Hey Ghoul, have you got plans for Halloween? Because I’d be terrified to spend it without you. (Pause while I wait for the phone to ring, and the people in charge of the Ryan Gosling meme to tell me that I’m everything they’ve been searching for.) No? OK then. Want to spend Halloween night in the Paris Catacombs? This isn’t
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From this day forward, whenever I have the blues, I’ll pray to St. Jodorowsky. For last night, as it was likely written in his original 3,000-page manuscript for “Dune,” I had a religious experience while watching the documentary “Jodorowsky’s Dune.” It is entirely possible that my viewing of this documentary, based on the cult filmmaker’s failed attempt to bring his
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Damn I hate Downward Dog. If it was an actual dog, I would put it down. Every time the yoga instructor indicates that it’s time to transition into this position, I want to euthanize myself. Whatever sadist thought of this shoulder-grinding aberration of bodily positioning was a sick dog, and deserved to get Old-Yellered with extreme prejudice. The fact that
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You wouldn’t think a show set in post-Katrina New Orleans would be a smile factory. Perhaps that’s the alchemical magic of TV right there: It can take an experience that must have been hell to live through and turn it into something so life-affirming and brimming over with infectious groove that your squirms turn to funky grooves. Soon, you’re dancing
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You can’t write about rap music without writing about race. Every aspect of the music and its progression over the years from community center dance parties in the Bronx to a billion-dollar, global phenomenon is somehow tied into the African-American experience. As a white guy, writing about hip-hop necessarily presents its own challenges, because nobody likes a white guy writing
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“People wonder why jazz is dying.” Terence Fletcher, “Whiplash” To paraphrase the title of a recent Mogwai album, jazz will never die, but you will. Jazz is forever, and we’re just lucky enough to live during its lifetime. But good old abusive, homophobic Terence has a point. Jazz isn’t dying, but its relation to the popular consciousness is very, very
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Tear down the wall! Tear down the wall! That’s not just good advice for Roger Waters, Bob Geldof, and Germany circa 1989, but for organizers of music festivals, as well. There are many reasons why SXSW is one of the greatest in the world, but the one that stands above all others for me is simple: Choice. Yes, there are walls. Any
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As I busted left off The 5, making for the wilderness of now-dried-up Detroit Lake, Compton’s Most Wanted’s “Straight Checkn ‘Em” came rolling out of my speakers. The “Scarface” samples, low-end thud, and nasal tales of drivebys and ducksicks that are MC Eiht’s forte propelled me forward through Mill City, onward toward the annual camping trip that has come to
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This is it. No more bullshit. Time to stop talking about it and write again. Freelancing the odd music article is cool and all, but there’s more to this alchemical pursuit than what an editor decides deserves readers’ attention. I’ve got stories to tell, perspectives to give, and shit to talk. More importantly, there are stories that need telling, other
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