Anyone who’s known me for any amount of time has heard me use the phrase “shrieking nightmare from hell” to describe things I find unpleasant. They’ve heard me threaten to “kill myself with an ax” when things don’t go my way.
But what they’re really hearing is me quoting the absurdist comedy and over-the-top expression of the artist Robert X. Planet, who died earlier this week. He was 74.
These were expressions I lifted from Robert X., whose conversations and celebrated writings and punk rock songs were littered with delightful, descriptive phrases like that.
Robert X., a proud Phoenix native, had that effect on everyone in his orbit: He left an impression. He changed the way we thought, the way we saw things, the way we talked. His own voice was, like the man himself, distinct and preposterous — a slow, comforting honk, like gravel frying in brown butter.
When I heard that my longtime friend had died unexpectedly in his sleep, my first thought was, “When did Planet have time to sleep?” He was, even well into his dotage, always working on something — most recently, I’m told, his memoirs. Oh, the stories he could have told.
Robert X. Planet, whose real name was Robert Severance, is best known locally as a journalist at Phoenix New Times, the city weekly. There, in the '80s and '90s, he wrote about art and culture, but as an insider — someone who had himself designed costumes and sets and made paintings and written music and appeared on the stage. Planet was known globally as a frontman of Killer Pussy, the satirical punk rock outfit founded in 1982 by his muse and best friend, the actress and singer Lucy LaMode.
Planet joined the band, named after punk diva Les A Go Go’s pet cat, and they scored regional hits with songs Robert and Lucy wrote for their debut EP. The band followed up with an album full of songs with titles like “Pepperoni Ice Cream” and “Moist Towelette.” Among their biggest fans were the actor Dennis Hopper and a young Sarah Jessica Parker, who displayed a poster of the band in her '80s sitcom, "Square Pegs."
I used to sometimes quote to Robert X. lyrics from his songs — most of them much too vulgar for me to repeat here on the radio. He would close his eyes and smile and nod his head. I always had the impression that he liked that his friends and fans stole phrases and ideas from him; that he thought inspiring us, and others, was his duty. Though I remember he was less than happy when a musical he wrote about Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham was lifted by a local troupe who ran with it and created their own similar project.
Robert and I were both amused that a handful of people thought we were the same person, I guess because we worked at the same newspaper and our names were similar, or maybe because we lived on the same street for a number of years. But there was only one Robert X. Planet.
The day after Robert X. died, Lucy LaMode sent me a video of him playing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” on his accordion. In the video, he’s walking through a crowd of revelers at the Burning Man celebration, an event that meant a great deal to Robert. Suddenly, the sun breaks through the clouds, a rainbow appears and, without breaking his stride, Robert X. begins playing that famous Harold Arlen tune.
Robert X. Planet was our very own strolling minstrel, weaving in and out of a crowd of admirers who were thrilled to be his friend. For my part, I’ll think of Robert X. Planet every time I see a moist towelette.
