries to get meto look at a picture of someone whose arm wasamputated and then grafted on to his face. "Thisis great. Here, look at this. This stuff is great.

"You know, there's a Simpsons episodewhere Homer needs to watch a video about drunkdriving and it's a spoor, really gory and violent.And there's a pan of the audience and everyone isvery disgusted except for Homer, who's laughing,and then they show his thoughts and he's saying'That's funny because it's not me.' I don't knowthese people. It kind of sucks but I'm glad it'snot happening to me.

"Maybe that's where the music comes from. U.S.all being really into horror movies. I think whatbrought us all together movies and punk rock inthe Dunster House world consider being into thesethings."

In his senior year of high school, his localnewspaper, the Harwich Oracle, ran a featuretitled" What doesn't Matt Pakulski do?" "He ranksNo. 1 in his class," the lead read. "He'sreceived an award for academic excellence from theMassachusetts Association of SchoolSuperintendents. You'll find he's a member ofalmost every organization from the schoolnewspaper to the math team."

Getting high on school nights

Even if Matt has not changed quite as radicallyas it might seem, he's undeniably different fromthe strangely nerdy thespian who came to Harvard."I started smoking pot in college," Matt offers byway of explanation for his evolution.

(In addition to the currently Orthodox Jew whofirst got Matt high, Matt lived with a motleycollection of people, who he describes as: theformer managing editor of the Crimson, aborn-again Christian, an intellectual freak, aGlee Club member and a "Korean fascist".)

Matt never did any drugs in high school, andeven freshman year was much more reserved in hisuse.

"Freshman year I would never get high on aschool night," Matt says, rolling a joint. "Andnow I get high every day."

He rearranges his fingers so as not to burnhimself and laughs. "One thing Harvard has taughtme is how to hold on to a joint for a long time."Doug, looking in the living room door as he goesdownstairs, snorts. "Yeah, great Matt," he says.

Still Matt acknowledges that even freshmanyear, he had moments of pure, unmitigatedobnoxiousness just for the sake of beingobnoxious.

"Once, David [the Orthodox Jew] and I wentthrough the Union and we were both kind ofdepressed and so we walked around to people andsaid "Excuse me, can I have your dessert?'

"And you know how people don't know how toreact to they said yes and then we smashed thedessert in our hands.

"I think they were having cake that night."

Grew up with his mother in Cape Cod. Hisbest friend from high school, Creighton Morris, isnow in the Navy and stationed in Japan.

Nasty, brutish, and short

Fat Day's music is, in a certain regard,celebratory music, if just for the passion andenergy involved in its production.

That is not to say that it is happy music; onefan likened Fat Day's songs to Hobbes' descriptionof life in the state of nature: nasty, bruits, andshort. "One theory is that Harvard made us angry,"Matt says of the intense rage that erupts out ofFat Day's music.

By the time most of you read this, Matt, aalong with Dough, Arik, and Zak, will have alreadyleft for the Fat Day summer tour. They leave theafternoon of graduation and will be on tour untilAugust 6.

There is a box of small fliers on the floor ofthe kitchen that reads: "FAT DAY really like you!We are a PUNK ROCK band from Boston, and we'll beon tour in June + July '94. Please send us mail(with your phone #) or call if you can help withshows. We need info on your local punk/undergroundvenue, or we'll play a show with your band in yetbasement if you do basement show...Thanks, Arik,Doug, Zak, Matt."

The tentative tour dates will take the band andtheir van, to Toronto, North Dakota, California,Texas, Kentucky, D.C., New York City and back. Asof last week Matt was just starting to make surethe van was in working order to transport the bandand all their equipment across the country.

"Everyone else has dealt with all their shit,"Matt says, pointing to DeMay, who is once again onthe phone making arrangements. "I really need tostart dealing too."

White Dough, Arik, and Matt will all drive (Zakdoesn't have a license), I suspect that it will beMatt who will enjoy the driving most. More thanmost people, he likes aimlessly moving down roads,likes exploring new places and seeing where a carwill take him. "Driving's really fun," Matt says."I like to drive and also to listen to music.Driving and music are the things I like to do.

Fuck you in a friendly sort of way

Watching Mart sing is a little bit likewatching a disgusting, hyperactive little kidperform in front of you. He prowls around stage,bunched over the two microphones he has tapedtogether. He screams and chortles and snarls andoccasionally sings his way through Fat Day's sets,grabbing his balls, pulling his hair, yelling'fuck you' at random people in the audience. Healso often will yell 'fuck you' in the middle ofthe street, but in a friendly sort of way.

