His voice kinda sounds like Henry Rollins.  Anyway, I kinda liked it.  I went in expecting something totally dumb, and, it wasn't really NOT dumb, but it was dumb in a cool, fun way, like the Revelators or any of those older garage punk bands.  Lazy Cowgirls or whatever, I used to listen to that kind of stuff all the…

Nice post.  I haven't read the Salinger book in a long time, but every time I did read it I remember liking it, and I always thought the backlash and hate aimed at it had way more to do with the ubiquitous nature of the book than it's actual content.  I know that in addition to Faulkner, both Samuel Beckett and…

I don't know why that was so sad-looking, it just seemed like it was one of the saddest things I've ever seen.  And I've watched Ingmar Bergman movies and shit, and had a mother who went through chemotherapy.  But that shit was sad as hell.  That was, like, offensively sad.  I don't know.  Man, it was like…a summation…

Right, well, I only didn't find the argument following the assertion of a fallacy to be convincing, mainly because it was basically unsubstantiated claims, but I guess a small internet forum isn't the place to get into it.  I was mainly wondering WHY you believe what you do, why you've adopted a certain standpoint,…

And maybe a way to present people with the possibility for alternatives is through a narrative black hole.  If the story itself is the utter worst possible scenario, then the audience is free to imagine a future in which they could perhaps alter that scenario or at least prevent its total inevitability.  If what you…

I think that calling something a fallacy isn't really an argument, and the point you seem to be making, about morality, free will, and mankind, is not one for which you have the answers, since the greatest minds in human history have asked those kinds of questions and come to wildly different conclusions.  But I am…

Let's just talk about how goddamn annoying the Huffington Post is.  I just went on there and we have an article with this headline: "Activist: 100s of Syrians Dead in Chemical Weapons Attack" sitting beside this headline: "Tips on Dating a Younger Man." and this one "7 Things French Women Can Teach Us About Sex and…

I AM OUTRAGED

Does anyone here still visit Mark Prindle's record review website?  I know he doesn't update it anymore, but it's still up and still a lot of fun to read those ridiculous reviews.  His SWANS reviews in particular are kind of funny because you get to see the effect of claustrophobic, total depression take hold as he…

Oh man, yeah, I think the Carver stories as edited by Lish don't work at all, I can't really stand them.  They're simplistic to the point of being nothing and I just don't care.  I think someone once wrote that Hemingway once considered using the sentence "Paris is a nice town." but even HE found that way too…

Oh yeah, I hear you, I don't think the people working in the legal system actively condone rape, but I also don't think victims of, say, mugging, have to suffer through the same personal scrutiny given to victims of rape.  And anyway, when I hear stories like this one (http://thinkprogress.org/ju… I sort of am morally…

To be fair — or not fair, because it's horrific — most everyone "gets away" with rape in America.  Not even counting the rapes that aren't reported.

Although I thought Hunger and Journey were both good books, I think that Celine really became vital with his last few — especially Rigadoon, which, if anything, is even better when you actually KNOW what a piece of shit the author was, and how awful he was, and then you get to the scene near the end where he's forced…

Right now I'm dragging myself through Joseph Conrad's "Under Western Eyes," which would probably be great if the narrator didn't feel like such a weird construct, and the way that people describe pretty much everything as being "RUSSIAN," didn't get incredibly annoying.  All this vague crap about the Russian soul, I…

I'm interested in The Flamethrowers, I don't know why, I've heard that it's great, but when I read the synopsis it just sounds like something I wouldn't care about.  Any books you know of that it's similar to?

The greatest book I've ever read about the Vietnam War, and one of my favorite books ever, is Michael Herr's Dispatches, his weird journalistic account of his time in Vietnam.  Definitely check it out if you're looking for books on that stuff.  Or just great books in general.

YES.  I'd go Cunning Stunts as their best album, but it could also probably go to Sexy Pee Story, which, in addition to being the greatest album title of all time, has "Blown" and "Shitbeard."  Greatest Cows SONG though, I might have to go with "Cow Island," which is just… jesus, I can think of a better way to start…

You should just devote an entire article to talking about the Jesus Lizard.  Best punk band OF ALL TIME if we're not talking punk in a strictly musical sense — but people refer to fucking Television as punk, so whatever.  Actually, the Jesus Lizard are probably flat out my favorite band ever, so, just keep talking…

One of my favorite bands ever.  Awesome thing about the New Bomb Turks was they were so goddamn consistent.  All of their records are great.

Dostoevsky can get pretty fucking pulpy.  I mean… Crime and Punishment?  Brothers Karamazov?  Cops and killers?  All those prostitutes, gamblers, drunks?  Murder mysteries galore?  The basic skeletons of the plots are fairly lurid stuff, but greater writers took those lurid plots and, like they've been doing for…