'Slipknot'

I listened to these guys play music. They wear masks.

'A Northern Soul'

A story of a band that breaks up all the time.

Basically, Richard Ashcroft is kind of a hard guy to get along with for one reason or another. I’m sure it’s not all his fault, but when you consider its him getting punched in the face by his guitar player and him having to reconcile with the drummer, bassist and same guitar player during a second break-up, you can see that there’s a central figure in all of this.

The band first broke up after the success of their break-out album A Northern Soul. Chiding their psychedelic first album, the band loosed the chains on Ashcroft’s lilting vocals and wrote basic rock songs.

Right before the release of their third single, Ashcroft broke the band up.

Although noting no regret, he got the band back together with a new guitar player about a year later. Next thing they know they are mega worldwide superstars thanks to the hit single “Bitter Sweet Symphony.”

Then they broke up again.

Six years later they reunited. Then they broke up again. This time for good, or so everyone thinks. 

'Yank Crime' & 'Scream, Dracula, Scream!'

This might be a first (and only) for the 1,001 Records You Should Listen To Before You Die.

Plenty of artists are involved in multiple records on the list. For example, The Beatles or Elvis Costello. But very few are involved with two different albums from two different bands within a year of each other.

This is the case with John Reis and his two bands, Drive Like Jehu and Rocket from the Crypt.

Reis was in the band Pitchfork (had the website Pitchfork been around in the late 1980s, I’m sure they would’ve given the band a poor review) with Rick Froberg. Pitchfork died and Reis’ attentions went two different directions. He formed the post-punk/hardcore outfit Drive Like Jehu with Froberg and Rocket from the Crypt, a punk band, basically.

“Different” doesn’t do the two bands justice. Rocket is a collection of two-minute, three-chord punk songs. Drive Like Jehu are orchestrated eight-minute multi-sectioned compositions with heavy guitars interconnecting into crescendo and release.

The two bands released eponymous debuts in 1991. Drive Like Jehu released its only other record, Yank Crime, in 1994 (which seems like a lifetime after Nevermind) and Rocket released Scream, Dracula, Scream! a year later. Drive Like Jehu promptly broke up even though they were the superior band, but there’s no accounting for taste, I guess.  

Ever friends, Reis and Froberg formed another band, Hot Snakes, together several years later. 

'A Little Deeper'

A simply tremendous artist from a rather unknown female rapper from England. Unlike some, her accent is negligible and sounds pretty American even among the production value.

A Little Deeper came out in 2002 and Ms. Dynamite has done one other album, released in 2005. In 2006, as part of a celebrity race car driving TV show, she was in a serious accident. Years before, her career was interrupted when she punched a cop.

After the accident she left the public eye and despite the announcement of a new album in 2009, it was never released. It takes a miracle for someone to have such an impact on popular culture even in a limited way so it should be no surprise when others fade away.

'Salt Of The Earth'

As I get older, I find it funny how humans are OK with stripping others of their dignity. I find it funny how principles generally are leaned upon when it’s convenient.

In our grandparents’ lifetime – not 50-75 years ago – Americans were not only irresistibly hateful, but uncompromisingly scared shitless of treating people above anything of that of a bug.

Salt of the Earth is groundbreaking. “Released” in 1954, it captures the struggle of not only union miners in New Mexico, but Mexican workers, and not only Mexican union minors, but the females, the women behind the workers. It’s progressive in so many ways because it was all taboo, it was all anti-American that it wasn’t appropriately released only being shown in 12 theaters in the United States for 10 years after its production. By the way, the production was done by all blacklisted film makers and starred only four trained actors, none of which played major roles.

The same folks that decry the influence of unions are the same that hold the Constitution in such high regard particularly when it comes to the right to bear arms. However, freedoms of speech and assembly are nominal allowances. The pursuit of happiness and equality are reserved for Fourth of July parades and grandstanding.

The deplorable way minorities (ethnic or racial) were treated is hard to swallow. The treatment of women is unconscionable. But the basic right for humans to assembly and demand a better work environment or more pay is as capitalistic as you can possibly get. The fact that unionization and withholding a workforce to affect production (and thus profits) is a means to that end is irrelevant.

