In case you were stuck under a rock this past week, the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy came around, exactly to the very weekend that it occured (if this were fifty years ago, Lee Harvey Oswald would be just shaking off his mortal coil, thanks to Jack Ruby). To you millenials in the audience, this anniversary was something that your parents or grandparents probably kept talking about. I was born sixteen years after the event (my mom was four when it happened), so I might have a slightly less distance to the events than most typical blog readers might.
When I was a kid, the conspiracy theories about the murder were just getting going, culminating in Oliver Stone's monumental JFK, released in 1991. The movie, about New Orleans DA Jim Garrison's unsuccessful attempt to convict anyone in the greater New Orleans telephone directory of the crime, is justifiably cited as Hollywood myth and baloney, yet the voice it gave to the conspiracy theorists is hard to beat. It's far sexier to believe that Oswald was a patsy or a pawn of some nefarious group, composed of vengeful anti-Castro Cubans, the Mafia, CIA, FBI, and various other alphabet-soup government organizations, and that their conspiracy was so effective that no credible proof has ever surfaced to suggest even a whiff of it being true. It's sexy to believe that, but odds are that it's hogwash.
Now, I understand that it's hard for most Americans (or most anyone, really) to believe that one lone, nutjob gunman could unleash so much havoc and not have a team behind him, funding him and keeping him safe (then silencing him when the prospect of him spilling his guts seemed too close for comfort). But look at the previous presidential assassinations, the successful ones: Garfield and McKinley were gunned down by lone nutjobs, with no hint of any accomplices either before or after the effect. Lincoln's death was at the hands of a conspiracy that, at the least, existed solely among John Wilkes Booth and his collaberators and, at the most, may have been funded by the Confederacy in a last-ditch effort to exact retribution (and subsequently screw itself out of a peaceful and not-at-all-awful period of postwar reconstruction, as would have been the case had Lincoln lived. Instead, Booth did the worst disservice to America by leaving Andrew Johnson and the Radical Republicans in charge. That did not go well for anyone in the long run). Lincoln's was the first presidential death by violence (no one wonders if someone "got to" William Henry Harrison or Zachery Taylor, the other two presidents to die in office before 1865), and it was proven beyond doubt that it was an orchestrated hit. It's hard to shake that narrative when confronted with the Kennedy murder a little less than a century later.
I have come to the view over the years that, barring the exposure of some long-lost secret file or deathbed confession on the part of a remorseful Mafioso or Cuban operative, Oswald was the primary shooter, if not the only one, and that by all likelihood he was just as alone in his act as Charles Guiteau, the guy who shot McKinley (a whole string of vowels and consonents make up his last name), and John Hinckley Jr (who was clearly barking up the wrong tree when he shot Reagan to impress Jody Foster, if you know what I mean and I think you do). Does this mean I don't think Oswald had help? Of course not, he had "help" in the sense that he got the rifle through a mail-order offer, he got a ride to work that day so he could carry said rifle, and he had plenty of information about the president's route thanks to the local newspaper (the motorcade just happened to pass underneath his workplace at the School Book Depository). Beyond that, it's a mystery wrapped inside of an enigma. What the truth ultimately is is hard to determine, even fifty years after. But my gut is that Oswald most likely acted alone or at the "behest" of someone he was trying to impress (maybe the Soviets, because he had lived in Russia and certainly thought killing the president might get him a ticket back to the Motherland). The guy was crazy, no doubt (most people who take up violence to make a political point are), but he could've pulled it off minus the Cubans, the KGB, or the CIA helping or training him.
I'm not sure if the word "insulting" is appropriate to describe the way most conspiracy theorists seem to view Oswald; after all, the man was a murderer, so you should be insulting him day and night for his crimes. But to say that he couldn't have pulled it off underestimates a crazy man with a gun, and I think the real disservice to the memory of JFK is that his death had become a parlor game of "whodunit" when the real questions are more like "why?" and "what legacy does JFK leave us?" In the post-Watergate world we live in, we can be forgiven for being skeptical about government reports into why things happen (The X-Files could never have happened in a pre-November 22, 1963 America). A little healthy skepticism is a good thing. But to hold everyone and their mother responsible for JFK's death, while ignoring the most likely suspect, is almost criminal in and of itself. Lee Harvey Oswald was many things; I don't believe "a patsy for some grander scheme" to be one of them.
