Although it only goes up to 1990, Eric Tamm's book "Robert Fripp: From King Crimson to Guitar Craft" is also insightful. Tamm's book on Eno ("His Music and the Vertical Color of Sound") is a good read too.

The least intimidating motorcycle gang on earth.

It's still amazing to me that what Allen Klein did to the Verve isn't even close to being the douchiest thing he ever did.

True enough… the sad truth is that purely democratic bands almost never get out of the rehearsal space. If a band is going to get anywhere, it's got to be organized like an army. One general, maybe a lieutenant, and a bunch of grunts.

It's nothing specific, but there was something in the liner notes from the Talking Heads compilation Sand In The Vaseline where one of the Heads (I can't remember which one) said that they felt like Eno was always trying to turn them into his own backing band.

"In Yes, there was an endless debate about 'should it be F natural in the bass with G sharp on top by the organ, or should it be the other way around?'. In King Crimson, almost nothing was said … you were just supposed to know."

I thought Fripp was a humorless robot for a long time, and then I realized that he's actually got the most perfectly British sense of humor imaginable. If you read one of his interviews with the idea that he's just being completely deadpan, it becomes hilarious.

Not so much musically, but from what I've read, by the mid-70s, Fripp was fed up with the excesses of the music industry, the headaches of large-scale touring, and the endless publicity game. The punk bands came along and found a way to work around those obstacles. I remember an interview with Fripp where he said that…

I suspect there may have been just a little bit of weed involved too.

For me, it's music. I dream that I'm onstage or in a studio playing with some other musicians (sometimes they're famous, sometimes not), and it's great stuff. Then I wake up and can't remember a damn thing about what it sounded like.

Thoughts on slow cookers: they rule! And you don't need anything fancy to get good results.

Is giving someone an atomic wedgie in public legal in Bangkok?

I haven't seen any of them either. Catching up with the series remains on my to-do list, but it was already a daunting task when they were only four movies in.

Not to mention the goddamned Eleventh Commandment ("Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican."), which we can partially hold responsible for the infantilization of the GOP.

That would be awesome. And after that, I'd like to see the Iran-Contra scandal get the long-form treatment it needs.

I'm so sorry to hear it.

And if some right-wing extremist had shot Giffords, then I'd agree with you. But the guy who shot her was a paranoid schizophrenic who thought he was striking a blow against a secret government that was trying to control his thoughts and grammar, and who hated Giffords because she didn't have a good answer to his…

I loathe Sarah Palin for what she's done (and is still doing) to this country. With her ignorance of the world, her rejection of science and knowledge, her constant mangling of the English language, her supreme arrogance, her constant need for attention, her misunderstanding of what the Constitution does and doesn't…

Do I have to?

His grimace after "How are you?" is the icing on the cake.