The “not in my backyard” mentality kills us as a nation. 

'Queens Of The Stone Age'

I like a band with an identity, with a home. Upon releasing their eponymous album lead singer and guitarist Josh Homme said, "I just wanted to start a band that within three seconds of listening, people knew what band it was.”

No one is like Queens of the Stone Age. I can pick out one of their songs within probably 10-15 seconds of the song starting. Furthermore, they’re probably one of the more unforgiving bands to have a hit on rock radio the last 25 years. “No One Knows” from Songs For the Deaf is as scorching of a song as the Queens have released and it’s still really great.

The Queens’ roots go down to the stoner rock group Kyuss. After they broke up, Homme toured with the Screaming Trees and eventually decided to start a new band. After several line-ups, it settled on Alfredo Hernandez on drums and (after completion of the album) Nick Oliveri on bass (Homme played bass on this album). Of course, Homme, Hernandez and Oliveri were essentially Kyuss.

Queens also has its roots in the deserts of southern California and you hear it in the music. There’s a dry irritation and heat that comes off the songs. It’s stark and scary. It runs hot and yet you can’t get away from the cold nights. It’s rock music for coyotes. 

'Shalimar'

This is an odd choice for the list. It’s a soundtrack to a Hindi film in 1978 called Shalimar. It starred what appears to be some of the more popular Hindi film stars of the day in addition to Rex Harrison.

Harrison plays a dying crime lord who challenges the best thieves in all the land to steal a precious gem, Shalimar. S.S. Kumar plays a low-level thief, who through a series of misunderstandings and identity theft is adopted into the inner sanctum of the criminal underworld.

I haven’t seen the film, but I can only assume Kumar succeeds in either stealing the diamond and/or bringing down Harrison’s dastardly crime syndicate and getting the girl. There’s always a girl.

It’s not a Bollywood film as I’ve learned only refers to films produced in Bombay (now Mumbai, but once the “Hollywood” of Indian cinema, hence the name). The soundtrack, however, is unique as it is a multi-layered collection of 1970s kitsch, traditional Indian instrumentation with a healthy splash of Western music.

Otherwise, I can’t see much of a reason why this soundtrack is on the 1,001 list. Outside of being "ultra stereophonic." 

'Stand!' & 'There's a Riot Goin' On'

Culturally, it’s hard to find a musical artist that was on par with Sly and the Family Stone. The band encompassed the late 1960s and early 1970s like very few ever did.

There was the rock and hippie angle with socially conscious lyrics of both Stand! and There’s a Riot Goin’ On. Shortly after the success of Stand!, the band played Woodstock already making them a pillar of the cultural times.

Furthermore, with the song "Everyday People,"

they actually coined a phrase, “Different strokes for different folks.” How culturally impactful is that?

Their biggest impact is being virtually the first band of note to have a multi-ethnic and multi-gender band including Sly’s brother and sister, and two white guys, who the Black Panthers were later put pressure on Stone to replace with African American players.

After the success of Stand! the band really hit a rough patch, which in many ways was exacerbated by his rampant drug use. He would later end up broke and busted multiple times for drug possession (it’s rumored that he carried a violin case full of illicit drugs around). It resulted to ruin his career as it was always a gamble of him or a bandmate missing a show. He retired until recently when he’s gigged with family and friends. Otherwise, he’s been a recluse and rumored to be living in a van down by the river, quite literally. 

'Soul Mining' & 'Infected'

The The is basically Matt Johnson and a revolving door of special guests and musicians including The Smiths' guitarist Johnny Marr and Jools Holland.

Outside of a relatively clever band name, this is not remarkably better or worse than most pop-electronic music from the 1980s. 

One note that is worth mentioning is that Matt's brother, Andrew, did some of the artwork for The The under the name of Andy Dog. This included the original cover for Infected, which featured a demon masturbating and apparently completing. The album was pulled and an edited version was released. You can see the unedited version here. 

