'Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814'

Where is Rhythm Nation located? Is it a member or OPEC or the United Nations? Was it an Allied power during World War II?

Is Margaritaville or Suffragette City located in Rhythm Nation? Is its main export "danceable beats?" Does it import Swiss cuckoo clocks, South American rubber, Chinese children's toys or Japanese VCRs? Does it have a debt, a democratic government, a legislature, a national bird?

Clearly, its president is Ms. Janet Jackson. Judging from her outfit, it was a military dictatorship. It's national anthem is "Escapade." And its past time is getting down.

God bless Rhythm Nation.

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If I can go back in the time machine, Rhythm Nation has a little bit of history for me. Listening to it now, I realize what shitty pop music we had to choose from back in the day.

Rhythm Nation was released in 1989. I was nine years old. This was the peak of my pop music days. I had just received for a birthday a smallish tape deck/radio. Small but servicable. Nowhere near a "boombox" it was more like a squeak box. My first tape -- received that same birthday -- was a copy of The Beach Boys' Greatest Hits Vol II. To this date, I've never seen Vol. I.

I remember sitting next to my little radio with a blank tape inside listening to top 40 radio for hours on end. Once they played a song I like (Jackson, Milli Vanilli, Jon Secada, Madonna, Bonnie Raitt, Bobby Brown, Bell Biv Devoe ... to name a few) and I'd quickly hit the "record" and "play" buttons simutaneously. I became an expert in identifying songs by the first five seconds of the song as the disc jockey talked over it.

I'd have tape after tape just chockful of pop songs. I dreamed of owning them on tape or ... gulp! ... compact disc like my older sister.

I'd also watch "America's Top 10," a music video show hosted by Casey Kasem on Saturday mornings. The show was later hosted -- to my delight -- by Tommy Puett, who portrayed Tyler Benchfield in the Sunday night dramedy with a retarded kid, Life Goes On. He was the mulleted, good-looking stud, who inexplicably is interested in the homely Kelly Martin.

'Document'

Document is REM's first album with Scott Litt producing.

Litt probably doesn't move the needle for most people and that includes those that probably follow rock music relatively closely.

Litt produced Document. Then he produced Green, Out of Time, Automatic for People and New Adventures in Hi-Fi making REM a household name and helping create some of the biggest rock hits of the era.

Producers don't get enough credit in this world. Most are musicians and most have an ear for music that most others don't possess. A good producer can take a band and its music and turn it into something beyond special. Something that will not only exist forever, but be regarded for eternity as brilliance.

Litt will never get an article written about him. However, it's pretty clear that he helped steer one of the most successful rock bands of the 1980s and 1990s in the right direction.

'A Confederacy Of Dunces'

My friend -- my archnemesis -- gifted a copy of John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces in college. She dedicated it to me, Ignatious.

Since that moment, I've read the book at least six times in 10 years. It is one of the most remarkable novels I've ever read and one of the greatest in American literature, bar none.

If you don't know Toole's story, it's worth a healthy read over at Wikipedia. Born and raised in New Orleans, he went to Tulane and later Columbia. He was apparently a brilliant guy. He was an assistant professor at 22 years of age at the University of Southwestern Louisiana. He was allegedly extremely popular and quite the party animal.

It was at the university where he met Bob Bryne, a slobbish professor of English specializing in medieval thought and was prone to wear a green deerstalker and play the lute.

It was Ignatious J. Reilly. He just didn't know it yet.

During his time in the military, Toole began writing A Confederacy of Dunces. He wrote and began attempting to get it published. Rejection after rejection followed and the deaths of John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe affected him greatly. He began drinking heavily in the military, too.

The depression and paranoia grew and Toole's life became incredibly unstable to the point that he lost his professorship and spent his last days taking trips to several sites in addition to Andalusia, the Georgia home of deceased Southern writer Flannery O'Connor. Toole committed suicide by running exhaust with a garden hose to the inside of his car.

His mother would fight her own demons, but kept fighting to get A Confederacy of Dunces published. She did and it became an everlasting cog in American literature.

