There’s one thing you’ll notice about our picks – most of them star either Clint Eastwood or Kevin Costner. These are two actors who understand the rugged individualism, fast violence, and morality of the old West. So faster than you can draw your pistol, here are DaRK PaRTY’s picks for the Best Westerns Ever Made.

Unforgiven

Synopsis: A retired outlaw named William Munny struggles to run a hog farm after the death of his wife. A young gunslinger makes him an offer to hunt down two cowboys who cut-up a prostitute in a saloon in Big Whiskey. Unable to resist the lure of easy money, Munny coaxes his old partner, Ned, to join him and the gunslinger. They get more than they bargained for when they run into Sheriff “Little Bill” Daggett who uses violent tactics to keep the peace in Big Whiskey.

Release Date: 1992

Big Name Stars: Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, and Richard Harris

Director: Clint Eastwood

Best Scene: A chilling scene where Munny stalks into the saloon after Little Bill and his posse has killed Ned and propped his dead body in a coffin outside the entrance. Little Bill is in the middle of a toast when slowly the entire saloon realizes that William Munny stands behind them with a loaded rifle. Munny asks: “Who owns this shithole? You, fat man, speak up.” The bar owner stutters and Munny tells the men around him to clear out and then he shoots him down in cold blood. Little Bill screams: “You just shot an unarmed man!” Munny stares at him and says: “Well, he should have armed himself if he’s gonna decorated his saloon with my dead friend.”

Best Line: “Hell, I even thought I was dead 'til I found out it was just that I was in Nebraska.”

Weird Fact: Richard Harris was allegedly watching “High Plains Drifter” when Eastwood phoned to offer him a role in the film.

In a Nutshell: “Unforgiven” blurs the lines between good and bad by making the mass murdering William Munny a likable sort and Sheriff “Little Bill” Daggett as cold hearted and ruthless. One of the best Westerns ever made and deserving of its Best Picture Oscar in 1992.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Synopsis: The two leaders of the Hole-in-the-Wall gang are the visionary idea guy – Butch – and the man-of-action gunslinger, Sundance. When they rob one too many trains, a special posse is formed to track them down and bring them to justice.

Release Date: 1969

Big Name Stars: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Cloris Leachman

Director: George Roy Hill

Best Scene: Butch is losing his influence with his gang and is challenged to a knife fight by the enormous Harvey. He’s got no chance to win so he interrupts and says he needs to get the rules straight with Harvey. Incredulous, Harvey says: “Rules? In a knife fight?” Butch proceeds to kick him in the nuts and then punch him when he’s down. One of the other gang members rushes to Butch’s side to tell him how he was rooting for him the whole time. Butch puts his arm around him and replies: “Thank you, Flat Nose. That’s what sustained me in my time of need.”

Best Line: “Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?”

Weird Fact: Jack Lemmon was offered the role of Sundance, but turned it down because of a conflict with another movie.

In a Nutshell: This movie gets panned by many “critics” because of its light hand. But the key is watching the movie as a comedy (in a bumbling sort of way). It’s damn amusing even if it does a grave disservice to history.

Dances With Wolves

Synopsis: A burned-out Union lieutenant named John Dunbar is assigned to an outpost on the western frontier after the Civil War. The post is deserted, except for a lone wolf. Dunbar befriends the creature and then becomes friendly with the local Sioux tribe. He falls in love with a white woman adopted by the tribe as a child. Soon he finds himself relating more to his Indian friends than the white society he came from.

Release Date: 1990

Big Name Stars: Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, and Graham Greene

Director: Kevin Costner

Best Scene: The buffalo hunting sequence when a herd of rampaging buffalo thunders across the prairie with dust billowing in the air and Kevin Costner as Lt. Dunbar rides over a ridge and his cowboy hat flies off his head. Riding his horse with the Sioux Indians they begin the hunt. A young Indian hunter wounds a buffalo, but falls off his horse. The buffalo rears up and charges at him. Dunbar turns, assesses, and begins to shoot at the charging bull. One shot. Two shots. Both misses. With a final shot, Dunbar kills and buffalo and it drops dead at the boy’s feet.

Best Line: “Turned injun, didn't ya!”

Weird Fact: Graham Greene’s character, Kicking Bird, is the step-father of Stands With A Fist even though Mary McDonnell is older than Greene in real life.

In a Nutshell: “Dances With Wolves” is Costner’s best film and while it gets heavy on its criticism of manifest destiny, it is one of the most emotional and impactful westerns ever made.

High Plains Drifter

Synopsis: A lone, unnamed gunfighter rides into the town of Lago. He is hired to kill three outlaws who were just released from prison and want revenge on the town for betraying them. The townspeople are embezzling money from the nearby gold mine and when their sheriff discovered the crime they hired the three outlaws to kill him. Then they turned them in and they went to prison. The stranger, however, has more than a passing resemblance to the dead sheriff. The stranger gets his revenge – on the outlaws and on the townspeople.

Release Date: 1973

Big Name Stars: Clint Eastwood, Stacey Bridges

Director: Clint Eastwood

Best Scene: After riding into Lago – the townspeople gazing at him with fear in their eyes – watch the stranger enter the barber shop. The nervous barber slathers cream on the stranger’s whiskers and covers him with a white sheet. Three toughs from the saloon, bored, approach the stranger looking for trouble. They get it when they spin his chair and the stranger shoots all three of them – one of them falling back through the shop window.

Best Line: “You're going to look pretty silly with that knife sticking out of your ass.”

Weird Fact: The names on the tombstones in the Lago graveyard bear the names of directors that Eastwood had worked with in the passed including Don Siegel, Brian G. Hutton and Sergio Leone.

In a Nutshell: “High Plains Drifter” is all western and part ghost story. It’s the tale of a sheriff betrayed by the people he was hired to protect. Coming back from the dead, he gets his revenge on everybody.

Open Range

Synopsis: A group of free grazing cattlemen end up in the town Harmonville and run into trouble with a corrupt lawman and the rich rancher he works for. The cattlemen don’t want trouble, but are pushed to the edge. And finally, the rancher murders one of them and severely wounds another. The two remaining cattlemen, Boss Spearman and Charley Waite, end up in a murderous showdown with the rancher and his minions. But not before Charley falls in love with Sue Barlow, the town’s doctor’s sister.

Release Date: 2003

Big Name Stars: Robert Duvall, Kevin Costner, Annette Bening

Director: Kevin Costner

Best Scene: In the open street of town, Charley and Boss face off against four bad guys. As they stand sizing each other up, Charley stalks toward the murderous, bowl-hatted Butler (the toughest of the bad guys) and says: “You the one who killed our friend?” The Butler, with a smirk, answers: “That’s right. I shot the boy, too. And I enjoyed it.” Without another word, Charley shoots him from point blank range right in the forehead. The Butler drops like a sack of bricks.

Best Line: “Men are gonna get killed here today, Sue, and I’m gonna kill them.”

Weird Fact: Costner gave up a role in “Kill Bill: Volume 1” to film “Open Range.”

In a Nutshell: “Open Range” was a sleeper that somehow failed to do well at the box office. It’s a shame because the movie a mortality play focused on Charley – an ex-gunslinger who regretted his passed to live in harmony and freedom on the open range. When pushed, however, he has to tap into his skills as a gunslinger to save himself and his friends. The movie features one of the most intense and violent gunfights ever (see above).

The Magnificent Seven

Synopsis: A ruthless band of outlaws terrorize a Mexican village. The town fathers tire of the violence and decide to hire a group of gunmen to fight for them. They end up with seven gunslingers who decide to defend the village for various reasons. They train the village to fight off the gang of more than 100 bandits.

Release Date: 1960

Big Name Stars: Yul Brenner, James Coburn, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn and Eli Wallach

Director: John Sturges

Best Scene: When the bandits ride into the village to get food for the winter they are confronted – one by one – by the seven gunslingers. At first, the bandit leader, Calvera, seems more irritated than concerned by the boldness of these strangers. But then the shooting starts and he starts to see his men drop and his irritation turns to rage.

Best Line: “We deal in lead, friend.”

Weird Fact: This legendary western is a remake of the Japanese film “The Seven Samurai.”

In a Nutshell: Has there ever been a more star-studded western? The beauty of “The Magnificent Seven” is the direction of John Sturges who utilizes his all-star cast to perfection.

Silverado

Synopsis: A group of old friends end up together in Silverado for various reasons. The town is in the hands of a corrupt sheriff and his men. Finally, the friend band together and fight the bad guys and bring peace and justice to Silverado

Release Date: 1985

Big Name Stars: Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, Kevin Costner, Danny Glover, John Cleese, Brian Dennehy, Jeff Goldblum, Rosanna Arquette

Director: Lawrence Kasdan

Best Scene: It doesn’t get much better than the open two minute of this film. The camera drifts over the cramped and dirty confines of an old cabin – sunlight sluicing through the cracks in the walls. It’s dark inside and you can hear a crow squawk in the distance. A horse whinnies and then the door bursts open and a cowboy begins firing two guns. Emmett fires back, killing him. Then bullets tear through the walls followed by beams of sunlight. Emmett dives to the floor. He ends up killing three men – one of which falls through his roof. Emmett creeps outside of the small cabin and into a panoramic view of the mountains and canyons of the old West (see below).

Best Line: “We're gonna give you a fair trial, followed by a first class hanging.”

Weird Fact: Kevin Costner received one of the starring roles because director Kasdan ended up cutting all his scenes from the movie “The Big Chill.”

In a Nutshell: Another star-studded western. “Silverado” had a throwback flavor to it and helped revive the western for mainstream audiences.

The Outlaw Josey Wales

Synopsis: A farmer who had his family murdered by Union soldiers joins a group of Confederate raiders during the Civil War. After the war ends, he travels west and becomes an outlaw. He seeks vengeance of those who killed his family, but even through his violent ways, Josey Wales yearns for peace.

