I’ve finally reached my breaking point. We have all known for years that society is becoming stupider and the attention span of most people is the shortest its ever been. Warhol once said “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” That time has been trimmed down to about 15 seconds now. My…
When the common person discusses Reggae, one name automatically comes to mind: Bob Marley. This is normal, as he’s the most famous musician in the history of his genre. Other luminaries include Burning Spear, Toots and the Maytals, Jimmy Cliff, and Steel Pulse. However one man is overlooked because he was always in…
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the movie Star Wars. It’s hard to comprehend that the world George Lucas created has been around that long. As a member of Generation X, which is the second-greatest generation, Star Wars impacted my childhood in such a direct way that it still resonates today, well into adulthood. …
Chris Cornell’s passing yesterday brought me back to 1992, when I saw Soundgarden on the 1992 Lollapalooza tour. It took a few moments of reverie to realize that on August 4, 1992, I saw what I can only describe as the greatest concert I’ve ever seen. Mind you, this differs from the greatest show I’ve ever seen. …
Upon first glance, it would seem that ee cummings is one of the most eccentric poets in modern poetic history. This certainly is true, and his artistic exploration of, and his pushing the boundaries of, poetry is evidence of this. While seeming at first to be esoteric, ee cummings instead touches mainly on one central…
This is the third and final installment of my series about Space. First, I wrote about how incredibly big space is. The second article discussed how space never seems to end and how it keeps expanding. This article will explain to you, gentle reader, what Space was before it was Space. You must come to grips with…
In 1988, Metallica released the album ...And Justice for All. The album, on the heels of their groundbreaking Master of Puppets, explored new sonic territories. The songs were longer and more political, as well as being more personal. One strong example of this is the album’s concluding song, “Dyers Eve.” This…
WARNING: Prepare to have your mind absolutely obliterated with the infinite possibilities contained within this article!
Chuck Barris died today. I’m not going to write his obituary. You can read about all he did (and claimed to do) on any news website:
The fourth book in our series examines the collected works of ee cummings. This mammoth volume of work is 1,216 pages of literary and poetic genius. The book contains all of the poetry that Cummings (I shall heretofore capitalize his name, to make things easier) ever wrote. Known for his curious approach to the…
In 1980, Gary Larson unleashed The Far Side on an unsuspecting public. This single-panel comic would go on to change the way both artists and the public approached the daily funnies. The Far Side ran for 16 years, and it left an indelible impact on everyone who read it. Cows read poetry. Scientists played pranks on…
I recently re-watched the newer X-Men movies, X-Men: First Class, The Wolverine, and X-Men: Days of Future Past. These were preceded by the films of the early/mid 2000s. It got me thinking that Gawrker needs another ranking list, because we certainly don’t have many of those anymore.
By 1986, John Hughes had written, produced, and/or directed nine films. His two most famous were Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club. These films explored the challenges of being a teenager, and all the emotional instability that accompanied that difficult time. Hughes followed those with two more teen films, …
Two weeks ago I lost one of the best friends I’ve ever had. It was a sudden and unexpected loss. Pete was only 45. I’d known him for over 20 years, and in that time you could never ask for a better friend. The world is truly emptier without him in it. My friends and I were devastated by the news, as we had just seen…
Big things were happening at Gawrker in this, the year of our Lord, 2016. While other sites had a greater volume of articles, we at Gawrker put faith in the old adage, “it’s quality, not quantity.” Here are only a few highlights from a year of “incredible” “successes.”
If you were to rank the original Star Wars trilogy, your ranking would most likely have Return of the Jedi in third. That’s understandable. The film is certainly not as groundbreaking as A New Hope (which I still call just Star Wars), and it’s not as dark and foreboding as The Empire Strikes Back. It’s easy to…
Death was inevitable. The era of the big studios owning actors, directors, and writers was coming to a close. The rise of the independent filmmaker was just beginning, and the creative freedom of the 1960s was finally starting to gel into something more concrete than useless hippie idealism. Stories were grittier,…
We have elected a President who stands for xenophobia, racism, the end to women’s rights, the building of a wall, the closing of our borders, a willingness to emulate Putin or Kim Jong-un or even a desire to use nuclear weapons to replace diplomacy. We are a nation in distress. The United States now stands for, in the…
This morning, an obituary ran in my local paper. It was for a friend of mine. He died far too young. He is the 14th person to die from my high school graduating class. This alone is sad enough, but his is a story of what could have been, what should have been.
Freeman McNeil: Good afternoon Mr. O’Connor. I appreciate you sitting down with me today.