In the time since his death, we've learned that JFK was a womanizer, a sufferer of crippling diseases and ailments that made him a marked man from his early thirties onward, and not quite the shining example of liberal social and foreign policy that many made him to be in the wake of his untimely death. These things don't diminish him; they present a more rounded-out, complicated portrait of an imperfect man who nonetheless was good for the country, in the brief time he had to lead it. Truth be told, I've always admired his brother Robert more, but Robert wouldn't have become the man he did without JFK's death. John F. Kennedy achieved more in death than he might have in life (apart from the Cuban Missile Crisis; that was an obvious example of "president saves the world from nuclear destruction" that Hollywood movies always harp about, usually with Michael Bay in the director's seat). We have not seen another president leave office in a casket in our lifetime, and that's always a good thing. No conspiracy is powerful enough to wreck the foundations of our country. But one lone gunman can bring this nation to its knees. That is the ultimate lesson that gets lost when you think space aliens and Castro worked with ex-Nazis and Soviet dominatrixes to bring down the Kennedy adminstration.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Flying Burrito Brothers, "Hot Burrito # 1, #2"
In 1973, a year after CCR disbanded and Lou Reed released "Walk On the Wild Side," Gram Parsons died in a resort town in the California desert. In fact, it's been thirty years since his death, and he has become a bonafide legend in certain circles, a lost prophet of American roots music gone far, far too soon. And the Eagles skullfucked his corpse in order to obtain their mastery over the country-rock format that he pioneered.
Kidding, though I always used to say that to a buddy of mine who happened to be a huge Eagles fan, as a way of being an ass.
Anyway, Parsons fronted two of the oddest-named bands in the history of popular music, the International Submarine Band and the Flying Burrito Brothers, in between these two briefly joining the premier American folk-rock band the Byrds and changing their musical direction irrevocably. If he hadn't died at the age of twenty-six, of the usual-suspects cause of drug overdose, he'd probably have a long and prolific career. But then he wouldn't be Gram Parsons.
His life, as recorded by Ben Fong-Torres, could've been a country song (and while there have been other books about Parsons, I would stick with Fong-Torres' tome). His biological father died when he was young, and his mother committed suicide. Parsons went to Harvard but dropped out to become a travelling musician, playing the country music of his native South (born in Florida but raised in Georgia) with an inverted rock twist. At the height of psychedelic rock (the inspiration for so many band names far more bizarre than even ISB or FBB), Parsons struck out on a different path, a path that would leave him gone before he could see how far and wide his inspiration went. You can't have Wilco without Gram Parsons to show the way.
Parsons and the country-fied Byrds were not alone in 1968, when Sweethearts Of the Rodeo (his sole album with the group) came out; the Band came out of hibernation with Dylan to release their own take on roots music, and Bob Dylan himself unplugged and embraced country sounds. It's not hard to understand why country rock took off like it did: the excess of a lot of Sixties music (basically anything that you hear in a movie today to make you think "oh, it must be the Sixties!") began to wear on its target audience as the world around them became much scarier. In 1968, you had the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the Chicago Convention riots, and the election of Tricky Dick and his gang of crooks to the highest office in the land. Who wants to hear guitar feedback from the Exploding Chocolate Watchband Fruitgum Mothers of Dynamic Tensions and Inventions, fronted by Jeff Beck?
Country rock, of course, is now "alt country," and more power to you if you like it; I've dipped my toe in a couple of times, but apart from Wilco I think I'm good. Mainstream country music never embraced Gram Parsons the way that alt country did; they went for the slick Eagles-style commercial sound in the early Nineties and never looked back. The absolute nadir of this is, of course, Florida-Georgia Line's "Cruise." I doubt that Parsons would look too kindly upon this, as it sullies both his birthplace and home state in the band name alone.
