Jack Liffey constantly explains that he is not a private detective, but he does find missing kids for a living. He is reading, while his police officer girlfriend Gloria Ramirez watches television. He glanced up from his book. He was in the living room to be sociable, trying to reread an early Robert Stone, but [...]
This means war.
Last September, I wrote an item entitled “Culture Wars Redux,” in which I anticipated the arrival of a couple books that would ramp up the old Culture War (“Rock ‘n’ roll is destroying our kids!”) to a new level (“Hip-hop is responsible for the death of thousands!”). In my new Spot-on column, I take a [...]
My weekend at the lake
This weekend, I went away to a friend’s lake house in Virginia. It was a real pop culture weekend. There’s a dock down by the water. Stepping onto it all I could think of were movies: Indian Summer, Friday the 13th, The Deep End. I’ve been on docks before, but there was something about the [...]
Culture Wars Redux
I’ve long had a dread fascination with the Culture Wars periodically fought in this country. I recall the PMRC-driven lyrics battles of the Eighties, pitting Tipper Gore against Frank Zappa. One of the last things I wrote on this site before it took a long nap starting in 2000, was a piece about Joe Lieberman, [...]
Book depositories
Have you got a jones for books and libraries? Have you spent hours browsing the stacks? Have you at one time in your life practically lived in the library? If so, than you might be ready for some Red-Hot and Filthy Library Smut. Not what you think, but exactly what you’re looking for. (via WOW [...]
A bunch of hot air
It’s very likely that wherever you are, it’s scary hot. One of our roving correspondents just returned from London, where the heat was horrific. Harry Shearer is doing his Le Show radio program from there, prior to his appearance at the Edinburgh Festival; he compared the situation to that of Los Angeles, where it rains [...]
Year One: Rising Tide
Wrapping up, here’s one last memory of my first year of blogging. Hurricane Katrina sticks deeply in my mind. I posted about it quite a lot. There were several posts that quoted from the classic Rising Tide, such as this one that gave a historical view and this one that looked at New Orleans’ racial [...]
Year One: The Media Dissed and More
Today marks the first anniversary of this blog and here are more of my fave posts. Nothing sells independence and rebellion than a plucky lil’ blogger attacking media giants, right? Sure, you could pick on someone your own size, but what’s the fun in that? I took a few shots of my own. I was [...]
“I love rock and roll…”
I love old things. It’s really dangerous to let me in an antique store or a used record or book shop. It’s because I feel as if I’m stepping into a time machine. That’s the hardest thing about the past — knowing what it was really like on a day-to-day basis. If you lived in [...]
“After all, it was you and me…”
For about a decade, I was really into conspiracies. There was Watergate, of course, the great documented conspiracy. I studied Nixon for years; hating him in detail was a great passion. Kennedy is the Big One, natch — I’ve read tons on that one. But this sort of thinking goes back hundreds of years — [...]