A friend of Matt's in high school explains whyhis nickname was (and sometimes continues to be)Squid. "Squids move kind of funkey," the friendsays. In concert, Matt moves kind of funky. Hisbody seems to be knotting up and releasing spasmsof energy in waves.

Explaining his singing style, Matt offers: "Ibasically have all of the energy [of Dough DeMay]and none of the discipline. I can't focus. Sosinging is perfect for me because I can justscream my lungs out."

Smokes pot daily. First got high with hisfreshman year roommate who is now an Orthodox Jew.Describes himself as a "lazy piece of shit." LikesSesame Street and bullhorns.

All American, Knute Rockne

Matt does not write a lot of Fat Day's songs,and some of the songs he has written he seems alittle sheepish about. ("Doug doesn't like a lotof the words I write," Matt says, "because I writea lot of stupid shit. But he respects some of thesongs I've written.") "Knute Rockne," a song fromFat Day's first 7" single, is a song that Mattwrote and is not sheepish about, a song withrather interesting origins.

"I was reading this book at my mom's house inCape Cod," Matt says. It's noon on a Wednesdayafternoon, and Matt is visibly high. His eyes, notnormally sparking and bright, are scrunched upinto little red balls. When I went up to his room,he came out giggling, and the whole Fat Day housesmelled of slightly stale pot smoke.

"It was called Prairie Earth, I think,by William Heat Moon or Half Moon or something.And there was a story in it about Knute Rockne andhow he was in a plane that collided in mid-airwith another plane. Everyone died, there were bodyparts everywhere, and since it took the ambulancelike an hour to get to the scene people pillagedthe seats and cushions. They might also havestolen body parts. They never found certain partsof Knute Rockne.

"So I wrote this song about the story called'Knute Rockne' and then junior year I realizedthat me and my friends called 'taking to coach'getting high, you know, like, 'Let's go talk tocoach,' or 'I just talked to coach.' So then Irealized that Knute Rockne was a coach and somaybe the song was subconsciously about pot.

"You know, whenever I go home, I can never findthat passage in the book."

Single white male. Favorite recreationaldrug is Robitussin. ("The main problem is that youoften puke like an hour after you do it whichmeans you lose it.") Favorite music in high schoolwas pink Floyd, Meatloaf, and the over to oneside.

Bagpipes, etc.

Matt and I are sitting in his bedroom on thesecond floor of the Fat Day House; there are pilesof clothes and CDs on the floor, and a cat issitting in the window.

"I always want to hear some music," Matt says,pushing around a pile to CDs. "Oftentimes I don'teven know what I want to listen to." Matt has 500CDs. "I have a hard time picking out music." Hedecides on a disc of the Peking Opera Company. "Igot this at Briggs and Briggs. They have a lot ofweird music there."

Matt is constantly surrounded by music. Heplayed the bagpipes for years, although now theymainly just sit in his closet. He is alwaysexperimenting. Music, playing and performingmusic, is his passion. "I like to drive a lot," hesays, as a man in the Perking Opera emits a seriesof short bark-like screeches. "But performing isreally what I love to do. A lot of time when youget caught up won't know what's going on you'rejust doing it. That's the best part aboutperforming--the more you can separate yourselffrom thinking about what you're doing and just becompletely doing it, the better it is."

Past jobs include stints as a Papa Gino'sdelivery boy; a produce truck driver, ababysitter, and a Freshman Union worker. Careerambitions are to play with Fat Day for a year ortwo and possible because I'll have a degree fromHarvard. Just got to keep paying the bills." Lovesto drive and therefore wants to get a job drivinga taxi.

Total Facial Reconstruction

Any discussion of Matt would need to take intoaccount his intense appreciation for almostcomically graphic violence. I wish I didn't haveto take this into account; I have a weak stomach.

But in my first interview with Matt, he showedme his favorite book--Total FacialReconstruction, by Richard Start, M.D. Itcontains the most disturbing, grotesque pictures Ihave ever seen, page after page of unflinchinglyclinical photos of people whose faces have beenmangled beyond recognition. These shots areaccompanied by case histories and the appropriate"after" shots, being after, as it were, a skingraft from the armpit to the cheek or the removalof a bone aberrantly protruding from some poorsoul's chin. The introduction says that it "is nota book to save or keep on the shelf. It deservescare ful reading by the practicing plastic andreconstructive surgeon." Indeed.

