Timequake is late Vonnegut so it gets overlooked in favour of the classics, but I sat and read it cover to cover in a friend’s living room the day I bought it.

Throwing Copper and Secret Samadhi are the only Live albums that hold up, really. After “The Dolphin’s Cry” it was all downhill.

That was the first book of his that I read,on recommendation of a colleague, I was hooked after that.

I’ve recently been listening to David Gilmour’s live stuff. The back half of Live in Gdansk essentially acts a last act for Pink Floyd, as Richard Wright joined Gilmour for the tour (along with long time Pink Floyd session players like Guy Pratt). There’s an amazing version of Echoes which serves as a very…

I’ve always found it a very interesting album - at the time it seemed like the most Trent Reznor thing in the world, (“here’s a live album I’ve spent over a year in the studio assembling from every track on every live date we did this tour”).

Ween - Live at Stubb’s

It think it’s “assembled” only in that it consists of recordings from different nights, not that it had lots of stuff that was faked live in the studio like Kiss’ Alive.

Also, wonderful avatar. I’m halfway through a re-read of Slaughterhouse Five (it’s been 10+ years, so it is almost entirely fresh) and it is an amazing read. I often slog through the books that I know enrich me, but S5 is a joy to read. 

Does Nine Inch Nails - And All That Could Have Been count as a live album due to the multi-track tinkering?

And All That Could Have Been is a great NIN record. It captures the bands golden era quite well and it’s got a kick ass set list.

Work on a MJ farm in Humboldt County? If by “work” they meant “look hot in yoga pants and open a boutique in Old Town” then it would make sense.

Picking normally pays quite well, from what I’ve heard. And since it’s typically indoors, it’s year-round, not just one harvest

A manic pixie who works at a marijuana farm? She’s a THC Tinkerbell.

Mattis oversaw the fiasco that was the Iraq War, particularly the seige of Baghdad. That should tell you a lot right there.

We’ll have to agree to disagree he acted on the same instincts. Your criticism of his foreign policy is fair and I agree with most of it (certainly wish he wouldn’t have pursued the aggressive drone policy), but his foreign policy wasn’t equivalent to neoconservativism either.

You can’t chide someone for inaction and then call him a neocon. Drone strikes aside, Obama’s consistent opposition to a basically bipartisan foreign policy establishment that wants to stick our noses in everywhere at all times was one of the best things about his presidency.

I think you’re leaving out a particular connotation of “idealist” that changes things a bit. When someone’s called an “idealist” it’s usually because they espouse beliefs that are considered lofty or noble; the Nazis were idealists but nobody calls them that because their ideals were reprehensible.

Jesus christ, you rule.

I’m confused about this one. What was Obama supposed to do, help suppress a series of populist uprisings? Which I’ll grant you would hardly be unprecedented for the US, but him refraining from that doesn’t exactly help him earn the “neocon” label.

I disagree; pragmatic is just a qualifier to an essential characteristic of idealism. It’s like the term “passive aggressive”, which seems like a contradiction but just describes a methodology: someone who expresses their aggression in indirect ways to get plausible deniability. So Obama has a set of ideals, but also…