I would love someone to interview the Johnson brothers and just ask them what exactly they were trying to do. I don't know if the controversy helped with album sales. It probably didn't hurt, but that seems like a pretty shallow reason for doing something. 

Furthermore, was the record label thinking the same thing assuming that repackaging would cost less than the free advertising they'd get for having a demon ejaculating on himself? 

'Sons And Lovers'

Every son loves his mother and it should be no surprise that this is a common theme in literature. I say "love" only because it's the best word. In fact, the mother-son relationship is so dynamic that it shapes most males to their detriment or otherwise.

The United States government once claimed that they disallowed women in battle because it would be too traumatic for the male soldiers to see a woman die. That's because when a male soldier is bleeding out all they ask for is their mother. All women are sort of their mothers.

D.H. Lawrence wrote Sons and Lovers while his mother was ill. The first draft of the novel was lost due to him leaving it to tend to his sick mother. The story itself is a mirror of his mother. He felt she married below her social standing. Paul Morel's mother falls in love with a poor, drunk and simpleton miner. She lives a hard and unremarkable life fighting off her dullard husband and preventing him from spending their meager pay on drink.

I can relate. My parents divorced when I was 15 and it was probably another five years until my mother starting "dating" guys. She was in her 40s and 50s so it wasn't anything like it sounds. It was older, grandfatherly like guys from her church. Everyone was lonely.

I probably ran at least one of them off. I was in college so I wasn't around. But one guy was not unlike Paul Morel's father: Unintellectual, unambitious and physically unfit for any basic action like going to a museum or traveling.

Yeah, I understood that she was lonely and it makes me sick sorta thinking about it. However, that's no excuse for compromising even if the scales were even. I would like to think I did all of this because I love her. But I don't if it was altogether altruistic or built out of jealously.

'Finnegan's Wake'

I’ve done what most haven’t. It took me forever to find a copy of Finnegan’s Wake and I learned that’s probably due to the fact that it’s simply one of the hardest pieces of fiction every written.

I’m not saying I “got it.” No one “gets it.” You read it and then find CliffsNotes to basically translate it.

I will say, some of the syntactical contortions James Joyce undertakes is really, really remarkable.

'Shadowlands' & 'Ingénue'

Not to take away from the massive steps forward the United States has made in accepting of the homosexual community, but k.d. lang came out of the closet in 1992, during the very heart of her massively successful career. And no one seemed to care.

lang is sorta weird for several reasons, none of which include her sexual preference.

For one, she sings and plays pretty weird music. At the time, however, it was popular to like country-ish pop, easy-listenin’ rock. It’s why Bonnie Raitt sold about 10 billion albums and why Dwight Yoakum wound up so popular that he became a part-time actor.

k.d. lang got popular by playing this moody country adult contemporary that nobody that liked country listened to but everyone that was pretty lame loved. There is no way this should have been popular. The only explanation was that it happened in the 1990s and a lot of weird things happened in music during the 1990s.

What also is weird is that the United States fully embraced an openly gay celebrity. The same year she “came out of the closet,” lang’s album, Ingénue, went double platinum. Double platinum. It was mega-popular. Every one over the age of 30 bought this album. These are the same people that 20 years later are thumping their Bibles and bemoaning the rhetoric of same-sex marriage, basically condemning the country as a modern Sodom. In fact, they did more for normalizing homosexuality than anyone.

Plus, lang is Canadian.

k.d. lang is extremely popular and there’s no viable reason why she should be outside of the fact that Americans love lesbian Canada pseudo-country contemporary adult pop music. Go figure. 

'#1 Record' & 'Third/Sister Lovers'

Big Star, a lesson to all artists. It’s fleeting and no matter what you have going for you it probably will never happen. If it does, it doesn’t last long.

Alex Chilton had the name. He was the lead singer of The Box Tops and had a hit record with “The Letter.” Then there was Chris Bell, the talented guitarist and lead singer. Two really legit songwriters and artists, one with a claim to fame. Furthermore, the band was based in Memphis along with the distribution power of Stax Records.

