Last CD you bought/ Book you read

Hosh

hoshomccreesh.com
isn't ballad of a sad cafe a sad sad book?

I felt, about that book & McCullers after reading it, the way I've always felt about Billie Holiday and Patsy Cline...this powerful urge to grab them all and just hug them...hold them and tell them it would all be okay, even if it was a lie. I want it to all be okay...you know?

What a book though.
 

justine

stop the penistry
i haven't read a clock without hands or the mortgaged heart yet; they're sitting on my shelf while i psych myself up for the heartbreak.
 

nervas

more crickets than friends
Recently:
Shoplifting From American Apparel - Tao Lin
I read that book because of its title alone, well more because of my interest in American Apparel. I found it entertaining, and wanted to check out other stuff from Lin.

I was at American Apparel's annual flea market a few years back, and got to chatting with their ceo Dov Charney(Hey he even bought us red chili tamales!)but anyway, talk about a wild, zany, crazy, fill in the blanks, character. If anyone knows who Melrose Larry Green is, he reminded me of him, just way more business savvy. That guy, Dov, is quite odd, interesting and a bit scary at the same time. I had originally picked up the book, because I thought it had something to do with the company, but it enjoyed it all the same.
 

mjp

Founding member
The same Dov with all the sexual harassment suits brought by former female employees? Yeah, he sounds real zany. And he looks like someone from this site.
 

nervas

more crickets than friends
That is why I said scary, he was really freaky. Though I don't know if he was ever found guilty of any of the chargers, I will say the way he acted, and photographed females would have made me think he was guilty. In any event, he was odd, and maybe zany wasn't the correct term, when all is said and done, he was weird.
 

mjp

Founding member
...I don't know if he was ever found guilty of any of the chargers...
He wasn't. But he had much better lawyers than the accusers could afford. So how could he be found guilty? O.J. Simpson wasn't found guilty in Los Angeles either. Rich people don't go to jail here. Or in most places.

There's an article out there somewhere where a female journalist spends a day with the American Apparel douche, and you have to assume that he'd be on his best behavior for that, but he was still doing a lot of creepy shit to employees.
 
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If only this fine example of human culture were not defiled with all that vandalism in the background.....wait....or is that art?

I'm listening to this
 

nervas

more crickets than friends
Yes, I think I remember the article, he was jumping on desks and grabbing his crotch, or something like that, now that this has all jogged my memory. I also remember my ex calling me an asshole(because she found him creepy from the word go) for entertaining his conversation so much. At the time, I really knew nothing about him. He just kept talking and talking about how he could fix immigration, the economy, etc and I listened and he was paying for, well not really, but was ordering the cook to give us all the tamales we could eat, and I love tamales!

But mjp, you can't tell me Michael Jackson was guilty after being found not guilty 15 times right? Just kidding, or what do the kids say now, lol, rotfl, omg, etc.
 

mjp

Founding member
Guilty? Michael Jackson is in heaven with JESUS and all the children who went to live with JESUS. He runs the day care up there.

I just heard that Daryl Gates died. He's there too. With all the other great men of history.
 

d gray

tried to do his best but could not
Founding member
i haven't read a clock without hands or the mortgaged heart yet; they're sitting on my shelf while i psych myself up for the heartbreak.

have any of you read her short story "who has seen the wind" about the failing writer and his wife?

it gave me chills i could relate to it way too much.
 

nervas

more crickets than friends
I just finished reading Planet Joe by Joe Cole. He was the best friend/roadie of Henry Rollins who was shot to death in LA during an attempted home invasion robbery. Rollins and Joe were coming home, back in 1991 when they were approached, the robbery went array, and for some reason they shot Joe. It's a good diary/blog type read. It covers 1986/1987 while Joe was a roadie for Black Flag. It's filled with a little too many acid/mushroom trips(slimedog, it's calling you!) for me, but still not bad. I also didn't know the book was as rare as it is, I have had it sitting on the shelf for years. He also quotes Bukowski in the book, which was a surprise to me. ""The first thing you've got to do is beat the grind, it'll kill you. Then you go from there." - Bukowski. Not that I can remember where that is from, but it's credited to Buk in the book.

joe.jpg
 
Last cd I bought was the twentieth anniversary version of The Stone Roses. Brilliant album wi a brilliant cd of demos and a great dvd.

Last book I read, well I've been on a comics bender recently and I just re-read It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken by Seth. I would highly recommend it to everyone. I'm also re-reading Hot Water Music. =)
 

nervas

more crickets than friends
Finished this the other day. Really enjoyed it. Then I saw the entire movie in parts on youtube. I have read they're making an American version of the film. The book was good, for any vampire fans, the movie, eh, maybe the American version will be eh as well, but the book is a recommendation.

