I'm just gonna rattle off a bunch of shit here so feel free to just skip this shit.
1. I was reading Jon Franzen's book of essays and it is an exercise in terrible, hand-wringing, white-guy, emo-shit, so much so that I want to punch him in the goddamn dick. I would pay, and I mean far out the ass, to watch him battle to the death against other authors for my amusement. I don't think I can adequately express the rage that creeps up behind my face when I read his petulant shit. "America is childish" "Being Middle Class is hard" "No one takes me seriously, but I am a serious thinker" "Oprah liked my book but I'm too edgy for Oprah so I complained about it" "Novelist are the only true mirror for society and all other mediums for reflection are cheap, trite, and disingenuous"
ATTENTION FRANZEN: YOU ARE A RICH-ISH WHITE GUY WHO MAKES A LIVING BY WRITING DOWN WHAT YOU THINK IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING IN THE WORLD. YOU ARE NOT IMPORTANT.
2. I am so mad about number one.
3. The bird and the bee still rule.
4. I can't decide what the best Bjork album of all-time is. My top three are Homogenic, Vespertine, and Debut. It is driving me to drink more than usual.
5. I was reading the Tom Robbins book, Another Roadside Attraction, and I had to stop because I hate hippies so goddamn much. Also,
ATTENTION ROBBINS: YOU ARE NOT FUNNY. STOP TRYING TO BE FUNNY. IT COMES ACROSS AS GRATING AND INSULTING TO THE READER AND NO ONE THINKS, DESPITE WHAT THE L. A. TIMES SAYS, THAT YOU ARE REMINISCENT OF MARK TWAIN.
6. I need some new music and I often wonder what happened to people I used to know and think often of their influences on me. Also, am I the only one who feels buoyed when I see old people after I haven't seen them for a while and I think, "Hey, they haven't died yet. Good for them."
7. You know, I have a lot of, now stowed and itemized, baggage from my first marriage but I'll give my first wife this: she introduced me to Marvin Gaye and so she gets a plus one for that.
8. I used to listen to Pearl Jam when I was a foolish teen and think that they were good. I wish I could go back in time and punch teen-me in the stomach and tell him to stop being such a douche all the time.
9. One time, I was at this bar in Texas, and I mean it was the epitome of shit hole and there was chili and tortilla chips and cheese in these crockpots and if you were there you could eat it for free. We had showed up at this place, the name was Wolf something, as an afterthought before we crawled back to base and the emptiness of our beds. I found the crockpots and started eating all the chili and then I went to the bar and had a tequila sunrise because I was with a friend who really felt the Eagles and I drank down the terrible juicy tequila. I remember running to the fetid bathroom but not making it and I threw up a little on the carpet in front of the bar before hitting the bathroom and filling an urinal with chunky chili. We left and I passed out alone under my sheets.
10. You know who doesn't get enough recognition? Duran Fucking Duran. Those motherfuckers have spoken the truthiest of truths for a long time now and no one holds them up as the beacons of prophesy or self-reflection, but those motherfuckers should. Pop Trash totally encapsulated the feel of the 2000s but you don't hear a goddamn single critic tell you that shit. Also, Ordinary World is the best and most true song that an adolescent can ever hear.
11. I like making lists.
12. You know what else is fun? If you just sit and listen to people, they will run out the yarn of their entire goddamn lives without reservation and then you can know all that more about them and their actions and beliefs and all their internal shit that they don't show to any of the superficial people they see on a daily basis. Freud was kind of right with his ideas of therapy because people will talk out their closest demons to an un-speaking ear.
13. Bakers Dozen: The Cardigans are the best thing to come out of Scandinavia since Vikings and mead.
There it is.
4 comments:
Shit. I love 'Another Roadside Attraction'. That being said, I have only ever read half of it. Twice. The first time, a mugger stole my purse, which contained the book. That was probably 3 years ago. And then I read half of it again last year.
I hate hippie shit, too, but I think the book touches more on the art world, and the kind of people in it, which I find to be interesting. For example, the 'husband' figure in the book (I forget his name) reminds me a lot of Matthew Barney (Bjork's husband-figure in real life).
Plus I know how to cook all sorts of mushrooms now.
But yeah, Robbins is no Mark Twain. No one is. Though... have you read Sarah Vowell?
Yeah. I heard a lot of people give it rave reviews but I just couldn't get into it. Also, I was reading for the book club meeting that was in two days so it was kind of forced on me. Also, whiskey had a part in this blog post which probably accounts for the extra anger.
And to answer, no, I haven't read Vowell.
Yeah, it makes more sense to read it at your own leisure. It would be an irritating forced-read.
Anyway, I would recommend reading Sarah Vowell at some point. She's not my favorite, I haven't even read that much of hers. This is turning out to be a remarkably shitty poor attempt to recommend something. So... maybe read her books some time, if you feel like it... I guess.
Also, apparently I forgot how to use punctuation in that last post. I think I meant to delete 'shitty' or 'poor' ... bah, whatever.
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