On top of all that, Big Star was a power pop band built around melodies and hooks. They weren’t anything out of left field with its foundation based in The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Critics loved them.

Yet, their career probably peaked recently when a documentary about the group was released and interest in the band probably hit an all-time high.

What went wrong?

Stax Records couldn’t promote the band appropriately. This responsibility was eventually given to Columbia Records, who did not want to mess with small-label band so copies of the record couldn’t be found in the record stores.

Bell later quit the band as they continued recording and continued finding a dead end through distribution and marketing. He would die in a car accident at age 27.

So, before you declare a band as being eternal or some sort of pillar of the zeitgeist, remember that there’s thousands of better bands and artists that never got the chance. 

'Led Zeppelin I' & 'Led Zeppelin III'

Order of an individual’s favorite Led Zeppelin album, chronologically.

Everyone initially loves Led Zeppelin IV or ZOSO because of “Stairway to Heaven.”

Then they realize it was just an indulgent jack-off session so they start to like Led Zeppelin II because it has a lot of radio hits and by this time you’re an older teenager and it’s also a plodding mess of hard rock and early metal.

You age. And you adopt Led Zeppelin I as your favorite album because it’s “genuine” and “pure Zep” because it’s them doing blues, which is all Led Zeppelin really were. At this point, you’re a true asshole because you like a British band solely for ripping off poor, unknown black Americans, who did all these songs and did them nominally better.

You age a bit more and probably are reaching your mid-20s when you realize that Led Zeppelin IV (ZOSO) is, again, the best IN SPITE OF “Stairway to Heaven,” which remains a pretty overrated song.

After a multi-year respite and dalliance with Houses of the Holy and Physical Graffiti, you finally come to the conclusion that Led Zeppelin III is the best album because by this time you are 30+ and not a total retard. Although, in the back of your brain, you still think Physical Graffiti might still be better.

I just finished reading Hammer of the Gods, one of the most well-known of rock and roll biographies and although thoroughly entertained it didn’t take long for me to realize that Led Zeppelin were, in fact, total assholes. I mean, Jimmy Page’s opinions of women alone make you question their entire body of work and aesthetic. Women were basically third-class citizens to him.

John Bonham appears to be a total drunken lunatic. Peter Grant might have been one of the most unethical humans outside of genocidal totalitarians.

Robert Plant was no prince, but in comparison he comes off looking like a sweetheart.

It’s a revealing read to say the least. This was Jimmy Page’s band (I don’t think it ever became anything different outside of his heavy heroin addiction later in the band’s career). He was with The Yardbirds, they split and the record companies basically attempted to rebuild it with Page and some pieces including fellow session player John Paul Jones. They picked Plant and Bonham from the English hinterlands and took off.

It’s also noteworthy how American Led Zeppelin were. They didn’t cut their teeth on the British tours and clubs. They went to America almost immediately behind the name power of “The New Yardbirds” and Page. They toured excessively with an American stadium tour every year.

Knowing who these people were doesn’t necessarily change the way you enjoy their music. If you’re like me, you’re as tired of the 15 or so songs that they jam on classic rock stations as any bloc of songs in history. And it’s not like they’ve been overplayed, so to speak

; they’re just not very good. Zeppelin’s true brilliance comes with their lesser known songs. In fact, a good barometer to find these songs is finding out what songs guitar magazines put in their tablature sections. I ignored all those songs early in life and now they’re my favorites.

'Ring'

A horror film about a ghoul that scares people to death. The victims aren't eaten or beaten. They see what they see and their heart stops with fear.

Now that's a horror film.

'The Nightfly'

Steely Dan broke up and Donald Fagen recorded a solo record, The Nightfly. On the cover is Fagen in a collared shirt and tie resembling the jazz DJs that he would tune into in the 1950s and 1960s in suburban New Jersey. 

Fagan said living in the suburbs was a prison. A bit of an exaggeration because the suburbs may be boring but they are far from as disastrous as Fagen would like to pretend. 

The album itself is strictly autobiographical with tales of listening to late-night jazz DJs and bomb shelters. 

