Articles by admin
Watch Out For Children: Over The Edge (1979)
“If Harold and Maude, Fast Times At Ridgemont High and Boyz N The Hood all took the pulse of a particular generation’s youth, you’d have to look no further than Over the Edge to get an EKG reading on the 1970s. Maybe it was a sign of things to come that the movie changed its title from On the…
No More Amusement: Six Flags New Orleans
The five-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina has passed. But there were a few things I missed during all the media reflections of the Gulf Coast disaster. One thing I overlooked was Melissa Golden’s photo essay for Time — “The Surreal Remains of Six Flags New Orleans” — that looked at the abandoned amusement park and its rapid decay post-Katrina. According…
Out In The Cold: Surfing Lake Erie
Last week I discovered¬†Billy Delfs’ portraits of surfers in Cleveland, Ohio.¬†Rust Wire ran a photo essay featuring Delfs’ shots, which drew me in. But with little background given in the essay, I was curious about these surfers, their community, where exactly they catch waves on the shores of Lake Erie, and how…
Black Album Redux: Enter You
Metallica’s Black Album was never good. It just took several hundred listens for me to accept such a harsh reality as a devout tween metalhead. And I would like to say the band redeemed itself since then, but they haven’t. If anything, they’ve only sunken further into a pool of shit, money, and bad haircuts. The Black Album would…
The Lessons of Glenn Danzig
In 1990, I bought my first guitar. It was a black Ibanez RG560. I paid for it with money earned from my paper route, delivering the Pittsburgh Press. But I forgot about sales tax. I always forgot about sales tax when buying things as a kid. My parents covered the difference. I took the guitar home and had nothing…
The Faith of Graffiti: Watching My Name Go By
Back in 1973, Norman Mailer and Jon Naar collaborated on The Faith of Graffiti. The book combined Mailer’s essay about the kids who were writing their names on the walls and subway cars in New York City at the time with Naar’s photographs. The Faith had been out of print for years, until HarperCollins reissued it this past…
A Brief Phone Conversation with Harvey Pekar
Back in 2005, I called Harvey Pekar on the phone. My reason for calling was to ask if he’d be interested in contributing an essay to an anthology I was putting together called Fame & Misfortune. I’d gotten his number from a man who used to book him for speaking engagements. He told me: “Harvey’s real cool, just give…
The House That Brev Mekis Built
Rumor has it that R.E.M.’s new album, Fables of the Reconstruction, contains a song about a schizophrenic man named Brev Mekis, who actually divided his home into two separate living spaces, one for each of his dual personalities. I say this is rumor, because I don’t own a single R.E.M. record. Nor do I keep up with their career. But…
Quit Stealing My Paper You Son of a Bitch
Yesterday was quiet. Michelle and I had the day to ourselves, Ethan stayed with his grandparents. We went to the library and ransacked their music collection. I randomly walked through the stacks, pulling every album that piqued my interest off the shelf. I also took out a GRE test prep book to further fuel my obsessions of potentially pursuing an…
Thank You For Your Call
In the opening of Shawn Nee‘s short film, Thank You For Your Call, the following text fades in: “As of July 2010, the United States Social Security Administration does not recognize same-sex marriages or domestic partnerships as valid relationships.” What we discover in the film is that many LGBT seniors — like Bill Bowersock — are often forced to…
Goodbye Melvin Bliss, Creator of ‘Synthetic Substitution’
“Melvin Bliss, singer of one the most sampled songs of all time, 1973‚Äôs ‚ÄúSynthetic Substitution,‚Äù has died. The list of artists who‚Äôve borrowed from the track is long and overwhelming: Ultramagnetic MC‚Äôs, Public Enemy, De La Soul, Naughty By Nature, Gang Starr, Wu-Tang Clan; it goes on, pretty much forever.” (via Village Voice)
Axl Rose Lets His Hair Down With a Kangaroo
One explanation for this photo might be that Guns N’ Roses had a day off during the Australian leg of their global tour in support of Appetite for Destruction, and decided to visit a wildlife preserve. Another explanation might be that, as sleazoid groupies and eight balls of coke began to lose favor within the group, they turned to…
Ghetto Ass Ice Cream Truck
Lil Dawgg is delirious over the arrival of the “ghetto ass ice cream truck.” His interest in the truck appears to be purely voyeuristic. He’s not running out of his house to grab a Nutty Buddy, or lining up with his neighbors to patronize the mobile treats unit. But he does occasionally break into unhinged laughter as he attempts…
Alternate Reality Public Service Announcement
In this footage shot for a PSA from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the voiceover actor hijacks the original spot and produces an alternate, more honest version. It’s not exactly a director’s cut, but close.
Going Catatonic in the Ben Rose Home
It’s not everyday that I stumble across a fragment of Internet junk that makes me innately happy. Today, however, I did. What I found is a set of panoramic and interactive photographs by Robert Harshman (view here) that document the Ben Rose Home in Highland Park, Illinois — better known as the house where Cameron lived, Ferris Bueller’s overmedicated best…
Bored to Death at the G20, Part II
Last summer, when the G20 was held in Pittsburgh, Pa, protests never escalated to the point of widespread violence. In fact, the whole affair came and went with more of a whimper than a bang. It wasn’t for lack of trying on the part of anarchists and other protesters. Our G20 was quaint, though it had its moments (this might…
[Made You Look] The Underwater Project
“I’ve always been intrigued by what happens below the surface, like what’s happening where we can’t see,” says Mark Tipple, photographer behind The Underwater Project. “Coming from a surfing background, I used to wonder what happens when we’re duck-diving, like, what it looks like from a different angle than what we can see. Kinda hard to explain but it…
The Tragedy of William Allen Kruse
Last week I read in the L.A. Times that a man named William Allen Kruse, a charter boat captain hired by BP to help with clean up efforts in the Gulf, shot himself. Kruse’s deckhands said their captain’s death was not surprising because the oil spill had weighed heavily on his mind. Kruse, like so many other Gulf fishermen, was…
No More Dirty Looks
In her poem “Eli Came Back From Iraq,” poet and activist Andrea Gibson includes a verse that really struck me: “One third of the homeless men in this country are veterans and we have the nerve to ‘Support Our Troops’ with pretty yellow ribbons while giving nothing but dirty looks to their outstretched hands.” After I read…