Matt had told me that the book was kept on thefloor in the bathroom, and laughed as I doubledover, trying to get me to look at a "great shot"of a young girl who had undergone a series ofoperations that lasted over five years.

"This band--we've always liked gory low-budgethorror films, like 'Pieces' or 'Demons.' We're allpretty into blood and gore." Matt tries to get meto look at a picture of someone whose arm wasamputated and then grafted on to his face. "Thisis great. Here, look at this. This stuff is great.

"You know, there's a Simpsons episodewhere Homer needs to watch a video about drunkdriving and it's a spoor, really gory and violent.And there's a pan of the audience and everyone isvery disgusted except for Homer, who's laughing,and then they show his thoughts and he's saying'That's funny because it's not me.' I don't knowthese people. It kind of sucks but I'm glad it'snot happening to me.

"Maybe that's where the music comes from. U.S.all being really into horror movies. I think whatbrought us all together movies and punk rock inthe Dunster House world consider being into thesethings."

In his senior year of high school, his localnewspaper, the Harwich Oracle, ran a featuretitled" What doesn't Matt Pakulski do?" "He ranksNo. 1 in his class," the lead read. "He'sreceived an award for academic excellence from theMassachusetts Association of SchoolSuperintendents. You'll find he's a member ofalmost every organization from the schoolnewspaper to the math team."

Getting high on school nights

Even if Matt has not changed quite as radicallyas it might seem, he's undeniably different fromthe strangely nerdy thespian who came to Harvard."I started smoking pot in college," Matt offers byway of explanation for his evolution.

(In addition to the currently Orthodox Jew whofirst got Matt high, Matt lived with a motleycollection of people, who he describes as: theformer managing editor of the Crimson, aborn-again Christian, an intellectual freak, aGlee Club member and a "Korean fascist".)

Matt never did any drugs in high school, andeven freshman year was much more reserved in hisuse.

"Freshman year I would never get high on aschool night," Matt says, rolling a joint. "Andnow I get high every day."

He rearranges his fingers so as not to burnhimself and laughs. "One thing Harvard has taughtme is how to hold on to a joint for a long time."Doug, looking in the living room door as he goesdownstairs, snorts. "Yeah, great Matt," he says.

Still Matt acknowledges that even freshmanyear, he had moments of pure, unmitigatedobnoxiousness just for the sake of beingobnoxious.

"Once, David [the Orthodox Jew] and I wentthrough the Union and we were both kind ofdepressed and so we walked around to people andsaid "Excuse me, can I have your dessert?'

"And you know how people don't know how toreact to they said yes and then we smashed thedessert in our hands.

"I think they were having cake that night."

Grew up with his mother in Cape Cod. Hisbest friend from high school, Creighton Morris, isnow in the Navy and stationed in Japan.

Nasty, brutish, and short

Fat Day's music is, in a certain regard,celebratory music, if just for the passion andenergy involved in its production.

That is not to say that it is happy music; onefan likened Fat Day's songs to Hobbes' descriptionof life in the state of nature: nasty, bruits, andshort. "One theory is that Harvard made us angry,"Matt says of the intense rage that erupts out ofFat Day's music.

By the time most of you read this, Matt, aalong with Dough, Arik, and Zak, will have alreadyleft for the Fat Day summer tour. They leave theafternoon of graduation and will be on tour untilAugust 6.

There is a box of small fliers on the floor ofthe kitchen that reads: "FAT DAY really like you!We are a PUNK ROCK band from Boston, and we'll beon tour in June + July '94. Please send us mail(with your phone #) or call if you can help withshows. We need info on your local punk/undergroundvenue, or we'll play a show with your band in yetbasement if you do basement show...Thanks, Arik,Doug, Zak, Matt."

The tentative tour dates will take the band andtheir van, to Toronto, North Dakota, California,Texas, Kentucky, D.C., New York City and back. Asof last week Matt was just starting to make surethe van was in working order to transport the bandand all their equipment across the country.

"Everyone else has dealt with all their shit,"Matt says, pointing to DeMay, who is once again onthe phone making arrangements. "I really need tostart dealing too."

White Dough, Arik, and Matt will all drive (Zakdoesn't have a license), I suspect that it will beMatt who will enjoy the driving most. More thanmost people, he likes aimlessly moving down roads,likes exploring new places and seeing where a carwill take him. "Driving's really fun," Matt says."I like to drive and also to listen to music.Driving and music are the things I like to do.