Of course, by age 11, Fagen had become a self-admitted "jazz snob" and developed an "anti-social disorder." Maybe it was all the suburbs' fault. 

Worth noting that apparently he played in a band with Walter Becker and Chevy Chase (drums) while at Bard College where they all studied. Chase apparently has perfect pitch. 

'Pleasure Principle'

Stop and do this: Think about the top 20 most influential musical artists in history.

Write them down.

Disregard how good the artists were and consider only this question, "If this band/musician didn't exist, it would've set off an irretrievable set of events that would've changed pop culture forever." Meaning, without Band A a whole genre or Bands T, U, V, W, X, Y and Z don't exist.

Disregard, also, the first caveman to whistle or King David plucking his lyre. Also, try to disregard the influences of the influential. Do the Beatles exist without Carl Perkins, Little Richard, Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry? Probably not. But I don't think the Beatles' influence necessary should reflect on Little Richard, who was himself influenced by others.

Also, disregard most classical musicians. 

My list, in no order: The Beatles, The Ramones, Hank Williams Sr., The Clash, Metallica, The Rolling Stones, Beethoven, Run DMC, Tupac Shakur, Elvis Presley, James Brown, Black Sabbath, Jimi Hendrix, Madonna, Bob Dylan, Nirvana, Pink Floyd, Michael Jackson, Led Zeppelin and The Velvet Underground.

OK, expand your list to 25 and I dare you not to include Gary Numan. Before you laugh me off the Internet, consider that few were doing with synthesizers and electronic music in the 1970s quite like Numan. His influence would be notice immediately in the New Wave of the 1980s, but the influence I think reaches its apex among more edgey and artistic folks starting with Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails, DJs and dance and house music creators, hip-hop guys and even folks like Animal Collective and others that utilize almost exclusively electronic instruments.

Now, Numan wasn't alone. He was contemporaries of others like Kraftwerk, Can, Faust, the prog bands and Brian Eno. Numan didn't event anything nor what he probably the best, but he made it popular.

Again, Carl Perkins and Little Richard were never going to do what The Beatles were going to do.

Numan did make it popular with Pleasure Principle being his most popular album. Numan himself is not too different from his stage persona (if indeed you define it as a persona that is separate from his own personality). He's suspected of having some social disorder like Asperger's Syndrome. He's been medicated for depression before. His distant and stoic self that's on the stage is little different than that persona at home. He's a dude that doesn't like other people. A true artist.

By the way, listen to "Random" from this album and tell me it could be re-released next week.

'Faith' & 'Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1'

I've never understood why George Michael was such a polarizing guy. I guess in conservative America in the 1980s a blatantly homosexual singer could turn heads. Then again, he sold a gajillion records, so most people had little problem with his sexuality at this point.

But my memory of the late 1980s might not be as accurate as I perceive. I don't remember a time when George Michael was never a heterosexual. And I'm starting to question that memory only because I recollect a time when I thought Michael was pretty cool with that quaffed hair, the stubble, earrings, leather jackets and sunglasses perpetually perched on his nose.

Michael admits to bisexuality and (despite Wham! being incredibly gay) basically going through women like air during his heyday of the 1980s.

Reading more about the guy, the more I sorta respect him. If you take his quotes as gospel about how he really feels, sexuality had less to do with how they were attracted to a male or female form. It had to do with love. He thought he was a heterosexual in the 1980s because he was in love with a woman. It had less to do with who he wanted to have sex with (I only assume he had sex with whoever he was in love with). Then, he fell in love with some guys and he's not so much heterosexual anymore.

I also get the feeling that George Michael is in love with falling in love.

Later, when Michael's sexuality was pretty well known and he started to get into legal trouble he suddenly became an uninteresting lightning rod that occasionally released pop records.

He's just a man who loves his anonymous sex in roadside bathrooms. It was one time!

OK, it was two times. And he likes weed. No big deal.

The guy's been around for 30+ years now and if enjoying things enjoyed also by heterosexuals (weed, sex with strangers) is the guy's biggest pockmark, then I think that's OK.

