Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

One of the most obnoxious things I have ever done was on Halloween, perhaps in 1995 or 1996. I was sixteen or seventeen years old. Dressed in cheap store-bought monster masks, wearing old jeans and sneakers, my friend Bill and I prowled the streets of my hometown. We terrorized churches, children, and old ladies. We were equal opportunity in those days, relying on our innate sense of indecency. We creepy-crawled that town. Like that scene in Pink Flamingos , when the furniture ejects people because of the sheer badness of  Divine and her twisted family, we meant to be as evil as possible. We ignored the comments that we were too old to be trick or treating. It did not matter that both of us were over six feet tall and Bill weighed over two hundred pounds. We just wanted more candy. We weren't going to take no lip. Forget about the razor blades in the candy, bub. I don't want any more sweet tarts. The mission was fraught with peril. Weirdness abounded at every corner. We gri...

I'm listening to Chris Bell and feeling really underwhelmed by graduate school today. So I figured now was as good of a time as any to flex my fiction writing muscles and post another installment of my sojourn into fiction writing -- " "The Jukebox Played An Old Sad Song." I feel that some of this story might seem a tad cliched, or intentionally pulpy, but I am going with it. Writing is an unrewarding task sometimes, but most of the time I can't imagine doing anything else.  One of these times I will put up revisions. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- He grabbed a pool cue from a corner rack. The bar was somewhat of a dive with dirty concrete floors and cracked brown wall panels covered by decades old beer signs. The only new embellishments included new lights over the pool tables and large screen led televisions with 24 hour sports blaring. The pool cue he grabbed was one of the old ones; it had so...

Those who have spent any time around me know that I have never been a fan of Progressive rock. At first mention of genre stalwarts like Yes, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and King Crimson, I clam up, only to have apoplectic fits of rage later at home while jamming out to the Dead Boys. And don't even get me started on Rush -- I could write an entire blog post on their fan base alone. Yet when it comes to horror movie soundtracks, I rave endlessly about the merits of bands like Goblin who epitomize the genre in every way, except for the fact that they made the music (mostly) for the best Dario Argento films, including Suspiria and Deep Red . Their intelligent and intricate, yet propulsive, themes make these great films even better. In fact, those who question Argento's ability as a director must admit that his choice of music is integral to the horror and suspense he creates. Goblin is a huge part of that. Their pieces move the films along by providing tension and drama at oppo...

In issues of the old "Lookout Records! catalog," Larry Livermore, or some earnest shitworker, referred to Pot Valiant's eponymous EP as "what your cough syrup daydreams sound like." With an awful cold, while fighting through my own cough syrup haze, I listened to the new Green Day album for the umpteenth time, wondering just how far the boys from Rodeo had come from their early days on the aforementioned (and sadly gone) pop punk label. Green Day's new record, Uno! , is much better than expected. Gone is much of the rock star posturing and  topical songwriting that plagued or strengthened their last two rock operas: 2004's American Idiot and 2009's 21st Century Breakdown . Nor is there an overarching conceptual theme, except perhaps an attempt to write fun songs in the tradition of their Lookout! records. Yet, if you are looking for the ubiquitous return to form record, you may need to imbibe in similar large amounts of cough syrup. Perhaps a r...

Every year I go camping when the leaves are changing colors. There is a certain mystique involved in packing up the car, making sure I have my tent and all necessary gear. I double check my list for all the "important" necessities: good craft beer, bottles of whiskey, a radio for tunes (if the campsite has electricity), swimming trunks for that balmy fall day, a fully stocked mp3 player (you never know when you might want to hear some powerviolence or garage rock -- not to mention obscure Texas psychedelia), fireworks, books of various kinds (including a handy volume on building shelters out of gathered twigs), just to name a few. I always meet a small tight-knit group of old friends at the campsite. We will stay up most of the night around the campfire bullshitting, but we will at least entertain the idea of doing more than staring at the fire.Our goal is to find a campground somewhere within comparative driving distance of each of our respective homes, so no one has to ...

"When you travel south on County Road W, the type of highway that everyone drives like they're racing, you will come around a sharp bend. A sign on the right will announce another resort, but the staunch gray, brick building on the left tells another story. There might be locals in these woods. But, alas, it’s just another hunting shack. If you turn right here and head down Flemings Rapids road, you will reach a bridge. There is good walleye and bass fishing here. Kids wander these woods in the summer looking for the perfect fishing hole. As you look upriver, you will see a roller dam that was built years ago, thick with seaweed when the river is low, barely visible if the river is high." 

Listening to new records is sometimes a thankless job. For everything that rewards repeat listens, there is tons of dross to sift through. Yet every once in awhile, there are records that stick with you. Sometimes they are ignored after first listen; they sit on the shelf for years until you revisit them, blaming yourself for not finding their merits on early listens. Yet certain phrases stick in our ears for years. I remember the lyrics from records on cue, sometimes even after ten years. As I write, I am listening to the Joey Cape / Tony Sly split, Acoustic, Volume Two. I was a big fan of Sly's No Use for a Name in high school. They were one of those bands that spoke volumes to my teenage self. Songs dealing with alienation and frustration, poppy punk or melodicore bands attracted many of us, pulling us into more "authentic" punk lifestyles. While seemingly candy-coated, these bands had enough authenticity for small town rebels and freethinkers. It was only later tha...