What I've Read: Fargo Rock City

About two weeks ago my Summer of Klosterman came to an end. It was a great ride, but it had to end since I ran out of books. And there was no better way to end the journey than starting at the beginning with Chuck's first book.

Fargo Rock City is mainly his autobiography of growing up in the '80s in North Dakota. More specifically, it's about his unabashed love for metal music that sustained him while growing up in the '80s in North Dakota. This is book is definitely geared toward a certain crowd. You have to have grown up and loved Motley Crue, Poison, Ratt, Warrant, Skid Row and various other
one-hit wonder bands. Also means you have to appreciate the godfather of them all, Guns n Roses. All of these bands, and many more, bring back memories of my childhood.

• Listening to Mr. Brownstone for the first time in Ben's basement and having no idea what Axl was so excited about (apparently it was 8,000 pounds of cocaine).


• Hanging out at Scott's listening to the Misfits and Danzig and the first time I was coerced into holding a snake on my arm and promptly wanting to piss my pants and vomit.


• Watching Headbanger's Ball on MTV on weekends at Aaron's place, then watching late-night ECW wrestling and nearly breaking everyone's backs with poorly executed wrestling moves.


• Smoking our first cigarettes at the ridiculously stupid age of 11 down at The Creek and listening to AC/DC.
  
  
• Being in the 8th grade and having the my graduating class vote for Skid Row's "I'll Remember You" to be our graduation song. This was an annual tradition at St. Raphael and ours was the first year in memory that the school overrode our vote. The principal chose for us and picked some shitty Kenny Rogers song. It sure as hell wasn't The Gambler, which would have rocked. We pseudo-protested by everyone not singing the song at the end of graduation per tradition, and when we had the party afterward we rocked Skid Row and GnR and everything else all night, and also cheered when our pregnant classmate arrived (oh yeah, she was 14 and pregnant and barred from being in the graduation ceremony in the church). Classy times.

This was just a skimming of the times I had growing up listening to metal. It was the mid-80s that first introduced me to Aerosmith, my favorite band of all time, and that Klosterman lavishes praise on for influencing every metal band that arrived in the 80s. Nice to see my choice in music validated.

It's a great book, and any guy (or girl) who was born in the '70s should read it because there will definitely be a chapter (or five) that resonate strongly with you. It's great stuff, and it definitely made me start re-listening to some of these bands again, for better or worse.

What I've Read: Eating the Dinosaur

My summer of Klosterman is coming to an end. I have only one of his books remaining, and Eating the Dinosaur was his most recent so the topics are a little fresher and his opinions and theories more refined.

There are 13 essays in total in this book, and as is the case with all his previous essay collections they cut a wide swath across the pop culture landscape. There were three that really meant the most to me since I either wildly agreed with them long before I even read them (which was a weird feeling to have to read passages and themes that I've talked about with friends and others long before I ever heard the name Chuck Klosterman). I'm not claiming I had anything as complete and lucid as his notions, but we did have conversations about these things during long days and nights in the Kernel newsroom and also at 278 Rose Street Apt A during our college years.

ABBA 1, World 0 is a deep look into the Swedish disco band. For those who happened to be in Macon, Ga., back in 2001 may have been in the bar that Ellen Lord took me to where we all drank way too much and I may have been coerced by the promise of more free drinks if I participated in the karaoke session by singing ABBA's "Dancing Queen." I got those free drinks, and a loud ovation.

Through a Glass Blindly is an essay about the work of Alfred Hitchcock, but primarily his movie Rear Window, which is far and away my favorite of his films and I've watched it about 45 times at least. He takes a position about voyeurism and the concept of identity and truly being/feeling alone.

"Ha ha," he said. "Ha ha" is total dissection and beat-down of the use of laugh tracks in TV sitcoms. I found myself not so much laughing at his criticism as I was noticeably nodding my head when he was tearing apart the modern network sitcom for its inability to be creative and creating a modern society where we are trained to laugh at even the most inane and meaningless writing possible. I nodded along as I recalled all the sitcoms that I like ("30 Rock", "Parks and Rec", "The Office", "Community" and others that I love which, not coincidentally, are void of laugh tracks).

The rest of the book is filled with awesome essays about Kurt Cobain, the NFL, the Unabomber, Garth Brooks' career and others. I definitely suggest picking this one up. It's a good one.

What I've Read: IV

Ahh, the summer of Klosterman continues. I recently finished IV, which was another collection of essays. Some were original, but a great deal of the book was a collection of essays that he wrote while working for publications like Spin and Esquire.

Many of the topics once again verge all over the place. One section will talk about interviews and opinions of U2 and Brittany Spears, while later he delves into eating chicken mcnuggets for an entire week or watching VH1 for 24 hours straight. On the surface one could say it's a rehash of similar topics he wrote about in Killing Yourself to Live. But that would be too simplistic and dismissive of how he can infuse his personality traits into interviews and yet take a seemingly different topic like female tribute bands and relate them to larger discussions of society and longevity.