'Labyrinths' & 'Ficciones'

Got scared after reading Ficciones and starting Labyrinths and thinking I'd already read the first story, "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius." In fact, I had. Labyrinths was just a collection of stories and essays published in Ficciones and Jorge Luis Borges' El Aleph. 

And "scared" because Borges is not the easiest of reads in the world. He writes fiction like nonfiction and it's hard -- in the shorter format of an essay -- to differentiate between the two. 

Borges was an interesting guy having been brought up in an highly educated household: Bilingual, reading Shakespeare at a young age, studying the philosophy in German as a teenager. 

By the time he was publishing his essays like Ficciones he had gone blind and captured international renown on lecture tours. He was anti-Communist and anti-Fascist. A native Argentinian, he was anti-Peron. Basically, he thought the people should rule and none of those political systems paid much attention to the people and more so on the ruler. 

He referred to the Falkland War as "a fight between two bald men over a comb."  

Clever guy. 

'Brideshead Revisited'

Hey guys, Evelyn Waugh is a guy!

And he married a woman named Evelyn.

Must've been hard for a guy to get something published in the 1940s so he wrote under a pseudonym.

'Tea For The Tillerman'

If you're not listening to Tea for the Tillerman on a regular basis then you must be an idiot. It's necessary listening.

The A side of the record is as good of a side of recorded music then you'll find in the medium's existence. "Wild World," "Hard Headed Woman," "Where Do the Children Play?" and "Sad Lisa." Just enough blissful heartache to keep you going.

The album was released in 1970 just on the heels of Cat Stevens nearly dying after contracting tuberculosis, which precipitated him discovering religion, practicing yoga and becoming a vegetarian. We can only assume that the experience eventually resulted in him converting to Islam years later.

Fun fact: He adopted "Cat Stevens" as a stage name due to a laborious real name and because he thought people liked animals. Singer, songwriter, marketing genius.

'Robinson Crusoe'

I really feel I've been lied to all these years. What is the quintessential shipwrecked survival story? What piece of pop culture is mentioned in the iconic theme song for Gilligan's Island?

Robinson Crusoe.

Then you read the book and understand that maybe 25 percent of the story is Robinson and his man Friday stuck on that lonely piece of the Pacific Ocean. In fact, most of the book is Crusoe leaving the island, incidentally coming back to save the day and proceeding to sail around the world.

The original title of the book:

The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates

'Third'

If you were a hardcore subscriber to Guitar magazine like I was, and you wondered why Allan Holdsworth kept getting mentioned, then Soft Machine is your answer.

He played guitar for this prog-rock group at two different times, although, coincidentally, not during the recording of Softs.

Not going to blow my prog-rock load right here because I've got a lot more to go. However, it is worth mentioning that Soft Machine had 20 different line-ups over an 18-year period of synthesizing your nuts off.

I don't know if Holdsworth is in the photo above, but I'd like to think he's the weirdo on the far left.

'Little Women' & 'The Brothers Karamazov'

I've been the gravesite of Louisa May Alcott. At the time, I didn't appreciate her nearly as much as I do today. She is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Mass. She is buried what is known as Authors' Ridge.

Alcott was an extraordinary woman. She learned under Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller and Nathaniel Hawthorne. She not under learned under those scholars but she was raise by transcendentalists, which is a philosophical movement of the 1820s and 1830s in the northeast, which basically was a belief in the inherent goodness of people and nature.

Alcott was an abolitionist, having worked on the Underground Railroad. She was a feminist and suffragist. All before the Civil War. She might also have been a lesbian. Although not unreasonable to go through life with no husband, she was briefly associated with a man once.

"I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man's soul put by some freak of nature into a woman's body ... because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man," Alcott said.

Little Women is essentially biographical. It is set in Masschusetts and mirrors that of her actual sisters and family. She created "Jo" in her reflection. She too had a younger sister die and felt the sting of separation and growth when her older sister got married.

Much is made of the relationships of brothers. The first story ever -- the book of Genesis -- is wrought with stories of brothers from Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau and Joseph and his brothers. I don't think it's any mistake that all three stories are wrought with badness -- murder, betrayal and jealously.

