'Eliminator'

Some time in the early 1980s (possibly 1982) the members of Texas blues-rock group ZZ Top -- Dusty Hill, Billy Gibbons, Frank Beard -- got together and made some career decisions.

They decided to completely sell out and write a shitload of hit songs and make even more money.

The execution was simple: Let's keep the beards ("Except you Frank Beard!" Gibbons yelled), buy some fuzzy guitars, become completely infatuated with busty, young girls, the old-timey car on the cover, synthesizers and flashy clothes.

In 1983, this marketing plan took the world by the testicles with the album "Eliminator." If you want 1980s rock-schlock of the highest order, buy this album.

It teems with hits ("Got Me Under Pressure," "Legs," "Gimme All Your Lovin'," "TV Dinners" and "Sharp Dressed Man") and sold a boatload -- it hit "Diamond" status in 1996.

More than decade after "Eliminator" and they were longer as popular, mainstreamwise, ZZ Top then tried to go back to being the organic, Texan, guitar-grinding rockers that they turn their backs on in the early 1980s.

'Low End Theory' & 'People's Instinctive Travels ...'

Another vast chronicle in the rap happy era of the 1990s.

It's really an odd period for a genre of music. You had a large and popular faction that sought solace in jazz rhythms and rapping about something other than murder and drug dealing. Then you had probably a bigger faction that embraced the thug lifestyle.

Without a better analogy, it would've been as if the 1980s glam metal had co-existed (instead of preceded) 1990s grunge and indie rock. Two very different eras that counter acted each other; they served as cause and effect.

Whereas the rap scene had two different things going on and they almost existed within their own bubbles.

However, both sides were scary to white folks.

'Monsoon Wedding'

I like that Indian people like to dance a lot.

Of course, I actually know one Indian person (he's half German, however) and he doesn't dance. But most of the Indians I see in the movies all seem to dance a lot.

I think I like it because it's got a quaint, innocent modernness to it that is evened up by a sense of tradition and history. Almost like their dancing is a pure evolution.

Also, they genuinely seem to like to dance. They don't necessarily dance to get laid or to look cool. They do it because it's ... fun.

Maybe they just prefer it over standing still.

'Dr. Octagonecologyst'

"Oh shit, there's a horse in the hospital!"

Dr. Octagon sounds like Tracy Morgan. Is that uncool to say?

'Illmatic'

I was listening to this album in my office and my co-worker was disgusted that many consider Nas the best MC of all time.

I noted that I didn't know anyone who thought Nas was the best MC of all time.

He said they existed.

Then I really thought about it and concluded that ranking MCs is silly because it's purely subjective. I mean, you can make a reasonable argument that The Beatles were the greatest band of all time. You can consider No. 1 hits, sales, the breadth of their image and names, and consider the music itself.

Ranking MCs is solely objective. You either like a guy or you don't like a guy. Being as unreasonable to say that Snoop Dogg is the greatest MC of all time is equal to saying he isn't the greatest MC of all time.

People get to wrapped up in rankings.

'The Son's Room'

Another great foreign film. Why do they seem to make great films in other parts of the world but every time I turn around Hollywood is churning out more mindless crap?

Maybe I'm just not noticing China's version of "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" or the latest Italian Adam Sandler film.

What I love about this film is that from the very beginning there was a dark sense of foreboding and circumspect harmony. Everything seemed right, but clearly wasn't.

Then the hammer fell and everything spiralled into chaos and it seemed that nobody could do anything about it. Until that girl decided to go to France with that dude. And they needed a ride.

'Enter the Wu Tang (36 Chambers)'

I admit that I'm not the most educated or vehement hip-hop fan. I know what I like and I really like it.

Hearing the Wu-Tang Clan for years and reading about them, they've really intrigued me. I love all kinds of things about them. I like how there's a billion members. I love how they seemed to make their own way through their industry and never really being a part of some bigger entity (say, west coast-east coast, et al.). I like that they try to say something without having to spell it out for you. I like that they're synonymous with being themselves.

However, they're not safe at all, which is kinda my MO in terms of rap and hip-hop. These guys didn't need bulletproof vests (except for ODB, of course) or to show their wounds from getting shot to prove that they from the streets or whatever. They knew what they were about and seemed to be comfortable in their own skin.

'Time Out of Mind'

You've got to take this album into perspective. It's not good Dylan. He's an old guy. It'll happen to us one day.

All we can really hope is that we put forth such an effort when our days are waning. This is a fine record. Not great or anything, but a worthy effort that should be lauded for his stellar songwrighting and awesome blues/country swing to it.

