In Another Universe, Mojo Would Have Been Chair Of The CFPB
Unless you listened to a radio station like KUSF, you may have never heard— or heard of— Mojo Nixon, who died Wednesday (age 66) on a country music cruise ship, Outlaw Country Cruise. His family released this statement:
“How you live is how you should die. Mojo Nixon was full-tilt, wide-open rock hard, root hog, corner on two wheels + on fire…Passing after a blazing show, a raging night, closing the bar, taking no prisoners + a good breakfast with bandmates and friends. A cardiac event on the Outlaw Country Cruise is about right… & that’s just how he did it. Mojo has left the building.”
When I first moved to San Francisco in the late 70’s, I liked two kinds of music— punk and outlaw country. By the time I met Mojo Nixon (originally Neill Kirby McMillan Jr.) and Skid Roper I was all in on punk but totally embraced what they were doing with songs like Stuffin’ Martha’s Muffin, Burn Down The Malls and, most of all, “I Hate Banks,” which became a KUSF staple and helped turn the San Diego-based Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper into Bay Area alternative scene stars. They played the Mabuhay and opened shows for the Dead Kennedys and once for Soul Asylum (1987). I couldn’t play this enough on my radio show. Besides fighting Tipper Gore's and Joe Lieberman’s obsession with censoring music, it’s what Mojo and I had in common. I wonder if Elizabeth Warren or Katie Porter ever heard it.
Well, I hate banks, I just can't stand 'em
Gimme a shovel and, man, I'll plant 'em
Six feet under, that's where they belong
"I Hate Banks" is the name of this song
I think I'll rob myself one or two
I hate banks, yeah, how 'bout you?
Well, lend me a nickel and lend me a dime
Repossess my house any old time
Financial institutions
Think they're so high falutin'
Just a bunch of fruits in three-piece suits, yeah
Tryin' to steal all my loot
Things are smellin' mighty rank
We must be near a stinky bank
Smells worse than Rockefeller's feet
Wall Street can eat my meat
Yeah, throw the money changers outta the temple
I hate banks, it's just that simple
A Royal Crown pomade tin
Is the best thing to keep your money in, yeah
Mason jar is okay too
If you see a bank, well, you know what to do
Now, lemme tell you people something
The only banks I like, well, I like Ernie Banks alright
And I like the banks of the Mississippi River
Yeah, and I like banks of Fender twin-reverb electric guitar amplifiers behind me
Ragin' on the stagin'
Well, when I walk in, they treat me like a dog
Wanna hit 'em in the head with a doo-doo log
Republicans, one and all
Their tallywhackers are mighty small
Stealin' from the poor and give to the rich
Wanna make the bank president twitch in a ditch
Yeah, see that teller with the blue hair
Giving me the evil-eye stare
Won't cash my check, don't like my ID
Got the security guard after me
If I was P. F. Sloan
I'd say the Dow Jones can suck my bone, yeah, alright
Everybody say these three magic words
I want you to help me say the words, I want you to repeat after me, here we go
I hate banks (I hate banks)
Can't stand 'em
I hate banks
Don't like 'em
I hate banks
Bunch of foo-foos
I hate banks
Pop 'em like a big zit
I hate banks
I hate banks, just can't stand 'em
Gimme a shovel and man, I'll plant 'em
Six feet under, that's where they belong
"I Hate Banks" is the name of this song
I think I'll rob myself one or two
I hate banks, yeah, how 'bout you?
Now lemme tell you something else
I'm not real fond of the phone company either, you know?
Yeah, and I don't like the cable TV company
You know why I don't like the cable TV company?
'Cause they just be sucking that stuff right out the sky!
They don't have to pay nothin' for it
I just get me one of them bootleg cable boxes
And get me one of them there, climb the pole and stick the thing in
I ain't gonna pay for it, no!
A documentary on his career, The Mojo Manifesto: The Life and Times of Mojo Nixon, premiered at SXSW 2022 and was released last year. Take a look at the trailer; it’ll give you an idea about who Mojo was and what you missed
“I don’t want to be taken seriously,” he once said. “I’m a cult artist.” But while we’re on the subject… let me mention the CFPB, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Elizabeth Warren’s brainchild and the bane of every Republican member of Congress. Built into its DNA is “a passion for protecting the little guy from a universe of crooks… making consumer protection a vital avenue of the [Democratic] party’s policymaking zeal and its political fury. It’s recouped $17.5 billion worth of consumer money. “This year alone, it’s prevailed against a slew of foes, from big banks to shady data brokers, and offered guidance to help ordinary people avoid pitfalls and hang onto their hard-earned money. These are victories that Democrats should savor and tout, in the same way cops do when they force scofflaws to do a public perp walk, their seized assets left on a table as Instagrammable trophies. There’s a simple idea here: It should be politically toxic to rip people off. One suspects that everyone who opposes the CFPB’s mission is aware of how it looks to throw in with plutocratic con men, which is probably why Big Business has confronted the agency in crab-walk fashion, sidling up to the supposed cracks in its constitutional edifice rather than challenge it frontally by going to bat for every unreliable fiduciary and financial scam artist in Christendom.”
Last month Lauren Sforza reported how two crooked Financial Services Committee Republicans, soon-to-be lobbyist Patrick McHenry (NC) and Andy Barr (KY), choking on Wall Street bribes were fighting the CFPB for trying to slash banking overdraft fees. “The CFPB’s proposal could reduce the cost of overdrawing from a bank account to as little as $3, which the Biden administration has argued would lower costs for working families… Cutting down on overdraft fees would reduce revenue the banks typically bring in from the fees. The CFPB says the fees can be as much as $35 even though the average debit card overdrafts by consumers are less than $26. The proposal would only apply to institutions with more than $10 billion in assets. The Biden administration has worked to eliminate what it calls ‘junk’ and other unnecessary fees as part of its long-term economic agenda. Under the CFPB’s proposal, banks would only be able to charge consumers the amount that would allow the bank to break even on providing overdraft services.”
I’m sure Mojo would have savored what Biden had to say about it: “For too long, some banks have charged exorbitant overdraft fees— sometimes $30 or more— that often hit the most vulnerable Americans the hardest, all while banks pad their bottom lines. Banks call it a service— I call it exploitation.”