Release Date: 1976

Big Name Stars: Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, John Vernon

Director: Clint Eastwood

Best Scene: Josey rides on a raft to the other side of the Missouri River when a dispatch of Union soldiers shows up on the other bank. Rather than run, he takes a short nap as the raft loads up with soldiers to pursue him. The soldiers expect Josey to try and pick them off, but instead he shoots the tow lie of the raft and the raft and soldiers go whisking off down the rapids.

Best Line: “Yeah, well, I always heard there were three kinds of suns in Kansas, sunshine, sunflowers, and sons-of-bitches.”

Weird Fact: “Tonight Show” host Johnny Carson called “The Outlaw Josey Wales” the greatest western of all time.

In a Nutshell: “The Outlaw Josey Wales” was Eastwood’s coming of age as a director. The plot is often convoluted, but the consequence of violence that became a major theme in his future movie making gets its first try out here.

Pale Rider

Synopsis: A preacher rides into a gold mining village in California. The miners are being forced out of their stakes by a rich landowner intent of stealing their claims. The preacher steps in to protect the miners from the landowner, his corrupt sheriff, and his thugs.

Release Date: 1985

Big Name Stars: Clint Eastwood, Michael Moriarty, Carrie Snodgrass, Chris Penn

Director: Clint Eastwood

Best Scene: A young girl is recited a passage from the Bible to practice her reading as she sits in the kitchen with her mother. Horse and horsemen begin to ride into the village. The girl pauses and her mother urges her to continue reading. She recites a passage from “Revelations” about the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse – Death riding on a pale horse. As she says the words, the Preacher rides into view on a white horse.

Best Line: “Nothing like a good piece of hickory.”

Weird Fact: Eastwood pays homage to the movie “Shane” through “Pale Rider.” Many of the scenes and plotlines echo the older movie, including the end when the girl shouts “I love you” to the departing preacher.

In a Nutshell: Another ghost story and western combination by Eastwood. This one, however, is spiced with religious undertones that give the movie incredible depth and mystery.

The Searchers

Synopsis: Confederate soldier Ethan Edwards returns to Texas after the war hoping for peace at last. But when his niece is kidnapped during a Comanche raid, he becomes obsessed with finding her. He searches for years until his nephew begins to realize that Ethan’s hatred for Indians is driving him more than his love for his niece. After the girl has become an Indian – Ethan’s quest changes to become one where he will kill her instead.

Release Date: 1956

Big Name Stars: John Wayne, Natalie Wood

Director: John Ford

Best Scene: A group of cowboys walk out of the fog and through a moor carrying rifles. Crickets chirp in the night as they slosh through the water. They come upon a cold campsite where the Indian kidnappers had recently been. Ethan, with a scowl, glares at the man next to him. “Any more orders, captain?” he says with disdain. “Yes,” the captain says. “We’ll keep on going.” They hear a bird and swing their guns into action, but it is a false alarm. “Well?” Ethan says. The captain, annoyed, says: “You want to quit, Ethan?” Ethan answers, “That’ll be the day” and stalks off.

Best Line: “Figure a man's only good for one oath at a time; I took mine to the Confederate States of America.”

Weird Fact: John Wayne named his son Ethan in honor of his role as Ethan Edwards in the movie.

In a Nutshell: The western that all other westerns are compared to. It is that good. John Wayne as the racist old soldier turns in his finest performance ever.

Labels: Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, Kevin Costner, Movies, Westerns

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It was one of those disconcerting nightmares.

I was in the suburbs – the woods – as terrorists attacked Boston. I ran into an open field to get a better view of the black clouds rising up from the ruined city. An attack helicopter streaked toward me. I realized at the last moment that it wasn’t an ally. I dove behind a tree – a sapling really – and the copter hovered, blades whirling, loud.

And then it fired at me; bullets ripping up the turf.

I woke before the bullets struck me.

I lay in bed, heart thumping, in those long hours before dawn when being awake is a bad thing. It was the witching time when imagination takes shape and every sound and movement becomes your impending death.

It’s primal in the dead of night. Mortality feels real. Death – so often ignored – whispers terrible things.

And you’re afraid.

I can rationalize death. In fact, I probably ponder about death more than most people. It can be an awful thrill to sit and think about death. You can feel the change in your body – the slow panic as you realize that you will die. Death is frightening on such a biological level – living things don’t want to die and will fight – often violently – to remain alive.

It’s one of the reasons I don’t believe in god (in heaven or Valhalla or reincarnation). If people truly – through and through – believed that life was just the first step in a journey that continued with death then why would living things fight so hard to remain alive?

If death was next – if the afterlife existed – then why wouldn’t we joyously celebrate death? Why wouldn’t a person’s funeral be as happy and mirthful as their birthdays? Is it because instinctively we understand that death is the end? Is it because the promise of an afterlife is nothing but a fairy tale to soften the harsh reality that is death?

I believe that when I die my body will rot and the being that I was will cease to exist – forever.

I have friends that find this belief troubling – and sad. I understand why they think so. Most of them are religious (on the surface anyway) and clutch at the biggest hope that a belief in god brings: eternal life. When they die, they think they will go somewhere else and meet up with their dead relatives and friends.

But isn’t that foolish? Isn’t it a lie?

Don’t all of us – every one of us – know deep down that death is an end? It’s why we mourn. It’s why we weep at funerals. It’s the reason why we fear disease and car wrecks on the freeway. It’s why we’re frightened when we wake up in the dead of night after dreaming about dying.

I do take comfort in a couple of things. One, I was dead before -- before I was born. I didn’t exist until my birth and when I die I will go back to that place or that state. I don’t remember it. So how bad can it really be? Two, death is normal. In fact, it is what we were born to do. It’s what makes life so damn precious.

By ignoring death or pretending that it’s a step to another dimension, aren’t we actually belittling life? Reducing it?

We shouldn’t take this short time we have for granted. We should recognize it for the beautiful and special gift that it is. And the first step in doing that is realizing that it is fleeting – and that it will eventually come to an end.

Death is final and can be scary – but only if you let be so.

Read the essay "The Undiscovered Country" here

Labels: death, Essay

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Our menu of books runs eclectic. For example, our fiction tastes go from classics like Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” to genre thrillers like “Echo Burning” by Lee Child to modern literature like Jennifer Haigh’s “Mrs. Kimble.”

But we also sample quite a bit of non-fiction, volumes of short stories and poetry, and lately we’ve sunk our teeth into graphic novels (fried and slathered with hot sauce).

Obviously we can only comment on the books that we digest, but here is an attempt to provide a tasty menu of the best books that we’ve eaten in the past six and a half years. We encourage readers to add their own recommendations for books that dazzled their taste buds.

The most difficult part of this exercise was narrowing down each category to only five books each.

APPETIZERS (GENRE NOVELS)

• “The Straw Men” (2002) by Michael Marshall. Paranoia and conspiracy intersect in this debut thriller.
• “The Deep Blue Good-bye” (1964) by John D. MacDonald. The first of the Travis McGee novels is one of the best.
• “Blue Edge of Midnight” (2002) by Jonathon King. Ex-cop Max Freeman moves into the Everglades to get away from his past and becomes caught up in a search for a child killer.
• “The Butcher’s Boy” (1982) by Thomas Perry. The adventures of a resourceful and relentless hitman.
• “Echo Burning” (2001) by Lee Child. A hard-boiled thriller about a drifter who saves a married woman from her rich husband in the Texas panhandle.

MAIN COURSE (CLASSICS)

• “For Whom the Bell Tolls” (1940) by Ernest Hemingway. The story of Robert Jordan, an American helping the communists fight the fascist government during the Spanish Civil War.
• “Madam Bovary” (1857) by Gustave Flaubert. The wife of a country doctor searches in vain for happiness.
• “David Copperfield” (1850) by Charles Dickens. The life story of David Copperfield is well worth the effort.
• “Pride and Prejudice” (1813) by Jane Austen. Perhaps the greatest love story ever told.
• “Revolutionary Road” (1961) by Richard Yates. The destruction of a suburban family in the 1950s.

SIDE DISH (CONTEMPORARY NOVELS)

• “House of Sand and Fog” (1999) by Andre Dubus III. What happens when three flawed and misunderstood people collide over ownership of a house.
• “The Hours” (1998) by Michael Cunningham. A contemporary retelling of Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway.”
• “Old School” (2003) by Tobias Wolff. A prep school teenager enters writing contests to meet Robert Frost, Ayn Rand, and Ernest Hemingway.
• “The Feast of Love” (2000) by Charles Baxter. Multiple stories converge to paint a portrait of modern love.
• “The Road” (2006) by Cormac McCarthy. A man and his son try to survive in post-apocalyptic America.

DESSERT (NON-FICTION)

• “In the Heart of the Sea” (2000) by Nathaniel Philbrick. The fate of the crew of the whale ship Essex after being sunk by an 85-foot Sperm whale in the South Pacific. The story that inspired “Moby Dick.”
• “Humanity: A Moral History of the 20^th Century” (1999) by Jonathan Glover. A probe into the brutal history of the 20^th century from Nazi Germany to Stalin and Mao to Rwanda.
• “An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America” (2003) by Henry Wiencek. A compelling argument that George Washington came to despise slavery and what it meant for America.
• “Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero” (2004) by Leigh Montville. A warts and all biography of the greatest hitter in baseball.
• “The God Delusion” (2006) by Richard Dawkins. The best book ever written about why there is no god.

COFFEE (MISCELLENOUS)

• “The Consolations of Philosophy” (2000) by Alain de Botton. An accessible introduction to the philosophies of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Montaigne, Socrates, Epicurus, and Seneca.
• “Romance in the Roaring Forties and Other Stories” (1986 collection) by Damon Runyon. Be transformed back to Depression era New York City.
• “Dubliners” (1916) by James Joyce. Perhaps the greatest collection of short stories ever published.
• “Nine Horses” (2002) by Billy Collins. A collection of his poetry.
• “Alex” (2006) by Mark Kalesniko. A graphic novel about a washed up artist returning to his hometown to start over again.

