OVO

My Struggle is a book of 280 pages measuring 5.25 x 4.5 inches, written in 1975 and printed in a single edition of one hundred copies in 1978. These small thick books have red covers to make them look the same as Chairman Mao’s Book of Quotations. Some red cover copies had red ribbon page markers, and some had yellow covers and no ribbon. The pages of the book book are bound by two large staples and the cover is glued to the spine and inner edges of the first and last pages.

Almost every page of My Struggle has an illustration with a numbered caption, usually having nothing to do with the surrounding text. Most of these illustrations are clip art but some are collages or drawings by Mothersbaugh. There are also a few photographs of DEVO. The text of the book is a continuous flow of words, occasionally knotting itself into an essay but usually stream of conscious rambling. The text is presented without hyphens and in full justification. It reads as the work of someone who doesn’t understand what the bell on a typewriter is for.

My Struggle has the same concerns as the lyrics, music and films of DEVO: mutation, medicine, eugenics, potatoes, de-evolution, tyranny, corporate culture and sex. The chicken-winged chimponaut seen on the dust jacket to Duty Now for the Future and in the film Love Without Anger appears here, as does the beaker / man / atom logo. The warty-faced man described in the film The Men Who Make The Music as the work of “God in his Picasso period” is in My Struggle. Boojie Boy appears throughout the book, as does Chinaman. Chinaman is seen stroking a coathanger in the film Secret Agent Man, is described as giving the papers to Boojie Boy in the film Jocko Homo, and is mentioned in the song All of Us. The Chinaman’s glasses, minus their ‘velly clevah’ slanted eyes, are the glasses Mothersbaugh is wearing on the cover of Oh No It’s Devo. These words, images and concepts show a continuity of work by Mothersbaugh that lasts decades.

Some of what appears in My Struggle didn’t appear in any other form for many years. On pages 108 and 109 are the lyrics of the song All of Us, a song which was distributed only in bootleg form for decades. In 1977 the song was performed in Minneapolis as Soft Core Mutations, and in 1981 the song was renamed Going Under for the LP New Traditionalists. Only in 1990, on the CD Hardcore DEVO Volume 1, was the original All of Us released. fifteen years after appearing in My Struggle.

My Struggle gives much attention is given to the Huboon, a type of low-grade Beautiful Mutant. Hardcore Devo Volume 1 mentions the Huboon in the song Soo Bawls. The song Huboon Stomp was performed in the first few years of DEVO but was not released until the 1998 CD Chef Aid. The lyrics to The Last Time I Ever Seen St. Louie and My Frauline Done Told Me (the first song performed at the first DEVO concert) are found in My Struggle but have yet to be released. My Struggle is written in a sing-song style and many more lyrics may yet be harvested from it.

My Struggle was published in a format that was made to last, and proves an unbroken line from the earliest DEVO to the DEVO of today. This book is nearly impossible to find. I’m fortunate to have a copy signed by Mark Mothersbaugh, Bob Mothersbaugh, Jim Mothersbaugh, Gerry Casale and Bob Casale (the original line up and the band as represented in the book), General Boy and (separately) a signature from Chuck Statler, the primary director of DEVO’s earliest video work.

from OVO 8 (May 1991)
re-written December 2010