Let's talk about band names for a minute: I can't remember why exactly Parsons and former Byrd Chris Hillman settled on "Flying Burrito Brothers" as a band name, but damned if it doesn't stick in your memory after you've heard it (and possibly makes you crave some Mexican food). Parsons made two albums with the group (one more than he made with the Byrds or the International Submarine Band) before striking out on a solo career that included the discovery of songbird Emmylou Harris as his duet partner. Those two albums, The Gilded Palace of Sin and Burrito Deluxe, are must-haves. The early Seventies were both the best and worst time for music in a lot of ways: with the Beatles split up, the stage was clear for someone to take up the mantle of rock god (it is only to ourselves that blame must fall for KISS claiming that title). Everyone who heard the Band's debut did their own country-rock version of it (Elton John named a song after Levon Helm, for pete's sake). And Gram Parsons sent his burritos flying with songs that married traditional country sounds with rock and roll sensibilities. The Rolling Stones owe him a debt, and it's possible that his time in the company of champion drug-taker Keith Richards contributed to Parsons' early demise. But sometimes an artist can reach more people after he's passed; it's unfortunate, but a truism. Van Gogh and Keats had to die before anyone would appreciate them; Jim Morrison and Ian Curtis unintentionally built up cults around their deaths somehow being prefigured in their music. Gram Parsons could've had a much longer career, but then maybe he wouldn't be Gram Parsons.
So seek out The Gilded Palace of Sin and Burrito Deluxe (if you're lucky, you'll come across the one-CD grouping of both albums as a package deal like I did years ago). Before hipsters tried to ruin it, country rock was pretty damn cool, and Gram Parsons was at the head of the pack.
Kidding, though I always used to say that to a buddy of mine who happened to be a huge Eagles fan, as a way of being an ass.
Anyway, Parsons fronted two of the oddest-named bands in the history of popular music, the International Submarine Band and the Flying Burrito Brothers, in between these two briefly joining the premier American folk-rock band the Byrds and changing their musical direction irrevocably. If he hadn't died at the age of twenty-six, of the usual-suspects cause of drug overdose, he'd probably have a long and prolific career. But then he wouldn't be Gram Parsons.
His life, as recorded by Ben Fong-Torres, could've been a country song (and while there have been other books about Parsons, I would stick with Fong-Torres' tome). His biological father died when he was young, and his mother committed suicide. Parsons went to Harvard but dropped out to become a travelling musician, playing the country music of his native South (born in Florida but raised in Georgia) with an inverted rock twist. At the height of psychedelic rock (the inspiration for so many band names far more bizarre than even ISB or FBB), Parsons struck out on a different path, a path that would leave him gone before he could see how far and wide his inspiration went. You can't have Wilco without Gram Parsons to show the way.
Parsons and the country-fied Byrds were not alone in 1968, when Sweethearts Of the Rodeo (his sole album with the group) came out; the Band came out of hibernation with Dylan to release their own take on roots music, and Bob Dylan himself unplugged and embraced country sounds. It's not hard to understand why country rock took off like it did: the excess of a lot of Sixties music (basically anything that you hear in a movie today to make you think "oh, it must be the Sixties!") began to wear on its target audience as the world around them became much scarier. In 1968, you had the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the Chicago Convention riots, and the election of Tricky Dick and his gang of crooks to the highest office in the land. Who wants to hear guitar feedback from the Exploding Chocolate Watchband Fruitgum Mothers of Dynamic Tensions and Inventions, fronted by Jeff Beck?
Country rock, of course, is now "alt country," and more power to you if you like it; I've dipped my toe in a couple of times, but apart from Wilco I think I'm good. Mainstream country music never embraced Gram Parsons the way that alt country did; they went for the slick Eagles-style commercial sound in the early Nineties and never looked back. The absolute nadir of this is, of course, Florida-Georgia Line's "Cruise." I doubt that Parsons would look too kindly upon this, as it sullies both his birthplace and home state in the band name alone.
Let's talk about band names for a minute: I can't remember why exactly Parsons and former Byrd Chris Hillman settled on "Flying Burrito Brothers" as a band name, but damned if it doesn't stick in your memory after you've heard it (and possibly makes you crave some Mexican food). Parsons made two albums with the group (one more than he made with the Byrds or the International Submarine Band) before striking out on a solo career that included the discovery of songbird Emmylou Harris as his duet partner. Those two albums, The Gilded Palace of Sin and Burrito Deluxe, are must-haves. The early Seventies were both the best and worst time for music in a lot of ways: with the Beatles split up, the stage was clear for someone to take up the mantle of rock god (it is only to ourselves that blame must fall for KISS claiming that title). Everyone who heard the Band's debut did their own country-rock version of it (Elton John named a song after Levon Helm, for pete's sake). And Gram Parsons sent his burritos flying with songs that married traditional country sounds with rock and roll sensibilities. The Rolling Stones owe him a debt, and it's possible that his time in the company of champion drug-taker Keith Richards contributed to Parsons' early demise. But sometimes an artist can reach more people after he's passed; it's unfortunate, but a truism. Van Gogh and Keats had to die before anyone would appreciate them; Jim Morrison and Ian Curtis unintentionally built up cults around their deaths somehow being prefigured in their music. Gram Parsons could've had a much longer career, but then maybe he wouldn't be Gram Parsons.