Labels: books, literature

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• The new Ironman movie starring Robert Downey Jr. – set to hit theaters on May 2 – looks like a flop. While the trailer shows Downey eating up the screen with his deadpan humor, the premise that he’s kidnapped to assemble a missile and instead creates “Iron Man” armor to escape is – well – right out of the Funny Pages. I’m predicting a movie closer to the lame factor of “Fantastic Four” than the wow factor of “X-Men.”
  

• Philip Seymour Hoffman ripped through Hollywood in 2007 with three unmatched performances in “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,” “The Savages,” and “Charlie Wilson’s War.” Yet he was only nominated for best actor in a supporting role for “Charlie Wilson’s War.” One wonders who Hoffman managed to piss off not to get the nod for a best actor nomination. Maybe it’s because he looks like he rarely bathes or combs his hair.
  

• The 2005 film “Hard Candy” is an underrated gem. The movie begins as a story of a pedophile that picks up a young girl at a coffee shop and then does a complete 180. It’s a magnificent example of how to pull the rug out of from under an audience. But not only is the plot constantly twisting and the tension ratcheting up, the performances of the two leads – Patrick Wilson and Ellen Page – are deep and complex. If you haven’t seen it, you should do yourself a favor and rent it.
  

• I got blasted for a post I did more than a year ago called “The Yawn-Inducing Films of Stanley Kubrick” where I opined quite articulately that “2001: A Space Odyssey” sucked. I still stand by my point that Kubrick’s esoteric films were made for himself and for nobody else resulting in overly long, boring movies. But I don’t question the man’s intelligence or his desire to try and create something more. I just believe he failed. However, this is a link to one of the best explanations of “2001” that I’ve ever seen. It’s done in flash video and is quite entertaining – something that Kubrick never was.
  

• Sad news: the death of Heath Ledger. The trailer for “The Dark Knight,” the sequel to the hit “Batman Begins” features Ledger as the legendary villain The Joker. It looks like it could have been a breakout role for the young actor who showed so much promise in “Brokeback Mountain.”
  

• One great aspect of the Web is the humor – the ability to tap into the creative talents of geeks, freaks, and humorists from all over the world. Case in point: Hitler and the Cowboys. It was made by the folks at Cracked.com (who apparently can’t spell the word “lose”). But if you are a fan of football and the NFL – then this one will have you in tears.

• The movie “Gone, Baby, Gone” should have been nominated for an Academy Award for best picture. While Casey Affleck was miscast as the lead (he just looked way too young for the role), he did a remarkable job with what assets he had. I never gave up on Ben Affleck and now I’m looking forward to the next movie he decides to direct.

• Is it me or is Christian Bale creepy (see above)?

• M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Happening” is set for release in June of this year. Talk about a director that is in desperate need of a hit. His last film “Lady in the Water” was terrible and one of the biggest disappointments of 2006. Before that was “The Village,” which felt like a CBS Sunday Night Movie. He’s yet to match the promise he showed after his blockbuster “The Sixth Sense.” I’m already suspicious of “The Happening” because it stars Mark Wahlberg and John Leguizamo, two actors who are known for their ability to pick bad movies.

• The bloody rampage known as the new “Rambo” movie is getting lousy reviews, which isn’t a surprise. But it does remind me that the first Rambo movie “First Blood” (see below) wasn’t that good either. It started off with promise and the action sequences in the Oregon woods were outstanding. But once Stallone moved out of the woods and back into civilization (and starting trying to act while preaching), the movie went downhill fast. Not to mention that he repeats the urban legend that Vietnam vets were spit on by protesters -- which has never been documented.

Labels: Movies

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Billy Conway, musician and former drummer for Morphine and Treat Her Right: “The Philosophy of Civilization” by Albert Schweitzer. The title is a wee grandiose but it was written in a different cultural time that begged for answers. For one thing he observes that at a certain point after the printing press and wider dissemination of philosophical knowledge was available, the shamanesque nature of philosophy fell prey to endless critique of the other positions and the search for meaning was left unattended while we put faith in the academy of critique.... as if the meaning and purpose were there if one merely read enough. More importantly he digs deep into making the case that happiness and fulfillment occur through satisfying an innate inner urge to be helpful and worthy as a communal citizen. He argues that satisfying your own needs is not a way to achieve happiness, but rather that good ole feeling of doing something for somebody else is where our greatest good lies. Still learning from that book.

Tony Carrillo, cartoonist (F-Minus): The book that changed my view of comedy more than any other is “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams. His perspective on the world was unlike anything I had ever read. When describing an army of spaceships about to destroy the Earth, Douglas says they "hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't." This backwards view of life was something I wanted to emulate in my comic strip F-Minus.

Laurie Foos, author (“Before Elvis There Was Nothing”): I wouldn't say this book changed my perspective on life, per se, but it certainly changed — irrevocably -- my perspective on literature. And that book is Nikolai Gogol's “The Nose.” The metaphor is brilliantly sustained, both funny and oddly moving in parts, and it taught me what metaphor could accomplish. It completely changed the way I thought about writing, and it's one I re-read once a year.

Judith Wilt, Boston College professor: Let me cite two books: Ayn Rand's “Atlas Shrugged” got me thinking about and fighting with its ideas in my late teens: how could I be so drawn in and yet so resistant? How could her world seem so seamless in the reading and so hard to credit as I looked at my actual world? And Charles Dickens's “Our Mutual Friend” made me commit to graduate student life -- a book read in my mid-twenties that got me out of the “high” vs. “popular” literature dichotomy I had brought from college life and made me feel there could be a place for me in the 'profession.'

Adian Moher, blogger (“A Dribble of Ink”): I hate to sound cliché, but I've got to go with J.R.R. Tolkien's “The Hobbit,” a classic of the genre and the single novel that really set me on the path towards Fantasy. “The Hobbit” helped me realize that sense of adventure that is lurking around any corner as long as you're willing to look for it and take a hold of it yourself.

Bilbo, as a Hobbit, was content to let life come to him, to laze away the days and aspire to nothing more than smoke his pipe weed, quaff some ale and relax. Now, this doesn't sound like a terrible life, in fact, it sounds rather tranquil and perfect, but Bilbo, through Gandalf's insistence, reached out beyond that life and found a whole other world of adventure that existed, just there for the taking.

I live in a place very similar to Hobbiton: a small, sleepy little place that is absolutely perfect for lazing away the days. But Bilbo taught me to look outside, to take a look at what else the world has to offer. Without Bilbo I wonder if perhaps I would have discovered my lust for travel, if I would have seen as much of the world as I have. Travel has taken hold of me and threatens never to let go as I keep looking for a dragon to plunder, a mountain to save and goblins to flee.

Now I just need to gather some good friends for the ride.

Gretchen Rubin, author and blogger (“The Happiness Project”): The first is Wayne Koestenbaum’s “Jackie Under My Skin.” It showed me that a biographer could tackle the study of a life in a completely idiosyncratic way. When I started to write my own biography of Winston Churchill, having read that book made me aware of the possibilities of breaking out of the standard chronological form.

Jess Myers, poet: There have been several books that changed my perspective on life after I read them. I often find myself imitating a style as I'm reading something new. David Sedaris' “Me Talk Pretty One Day” inspired me to change majors in college from vocal performance to creative writing. “To Kill a Mockingbird” (by Harper Lee) was the first book I ever loved and couldn't put down. I kind of skated through English classes before that and never really got much enjoyment out of the books that we were forced to read in junior high. That might have been the one that really opened my eyes to a lifetime of loving words. From there it was “Slaughterhouse Five” (by Kurt Vonnegut) and “East of Eden” and “The Grapes of Wrath” (by John Steinbeck) and there are a handful of women writers that I really enjoy for their wry humor and unique but sort of unfeminine perspectives: Dorothy Parker, Flannery O’Connor, and Joyce Carol Oates. I like the gritty dirty feminine voice.

Dave Zeltserman, blogger and author (“Bad Thoughts”): I don’t think any single book changed my perspective on life, although I’m sure the thousands of books I’ve read have had some influence on the way I look at things. The one book that probably had the biggest impact on my life since I’m now writing crime novels, was “I, the Jury” by Mickey Spillane, because that book got me hooked on crime fiction.

Kevin C. Fitzpatrick, author and president of the Dorothy Parker Society: This has to be “Here Is New York” by E.B. White. My friend gave it to me as a gift the year I moved to New York. I have read and re-read it every year for the last 16. I read it whenever I get down about the city or about what it means to be a New Yorker. The book took on new importance to me in the days after 9/11, when I found strength in it. For those that don't know, White wrote it in 1948 as a travel piece; he was living in Maine and came into the city and observed his former home as a visitor would. What it has become is a testament about what New York means, and what I draw from it is why we New Yorkers want to live and work here. It is so light and so smooth, it really is the best thing ever written about this city. My favorite sentence, which I quote all the time, is "No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky." I have since given the book as a gift to about a dozen people when they move to the city. And I'm ready to send it one who just left for Los Angeles, to remind him what he gave up.

Rebecca Traquair, poet: This is actually a conversation I've had with any number of people. The answers never cease to interest me. My most influential book is actually a slim volume of aphorisms by an American writer named Jean Toomer. It's called “Essentials” and was originally published in 1931.

Toomer's most famous book, “Cane,” made his reputation as a Harlem Renaissance writer, but his own spiritual questing led him away from that vein. He lost popularity, but he was true to himself. “Essentials” is a distillation of his ideas and ideals, a rejection of prevailing standards and classifications, an absolutely revolutionary book for his time and for ours. I found the book almost by accident while working on a university project, and this is one of the reasons I am a great believer in the happiness of accidents.

I can't quote directly some of the phrases that grabbed me so completely, as my copy is currently on extended loan to my friend Jadon (I have at least 4 of Jadon's books right now, so this is only fair). I can attempt to paraphrase though... “All our lives, we have been waiting for an event that will gloriously upset us. All our lives, we have been waiting to live.”

Reading “Essentials” gloriously upset my thinking, or at the very least, it gave me a framework for thoughts that I had been formulating but had not yet been able to put into words. More than any other book I have ever read, “Essentials” made me consider exactly what it means to be human, to be an individual, and to be part of something greater than oneself. It is well worth seeking out.

