Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

“ Seventh Son” A hazy mist covered the ground in the cemetery. Green saplings bent to the ground. I walked solemnly, looking behind me every couple of minutes. My chest beat and my legs felt tense. I had been meeting my brother in Shadows Grove Cemetery for several years. Well, I guess I couldn’t really call it meeting him. He’s dead. I just walked to the cemetery to talk to him. He was the only person whom I could really trust when he was alive. You see, my dad died before I was born and my mom -- well, she’s crazy. She tells me that I’m crazy for talking to Randall. She says, “He’s dead. When are you gonna realize that? I raised a dip shit kid who talks to fucking angels.” She isn’t all that bad, though. At least, she doesn’t hit me anymore. As I approached his plot, I saw a big and nasty crow. It cawed at me and flew into the grey sky, then alighted near Randall’s gravestone and dashed back into the sky. The sun was beginning to make me tired. I felt it on my skin and s...

My soundtrack for the slow summer days is often old blues or soul records. Not that I feel particularly bummed out or blue at the moment, but artists like Son House and Robert Johnson wrote timeless songs that always seem appropriate. Listening to the blues makes me think of past summer days spent walking in the woods or traipsing down to the river to go fishing. While listening to soul reminds me of summer picnics with oldies radio cranked up to ten. Each seem perfect, whether blasting out of a boombox, a phonograph, or an mp3 player. Right now I am savoring Son House's Complete Library of Congress Sessions , but I could as easily be sampling John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom . There are so many blues records that seem appropriate for a hot summer day. Soul records are also great, easy summer listening. Sam Cooke and Otis Redding are not far from my turntable in summer months. Which is why I return again and again to classics like Sam Cooke's Live at the Harlem Club, 1963 -- ...