I have seen the future: It's Tenacious D

Black is a great friend of mine who I've known for years. Now the world knows him: He's been on "Conan." Black is a good new star: gracious, diplomatic, filled with eight seconds of high-volume friendliness for all, in a way that makes everyone feel like they've got their warm gust of special attention. Movie star, rock star, great guy.

It's interesting to be around an almost perfectly realized human being -- the last one I sat at a table with was Best-Surfer-In-Creation Kelly Slater. By comparison, everyone else starts to look like a 500-piece puzzle with only 32 or so of the border pieces locked in, whereas with the Shining Few like Black and Slater you can see the whole picture of the cocker spaniel pups in the basket with maybe just a yarn ball remaining to be assembled.

"Shee-it," you say in admiration. What else can you say? They've figured out a safe way to be superhuman, a way to utilize that unexplored gray matter, some way to stop being subject to the roller-coaster win/lose, win/lose whims of basic humanity and rule nonstop.

How? Who knows.

The only thing in the entire Tenacious D set that gives me minor cause for alarm is the fact that the D have always been predicated on the patent absurdity that two weird, short, fat guys could be generators of stadium-filling cock-rock power. Now that they are routinely selling out venues to throngs of salivating fans, it's not so absurd anymore.

At a certain point in the show, the D exhort the audience to quit their day jobs and "Free the Artist! In here!" Black thumps his chest for emphasis. "After a couple of years, Kyle and I will come and inspect your progress, and we will encourage you to continue. Or, we will say stop. And if we say stop, stop!"

This is the beginning of a song called "The Cosmic Joke," which discusses the sad fact that many people have no talent. "I know what you're thinking," Black says to the crowd. "You're thinking, Hey, I'll learn some power chords, gain 40 pounds and my friends think I'm funny! But no. Not everyone is born with it, like me and K.G. Believe me, if we could hand out bags of talent at the door, you'd all be rocking."

It was all so true that it was hard to tell if this was a piece of actual science being dropped like a bomb on the sub-talented audience, or if the comedic faux-egomania of the D has now been mixed so liberally with their actual worldly success that it's a joke that's no longer a joke. In any case, it made everyone mindful of how fucked it is that everyone can't be Jack Black.

Don't get me wrong. Joy, my friends, is the cornerstone of the D. If a Tenacious D show doesn't make you happy like you haven't been in years, you're withered and dead within.

See the D.

Make pilgrimages to the D.

You won't be able to buy a D record because they hate the music industry too much to record one. (Another reason to love them.) You can see Jack in many roles on-screen, but the D are the home of the Black Sauce of Victory. It is exciting to live in this time, a time of Michael Jordan and Kelly Slater and Tenacious D.

I dig heroes you can throw your panties at.

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