L. Kenyon, writer: When I was 22, I landed a terribly shitty job in a horribly shitty strip mall. I was interviewed by a man who had bad hair and small teeth. He'd driven an hour north from Albany, New York to meet with me. I didn't like him very much and I could tell he felt the same but they needed someone to fill the position of store jerk. The last guy just stop showing up. Soon I was working eleven-hour days alone and was seeing less than that number of customers a week. It was my first introduction to corporate bureaucracy. I used to get an automated call three times a week from the mother office. I would stand at the dusty register in sagging khakis and recite the meager sales totals into the mouthpiece.

For the first month I did everything by code, fearful of a few mentioned surprise visits from corporate. Then, as the days began to tick on and the hours grew longer, I broke. I went from rushing an occasional cigarette out the backdoor and rubbing myself down with soap afterward, to lighting up out front beside the window sale signs for Lung Power and C Vitamins. Weeks turned to months. I starting hauling my TV and Playstation in but a little while I gave up the hassle. Friends would come visit and hang around in the back room for hours but I was lonely. I was bored. I was miserable.

Then one afternoon I was doing laundry at my mother's when I noticed a box of books by the door. "Throwing them out," she said. "Why not burn them," I said. "Don't get smart," she said. I'd been avoiding just that for twenty-two years. As I stood there looking down into that box, I realized that I had never read a single book in its entirety.

I had not read "The Cat in the Hat" or even "Green Eggs and Ham." Did not would not read Vonnegut, Salinger, or any text in hand. I faked book reports with lame retorts and silly see-through lies. I'd watch the movie or cheat, and then fail with indignant surprise. No Shakespeare, no Poe, not even Tolkien or B. Potter, No Dick, No Jane, and magazines? Bah, couldn't be bothered.

A friend of mine, Jen, would visit me at home and shake her head saying things like, "I mean you're a smart guy, why don't you read?" "Why?" I'd ask setting down the controller and taking another hit from the bowl, "Why don't you read to me?" And it went on like this until that afternoon at my mother's. Boredom will make a man do strange things. In this case, it led to a whole new everything.

I bent and took the box with me. I brought it to work the next day and sifted through it. I pulled out “Insomnia” by Stephen King and set it down on the desk. I stared at the cover and sighed. "Reading," I scoffed. If I WERE to read, I figured I'd give this one a shot
considering I liked a handful of King book based movies (only but a handful mind you) and it was also a familiar name; it had been hiding the lower half of my mother's face for the greater part of my childhood.

A few hours passed and the book still sat on the desk untouched. So finally giving in with nothing to do and no visitors, I opened the first page. It's been almost eight years, and I've never stopped turning them. Thank you Mom.

I was fired a few months later. I was in the back room in blue jeans with my feet up on the desk and reading “The Catcher in the Rye” (by J.D. Salinger) for the first time when the dreaded surprise visit from corporate finally happened. I took my books with me.

Labels: Adian Moher, Billy Conway, books, Dave Zeltserman, Grechen Rubin, Jess Myers, Judith Wilt, Kevin Fitzpatrick, L Kenyon, Laurie Foos, Tony Carrillo

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R.A. Salvatore, best-selling fantasy author, co-founder 38 Studios: If we're talking about the work of other authors, it would have to be “The Hobbit” (by J.R.R. Tolkien). I read it during a blizzard in 1978 and it was the first time since my childhood that I actually read a book for enjoyment. School had all but beaten the love of reading out of me by that point, but Tolkien gave it back. That book made me want to read again, and eventually led me to write.

For my own work, “Mortalis,” the fourth book of my DemonWars series, changed my perspective, or rather, I was writing it while I was going through a great change of perspective. My brother, my best friend in the world, was dying of cancer while I was at work on that book, which happens to be about grief. It was very cathartic, for sure, but the truth is, I haven't even had the guts to go back and read it, these eight years later.

The story gets even more compelling for me, more introspective. With that book, I finally got to work with my dead friend, Keith Parkinson. I consider him to be one of the greatest artists the fantasy genre has ever known. The work he did on “Mortalis” touched me deeply, because I saw within Brother Francis, my brother, and the woman, Jilseponie, standing behind him very much resembles both my sister-in-law and my wife. The painting hangs in my office at 38 Studios and I can't look at it without thinking of my brother, about what he went through, about our discussions, knowing what was coming. Also, we lost Keith to cancer, way too young (he was around the same age as my brother when my brother died).

I can't look at that painting without being reminded of making the most of every day, because you just never know what's coming.

Elizabeth Miller, scholar and Dracula expert: I would have to say “Dracula” by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. It opened up for me an entirely new field of study and research. During the course of those activities, I have traveled widely, lectured at many universities and other venues, and met some fascinating people.

Nigel Patterson, president of the Elvis Information Network (EIN): “The Magic of Thinking Big” by David Schwartz. In my early 20’s I just couldn’t get enough of this book. I read it and re-read it several times. Its message of positive thinking and not limiting one’s self was just what I needed at the time and helped shape my thinking into something more balanced and forward focused.

Steve Almond, author of “(Not that You Asked) Rants, Exploits, and Obsessions”: “Slaughterhouse Five” (by Kurt Vonnegut). Good God, there's not a more seditious book you could read in this age of pointless, feelingless violence. It was like someone blew up some love dynamite in my skull.

Jessica Fox-Wilson, poet and blogger (“9 to 5 Poet”): The book that has changed my perspective the most was “The Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison. I was 16 when I read it, when my English teacher assigned it to me because I had already read the assigned "African American Literature" in our class at my last high school. This was the first book that really opened my eyes to the racial politics in the U.S. After reading it, I knew I would never be able to look at racism or living with difference in the same way again.

Jeff Belanger, author and founder of GhostVillage: “Boy” by Roald Dahl -- the autobiography of his childhood. Roald Dahl is my literary hero. “Boy” taught me that there is a good story around every corner, under every rock, and certainly within every chocolate bar -- sometimes you just have to stand on your head to see it.

Dave H. Schleicher, blogger and author of “The Thief Maker”: I was required to read Toni Morrison's “Jazz” for an African American Literature course during my second year of college. It was the first bit of serious literary fiction that I took to task reading seriously. It opened my eyes to the fact that I didn't need to write just genre fiction. I could attempt something more artistic, more stylish, and more ambitious with my own writing. The book had a profoundly haunting effect on me because of the style in which it was written, and it opened my imagination to possibilities I hadn't previously considered.

Paul Sinclair, lead singer of Get the Led Out: It's an interesting question because until a few years ago I don't believe ANY book had ever changed my perspective on life.

This one truly fits the bill though, “The Power of Intention” by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer. I've always had an interest in self improvement and spirituality. I've also always been a real logic-driven person. My more science-minded approach to things has always prevented me from going too far down the religious path. In “The Power of Intention” Dr. Dyer sort of melds the two. With stories, humor and science (sometimes basic quantum physics, but don't be scared) he describes what I've come to believe are concrete laws in our universe. The way I view the world and go after achieving my goals has changed so dramatically for the positive I can't begin to explain. Some of the concepts in this book are fairly obvious, others not so. Maybe it's Dr. Dyer's humor? Maybe it's the balance of science and god? Or maybe it was just the right time in my life for me to hear it, but something clicked.

I'll just give one example of the kind of thing that really drew me in to this book. Dr. Dyer tells a story about a young woman driving on her way to work and approaches a toll booth. The toll taker says “Go on through, the man ahead of you paid your toll.” “There must be some mistake; I don't know that man," said the young woman very confused. The toll taker explained, “The man said to tell the next person that came through to have a nice day.” The woman was so moved by this random act of kindness that she decided she would do this same thing every day on her way to work, “after all it's only 25 cents.”

Dr. Dyer goes on to explain how acts of kindness raise endorphin levels in the body and in turn strengthen your immune system. Also, not only does this benefit the person receiving the act of kindness, but the person performing it and those observing it as well. You can see how far reaching this can be from one thoughtful, random act.

It's this kind of thinking where the age old “do unto others” mantra is proven to have real, quantifiable health benefits that had me wanting to delve even further. It's hard for me to write this without feeling like I'm coming off too new age. I'm a guy who's always looking for a witty, sarcastic punch line in every conversation. Life to me can seem at times like a series of SNL skits; particularly where religion and spirituality are concerned.

So, no, I haven't “found god.” No, I won't be taking flying lessons with no interest in learning to land... and no, I won't be found naked in a field preparing for the mother ship anytime soon. However, “The Power of Intention” is a good read and if you approach it with an open mind... who knows?

Books as a Time Machine

Labels: books, dave Schleicher, Elizabeth Miller, Harry Bliss, Jeff Belanger, Jessica Fox-Wilson, Nigel Patterson, Paul Sinclair, R.A. Salvatore, reading, Steve Almond

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Burning Spear’s “Live in Paris Zenith ‘88” Turns 20 Years Old

Let me get this out of the way first: Bob Marley transcends reggae. He’s an artist of incredible originality and talent and by most accounts he’s the grand master of reggae – a musical genius.

But we’re not going to talk about Marley today.

We’re going to talk about one of the most underrated reggae artists in the world. A man who recorded a live reggae album 20 years ago that stands as the greatest live reggae performance ever put to celluloid (the album was actually released in 1989, but the live show was held on May 21, 1988).

The album in question is Burning Spear “Live in Paris Zenith ’88.”

Listen to this album too long and your nose sunburns. Your nostrils flare with the sweet scent of sliced mango. The cold, refreshing tingle of a Carib beer washes against the back of your throat. Salt water breezes ruffle your hair. And you start to grow dreadlocks.

You get the picture. This is roots reggae at its finest.

“Live in Paris” is a Caribbean vacation. It’s magical; a searing, rollicking performance by Winston Rodney a.k.a. Burning Spear. It’s a jam fest loaded with passion – and lots of funky guitar work by Lenford Richards and Anthony Bradshaw.

Buy it and you may well burn out your iPod.