So seek out The Gilded Palace of Sin and Burrito Deluxe (if you're lucky, you'll come across the one-CD grouping of both albums as a package deal like I did years ago). Before hipsters tried to ruin it, country rock was pretty damn cool, and Gram Parsons was at the head of the pack.
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Fortunate Son"
If there's one lesson that studying the music groups or artists you love constantly reinforces, it's that sometimes the very people whose art you love can be the biggest dicks in the history of dickdom. For me, with all the Lou Reed tributes cropping up which made mention of Lou's loutish behaviour at times towards journalists (though of course said tributes were pouring in from many of those same journalists), it reminded me of John Fogerty, whom I consider both a talented songwriter (especially with his band Creedence Clearwater Revival) and a huge dick to his former bandmates.
Fogerty led CCR during the late Sixties heyday they enjoyed in the white-hot sulpherous glare of American pop-rock stardom (at a time when Reed and the Velvets couldn't get arrested on the pop charts). Then, first parting with his brother Tom and then with the other two bandmembers (bassist Stu Cook and drummer Doug Clifford), Fogerty embarked on a solo career that so far has yielded "Centerfield" and..."Centerfield 2013"? "Centerfield 2: Electric Boogaloo"? Safe to say, most people know Fogerty today for CCR, which is a pretty good legacy to have if you can get it. But he's a dick.
I know a lot of people love CCR and will take issue with my assertation about his asshole-ness, but trust me, I looked it up on Wikipedia and read the quote there John gave about how he "did everything" in CCR. He's the last person to ever be accused of modesty, and for the fact that he has continuously snubbed his bandmates (Tom died in 1990, and Clifford and Cook aren't on speaking terms with His High and Mighty John Fogerty), I have personally found it hard to enojoy CCR without thinking to myself "man, the guy singing this song is a dick."
Truth be told, of course, if you're a fan of Lou Reed or even the great Bob Dylan (as I am), you really shouldn't be too upset if an artists turns out to be a pain in the ass on a personal level (or comes across that way because rock journalists *say* he's that way). There's always a story or two every month about the ridiculous riders attached to touring artists who demand white doves in their dressing room, or no green M&Ms in the sparkling bidet that every auditorium must provide, or whatnot. Most of the time, these stories are meant to remind you, the viewer at home, that Celebrities Aren't Like Us, and you can take it either as a compliment (see, you're not batshit crazy, stars are!) or an insult (don't you wish you could get away with this?). So please don't mistake me when I say that John Fogerty is a dick, it doesn't mean that he hasn't written some true-blue American anthems about driving trucks and running through jungles and being a fortunate son who don't have to go get his ass shot off in Vietnam. He has written some great, great songs. He's just a bit of a dick.
John Fogerty can get away with this dickishness because, like I said, he wrote some great songs. But listening to CCR this past week, I can see how hollow and empty some of the band's biggest hits are, at least in terms of being "authentic." At a time when the Band was perfecting the sound of roots rock, CCR made it mainstream by bringing back the sound of the Fifties to the charts. But I'm gonna have to go with the Band over CCR if I want "authentic" roots rock. This has nothing to do with CCR's "Southern by way of NoCal" rock sound (plenty of bands have created an allure that has no basis in geographical fact, and CCR were clearly indebted to Faulkner as much as they were to Sun Records in conceiving of a South that exists in their songs, with maybe some early existential Walker Percy thrown in for good measure). CCR were popular, mighty popular, in their heyday, and the golden rule of music is that the greater your popularity the less relevant you are to future generations unless you're "revived" due to nostalgia or hipster irony. CCR is now used to sell Walgreen's. You can't be "revived" if you're used to hawk medical stores.