Let's face it: The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and every other stalwart from the 1960s wishes they put out an album of "Time Out of Mind's" ilk.

'Lone Star'

People from other states hate Texans. Mainly because Texas is so gigantic and so populated. Thus, a lot of stuff starts or is found here.

Everything's big in Texas because there's so much money here that people can make it bigger. After time, everything is expected. Why do Texas cities have shitty public transportation? Because it's expected that everyone have a big pick-up truck to drive around in.

However, this attitude should not overshadow this state's most peculiar place in this world and country. It's a big state with a lot of resources and personality. It's the only state that was its own country. And it has a vast cross section of people.

"Lone Star" is kind of a country-fried version of "Crash" without the Oscar nominations. It tries to capture the stories that are found every where in this state but most notably in the southern region by the Rio Grande River, where Mexicans, Caucasians and blacks comingle in some unsteady rhythm. It's here that race and immigration and all the problems that rich, white folks in Dallas or Houston love to bitch about, but it's in those trenches where the lives are made or broken. Where the real bitching should be taking place.

'The Catcher in the Rye'

I've two internal debates regarding this "1,001" project.

First, how should I go about including the most recent, highly regarded books, movies and records?

Secondly, should I include books, records and movies that I've already perused that are on the lists?

Because every stinking books, movie and record blogged about already I have not truly read, listened to or watched.

"The Catcher in the Rye" is the complete opposite. I have probably read it 20+ times. Every year for sure. Several times a year through the final two years of high school (because I so related to Holden Caulfield) and my first two years of college, until professor Cyd Adams introduced me to Flannery O'Connor, Catherine Porter, Bobbie Ann Mason, Eudora Welty and the like.

I think "Catcher" is the greatest novel ever written. For my money, anyway. I've read a ton of great stuff since and I'll read even more through the rest of my days. But there's emotion there. There's the rending of the heart, there's confusion, angst and hopelessness. There's a kid who's either too lazy, stupid, crazy or sad to make things go right.

The greatest aspect of "Catcher" is that the meaning and implications are different. They evolve as you evolve. If you feel the same way about "Catcher" at 30 than you did at 16, then you might be Holden Caulfield, which ain't good. At 16, you identified with Caulfield's state of mind. At 30 -- or 25, or 45, or 95 -- you just want to grab the kid by the red hunting hat, smash his face on a wood table and scream at him that the world never gets much better, but that you learn to deal with it a lot better. That you don't forsake what's beyond your own nose, but that all that really matters is between your ears.

In conclusion, I've decided to include previously viewed, read or listened to items as long as I re-listen, watch and read.

'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'

I've read quite a bit of sci-fi the last three or so years and no matter if it's good or bad, there are vast similarities between writers and stories.

Seems to me that styles, narrative, characters and the nuts and bolts of these stories tend to be very much the same. Or have the same feel to them. Which is odd because even though a lot of them were contemporaries, it's not like you can say Jack Kerouac and J.D. Salinger had the same style like you can the sci-fi writers. This is not, however, necessarily a bad thing.

This is a really great book and does what sci-fi should: Raise important ethical or moral quandaries through the metaphor of the future. Combining the two not only makes us question how we behave and treat others, but it makes us think about how we'll behave and treat others in the future and whether this is right or wrong.

More so, it makes you think about the past -- a very underrated venture.

'The Kreutzer Sonata'

It is the first book I've ever read that inspired a painting.

I don't know if it makes it any better. It makes it a bit less angry.

I must read for any guy who is thinking about getting married or who is getting married.

'The Chronic'

A definitive, seminal album for every white kid who lived in podunk nowhere in the 1990s.

It was extremely edgy and, yet, very accessible for a kid that was freaked out by NWA, thinking gang wars were going to break out at any moment.

There's a timelessness, universalness and accessibility about getting high and laid.

'Five Easy Pieces'

It's very interesting that the novelist Cormac McCarthy and film makers Joel and Ethan Coen highly regard this movie because it made me think of "No Country For Old Men" the entire time. Plus, a little "There Will Be Blood."

There's a wildness about it (mostly Nicholson) that is caged by the beauty of the northwest, the house of his invalid father and the music that he can play, but doesn't really run through his bones. Yet, there's a longing there that tears him to pieces.

Like he'd prefer the realness of his girlfriend the oil fields, but the luxury of Bach, Mozart and sophistication.

You never gain a full grasp on Nicholson or his character, which isn't uncommon for him if you've seen "One Flew ...," "Batman," "The Departed," "Easy Rider" or any other of his films. There's always a screw loose or five easy pieces missing.