Amazingly, Burning Spear was 50 years old at the time of the show. But he’s young, vibrant, and at the top of his game here. “Live in Paris” doubles as a best of album and listeners are given the pleasure of hearing a musical master in action as he makes his way through his best music.

But there’s more to the album than driving reggae music. Burning Spear is a devoted Rastafarian (a religion that developed in the early 1930s that believes that Haile Selassi I, the former emperor of Ethiopia was God, whom they call Jah). Many of the tenets of the Rastafarian religion are sung by Spear on the album – the oppression of blacks, the prophet-hood of Marcus Garvey, the importance of African culture, human dignity and self-respect.

By all measures, this is a religious album, but one can only wish that the chorus at Saint Mary’s Catholic Church could rock like Spear and his Burning Band.

Spear was born in the same village in Jamaica as Garvey and Marley in 1948. On March 1, he’ll turn 70 years old this year while remaining one of the most prolific and thoughtful reggae artists in the world (he released a compilation album called “The Burning Spear Experience” last year).

But it’s doubtful that Spear will ever top the magnificence of his “Live in Paris” album. The weakest track on this 13-song album is the first one “Spear Burning” – a rather clunky number that doesn’t capture the spirit of the rest of the album.

But Spear unleashes afterwards and “Live in Paris” ascends into a live album classic. The rest of the album is simply remarkable – in a strong part to the full complement of instruments. Unlike other reggae artists, Spear has a full brass section (trumpet, saxophone and trombone). It adds incredible depth to the music. It’s difficult to get through without bobbing your head and wanting to dance (preferable on a moonlit beach).

Highlights include the sultry “We Are Going,” the rhythmic “Driver,” and the Jah-inspired “African Postman.” Spear is an incredible showman – often stopping through a song to shout, rap, and howl. His voice becomes the primary instrument on the album.

“Live in Paris Zenith ‘88” – even after 20 years – has yet to be surpassed.

Billie Holiday's protest song "Strange Fruit" turns 70 years old

Labels: Burning Spear, Music, Reggae

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Analysis: Author Paul Theroux is a writer with a ham-fisted attitude. It’s difficult to dislike a writer with the gumption to blast celebrities like Bono and Angelina Jolie in an op-ed for the New York Times as “mythomaniacs, people who wish to convince the world of their worth.”

Theroux is a writer with strong opinions, but his bombast isn’t evident in “World’s End” – an amazingly subtle short story about the quiet and ferocious destruction of a family. Robarge, an American, is an executive at a drilling equipment supplier based in London. He’s a self-obsessed, deluded man incapable of empathizing with those around him – especially his wife, Kathy, and young son, Richard.

The beauty of the story is that Theroux lets Robarge’s character slowly unfold before readers – who at the beginning of the story have no reason not to trust the perceptions of Robarge (the story is told from his point of view). But it becomes clear that Robarge has created an illusion of familiar tranquility.

“World’s End” is so powerful because readers start out in the same place as Robarge – completely clueless. But as the narrative continues, readers begin to realize that Robarge not an innocent. In fact, if this were a murder story, he’d be the killer.

The best part of the story is how Theroux – with the precision of a dentist – turns the readers against his protagonist. At first, we’re ready to jump to Robarge’s defense. We’re willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but by the end of the story that isn’t possible anymore. We realize that Robarge is a manipulative coward and a selfish, ill-tempered bully.

It’s a wild ride for a story that on the surface is about a father bringing his son to a hill to fly a kite.

At the beginning, Robarge revels in the isolation of his family at the aptly named “World’s End” neighborhood in London. This passage is very telling: “He considered marriage the quietest enactment of sharing, connubial exclusiveness the most private way to live – a sheltered life in the best sense.”

Robarge wants to place his family on a shelf – away from the real world; a knick-knack to be admired on those occasions when he has the time. Our first hint that all may not be well is when Robarge notes that his wife has slimmed down and gotten a new haircut. Meanwhile, he has gained weight – so much that he lumbers like a fat man.

Theroux sprinkles hints throughout the story to paint a troubled portrait of Robarge. For example, he returns from a business trip after midnight and wakes up his six-year-old son because he wants the pleasure of giving him a kite. Then he crawls into bed with his wife who says “You’re back” and then turns away from him.

Hmmm.

It gets worse in the morning. Kathy is visibly unhappy – flat and unfocused during breakfast. The couple has a tiff – although it becomes clear that Robarge is unaware they are fighting. His wife leaves the room in tears and Robarge pretends not to notice.

Flying the kite with his son at Box Hill, Robarge and the boy are continually awkward with each other. They are uncomfortable and the boy is a spoiled brat. Yet like everything else, Robarge seems oblivious to this flaw in his son.

Quite accidentally, Robarge discovers that his son has been to the hill before with his wife and her new “friend.” The man has been around enough that the boy actually talks like him.

Robarge comes up with a plan. Afraid – is it fear or cowardice? – to confront his wife with her affair, he enlists his son as a spy. To set the stage, he concocts another business trip and flees to Holland for nearly a week.

While away, the boy has confessed to his mother. The boy now vehemently denies that his mother has a friend. His son is so fearful of his father that he has hidden a knife under his pillow.

That night, while struggling to sleep, his wife and son leave him. The ending packs a wallop:

“His fear left him and he was penetrated by the fake vitality of insomnia. After an hour he decided that what he had heard, if anything, was a thief leaving the house, not breaking in. Too late, too far, too dark, he thought; and knew now they were all lost."

Read our literary criticism of Anton Chekov's "The Dead Body" here

Labels: literary criticism, literature, Paul Theroux

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By Rev. Colson Crosslick

Picture a society:

• Where gays, lesbians, and she-males are treated the same as heterosexuals and can be married at any City Hall.
• Where the government gets into the healthcare business and starts paying for everyone who is sick to be treated – no matter if they can afford it or not!
• Where our job-creating, money-machine corporations are forced to pay higher taxes.
• Where hard-working rich people are penalized for their success by being forced to pay a higher percentage of taxes than the middle class and the poor.
• Where the in-roads Christianity has made into infiltrating government are eliminated and we go back to separating church and state.
• Where our warriors in Iraq return to our shores shame-faced because the war has been shutdown.

If we don’t tread carefully the nightmare scenario above could well become a reality. That’s because that bleak picture could happen to our great nation if we are foolish enough to elect a Democrat to the office of the presidency. Democrats in this day and age are the commies of the the 20th century.

So far I haven’t been overly impressed with the collection of Republicans vying to fill Bush’s enormous shoes – but I will caution voters that any of them would be better than Hillary Clinton (a she-beast closet lesbian if I’ve ever seen one), John Edwards (a greedy hick lawyer who hates businesses), and Obarka Obamaslama (who is probably related to at least a dozen Muslim terrorists).

In my mind former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee comes closest to presidential timber. He’s a man who I wouldn’t mind kneeling next to in church. So I’m going to cast my vote for him (yet I’m seriously considering just writing in a vote for Bush). The rest of Republican pack isn’t so bad – with the except of Mitt Romney, who is a member of a dangerous religious cult that blasphemers Jesus Christ and the holy tenets of Christianity. Romney should be shunned until he dies and finds himself face to face with Satan.

But the real problem is our own laws. The 22^nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prevents a president from sitting in power for more than two terms. This is a mistake and our Congress should be trying overturn or vote this law out of practice. There’s little doubt that George W. Bush deserves a third term.

There’s been lots of unfounded criticism of Bush in the radical leftwing media such as the New York Times, TIME magazine, and the Wall Street Journal, but there is little disagreement among thinking people that Bush has been one of the greatest presidents in history. I think most reasonable people agree that one of the great tragedies of the 2008 election is that Bush isn’t on the ticket. In my opinion there is little doubt this great leader would be re-elected in a landslide.

On the whole, the Bush legacy is nothing short of awe-inspiring. He is responsible for bringing Christians flocking back to government (putting God back where he belongs!). He has been an ardent supporter of stopping liberals and minorities from having abortions, murdering cut-throat criminals, and starting wars with unstable despots and terrorist states. He has also given back hundreds of millions of dollars to corporations and the wealthy – which for years were unfairly taxed by liberals.

He also stopped efforts at universal healthcare – which is a disastrous idea and one that brings the United States closer to communism. But perhaps his most amazing achievement has been his relentless pursuit of terrorists – no matter where they hide. So what if he hasn’t caught Osama bin Laden! He helped assassinate Saddam Hussein and has captured and imprisoned hundreds of Muslim thugs (and whisked them away into secret prisons where they can’t do any harm).

Bush has been a supporter of education – and believes that all children should learn to read and write. It’s been the linchpin of his domestic policy and we’ve seen huge improvements in public education as a result (despite what many ungrateful, overpaid teachers say).

I understand that the 22^nd Amendment probably won’t be eliminated, but it should be bypassed on this occasion. George W. Bush’s business is unfinished and my fear is that some Democratic do-gooder like Clinton or Obamaslama will be voted into office and start screwing things up. Do we really want healthcare for everyone? Do we really want to end the war in Iraq?

So vote Huckabee – or write in the name of our mightiest of presidents: George W. Bush. He can't win -- but it would be a powerful message to his inferior replacement!

(The Rev. Colson Crosslick is pastor of the Pretty Good Shepherd Church in Ripsaw, Arkansas. In the past, he has called for a ban on liberals from running for public office. He also writes the regularly appearing column Under God's Right Arm for DaRK PaRTY.)

The Reverend's 5 Reasons to Oppose Gay Marriage here

Labels: Bush, Politics, Under God's Right Arm

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Origin: The Pogues were formed in 1982 by front man (and raging alcoholic) Shane MacGowan (whose previous band was called the Nipple Erectors). They played punk-inspired political songs using traditional Irish instruments such as banjos, mandolins, and accordions. The name of the band is a take off of pogue mahone, which means “kiss my ass” in Gaelic.