But no matter how popular they were in their day, CCR gets a bit of a pass because the good songs they did, the really good ones, are classics that can't be sullied too much by being used in ads. In a perfect world, of course, the Velvet Underground or the Stooges or Big Star would've gotten the sort of acclaim and "all-American appeal" that CCR got instead, but c'est la vie. And I like CCR, at least on some level. I remember as a kid, seeing ads for the band's best-of on TV and thinking how cool and "Sixties" they looked. CCR were fabricated, to be sure, and they were sold to a nation gullible enough to think that CCR were "hip, but okay for backyard pool parties in the suburbs," not "child-raping revolutionaries with bombs aimed at the heart of America" (though few songs can match "Fortunate Son" in terms of "go fuck yourself" and anger). I like CCR when I don't have to think about how much of a dick Fogerty was to his former bandmates. But as I get older, it's harder to seperate the two. For the time being, however, crank it up when this song or any of their songs come on the radio. It may have as much to do with the South as Larry the Cable Guy does, but the music of CCR is blessedly, flawed America at its best. Even when it's written by a huge dick.
Fogerty led CCR during the late Sixties heyday they enjoyed in the white-hot sulpherous glare of American pop-rock stardom (at a time when Reed and the Velvets couldn't get arrested on the pop charts). Then, first parting with his brother Tom and then with the other two bandmembers (bassist Stu Cook and drummer Doug Clifford), Fogerty embarked on a solo career that so far has yielded "Centerfield" and..."Centerfield 2013"? "Centerfield 2: Electric Boogaloo"? Safe to say, most people know Fogerty today for CCR, which is a pretty good legacy to have if you can get it. But he's a dick.
I know a lot of people love CCR and will take issue with my assertation about his asshole-ness, but trust me, I looked it up on Wikipedia and read the quote there John gave about how he "did everything" in CCR. He's the last person to ever be accused of modesty, and for the fact that he has continuously snubbed his bandmates (Tom died in 1990, and Clifford and Cook aren't on speaking terms with His High and Mighty John Fogerty), I have personally found it hard to enojoy CCR without thinking to myself "man, the guy singing this song is a dick."
Truth be told, of course, if you're a fan of Lou Reed or even the great Bob Dylan (as I am), you really shouldn't be too upset if an artists turns out to be a pain in the ass on a personal level (or comes across that way because rock journalists *say* he's that way). There's always a story or two every month about the ridiculous riders attached to touring artists who demand white doves in their dressing room, or no green M&Ms in the sparkling bidet that every auditorium must provide, or whatnot. Most of the time, these stories are meant to remind you, the viewer at home, that Celebrities Aren't Like Us, and you can take it either as a compliment (see, you're not batshit crazy, stars are!) or an insult (don't you wish you could get away with this?). So please don't mistake me when I say that John Fogerty is a dick, it doesn't mean that he hasn't written some true-blue American anthems about driving trucks and running through jungles and being a fortunate son who don't have to go get his ass shot off in Vietnam. He has written some great, great songs. He's just a bit of a dick.
John Fogerty can get away with this dickishness because, like I said, he wrote some great songs. But listening to CCR this past week, I can see how hollow and empty some of the band's biggest hits are, at least in terms of being "authentic." At a time when the Band was perfecting the sound of roots rock, CCR made it mainstream by bringing back the sound of the Fifties to the charts. But I'm gonna have to go with the Band over CCR if I want "authentic" roots rock. This has nothing to do with CCR's "Southern by way of NoCal" rock sound (plenty of bands have created an allure that has no basis in geographical fact, and CCR were clearly indebted to Faulkner as much as they were to Sun Records in conceiving of a South that exists in their songs, with maybe some early existential Walker Percy thrown in for good measure). CCR were popular, mighty popular, in their heyday, and the golden rule of music is that the greater your popularity the less relevant you are to future generations unless you're "revived" due to nostalgia or hipster irony. CCR is now used to sell Walgreen's. You can't be "revived" if you're used to hawk medical stores.