The highlight of most all his books has been the posing of questions. These are questions not connected to any essay or topic; instead just random questions he thinks up and often asks strangers in order to see if he'd consider being friends with them. They are always interesting head-scratchers; sometimes the answer I arrived at was black-and-white but rarely. Most of the time they provoked interesting debates within my own head, and I would love to have friends around just talking these out and debating them, but the odds of that happening are slim since we prefer drinking and just making fun of each other.

For instance, here are a couple that he poses. I didn't pick the best ones because I want others to read the books, but these are just a smattering of what you can expect. I think they're just damn intriguing to consider and discuss:

Scenario 1: You meet a wizard in downtown Chicago. The wizard tells you he can make you more attractive if you pay him money. When you ask how this process works, the wizard points to a random person on the street. You look at this random stranger. The wizard says, “I will now make them a dollar more attractive.” He waves his magic wand. Ostensibly, this person does not change at all; as far as you can tell, nothing is different. But–somehow–this person is suddenly a little more appealing. The tangible difference is invisible to the naked eye, but you can’t deny that this person is vaguely sexier. This wizard has a weird rule, though–you can only pay him once. You can’t keep giving him money until you’re satisfied. You can only pay him one lump sum up front.

How much cash do you give the wizard?

Scenario 2: Let us assume a fully grown, completely healthy Clydesdale horse has his hooves shackled to the ground while his head is held in place with thick rope. He is conscious and standing upright, but completely immobile. And let us assume that–for some reason–every political prisoner on earth (as cited by Amnesty International) will be released from captivity if you can kick this horse to death in less than twenty minutes. You are allowed to wear steel-toed boots.

Would you attempt to do this?

Scenario 3: 4. Genetic engineers at Johns Hopkins University announce that they have developed a so-called “super gorilla.” Though the animal cannot speak, it has a sign language lexicon of over twelve thousand words, an I.Q. of almost 85, and–most notably–a vague sense of self-awareness. Oddly, the creature (who weighs seven hundred pounds) becomes fascinated by football. The gorilla aspires to play the game at its highest level and quickly develops the rudimentary skills of a defensive end. ESPN analyst Tom Jackson speculates that this gorilla would be “borderline unblockable” and would likely average six sacks a game (although Jackson concedes the beast might be susceptible to counters and misdirection plays). Meanwhile, the gorilla has made it clear he would never intentionally injure any opponent.

You are commissioner of the NFL: Would you allow this gorilla to sign with the Oakland Raiders?

Scenario 4: You meet your soul mate. However, there is a catch: Every three years, someone will break both of your soul mate’s collarbones with a Crescent wrench, and there is only one way you can stop this from happening: You must swallow a pill that will make every song you hear–for the rest of your life–sound as if it’s being performed by the band Alice in Chains. When you hear Creedence Clearwater Revival on the radio, it will sound (to your ears) like it’s being played by Alice in Chains. If you see Radiohead live, every one of their tunes will sound like it’s being covered by Alice in Chains. When you hear a commercial jingle on TV, it will sound like Alice in Chains; if you sing to yourself in the shower, your voice will sound like deceased Alice vocalist Layne Staley performing a capella (but it will only sound this way to you).

Would you swallow the pill?

What I've Read: Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

My summer of Klosterman continues. Or maybe it's my spring of Klosterman. Oh, hell, who gives a crap. Either way, I polished off another of his books last week, this time his second book, "Killing Yourself to Live."

The book is pretty much his recounting a road trip he took across the country. Not to visit anyone in particular; instead, it was to visit places where people died. Music stars, more specifically. Like Cobain, Skynard and others. While it seems like an interesting journey, you can tell from the reading that it's rather boring and not nearly the big deal or cultural eye-opener music fans might consider it.

So instead the book ends up becoming this excellent exploration into relationships and love. He details his relationship with three women, and each represents a certain side of Klosterman, exposing his passions, fears and dreams. You can tell throughout the book that he made the decision somewhere along his drive that this was a far more interesting tale to tell than the bland fields and discreet locations where these rock stars either OD'd or crashed in a small plane. I don't mean to trivialize their deaths, either, but I certainly began to appreciate the stories of his relationships with the girls because they more closely resembled relationships I'd had with previous girlfriends.

Reviewing the first book of his I'd read, I mentioned that since he's both close to my age and also way smarter than me in putting thoughts into interesting words, I feel a kinship through the pages and think we'd probably be friends or decent acquaintances if we knew each other. Or most likely he'd brush me aside and find someone more interesting, but with two books down a three more to go, I'm not really caring anymore and just enjoying the reads.