Hometown: London

Why So Pissed Off: MacGowan was a very pissed off drunk

The Enemy: Sober people, fellow band members

Best Angry Album: Rum Sodomy & the Lash (1985)

Best Angry Song: “Whiskey You’re the Devil”

Second Best Angry Song: “If I Should Fall from Grace with God”

Classic Angry Moment: During a Clash concert in 1976, MacGowan had his earlobe bitten off by a girlfriend after being caught making out with another woman during the show. Covered in blood, a photographer snapped his picture which hit the papers under the headline: “Cannibalism At Clash Gig.”

Second Classic Angry Moment: The band kicked MacGowan out of the band in 1991 after his drunken antics during a tour in Japan.

DP Take: What's not to love about a band more angry at its drunk lead singer than at anything else?

Rage Against the Machine

Origin: Formed in 1991. The band blends hip-hop, punk, heavy-metal and funk rock into songs about revolutionary politics.

Hometown: Los Angeles

Why So Pissed Off: The band embraces radical leftwing politics and socialist policies. They are also active supporters of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in Mexico.

The Enemy: The United States government, Republicans, Corporations

Best Angry Album: Rage Against the Machine (1992)

Best Angry Song: “Killing In the Name Of”

Second Best Angry Song: “Wake-Up” (see video below)

Angry Quote: “America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom you've lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesn't belong to you. The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don't care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve.” – Guitarist Tom Morello from Guitar Player magazine.

Classic Angry Moment: In 1996, “Saturday Night Live” made the terrible decision to feature Rage with guest host Steve Forbes (the billionaire and die-hard Republican). In protest, Rage inverted the American flags on their stage set, but producers ripped them down. The producers also threatened to bleep out any objectionable lyrics to “Bulls on Parade,” which is a scathing rant against Republican politics. Rage put up the flags for their first set and afterwards was kicked out of the building by SNL. Screaming censorship, one member of the band stormed Forbes’ dressing room and threw shreds from one of the flags at his door.

DP Take: Rage is the anti-U2 of political bands.

Origin: Formed in June 1978 when guitarist East Bay Ray (real name: Raymond Pepperell) placed ads for band members after seeing a punk rock concert. Despite what might appear to be a slap at JFK and RFK, the band said their name signified “the end of the American Dream.”

Hometown: San Francisco

Why So Pissed Off: They’re a bunch of skinny leftwing punks

The Enemy: Reagan, Republicans, Religious Right, Left-wing Hypocrites

Best Angry Album: In God We Trust, Inc. (1981)

Best Angry Song: “Holiday in Cambodia” (see video above)

Second Best Angry Song: “Too Drunk to Fuck”

Angry Quote: “So you been to school/For a year or two/And you know you’ve seen it all/In daddy’s car/Thinkin’ you’ll go far/ Well you’ll work harder/With a gun in your back/For a bowl of rice a day/Slave for soldiers/Till you starve/Then your head is skewered on a stake” – Lyrics to “Holiday in Cambodia”

Classic Angry Moment: The Dead Kennedys’ album Frankenchrist (1985) included a poster of nine penises engaged in sex with nine vaginas. They were attacked by the Parents Music Resource Center after a teenage girl bought the album in a Los Angeles record store. Criminal charges for distributing harmful matter to minors were brought against the band. The trial ended in a hung jury.

DP Take: The Dead Kennedys were ahead of their time and if not for legal troubles could have been huge.

Garbage

Origin: Butch Vig, the producer of bands such as Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins, got the bug to play in a band again and formed Garbage in 1994.

Hometown: Madison, Wisconsin

Why So Pissed Off: Shirley Manson, the lead singer, was taunted for her red hair and pale looks as a child.

The Enemy: Relationships, Other People, Society

Best Angry Album: Garbage 2.0

Best Angry Song: “Vow”

Second Best Angry Song: “Stupid Girl”

Angry Quote: “You burn and burn to get under my skin/ You've gone too far now I won't give in/ You crucified me but I'm back in your bed/ Like Jesus Christ coming from the dead” – Lyrics from “Vow”

Classic Angry Moment: In the video for “Push It,” the band features anti-religious images including the male members of the band dressed up as grotesque looking nuns and later three Catholic school boys murdering their father.

DP Take: We'll take an irritated Shirley Manson over any happy female singer any day.

Public Image, Ltd

Origin: Johnny Lydon, formerly Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols, formed this band after the break-up of the Sex Pistols.

Hometown: London

Why So Pissed Off: This is Johnny Rotten’s first band after the death of Sid Vicious and the break-up of the Sex Pistols. How can a band formed by Johnny Rotten not be completely pissed off?

The Enemy: Modern Society, the Establishment, South Africa’s Apartheid

Best Angry Album: Happy? (1987)

Best Angry Song: “Rise”

Second Best Angry Song: “This is Not a Love Song”

Angry Quote: “Anger is an energy” – lyric from “Rise”

Classic Angry Moment: In the video “Rise,” Lydon looks like the deranged offspring of Carrot Top and Pee Wee Herman.

Second Classic Angry Moment: While a member of the Sex Pistols, Lydon was attacked by an angry mob after the single “God Save the Queen” was released. They stabbed him in his left hand and leg and almost tore out one of his eyes with a broken beer bottle.

DP Take: The Sex Pistols were angrier, but PiL could actually play their instruments.

Nirvana

Origin: Formed by Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic in 1987. They were one of the originators of the grunge rock scene that occurred in and around Seattle.

Hometown: Aberdeen, Washington

Why So Pissed Off: Drug addiction and being married to Courtney Love.

The Enemy: Society, Girlfriends

Best Angry Album: “Nevermind” (1991)

Best Angry Song: “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Second Best Angry Song: “Lithium”

Angry Quote: “Just seeing Kurt write the lyrics to a song five minutes before he first sings them, you just kind of find it a little bit hard to believe that the song has a lot to say about something. You need syllables to fill up this space or you need something that rhymes." – Drummer Dave Grohl about the song “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Classic Angry Moment: The band re-popularized smashing instruments on stage during concerts.

Second Classic Angry Moment: On April 5, 1994, Cobain shot himself in the head with a shotgun.

DP Take: What if Cobain was just a lucky whiner?

Black Flag

Origin: Widely considered to be the first hardcore punk rock band, Black Flag was founded in 1977 by guitarist Greg Ginn.

Hometown: Los Angeles, California

Why So Pissed Off: They were southern California punks.

The Enemy: The Man, Corporations, Religion, and Everybody Else

Best Angry Album: My War (1984)

Best Angry Song: “Slip It In”

Second Best Angry Song: “T.V. Party”

Angry Quote: "When they spit at me, when they grab at me, they aren't hurting me. When I push out and mangle the flesh of another, it's falling so short of what I really want to do to them." – Lead Singer Henry Rollins about his many brawls with members of the Black Flag audience

Classic Angry Moment: The band was blacklisted by the Los Angeles Police Department and was banned by many rock clubs in the city because of the violence and destruction that erupted at its shows.

Second Classic Angry Moment: During a concert in England, Rollins attacked a member of the audience that led Ginn to call him a “macho asshole.”

DP Take: "Slip It In" may be the most offense album cover ever.

Read "18 Bands That Should be Erased From Rock History"

Read our picks for "10 Finest Soundtracks in World History"

Labels: Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Garbage, Music, Nirvana, Pogues, Public Image, Rage Against the Machine

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DaRK PaRTY: What exactly is "The Happiness Project"?

Gretchen: For my “Happiness Project,” I spent a year test-driving all the tips, rules, current scientific studies, and wisdom of the ages about how to be happy – I report on what works, and what didn’t.

I started my twelve-month Happiness Project on January 1, 2007. Each month, I pursued a different set of resolutions aimed at a particular goal. So, for example, January was the month for “Energy,” February for “Marriage,” and March for “Career.”

I experimented -- would I be happier if I got more exercise? If I saw my friends more often? If I had more fun? If I stopped nagging my husband? I did everything from hypnosis to laughter yoga to keeping a one-sentence journal.

I didn’t reject my ordinary life—by moving to Walden Pond or Tibet, say, or taking a sabbatical from my family. I didn’t give up toilet paper or experiment with hallucinogens. I’d already switched careers. I wanted to see if I could change my life without changing my life, by finding more happiness in my own kitchen.

And I did.

DP: How did you come up with the idea to pursue different theories of happiness in one year?

Gretchen: One day, I had a sudden realization: I was in danger of wasting my life. On that rainy afternoon, as I was staring out the window of a taxi, I saw that the years were slipping by.

“What do I want from life, anyway?” I asked myself. “Well…I want to be happy.” But I never thought about what made me happy, or how I might be happier.

I had much to be happy about. I was married to the love of my life; we had delightful young daughters; I was a bestselling writer, after having had a stellar career in law (including a clerkship with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor); I was living in my favorite city, New York City; I had a very close relationship with my parents, sister, and in-laws; I had great friends; I had my health; I didn’t have to color my hair.

But too often I sniped at my husband or the cable-repair guy, I felt dejected after even a minor professional setback, I drifted out of touch with old friends, I suffered bouts of melancholy, insecurity, listlessness, and free-floating guilt. Would a happy person act that way?

I’d always vaguely expected to outgrow my limitations. One day, I’d stop twisting my hair, and wearing running shoes every day and eating oatmeal for lunch and dinner. I’d remember my friends’ birthdays, I’d fix up our apartment, and I wouldn’t let my daughter watch TV during breakfast. I’d get more reading done. I’d spend more time laughing and having fun, I’d go to museums, and I wouldn’t be scared to drive.

In that moment, as I sat in the taxi, I realized two things: I wasn’t as happy as I could be, and my life wasn’t going to change unless I made it change.

“I need to think about this. In fact,” I reflected, “I should start a happiness project.” Eureka! I started work on my happiness the next day.

DP: Where you unhappy before starting the project? Are you happier now?

Gretchen: Before I started this project, I was pretty happy, but I thought I could be happier. And zoikes, I was right. It turns out that taking the time to think about happiness, and to make changes that increase happiness, really does pay off in a big boost.