But no matter how popular they were in their day, CCR gets a bit of a pass because the good songs they did, the really good ones, are classics that can't be sullied too much by being used in ads. In a perfect world, of course, the Velvet Underground or the Stooges or Big Star would've gotten the sort of acclaim and "all-American appeal" that CCR got instead, but c'est la vie. And I like CCR, at least on some level. I remember as a kid, seeing ads for the band's best-of on TV and thinking how cool and "Sixties" they looked. CCR were fabricated, to be sure, and they were sold to a nation gullible enough to think that CCR were "hip, but okay for backyard pool parties in the suburbs," not "child-raping revolutionaries with bombs aimed at the heart of America" (though few songs can match "Fortunate Son" in terms of "go fuck yourself" and anger). I like CCR when I don't have to think about how much of a dick Fogerty was to his former bandmates. But as I get older, it's harder to seperate the two. For the time being, however, crank it up when this song or any of their songs come on the radio. It may have as much to do with the South as Larry the Cable Guy does, but the music of CCR is blessedly, flawed America at its best. Even when it's written by a huge dick.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Fall Housecleaning Edition
No song review/inspiration for rambling personal essay today, I've got some things to talk about that don't really fall into that category so I'm just rambling today.
First things first: I was heartbroken last week when Lou Reed died. I thought about posting my thoughts here, but then I remembered that I owed the website Overthinking It an article after my last idea (comparing Miley Cyrus to J.D. Salinger) didn't pan out in second-draft form. So I sent them this: http://www.overthinkingit.com/2013/10/31/sweet-lou-lou-reed-1942-2013/
Lou Reed was a hero of mine since I heard Joy Division cover "Sister Ray" and sought out the original Velvet Underground version. He lived a full, active and adventurous life, and he will be missed. Kudos to the Georgia PBS station for re-broadcasting the "American Masters" profile of Reed from back in the late Nineties twice this weekend.
Now then; grad school applications do have a deadline, and it is February 1st. I'm now wondering if I can afford the fee for the entrance exam (it was pretty high a few years ago, and that was before the recession). I just sent off my first student-loan payment yesterday, which is kind of a big deal as I delayed it forever because of all the fun times I had financially over the past few years. It felt good to start trying to pay that off, though it too could take a long time to do so.
Finally, I read a very good biography of a very odd writer whose work I've always meant to delve more into but whose reputation for being odd has kept me at arm's length. David Foster Wallace left behind three novels, a couple of collections of short stories and essays, and one very interesting collaboration about rap music (the only work of his I've actually managed to read all the way through). Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story is the first biography about him, and it's really good (even if I can't help but feel sad at how the author seems to portray him. I wonder how people who knew DFW feel about the portrait). I might just have to pick up some of DFW's work and give it another try. I think I got through the first paragraph of Infinite Jest before tossing my hands up in despair that I would never understand it. Sometimes it helps to have context.
Anyway, that's it for now, except that I just remembered how awesome it is to see Boston win another World Series. Do you realize that they have yet to lose a World Series this century? Wicked hard, that is. Wicked hard.
First things first: I was heartbroken last week when Lou Reed died. I thought about posting my thoughts here, but then I remembered that I owed the website Overthinking It an article after my last idea (comparing Miley Cyrus to J.D. Salinger) didn't pan out in second-draft form. So I sent them this: http://www.overthinkingit.com/2013/10/31/sweet-lou-lou-reed-1942-2013/
Lou Reed was a hero of mine since I heard Joy Division cover "Sister Ray" and sought out the original Velvet Underground version. He lived a full, active and adventurous life, and he will be missed. Kudos to the Georgia PBS station for re-broadcasting the "American Masters" profile of Reed from back in the late Nineties twice this weekend.
Now then; grad school applications do have a deadline, and it is February 1st. I'm now wondering if I can afford the fee for the entrance exam (it was pretty high a few years ago, and that was before the recession). I just sent off my first student-loan payment yesterday, which is kind of a big deal as I delayed it forever because of all the fun times I had financially over the past few years. It felt good to start trying to pay that off, though it too could take a long time to do so.
Finally, I read a very good biography of a very odd writer whose work I've always meant to delve more into but whose reputation for being odd has kept me at arm's length. David Foster Wallace left behind three novels, a couple of collections of short stories and essays, and one very interesting collaboration about rap music (the only work of his I've actually managed to read all the way through). Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story is the first biography about him, and it's really good (even if I can't help but feel sad at how the author seems to portray him. I wonder how people who knew DFW feel about the portrait). I might just have to pick up some of DFW's work and give it another try. I think I got through the first paragraph of Infinite Jest before tossing my hands up in despair that I would never understand it. Sometimes it helps to have context.
Anyway, that's it for now, except that I just remembered how awesome it is to see Boston win another World Series. Do you realize that they have yet to lose a World Series this century? Wicked hard, that is. Wicked hard.
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