'Short Cuts'

This Robert Altman flick is more than three hours long.

Instead of spending your time fighting through this so-called adaptation of nine Raymond Carver short stories and poetry, I would suggest an alternative route.

Go find or borrow Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love and Where I'm Calling From and read them. In three hours of reading, you should be able to knock out at least 15 or more short stories and it'll be more edifying than viewing the 1990s train wreck that was the film.

Or maybe you like a bunch of females actresses that oddly look all the seame wearing flowing, ill-fitting shirts and dresses, bicycle shorts, men in ridiculous haircuts and children in brightly-colored clothing. If that's your thing, this is your Citizen Kane.

Altman is hit or miss. Tim Robbins is solid in anything. And we see Julianne Moore pantsless and Madeline Stowe topless. And we get over-the-top proof that Andie MacDowell is absolutely the worst actress ever.

'Heavenly Creatures'

I got about 20 minutes into this film wondering who the actress portraying Pauline Parker. I knew her from something. I had a hunch. I needed to clarify.

My hunch was right.

It was "Rose" from the sitcom "Two and a Half Men," which once featured the polarizing Charlie Sheen. It was Melanie Lynskey.

I've always found her rather attractive on the sitcom, but I knew next to nothing about her history or past. I didn't know she was from New Zealand or that she got the co-starring role in Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures after a casting director found the 17-year-old at a local high school. Pure luck.

Taking in her entire career, her sitcom career is kind of her second fiddle. She's had semi-big roles in a bunch of films with the best of the best in Hollywood. Her leading-lady days may never come, but she's probably most valuable in a supporting role.

Anyway, I absolutely loved this film. It didn't hurt having Kate Winslet acting like a complete nut, only overshadowed by Lynskey. I typically don't enjoy Peter Jackson films. I think he overdirects and is too self-involved. Unless you're Alfred Hitchcock, putting yourself into your own movies is pretty pretentious. I think everything he's done recently has been pretty awful if not too much. Doesn't know when to stop.

It appears he knew exactly when to stop pre-Lord of the Rings. Heavenly Creatures is about what is taken away from the audience. You leave it wanting more and you leave his later movies just wanting to leave. I doubt what Jackson does gets any better than this film.

'System Of The Down'

I'm happy to be finally writing about this album so I don't need to continue listening to it.

System of the Down are the biggest cartoon of a band of all time. This pseudo-political, morality bullshit while you have super-anti-establishment facial hair. Get real.

Excuse me while I ignore the ramblings and railings of a bunch of dumb metal musicians from Southern California.

'Dirt'

It's shocking how good this album is. It's shocking how chockful of hits this album is.

It's a what's what of 1990s alternative rock music. "Them Bones." "Would?" "Rooster." "Dam that River." All great songs and all of them sound incredibly fresh for being 20 years old.

This is a bit of a surprise because it's been probably 20 years since I listened to this album wholly, and I kind of veered away from Alice in Chains as I started growing up. I don't blame myself as much as I blame Alice in Chains. They were never the same after this album, for my money. Other albums just seemed to lack after a while, then they broke up.

In 2002, lead singer Layne Staley was found decomposing in his house after an overdose on heroin and cocaine. He -- like most musicians of that genre and era -- was an avid drug abuser. During the recording of Dirt, it was noted that he would shoot up heroin in front of the band. He apparently smoked crack and did heroin for much of his life. The rest of the band were no saints. Jerry Cantrell was on anti-depression medication and who knows what else. The drummer and bassist were alcoholics.

I firmly believe Dirt is as good as it is because of the drugs. Also, Staley is a corpse because of the drugs. Was that worth it? Do you look back and think "Man, he did about as much as he was going to do on this Earth and his living and dying were as interchangable as underwear.

Thinking about it, it's sort of shocking the band were able to keep things together to tour and record. Not like they were city councilmen to begin with. Throw in drugs and alcohol and it was probably like herding cats. At least we've got this great album.