For the past 25 years I’ve regarded July of 1991 as being significant for two reasons. First, it was the month I chopped off the “mullet” hairstyle I’d been wearing since 1986 and began to grow out what might be termed “grunge hair.” And, just as significantly, it was the month I attended the first Lollapalooza festival when…
About suffering they were never wrong, The old Masters: how well they understood Its human position: how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially…
Poetry: “At least, not in the pages of Billboard Magazine / Which chronicled showbiz scuttlebutt in the days / When entertainments were an in-the-flesh affair.”
I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. … Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on…
Sports commentary: As a die-hard fan, seeing your team lose in the postseason is a rich source of speculation and mythology. Seeing your team win it all makes for a much better story, save one key conundrum.
Cultural criticism: Steve Miller had a clear-cut legal case when the Geto Boys used his guitar-hook in their raunchy 1990 single “Gangster of Love.” The racial implications weren’t so simple.
Cultural criticism: The Geto Boys’ self-titled third album rattled America’s cultural gatekeepers, making N.W.A and 2 Live Crew look like a society luncheon.
“Araki was the only drink on offer, and the owner sloshed it into a plastic bottle from an unwieldy jerrycan before moving around the room to refill clients’ glasses for ten cents a shot.”
“Whatever Johnny Wadie Red Tabel was, it wasn’t whisky; its flavor was a medicinal blend of anise, vanilla, and laundry detergent, and its buzz arrived in tandem with its hangover.”
Lyric essay: This prose poem jumbles passages from slave narratives and self-help books, Walden and the Hadith, online therapy forums and celebrity memoirs, weaving together a series of age-specific moments that shed light on the boundaries of memory and the complexities of self-presentation.
Satire: “Hey there, I’m a TV show set in New Orleans. I’m about art and integrity, and I don’t give a shit what you think of me.”
