Where Have You Gone, Soy Bomb?

Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

Like just about everyone else who watched the Grammy Awards last Sunday, I was shocked at how much I enjoyed it. From Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” duet with Luke Combs to Joni Mitchell’s soulful rendition of “Both Sides Now” to Jay-Z’s trash-talking the Recording Academy for their Beyoncé metrics, it was a night of surprising emotion and powerful performances.

But one thing was missing. Something I didn’t realize I needed until it wasn’t there. There was not even a single inappropriate stage crash.

If I’m honest, it’s the reason I tune in every year. In the hopes that I’m going to see somebody on stage who isn’t supposed to be there. Whether it’s Old Dirty Bastard, 50 Cent, a Ukrainian journalist, or just some dude who just wants to give B.B. King his props. And don’t forget Kanye! Whether he’s angry about Beck getting a Grammy or Taylor Swift getting a VMA, his unsolicited stage-storming has always been [chef’s kiss]. 

But none of them come close to the master, the man who crafted the best stage crash we’ll ever witness in our lifetime. You know who I mean. At the 1998 Grammys, a shirtless man with "SOY BOMB" written across his torso did a spastic dance behind Bob Dylan for almost a full minute before being removed from the stage. The whole thing was bizarre and inexplicable. Time Magazine asked the questions we all wondered: “What did it mean? Why did he do it? What was going on?”

Twenty-five years later, I’m still wondering. So I tracked down Michael Portnoy, the now 50-something New York artist who remains the gold standard of music award show stage crashing.  Let’s learn from the master.

ERIC SPITZNAGEL: Run us through the basics of stage crashing.

SOY BOMB: Well, the ultimate goal is to craft an interruption as a self-enclosed mini-spectacle that satisfies the following requirements. Number one, the performance should be inscrutable. It doesn't quite add up or make complete sense. Number two, be inventive. If you wanna jump on stage naked, fine, but you need to permute it a bit. Add something ridiculous to the equation. How about one hundred animatronic penises all over your body which then jump off and scurry away like rabid slugs?

ES: Does it have to be a hundred? How about a baker’s dozen animatronic penises?

SB: Sure, that’s fine. Number three, it has to be entertaining and have a good sense of humor. Number four, it should be divisive. People should argue about it, but it can’t be too easily categorizable. Number five, and this is optional, the crasher should be hard to remove from the stage.

ES: The “be inscrutable” rule seems to be the one that’s most often ignored.

SB: And that's the most important one. A lot of these stage crashers, it's too obvious what they're doing. When Kanye West came onstage and took the microphone away from that country singer, he was trying to argue that Beyoncé should've won. The message was too clear.

ES: You want to keep them guessing?

SB: Let the audience argue about it, come up with their own theories. “What was he trying to do? What was he trying to say?” A streaker is obvious. They just want attention. The elements of it should not quite add up.

ES: The Soy Bomb thing made no sense.

SB: And that's how I meant it. I have this word on my chest, and it’s not clear whether it’s a political message or a vegetarian thing or if I’m some kind of terrorist. And then I’m doing this very strange contortive dance. Nothing makes sense.

ES: You told the Daily News that it had something to do with commercialism’s intrusion on the art world, and how “all art should be soy bombs.” Were you full of shit?

SB: Probably.

ES: So you didn’t know what Soy Bomb meant?

SB: No, I’m still trying to figure it out. And that’s the problem with today’s stage crashers. They understand far too much about why they’re doing what they’re doing.

ES: Most modern stage crashers just use their voices, but you used your body as a canvas. Do you think body graffiti as a form of protest is a lost art?

SB: I think writing on your body is a little played out, to tell you the truth. You can’t fit too many words there. I think it’d be more interesting to find some kind of frequency, like an RFID tag.

ES: Electromagnetic fields?

SB: Yeah. Something that would contain like a microdot that you could focus on that would have some whole tract written on it. There has to be a little more information.

ES: Can a stage crash help a career? Did it help yours?

SB: Not really. I mean, I got a few movie offers, which I turned down. Some radio stations asked me to do promotional shit, but I wasn’t interested. The only one I said yes to was Richard Branson.

ES: Sir Richard Branson?

SB: Yeah. This is a true story. It was just after it happened. He was giving a speech in San Francisco to hundreds of record industry guys in a hotel ballroom. And he wanted me to Soy Bomb him.

ES: Did he want the same dance and everything?

SB: Yeah, but not the same words on my chest. If I’m remembering correctly, I had “SO Y VIRGIN?” on my chest. And when I came in, he pulled up his shirt, and it said “Y NOT!”

ES: What? I don’t understand.

SB: It was their idea, not mine.

ES: Did you at least get paid for it? What’s the going rate for Soy Bombing?

SB: They flew me out there, business class, put me in a nice hotel, and I sat with Branson in a room with our shirts off waiting for the paint to dry. They had some partnership with Apple back then, so I asked to be paid with a top-of-the-line desktop Mac.

ES: When you Soy Bombed Dylan, how much of it was choreographed? Did you know in advance it was going to be Dylan, or could it have been anyone?

SB: I was hired to be a backup dancer for Dylan. Well, no, that’s not even right. I was hired to give Bob a good vibe.

ES: A good vibe?

SB: That was literally our job description. So that’s what I did. In my mind, I gave him a good vibe.

ES: Was that all the thought you put into it? Just give Bob some good mojo?

SB: You have to think about how long you’ll be on stage. If you only have a three-second window, you have to come up with something amazing. That’s not a long amount of time to make your point.

ES: What’s your favorite music award show stage crash?

SB: I have a soft spot for Ol' Dirty Bastard.

ES: At the 1998 Grammys?

SB: Yeah. The same one I was at. He was just amazing. Because he’s nuts. What did he say?

ES: “Wu-Tang is for the children.”

SB: [Laughs.] Right, right. That was amazing. It was inscrutable, but I don’t know if it was willfully inscrutable.

ES: How about your least favorite stage crash?

SB: When you contacted me, I watched some of the top stage-crashing moments on YouTube, and I saw the one with Courtney Love interrupting Madonna at the 1995 MTV Awards or something. Did you see this one?

ES: I did. It was excruciating.

SB: I was hoping for something good, but it was a little too coherent in the end.

ES: How so?

SB: Well, Courtney pushed it to the degree where she made Madonna leave the interview. At one point, Courtney Love is crouching on the floor, and they’re talking about each other’s shoes. It gets quite strange, but it’s still a little too clear what she’s trying to do there.

ES: My guess is Courtney was drunk.

SB: That seems like a given.

ES: Do you recommend liquid courage before attempting a stage crash?

SB: Only if it’s mezcal.

ES: Mexican firewater?

SB: Yeah. It’s very good. If you’re going to drink anything, I would drink mezcal. Other than that, I would say it’s not a necessary part.

ES: So walk us through it. If you were doing a stage crash today, what’s your process?

SB: My ideal stage crash would involve a series of transformations. The first few seconds you’re up there, it looks like you’re drunk. You seem totally wasted. You stumble around drooling.

ES: But then you switch things up?

SB: Right. Then you do some completely masterful feat of physicality. Something acrobatic. Like you jump in the air and do three flips or something. And you rip off your skin and you transform into some kind of beast.

ES: Something fanged and fire-breathing?

SB: Absolutely. But then you rip off your skin again and turn into an old lady. And then you tell the audience some beautiful story while you’re holding a centaur bow-and-arrow to make sure no one drags you away.

ES: Wow. That’s poetry. Beautiful, stupid poetry.

SB: Thank you.