Giuseppe Zangara

I'd say that was clever of Paul, but Mike's reaction was probably an unintentional, albeit hilariously so, result.

Learning about other people's quirks makes me realize how lucky I am in comparison. I go through most days without hearing anyone say "panties" or making a grab for my neck or throat. Life for Czech and His Big Ball of Neuroses sounds like the pits. No wonder you're so bitter, dude.

Most album covers would benefit greatly from losing the band and album name. The spray-painted "Guns N Roses" on the wall is one of those rare moments where it worked in using the band name as an integral part of the design. Everything else is overkill.

Going back to the Pitchfork discussion Kreese and I had earlier, I'm surprised they haven't run a review for this yet. Both Friday and today would've been fine times; tomorrow isn't likely, as the new Kanye West album hits stores and they're not going to run reviews for two big-name acts in one day. I dunno, maybe they just haven't yet found the right YouTube video to express their feelings for it.

Keep the logo on the back. The spray-painted name is a nice touch; the album title, if it had to appear on the cover at all, should've been reserved for a sticker on the shrink wrap. It's a strong, eye-catching photo, but what would've made it better requires a certain amount of restraint that I'm sure is completely alien to Axl.

Though I'll note Kreese's post falls more in line with the angry thread.

Brody suffers from reading comprehension problems.

He liked showing his penis to teen-age boys.

A story: I used to work in a book store. Once, while talking to the guy working the register, the guy's arm suddenly shot out and reached for my neck. He was trying to eliminate a piece of fuzz there, but his movement was so quick and unexpected that, even though I got out of his reach in time, the experience horrified me so much that I was shaking, actually fucking trembling for seconds afterward. Upon recovering, I realized I may've insulted the guy, especially since he was gay and he might've taken my abject terror for me being afraid of such innocuous physical contact with him because of it. That wasn't the case, so I told him about my neck-issue. I'm not sure if he believed me.

It should be clarified that this is not a thread for things that make you angry. It is a thread for things that bother/upset/disturb you. For instance, I used to live with a guy who hated the sound styrofoam made when rubbed. Another guy, upon finding this out, started squeezing a styrofoam cup over and over again in his presence. They nearly came to blows. I'll never try hitting anyone who says "panties" in front of me, but I think you get the idea.

Being touched on the neck. I can handle it in an intimate situation, but if I see a hand coming for my neck at any other time, I freak out. The word "panties." Not the object itself—which I like a good deal!—but the word. I can type it and read it just fine, but I loathe hearing it said out loud.

I don't hate women. Just the other day, I was in Urban Outfitters (so gay!) and bought my girlfriend a stuffed-doll incarnation of Max from Where the Wild Things Are. It wasn't even her birthday!

I thought it was pretty bad, though some people say it's an extremely difficult dish to cook and prepare correctly. Those people are prob. full of shit, so whatevah!

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?"

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.