Someone might look at my goals and my results and think—boy, Gretchen had it easy. Stop scolding and read more aren’t dramatic vows. No booze or cocaine, no 300-pound weight loss, no screaming matches with family members, no terrible diagnosis, no car crash, no bitter divorce.

In fact, some people seem to think it’s frivolous to worry about happiness at all, unless a person is desperately unhappy.

I disagree. A 2006 study shows that most Americans (84 percent) rank themselves as “very happy” or “pretty happy,” and I’ve always considered myself “happy”—yet, at the same time, just about everyone, like me, would like to be happier. Why? Because happiness is a notoriously elusive state; studies show, for example, that people generally expect they’ll be happier in the future. Even people who consider themselves more or less happy have a deep desire to take steps to be happier.

My experience shows me that it’s worth the effort.

DP: What three theories on happiness did you find most compelling and why?

Gretchen: There are three quotations from happiness that have had enormous influence on my thinking.

“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.” Robert Louis Stevenson

Striving for happiness may appear to be a selfish goal, but it’s not.

Studies repeatedly demonstrate that happy people are generally more sociable, creative, forgiving, and tolerant of frustration than unhappy people, while unhappy people are more often withdrawn, brooding, and antagonistic. Happy people tend to be more responsible to others and to maintain relationships better. They’re more confident, optimistic, energetic, and likeable, and they tend to be more successful in their personal lives and at work. They do more volunteer work and give more to charity. They’re healthier. They commit fewer crimes. When people are in a good mood, they think more clearly and are more open to new ideas. Although depressed people are more vigilant against making mistakes, people think more flexibly and with more complexity when they’re in good moods.

And happy people lift other people’s moods (that’s “emotional contagion”). If I’m happy (or at least act happy), I help make other people happy.

My realization of the duty to be happy led me to one of my major insights – what I call my “Second Splendid Truth”:

One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy.
One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.

“It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.” G. K. Chesterton

This quotation reminds me that although it’s hard to take a light tone, to joke around, to be enthusiastic, it pays off for happiness.

"When one loves, one does not calculate." St. Therese.

I have a bad tendency to keep score. Since I let my husband take a nap, I get to go to the gym, etc.

This quotation reminds me that I should spend out, that I shouldn’t worry about calculating who owes what, but rather, try to give unstintingly.

DP: How would you now universally define happiness?

Gretchen: I’m going to dodge that question. I’ve decided not to try to define happiness.

One researcher recorded 15 different academic definitions of happiness, which also goes by the names of hedonic tone, subjective well being, positive affect, etc.

Instead of trying to come up with a definition of my own to add to that list, I just use the broad term “happiness,” in the belief that, practically speaking, people know what happiness is, even if they can’t quite define it, and in any event, it doesn’t really matter if everyone agrees.

The question that concerns me for the Happiness Project is: no matter how particular people define the term, can we make ourselves happier? And the answer is YES. To know how to think about happiness, I came up with my First Splendid Truth:

To think about happiness, we must think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.

In other words, we should try to have more “feeling good” (excitement, fun, engagement, pleasure), less “feeling bad” (anger, resentment, boredom, anxiety), more “feeling right” (the feeling that we’re living the life we ought to lead), in an “atmosphere of growth” (a life that includes a feeling of progress, growth, and movement).

It’s clunky, but it works.

Read our 5 Questions interview about Modern Humor

Read our 5 Questions interview with Novelist Kim Harrison

Labels: 5 Questions, Grechen Rubin, Happiness, interview

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(Yeah, we’re stating the obvious, but serial killers are creepy. Damn creepy. But Americans are obsessed with them. How else to explain their popularity in pop culture? From the Showtime TV show “Dexter” to the cult of Hannibal Lector. Well, DaRK PaRTY culled through the historical record and came up with the 10 serial killers that may be the most bizarre in history.)

Karl Denke

Born: August 12, 1870

Died: December 22, 1924

How He Died: Hung himself in his jail cell.

Method of Dead: Germany

Occupation: Owned a rooming house and played an organ at his church.

Number of Victims: 31

Crimes: Denke was so popular with the people who lived at his rooming house that they called him “Papa.” But during a three year period, Papa murdered travelers, vagrants, and beggars then butchered and ate them. He was caught after trying to axe murder a young man who escape from his first-floor apartment. When police searched his home, they discovered two tubs of “meat” soaking in brine and a journal chronicling his killings and cannibalism. He committed suicide by hanging himself with his suspenders without explaining his actions.

Weird Detail: Denke hung himself with his suspenders after he was caught – dying before he could offer any explanation.

Nutshell: He ate vagrants – a lot of them.

Jack the Stripper

Born: Unknown

Died: Unknown

Method of Death: Likely a suicide

Country of Origin: Great Britain

Occupation: Possibly a security guard

Number of Victims: 8

Crimes: During the late 1950s and into the mid-1960s, Jack the Stripper murdered eight prostitutes in London’s East End (just like his namesake Jack the Ripper). Jack the Stripper killed his last six victims by removing the teeth of his victims and then strangling them to death (one theory is that he choked his victims with his, ahem, private parts until they died). Then he threw most of them completely nude except for their stockings into the Thames River. He was never caught, but Scotland Yard believes he was a security guard who killed himself with gas from his oven when targeted as a suspect.

Weird Detail: Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “Frenzy” was loosely based on the case.

Nutshell: You can’t make this stuff up.

Joseph Kallinger

Born: December 11, 1936

Died: March 26, 1996

Method of Death: Choked to death on his own vomit while in prison.

Country of Origin: United States (Philadelphia)

Occupation: Unknown

Number of Victims: At least three

Crimes: Kallinger had a bizarre upbringing with his adoptive parents punishing him by flogging him with a cat-o-nine tails and beating him with a hammer. Killinger enlisted the aid of his 13-year-old son for a crime spree across three states that left three people murdered, two women raped, and dozens kidnapped, brutalized, and robbed. He was caught when he threw away a blood-stained shirt that was traced back to him.

Weird Detail: Kallinger reportedly had hallucinations where he talked with a decapitated head named “Charlie.”

Nutshell: Kallinger said in interviews that he wanted to kill everyone in the world and then commit suicide so he could become a God. His son – who was released from prison at age 25 – is still alive. He changed his name and moved to whereabouts unknown.

Gwendolyn Graham & Cathy Wood

Born: 1963 and 1962

Died: Still alive, but imprisoned for life

Method of Death: Still alive

Country of Origin: United States

Occupation: Nurses aids at a retirement home.

Number of Victims: 5

Crimes: Graham and Wood were lesbian lovers who worked together at a nursing home in Michigan. During 1987, the women plotted to kill patient so that the victim’s initials would spell out the word “murder.” However, the patients they picked were still feisty and their first attempts at murder failed. They decided to target severely sick old ladies. While Wood kept look-out, Graham suffocated the women by pressing a wet clothe over their noses and mouths.

Weird Detail: The two women actually bragged about their exploits to co-workers and displayed the collection of souvenirs they stole from their victims on the mantel in their living room.

Nutshell: They were caught when Wood turned on Graham because Graham got a job at a local hospital and boasted that she would soon begin to kill newborn infants.

John George Haigh

Born: July 24, 1909

Died: August 10, 1949

Method of Death: Hanged for his crimes

Country of Origin: Great Britain

Occupation: Accountant at an engineering firm

Number of Victims: 6 (but possibly 9)

Crimes: Haigh is known as the “Acid Bath Murderer.” He killed his victims with blows to the head or gun shots and then put their bodies into large metal drums filled with sulphuric acid. When the bodies dissolved he would dispose of the remains by pouring the “sludge” into manholes. His primary reason for killing people was to steal their belonging and money.

Weird Detail: Before his execution, Haigh modeled for a wax figurine for Madame Tussauds and even donated his clothing to the museum.

Nutshell: Haigh was under the mistaken impression that police couldn’t arrest him for murder if there were no bodies for evidence. He also claimed to be obsessed with blood from an early age.

Marcel Petiot

Born: January 17, 1897

Died: May 25, 1946

Method of Death: Beheaded by the guillotine

Country of Origin: France

Occupation: Medical doctor and former mayor.

Number of Victims: 26 (but might be as high as 60)

Crimes: After a life of crime (stealing, shoplifting, and drug trafficking), the good doctor had a special house constructed in Paris during the Nazi occupation of France during World War II. The house contained a death chamber. Posing as a member of the French Resistance, Petiot lured Jews and other fugitives with offers to help them. He would poison his victims and watch them die from a window installed in the death chamber. Petiot was actually caught by the Nazis and let go when they discovered what he was doing. After the war, the French authorities finally caught up with him when they found 27 dismembered corpses in his basement.

Weird Detail: Petiot obtain a medical degree despite spending time in an insane asylum while at school.

Nutshell: Petiot expertly played the French and Germans against each other claiming to work for each one of them. He also used the war as a shield for his gruesome activities.

Henry Lee Lucas

Born: August 23, 1936

Died: March 13, 2001

Method of Death: Died of a heart attack while serving multiple life sentences.

Country of Origin: United States (Virginia)

Occupation: Drifter

Number of Victims: Convicted of 11 murders (but confessed to as many as 350, but later recanted).

Crimes: Lucas was a glass-eyed drifted who killed his mother during an argument. During his youth, he often tortured and had sex with animals. After being released from prison for murdering his mother, he was arrested on suspicion of killing two people and he began a bizarre orgy of confessions – telling authorities he had killed hundreds of people, belonged to a Satanic cult, killed Jimmy Hoffa, and delivered poison to Jim Jones. He was eventually convicted of 11 murders, but his confessions and convictions remain in dispute among many.

Weird Detail: The movie “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” was based on Lucas’ confessions to police.

Nutshell: Lucas was a born loser and a liar. He spun so many lies that it is difficult to determine how many people he murdered, but most experts agree that killed many.

