Giuseppe Zangara

There's some great songs on Substance, but the Warsaw material that makes up the bulk of the collection's second half is lousy. JD made for a shitty punk band.

TVOTR's Kyp Malone is the only "well-known" musician I got to interview during my college radio tenure. He was a friendly, engaging guy. I almost got the chance to talk to Damo Suzuki, but, due to visa issues, he ended up having to leave the country a week before the interview.

Ridding yourself of the Campaign 2008 megathread will only give birth to dozens of new threads every time a new attack ad runs or Palin further betrays her stupidity or more proof is unearthed of Barack Obama's connection with the Nation of Islam. Do you really want to make a lousy folder even worse?

I've decided Dear Science is a notch below Return to Cookie Mountain, with both trailing Young Liars, which is still my favorite release from this decade. Best currently active band, without a doubt.

Dear Science is terrific. Still too soon for me to say how it stacks up against RTCM, which was my favorite release from 2006. The new album is a different kind of animal; less dense, looser, and even sort of sexy. There's also a couple of genuinely lovely ballads on it.

Oh, I was just funnin' ya, Czech. I was either going to make that post or "Czech's notion of a soul-shattering experience is listening to Amnesiac in the dark while having a good cry."

Hey, what's the protocol for when some guy walks up you in public and offers you drugs? Recently, while walking in a "hip" part of town, a sweaty fellow sporting a towel around his neck and wearing nothing but jogging shorts and sleek running shoes asked me if I "smoke that good green." I told him I was good, thanks, but I couldn't help wonder what the next step would've been had I taken him up on the implied offer to sell me weed.

Man, I love everything about "Mellow My Mind." There's just no room for sloppiness and any sound or emotional noise in Czech's music listening. If he hadn't admitted to dancing to Talking Heads in his private moments, I'd say he's a cold, unfeeling bastard.

I like the 60 more than the 90, too. The latter is good, though a tad too sweet. I like the 120, but DFH's other monster beer, the World Wide Stout, is better.

I recently picked up some of DFH's Punkin Ale and their Palo Santo Marron. The latter, in spite of having 12% strength, is very drinkable and smooth. And delicious, oh man. I emptied two bottles in a shamefully quick fashion. I also recently tried Rogue's Double Dead Guy, which, while good, wasn't all that different from the regular Dead Guy and certainly wasn't worth the inflated price tag.

I've met the sister and her husband-to-be all of once prior this; I've met the gf's folks twice—only one of those times, a formal, dinner-with-the-folks affair, was the girlfriend present. The other time, I was alone in a bookstore when I happened to bump into them. What I'm saying is is that I pretty much know no one that's going to be at this wedding, so I expect it to be a drag. It's being held near the beach in St. Augustine, which is nice, at least.

Nutty. Fear of Music has been my favorite TH album as long as I've been listening to them. Though, if I had to choose, I *guess* I like the SMS version of "Heaven" a tiny bit more than the studio recording.

I have the Dwarves' Blood, Guts, & Pussy on vinyl. I propose that for the next thread.

Since the gf's family will be there, I can't alleviate my boredom by getting drunk. Blast! When I told her she owes me for having to go this, she responded that the only thing she owes me is, in turn, going to my own sister's wedding—should that day come. That day being when gays can legally marry in Florida.

My girlfriend's sister is getting hitched next weekend and of course I'm going. Man, I hope this doesn't give her, i.e. the girlfriend, any ideas. As a child, I went to a couple. Each time, I hoped something wacky would happen so it'd end up on America's Funniest Home Videos. That show is still around, though the thought of Tom Bergeron narrating some zany occurence at a wedding I attended doesn't provide the glimmer of hope it did in the halcyon days of Saget.

Among Thumbtack's many faults is his utter humorlessness re: how many of his beloved bands and subgenres tend toward the absurd. Such as the time he was cheesed off something fierce when I asked him if wearing corpse paint would get me chicks.

I'd rec GWCH over BIWHM as far as his short fiction goes, because the latter is, at times, too gimmicky. And you really need to devote the time to Infinite Jest, Dan. You'll love it. I read the final piece in Consider the Lobster, "Host," a few weeks back. I believed I've mentioned before that I long steered clear of it due to the disorienting layout; I'm glad I finally made the effort. It's one of the best pieces in the collection. I can't answer that "Mr. Squishy" question, as I haven't read Oblivion since it came out. If I pick a Wallace book to revisit soon, it'll probably be that one.

Speaking of Celtic Frost, I still haven't checked out anything beyond To Mega Therion. Based on that one album, I prefer their punchier, shorter songs to the longer ones. "The Usurper" is totally perfect; the 5 to 6 minute cuts overstay their welcome by a minute or two.

In lighter DFW-related news, this old Onion article: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27769

It isn't ironic that he's written about suicide. I've never been close to the edge before, but I would say that that passage is about as good and accurate a description you'll find on someone on the brink of killing his or herself. It's unavoidable that people are going to go back and read his books, trying to find clues as to why he did what he did. It's a waste of time; the man who ended it on Friday night is not the man who wrote those books.

Though I'm no longer the rabid fan I once was, finding out David Foster Wallace had committed suicide was still a shock. All I know of the man comes from his works and the handful of interviews I've read; reading Infinite Jest, I felt as if it was coming from someone who knew pain and sadness and whatever else, but that that someone still "got" it. Life. Even in the darker elements of his fiction, there was an underlying current that life was something worth living. Indeed, there was a time where, if I was feeling down about something, I could cheer myself up by simply reading a random section of IJ, or picking out one of his short stories or essays. It's been some time since I've done that. That was long ago for Wallace, too, I suppose. I wish I could think that if he once was able to find meaning and reason in life, then he always could. He couldn't. We can keep trying, though.

The only time W&P ever seriously drags is right at the end, in the second half of the epilogue. The novel is over by this point; it's just 30-plus dry, tedious, and brutally boring pages of Tolstoy pontificating on the nature of war, God, and whatever the hell else comes to his mind. Such a miserably dull way to end a book so full of life.

If Pitchfork's review of the Black Kids album is their mea culpa, it fails. They've hyped so many other lousy bands—are they going to start dissing them, too? That said, the pic/caption combo made me laugh, but an actual review explaining why this album stinks would've been nice. As far as I can tell, the only thing separating the LP from the EP is better production values. Also, mik, Pitchfork, for once, were working against the indie music media grain. And you appear to have confused "popular" opinion with "critical" opinion, which rarely overlap, even in indie circles. (Not to keep beating up on these guys—okay, actually, I do mean to—but I swear I've never knowingly met someone who liked Tapes n Tapes.) Popular (relatively speaking, natch) and critical opinion agree that Black Kids are some really neat 80s revivalists.

I laughed so hard at this.

Stop while you're behind. Oh no, a typo! That changes the meaning of my sentence entirely. A glance at your posting history reveals a fair amount of typo-free idiocy.