Those stories are not alone as it continued throughout artistic creation including The Brothers Karamazov. It has a half percent of the sweetness of Little Women, but it does mirror the complications you find between brothers (and a father) compared to sisters. But often the feelings are the same. One thing you won't find in many brother stories is a strong adult female presence like the mother in Little Women. The mother is missing often in brother stories.

It's simple for either sisters or brothers. But if it was it'd make pretty boring literature.

'The Woman In The Dunes'

I tried to find a still from one of the tremendous close ups this film had. I found these significant because it's about a school teacher who gets caught up living in this set inside a dune pit, where sand works itself into every nook and cranny of their bodies, clothes and lives.

Some of the shots really showcase the bodies -- often naked, because sand in your clothes is the worst -- encased in this sand. This is the best photo I could find.

Anyway, in his review of the film, critic Roger Ebert compared it to the myth of Sisyphus, who is damned to roll a boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down. And he must do this for enternity.

I would agree only if part of the story was that Sisyphus had a tiny rock in his shoe the entire time. The sand in this film makes you want to shower afterwards.

'Q: Are We Not Men? We Are Devo!'

I can't get over that the guy on the album cover looks like NFL quarterback and three-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady.


There's not really a photo on the Internet of Tom Brady in that style of hat, at least without sunglasses. there are photos of Tom Brady crying and I don't know why he's crying. It's depressing that he'd be so sad about something.

Also, Brady's been on a lot of magazine covers and he's had lots of hairstyles. Yet, I don't know what he even sounds like. Is that weird?

Why am I talking about Tom Brady? What's happening!?

Oh, GOD, Gisele Bundchen!

Eh, he also looks like Benedict Cumberbatch.

'The Big Parade'

Utterly shocked to see how King Vidor portrayed war in this film. Especially for the time (released in 1925 .. seven years after World War I ended), that big battle scene is as terrifying as you'll find on the big screen.

Outside of the first five minutes of Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan I don't remember a better full-on battle scene and a more realistic vision of war. As it should be.

'The Last Temptation Of Christ'

I cover high school football for a local daily newspaper. I often arrive at the game really early to make sure that all my equipment is working and that I'm assured a seat. I also often bring a book to read because I'm more often than not sitting there because all is well.

I took The Last Temptation of Christ one night and while reading I was accosted by, of all people, an advance scout from a high school that was preparing to play one of the teams I was covering.

He asked me about a dozen questions. I thought maybe he recognized the title (maybe) although he asked me what I was reading. A lot of the questions had to do with what I thought of the book and my opinions of what was on the pages.

I thought maybe he was asking because the book (and the 1988 Martin Scorsese) has been a topic of controversy because of its depiction of Jesus ... as an ordinary guy despite being ordained by God to be the messiah.

I can't recommend this book enough. Apart from the actual story, it's a rich, textural history of the time providing some revealing cultural discussion points when you consider the times in which Christ lived.

For one, Jesus (or the messiah) was not only expected to be the Son of God, the lamb slain for the sins of man into perpetuity. He was supposed to overthrow the Roman government occupying Judea (and the rest of the world). Not an easy task, even for the Son of God.

What fundamentalist Christians got most angry about was this milquetoast Jesus being depicted. He was forlorn, doubtful and amid great terror in his private moments (in the book, at least, Jesus publicly turned into sort of a badass). As if he weren't human.

Christians want to believe that Christ was sermonizing in the Temple from birth and took to the highway and byways at some young age. In actuality, he was a carpenter's son and he too plied his craft (in the book, he is vilified for making crosses for executions) until the voice of God took him elsewhere.

It's an interesting read and no matter your religious affiliation it is a must-read.

'My Aim Is True'

Elvis Costello's debut album after six years on the club and pub tour.

He kept working at his day job even after the release of "Less Than Zero" and "Alison" as singles. The record company eventually offered to pay him his wages plus a bonus, an amplifier and a tape recorder.

So decadent.