Peter: Shut up, little man! Shut up, little man! I got, I got a decent dinner ready. Nothing happened with the dinner. Because you crucified it. You ruined it. God damn you! Shut up, little man!
In 1993, the CDÂ Shut up, Little Man! was released on Ectoplasm. The tracklisting is as follows:
- Introducing Peter: The crucifixion of dinner (0:32)
- Introducing Ray: I am ready now! (1:52)
- You wanna stick me with that fork? (1:10)
- Go to bed: Fist Fight I (4:08)
- Someday I will kill you (0:45)
- Sorry Darling (1:25)
- I despise all queers (5:38)
- What did you do during the war? (1:19)
- Don't call me Goodnight! (1:09)
- Introducing Tony: I seen them potheads (0:49)
- On the floor again: Fist Fight II (0:46)
- You always giggle falsely (2:09)
- Ray, you are just fucking up! (2:00)
- I was a mean motherfucker in my time (2:55)
- Ray's soliloquy: I am the human race! (4:15)
- Toenails (1:16)
- I know how to use any weapon (1:32)
- Vodka (0:43)
- This time I attack (5:03)
- I don't wanna watch queer shit: Fist Fight III (3:50)
- Tony stripped her down! (0:37)
- Nova Express Times survey on alcoholism (2:05)
- Queers giggle (1:16)
- Where are the police? (0:32)
- A night in the Stony Lonesome (1:48)
- I am a killin' motherfucker (re: Eddie Lee) (1:15)
- You don't have any friends (0:24)
- Go live south of Market (0:50)
- The killing of 14 people (0:47)
- Ray mewls at the cops (6:22)
- We'll set your hair on fire (1:04)
- Cheap little bitch (1:12)
- A liar, a thief and a cheat (3:11)
- I am a man (1:45)
- I tried to make this a home (1:17)
- If you wanna talk to me then shut your fuckin' mouth (4:16)
It has been called "the most important audio recording of the nineties" and "The Thing You Must Buy," and it really is unique. It started in the late eighties, when Mitchell D and Eddie Lee Sausage moved into an apartment at the "Pepto-Bismol Palace" in San Francisco, California.
Little did they know what was in store for them. Their alcoholic neighbors, Raymond Huffman and Peter Haskett would yell at each other night after night about anything and everything. After feeling threatened by the violent shouts, Sausage decided to start recording them, initially as a safety measure in case of having to file a police-report, but soon it became a bizarre obsession.
Peter: Do I have to throw you down on the floor again?
Ray: You can't.
Peter: I will, if I have to.
Ray: No, no.
Peter: Right now. I will.
Ray: Don't, don't try to hit me.
Peter: You wanna see it happen?
Ray: Don't try to.
[...]
Peter: Don't put your hand up against me.
Ray: You might attack me...
Peter: You wanna see it? You'll be down on the floor.
Ray: Now...
Peter: Er...
Ray: Don't do it! Don't do it! I don't wanna hurt you, Peter!
(Fighting noises heard)
Peter:There you are! You're on the floor.
Even as they shouted hate and obscenities at each other, neither Ray nor Pete moved out, and when you listen closely, you get the impression that they were actually friends in their own scary fashion. Listening to the talks about dinner especially, to take an example, as said by Peter: "I had this all set up, for a cool dinner for it. I have another platter out there, it was all ready. It never happened, of course. Because of you. [...] For tonight. For us. But god damn it, he did what he did... and... so... nothing has been touched. Now god damn it, I'm not gonna take this, Ray! Ray, you are just fucking up! Here is dinner. It'll be ruined, by tomorrow! Here is dinner, never served, to anybody!"
Even stranger, Peter was apparently gay, while Ray was pretty homophobic, leading to several tragic exchanges between the two. Consider this one, from Christmas 1987, which ended with Ray being thrown off the balcony and spending weeks in hospital:
Ray: You ain't nothing but a piece of shit! You know that! You're not a human being, you cocksucker! You're a queer! You wouldn't need anything queer. You're not a human being. You're a fuckin' asshole piece of shit. I despise queers! All queers! I... uh... I'll let you go ahead, and, as long as you don't raise fuckin' hell and... destroy the world, you dirty son of a bitch, but you ain't gonna destroy my life, you dirty cocksucker! 'Cause queers are not human! No way. Human is: boy loves girl, girl loves boy. I hate boys! I never fucked a boy, or let any cocksucker...
Peter: Merry Christmas, Ray.
Ray: I never let one fuck me. You ain't a human being, you're a fuckin' queer.
Peter: Merry Christmas, Ray.
Eventually, D and Sausage started passing around tapes in their circle of friends, from where they were spread further, and soon they gained a cult following. This lead to the release of the CD in 1993, which widened the audience and had people namedropping them everywhere.
Also in 1993, a play was set up in Los Angeles by Gregg Gibbs. Ray was played by Gill Gayle (who had also played Charles Manson in the play Timothy and Charlie), Pete by Liam Stone, and their Viet Nam veteran roomie Tony by Bob Taicher (who produced Jodorowskys The Holy Mountain and wrote Santa Sangre). However, Gibbs turned out to be "a poster boy for pure megalomania - a self-obsessed reefer-puffing egotist," according to Sausage, and he avoided having much to do with the play.
Soon after, Mitchell and Eddie were contacted by an unnamed studio in Hollywood for a movie version of Pete & Ray. Unfortunately the project has yet to come to fruitition, even though various high profile persons have been involved with it on and off.
A number of comics based on the legendary couple have also been made, depicting the episodes of lunacy.
Peter: Good night.
Ray: Don't call me Goodnight, you cocksucker!
Peter: Good night, I'm saying! Why do you keep screeching?
Ray: Shut your fuckin' mouth!
Peter: All it does is wake everybody else. All I'm saying is...
Ray: Then shut your fuckin' mouth, you fuckin' piece of shit! Then shut your fuckin' mouth!
Peter: Then do it.
Ray: Shut your fuckin' mouth, you cocksucker!
Sources: http://members.aol.com/leesausage/ http://www.acidlogic.com/shut_up.htm