'The 39 Steps'

If Phoebe, Holden Caufield's sister from "The Catcher in the Rye," loved this film then I certainly must love it because Phoebe is one of the many fictional characters from literature that is clearly smarter than I am.

I love watching this film and "Saboteur." I've never really given early Alfred Hitchcock a chance (hell, I've never really given pre-war movies a chance)and I'm really enjoying it because it's good film making a mere 20-odd years after the birth of the genre on a large scale.

And Robert Donat is simply dreamy.

'This Is England'

This film is not officially on the "1,001" list, however, it should be, if it's not sooner or later.

It was regarded as one of the best films of 2007.

It's a brilliant film about the skinhead/nationalist movement in England in the early 1980s about a disenfranchised boy, whose father was killed in the Falklands War and finds comfort in the welcoming arms of a local skinhead group, itself torn apart by ideas about racism.

It's a chilling film wonderfully shot and acted. It's simply better than most films you'll see any time soon.

Also, it co-stars "Tommy" from "Snatch," who turns in a particularly great performance.

'In Watermelon Sugar'

I read this book while violently ill.

However, this is the perfect book to read while violently ill. It's a very calming, unintense and flowing story about a place that runs on watermelon oil and has tigers that eat people.

It's split into these really short chapters that do not necessarily signify any kind of change in the plot, passage of time or any real structural duty, but somehow bring the entire story together.

It was digestible unlike many things at the time.

Unbeknownst to me, one of my favorite Neko Case songs is taken from the book.

'Rashomon'

I was prepared to borrow this book from the library when I realized how stinking short it was.

So I sat down and read it. Returned it to the shelf.

No harm. No foul. Play on.

'Sabotage'

Interesting seeing pre-WWII London all happy-go-lucky without a care in the world. Then, unknowingly, you have some guys try to blow folks up. Still, things are OK.

Little do they know that in pretty short order their entire lives would fall apart around them and domestic terrorists will be the least of their worries.

It's also interesting hearing the police officers state that the saboteurs purpose is to keep the English people's attention away from the goings-on around the world.

Germany? Italy? Maybe Hitler dipping into his neighbor's backyards?

Hitchcock pulls no punches and has such a grasp of what's really going on in the world. Must have been a terrifying movie at the time.

'The Piano Teacher'

Film takes a wide turn and it never veers otherwise.

You kinda think it's going to be about this piano teacher who has credit and spending problems. Instead, she has sex problems. Either not enough of it or not the right kind.

By the end, you assume it's not the right kind. And the kind's kind of weird and the dude she wants the weird sex with can't really handle it. Then she can't handle it.

Just say, it's get's fucking weird, quick.

'The Cubs and Other Stories'

One of the best awakenings for me in college was being introduced to Latin fiction. Ever since, I just read it over and over.

Today, I still discover writers that I had no real idea existed like Mario Vargas Llosa. This dude was awesome. And he was partying with the likes of Juan Carlos Onetti and by Gabriel García Márquez. Must have been off the chain.

I just love the way the guy takes a distinct snapshot of Peruvian culture -- the deserts, mountains, countryside, cities and neighborhoods. These characters that don't matter in the least in the big picture, but take on monumental roles in Llosa's story.

'Atonement'

Kind of a waste because it's exactly like the movie. Watch the movie and you've pretty much read the book.

It's a mixed bag, however. I mean, how would the film be any different?
What direction could they take the film? So of course it's the same. Then again, it devalues the book because you could just read the book and not lose anything.

Ian McEwan is ruining books for me.

On another note, this is the third book-film tandem that I've knocked out.

'Total Recall'

Ten reasons why this is a good flick:

1. It's violent. A lot more violent than I remember.

2. It's funny.

3. Arnold Schwarzenegger is likable. I think he realizes that he's a body builder that somehow tiptoed himself into Hollywood stardom and that he can't act. He knows this. He's not pulling anything over us. But this self-awareness is refreshing.

4. I like sci-fi that is accessible. Bleak, otherworldly sci-fi is harder to watch. Whereas "Total Recall" is just today's world ... years in the futures. People stay at hotels, go on vacation, ride the subway and have drinks.

5. It takes about 10 seconds for this film to get off the ground. Others take two hours.

6. Sharon Stone at her uber-hotness. It doesn't get better.

7. It is eerily like "Fifth Dimension." Another good flick.

8. I can name you a million worse plots in filmdom.

9. Johnny Cab.

10. The fact that it reinforces my belief in God. That the universe, our atmosphere isn't some random accident.