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I got a few sun ra records. Replaced the needle on my player. Spent a bit of my university rent on a uke & some spinoza/coetzee. Tomorrow I think I'll pick up a sufi & a killer & uh huh her.
 

Lolita Twist

Rose-hustler
Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs - Derek and the Dominos. (I had it once before but must have lost it in a move. Shame. I desperately want it on vinyl.)
And, Notes from the Underground - Dostoevsky, which I found deliciously describing clinical depression in an overly-humorous way. Good times, noodle salad. And hookers.
 

bospress.net

www.bospress.net
I'm reading two novels at the same time.

Pulp by Bukowski

&

You Can't Win by Jack Black

Pulp is a great read again, although so different from all of his other books. You Can't Win is a classic, published in 1929. If you like Junkie by Burroughs (his easiest book to read), then this is a must.

Bill

Jack Black...

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mjp

Founding member
That's funny, I just read You Can't Win.

I bought it along with a few other books from Nabat; Beggars of Life, a hobo autobiography by Jim Tully, BAD, the autobiography of James Carr (friend of George Jackson, Black Panther, etc.) and Five Years in the Warsaw Ghetto.

You can't Win is a great book. I also finished Beggars of Life, which is similar, but nowhere near as good as Black's book. I am a chapter or two into BAD, and it's really good as well.

Nabat has a new title out early next year that I'm looking forward to: "Yellow Kid" Weil: The Autobiography of America's Master Swindler.

Great stuff about an America that doesn't exist anymore.

I've never read Junky, but I have read that Burroughs "appropriated" stories from You Can't Win and used them in Junky.
 

bospress.net

www.bospress.net
Burroughs used some of the characters in other books, like Salt Chunk Mary. The book Junky, really has the feel of a book that was written to be like YOU CAN'T WIN. It is very similar. I have read JUNKY a couple times and think that I like the Jack Black book more. i think that once I'm finished, I'll reread Junky and see if it has the same feel or if it is essentially the same book.

Still, writing about junk in the 40's was not as daring as writing about crime and opium in the 20's... There is more of a wild west feel to it...

Bill
 

mjp

Founding member
It was the wild West! Most of the states he talks about were only territories at the time.

It's funny that he writes about making two or three grand from a safecracking or robbery and spending it all pretty quickly. Two grand in 1890s money is like 50 grand today. Maybe he was adjusting those figures to current amounts when he was writing the book. But still, 2 grand in 1926 is equal to 25 grand today. He was not a good money manager, I guess you could say. Great book.
 
Books: Just read Underworld by Delillo (that took some time - a hefty one). Gonna move on with something, lengthwise, lighter: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.

Cds/Vinyl: Figure 8 - Elliott Smith (with bonus tracks). Josephine - Magnolia Electric.

Anyone read Matterhorn by Marlantes yet? Seems like a great Vietnam war book...if you're into that sort of thing.
 
CD: Dave Alvin and The Guilty Women - A most excellent CD and Dave is a Bukowksi fan as well.

"Combining elements of blues, folk, R+B, rockabilly, Bakersfield country and garage rock and roll with lyrical inspiration from local writers and poets like Raymond Chandler, Gerald Locklin and Charles Bukowski, Alvin says that his songs are "just like California. A big, messy melting pot."

Book: Wind Up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi - First rate Sci-Fi - This guy will replace William Gibson. His first novel and it won the Nebula award last month.
 

d gray

tried to do his best but could not
Founding member
You Can't Win is a classic, published in 1929. If you like Junkie by Burroughs (his easiest book to read), then this is a must.

thanks for the tip - i just ordered it from the library.

they deliver to your closest branch which is great. (and cheap)
 

bospress.net

www.bospress.net
It was the wild West! Most of the states he talks about were only territories at the time.
Yeah, I'm about halfway through. There was just a scene where the author is about to rob, at gunpoint, a poker game in a back room. They carefully open the door and see Bat Masterson, the wild west gunslinger at the table and realize that as possibly the fastest draw alive, that they will have to either kill him or get killed. The quietly close the door and move on...

It is one of those books that could have been written today, but it is authentic. There is some extinct vocabulary (like Yegg), but you get used to it. Plus, since we live int he information age, it is easy to look up these words and see what they mean.

Bill
 

nervas

more crickets than friends
G.O.A.T

Just finished this...

pj.jpg


Can't argue that PJ is greatest of all time, don't even try. The book, eh, doesn't compare to his legacy, or greatness(mostly cause it wasn't written by him, ha) but made for a great read over the last few weeks and another Lakers championship! Shit, I just fully recovered from all the partying a few days ago!
 
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