Giuseppe Zangara

Boy, do I hate Chuck Klosterman.

I feared this would happen to me, too, but my girlfriend is 26. Relief! Banging girls in their late teens/early 20s has its perks, but the older I get the more annoying they get.

Things are going well for me. I've an even better job than when I started this thread. I'm also in the most emotionally satisfying relationship I've been in years, but I'm still feel abject terror w/r/t turning 30. First-world problems.

Turning 30 next month. How awful.

Since Pitchfork decided a few years back that they're more than just an indie-music publication, they must figure a full-on trashing of this album would be predictable and a tad retrogressive. I won't hazard a guess as to what rating they'll give it, but, since early word is Chinese Democracy isn't a total disaster, I predict a review that falls in line with their recent skewering of Death Magnetic. A sort of "nice try, but it's still a failure" type of thing.

It's nice to have a diverse taste in music, but David Fricke is indiscriminate in his praise. The same man who wrote the liner notes for the reissue of the Soft Boys' Underwater Moonlight also gushed over Slipknot's Iowa...in Rolling Stone! I don't respect his opinions re: music at all, but good for him that his goofy, gangly ass can trade on his name and be the closest rock criticism has to a celebrity. And he is more or less a rock-critic celebrity; Pitchfork Media may be a big deal, but unless it's for a feature for the next big indie hype band, TV isn't calling on Ryan Schreiber.

Sensei John Kreese just made me laff. EDIT: Any album backed by a lot of hype gets a minimum of four stars in Rolling Stone. The editors at that magazine are completely afraid of missing the boat and trashing a record that may hold even the slightest chance of becoming a classic. This took root in 1996, when they pissed on Weezer's Pinkerton, an album that now, for better or for worse, is considered a classic of 90's rock. Just as they've praised every subsequent Weezer album—hey, there's still a chance there'll be enough revisionist criticism to turn Maladroit into a masterpiece!—Rolling Stone doesn't want to run the risk of being the only ones to not get behind Chinese Democracy.

:gayporn:

I read it for college. Honestly, if hadn't been for that one class, it would probably have been forever unread by me.

I didn't mean to upset you, Matt Young.

All threads regarding any recently published, arbitrarily ordered list. How about everyone stop giving a fuck that Blender/Rolling Stone/VH-1 has ranked this singer/song/album over that singer/song/album? It's not as if any real discussion results from these threads, it's all "I can't believe Hanson only ranked #69! Why didn't Vengaboys make the list?"

Let's just admit that, a few killer cuts aside, this record isn't very good. The Slider blows it out of the water; even Tanx and Dandy in the Underworld are better.

Interesting. I've been reading Midnight's Children off-and-on for the last couple months and haven't really noticed any kind of obvious or pronounced Pynchonian influence. In what ways does it show up in TSV? No other Rushdie novel I've read is quite like this one, in terms of the style and music of the prose. Plenty of Pynchonian digressions, with a number of the characters even bursting into song. (Though that may owe something to the influence of Bollywood, what with one of TSV's principle characters being a Bollywood actor.) It's the rhythm of the language, really, something hard for me to point out w/o quoting lengthy excerpts. That said, I'm about 40 pages from the end. While I've enjoyed the book, it doesn't always work. The allegory for the founding of Islam that serves as one of the novel's subplots—and what caused Rushdie to go into a fatwa-induced hiding for nine years—while interesting, never quite gels with the rest of the novel.

Music!

And look how that turned out.

The first three songs and, to a lesser extent, "Get It On" and "Planet Queen," are all that's worth salvaging about this record. "Rip Off," too, perhaps, if I'm in a generous mood. Most everything else is an utter drag. No matter how many times I've listened to this album, I can't recall what "Girl" or "Monolith" sound like. Other offenders: "The Motivator" is a poorly disguised (and inferior) rewrite of "Get It On." "Lean Woman Blues" sounds exactly you'd expect a song called "Lean Woman Blues" would sound like. I'd write off T. Rex were it not for the fact that The Slider does everything the previous, lesser album does but better.

Perhaps we can finally get rid of post counts altogether, so people like Youth N Asia won't feel it's important to have an honest, accurate post count.

Not going to bother finding the thread, but it was when Paul ("The New Me") was moaning about how his wife was leaving/had left him. Bruiser, recalling the time he (Paul) posted his dick in Milky's cock shots thread, suggested that he could've saved his marriage if he had spent more time working on his relationship with his wife and less time posting his wang on message board frequented by teenage boys.

Guys, I think I'm sick of Einstein Bros. The only one in town is very close to my apartment, so I almost always stop by there on my way to work. Poop on making my own breakfast. But yeah, I eat there too much. Blah.

I suggested that the spicier items aren't any good, but I do like their jalapeno salsa shmear. It's just that their eggs are very bland, so any egg-based sandwich or wrap tends to be overpowered by any even slightly strong flavor. Just a spicy spread on a bagel works fine. They have a smoked salmon shmear that's really thick and gummy. I don't like that one.

Is this lousy band finally taking off in the US? lol @ the UK for being into these douches years ago.

I would think a bagel shop could be found in any college town. Students like bagels, right?

Presently making my virgin excursion through The Satanic Verses. The controversy surrounding the novel overlooks the fact that Rushdie really, really likes Thomas Pynchon, and that he must've read Gravity's Rainbow a number of times. Which isn't a bad thing.

Nice, moving article about DFW in the current issue Rolling Stone. Fun Fact: Wallace would periodically become obsessed with famous people, including Margaret Thatcher and Alanis Morrissette. Slightly-Depressing-but-Oh-Well-I-Probably-Would've-Done-It-Too Fact: David Foster Wallace fucked Elizabeth Wurtzel.

I like "The Briar and the Rose" quite a bit, enough to where it was a mix staple for awhile. I don't remember much else about the album, "Lucky Day" included.