Edmund Kemper

Born: December 18, 1948

Died: Still alive

Method of Death: Serving a life sentence

Country of Origin: United States (California)

Occupation: Highway Department Worker

Number of Victims: 10

Crimes: At age 15, Kemper murdered his grandmother and grandfather. He told police: “I just wanted to see what it felt like to kill Grandma.” Being extremely intelligent, Kemper fooled doctors that he was cured and was released from prison. From May 1972 to February 1973, the enormous Kemper (6 feet, 9 inches tall and 300 pounds) went on a murder spree. He picked up female hitchhikers, murder them, and then have sex with the dead bodies. He later brutally murdered his mother, decapitated her (using her head as a dart board) and then raped her headless body. Discouraged that his crimes weren’t being reported properly, Kemper called police and confessed to his crimes.

Weird Detail: Kemper has become one of the most notorious serial killers in history because of his charm and his willingness to talk with authorities. He has been the subject of several songs by Goth bands such as The Berzerkers, Church of Misery and Macabre.

Nutshell: Kemper is a violent sociopath who killed and then bragged coldly about his murders. Once asked about what he’d do if he saw a woman from his prison window, he said: "One side of me says, 'Wow, what an attractive chick. I'd like to talk to her, date her.' The other side of me says, 'I wonder how her head would look on a stick.'"

Anna Maria Zwanziger

Born: 1760

Died: July, 1811

Method of Death: Beheaded for her crimes

Country of Origin: Germany

Occupation: Domestic servant

Number of Victims: 4

Crimes: Zwanziger poisoned her victims with arsenic, which she called “her truest friend.” Her method was to seek out bachelors or divorced men and become their maid or cook. She even fed a baby a poisoned biscuit. When she was caught by police, they discovered that she had put arsenic in the salt, pepper, sugar and coffee of her latest employer. She later confessed that it was wise for authorities to kill her because she would never be able to give up poisoning people.

Weird Detail: She was the daughter a successful innkeeper and married an attorney who drank himself to death.

Nutshell: Zwanziger was able to integrate herself with her employers and gain their trust before beginning to poison them and her fellow servants.

Read our interview about Jack the Ripper here

Labels: Crimes, Serial Killers

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Bonjour, Mademoiselle:

I’ve seen the way you discern me when you believe my attention is avert elsewhere. It reminds me of how Elizabeth Bennett made puppy dog eyes at Mr. Darcy when they first met at a ball (I’ve read “Pride and Prejudice” at least a dozen times and savor each morsel of Austen’s masterpiece). Last week, after I recited my acclaimed poem “Future Day Romeo and Juliet” (which is seriously being considered for publication by the online literary journal Yo! Poems!), I once again saw you turn those remarkable green eyes in my direction.

Was it the enchantment of my verse?

“The twosome began to necessitate each other,

In every solitary way,

Even though her parents damned it,

They wildly, sweatily fornicated each and every day.”

Or was it the fresh lavender highlights in my hair? I sense in a spiritual way that Mr. Darcy would have approved. Don’t think you’ve gone unnoticed in your little front corner seat, all earnest and huffy. Do I detect a slight infatuation with Mr. Woodbury? I certainly hope not. He may be a published novelist (although his first two volumes are out of print), but that astringent has-been wouldn’t understand modern poetry if it crept up on him and nibbled on his rather plump derriere.

But it depresses me to discuss that cad.

I’d rather converse about you. I don’t want to be forward (he said slyly), but you look exquisite in those damnable Cashmere sweaters you’re so fond of. They embrace you the way I imagine Odysseus must have hugged Penelope after he slaughtered her suitors. Unfortunately, I’m not quite as captivated by your hair (I don’t want to be brass, but you might want to consider a new coiffeur).

In fact, your hair makes you look like a frisky Meg Ryan in the film “When Harry Met Sally” (I don’t want to be “low-brow” but the film is perhaps Rob Reiner’s most splendid feature). With a new style, I think you could be the twin of French actress Martine Carol (a classic blond beauty who starred in the obscure French classic Lola Montès).

So sparks (perhaps ignited by our clandestine passions?) seem to be crackling between us. Please don’t be troubled about the scandalous rumors that I’ve been involved with Jenny Carmichael (who writes those excruciating fantasy stories. My God do I despise J.R.R. Tolkien and all that he has unleashed!). Jenny and I had one measly date – shortly after my hospitalization -- which I barely managed to survive unscathed. Obviously she’s attracted to my intellect and I found it difficult to evade her advances (I’m a man as well as an artist, but I can assure you in this decade of AIDS I protected myself – so please do not fret about my being impure). Needless to say, I have broken it off with her. Never date anyone who knows more about elves than Proust!

I can tell that you possess a singular quality (and not just because I caught you ogling me last Thursday). I’m captivated by the way you raise your hand in class (my gracious – who does that anymore?)! I’m taken with the way you nervously nibble on your bottom lip before having to read in front of the class. Or the way you carefully adjust your bra when you think no one is watching. Are you signaling me? Is this a message to me? I feel that it is which is why I’m putting pen to paper. You are the Juliet of my poem:

“His visage in her vanity mirror gave her a gasp;

She dropped her blood-colored lipstick on her dresser,

He vaulted over her window sill and dash to her,

His tongue flickering and ready to French kiss her.”

I’ve been disheartened lately (my 300,000-word novel about the failures of the French Revolution was rejected by a major publisher and my cat Fortinbras recently passed away). I don’t desire your sympathy – only your enduring affection. I believe we are kindred spirits who worship literature and poetry and are ready to take the arts by tempest. Please, my secret darling, consent to a steaming cup of low-fat Cappuccino with me! Or just play with your bra in class tonight and I’ll know you’re thinking about me.

Vôtre dans la passion!

Reginald

Read "Distraught and Struggling with his Sexuality, 17-year-old Cory Dennison Obsesses Over Will Ferrell

Read "Mr. McCutcheon Sends an Apology E-mail to the New Account Coordinator"

Labels: Parody, Writing

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(Warning: spoilers ahead)

“3:10 to Yuma” is an insufferably terrible film. Its sins are numerous, but the most glaring is characters that disregard logic and commonsense because if they didn’t there wouldn’t be a plot. In fact, if any the characters possessed a lick of sense “3:10 to Yuma” would be 10 minutes long.

Remarkably, movie critics chose to ignore this gaping chasm of a problem and turned “3:10 to Yuma” into a critical darling when it was released last year. Audiences, however, aren’t always so gullible and the film collected a paltry $50 million – barely breaking even. Audiences, it turns out, can sometimes be wiser than the critics.

Bruce Westbrook, movie critic for the Houston Chronicle, actually called “3:10 to Yuma” the best western since “Unforgiven.” Mr. Westbrook should be banned from reviewing movies for a year and be forced to watch all of the Police Academy movies in a row. Don’t be duped by the enormous marketing budget now touting the release of the DVD. “3:10 to Yuma” is bad movie making; achingly bad.

However, like all of our fantastically bad cinema selections, “3:10 to Yuma” is so god awful that there’s some delight to be had – especially watching Russell Crowe turn in his most overwrought, overacted performance yet as Ben Wade, a notorious outlaw with an intellectual heart of gold. Wade likes to make pencil sketches of birds and people before he goes off robbing and killing. The cad!

The plot is straight forward, but its execution is preposterous. Meet struggling rancher Dan Evans, played with seething intensity by Christian Bale (Bale needs to do a light romantic comedy). Evans is on the verge of bankruptcy and losing the faith of his wife and two sons.

So when Wade is captured after robbing a train company’s payroll coach (and murdering at least four men), Evans volunteers to be part of the posse that will escort Wade to the Yuma prison train. The movie plods along up until this point (most viewers will be hugely disappointed in the paint-by-numbers action scene that is the stagecoach robbery), but there’s hope for something more.

Be prepared for your hopes to be dashed.

The posse falls asleep around a campfire and Wade – using a fork pilfered from Evan’s ranch – proceeds to hack one of the posse members to death with it. This is the first instance where you slap and your head in disbelief. Why didn’t the posse tie Wade up? Isn’t he a ruthless mass murderer? If they couldn’t manage that no-brainer shouldn’t one of them have stayed up to guard him?

Another member of the posse – a bounty hunter – beats Wade senseless and – get this – the other posse members stop him. “That’s enough!” Huh? Didn’t Wade just stab one of them to death while they slept? Aren’t they escorting Wade to Yuma to be hanged? Why don’t they just shoot the bastard in the head and go home?

Not this posse. They continue on their merry way to Yuma – with Wade only wearing handcuffs (they tell him to shut-up so many times you wonder if they’ve ever heard of a gag). Wade then jumps the bounty hunter and throws him off a cliff to his death.

The rest of the posse manages to get the drop on Wade before he escapes – but do they kill him? Nope. Not even after the bastard has murdered two of them in cold blood. And neither do they tie and gag him. So, of course, Wade escapes again.

This time Wade is captured by railroad thugs guarding the Chinese workers as they build the transcontinental railway. One of the thugs recognizes Wade because Wade killed his brother. So the thugs torture Wade with the intention of killing him.

Guess what? Risking their lives, the posse, lead by Evans, rescues Wade. They shoot it out with the railroad thugs and another one of the posse is shot and killed. Can you believe this? This is the dumbest goddamn posse in the world. By this point you’re rolling your eyes so much that you have a headache.

The posse finally gets Wade to Contention – the town with the train to Yuma. There are only three posse members left, a railroad representative, Evans, and Evan’s son. They need to hide Wade somewhere until the train comes. What better place than the local hotel and saloon? Who would look there? And even better – its half a mile away from the station.

The railway man hires the local marshal and his men to help guard Wade, but when Wade’s gang of cutthroats ride into town to rescue him – well those cowardly lawmen flee (only to be shot down unarmed by Wade’s gang).

The railway man tells Evans its time to it give up and offers to pay him the money he needs save his ranch and get out of debt. He tells Evans that it’s over that they are outnumbered and outgunned. So does Evans quit to save his life and son’s and live to bail out his family?

Nah! Why give up after you’ve gotten seven men killed so far? Evans decides he’ll take Wade to the train station alone and get him on that blasted train if it is the last thing he does (although he probably was kicking himself for not hiding out at the train station in the first place).

Evans and Wade – clock ticking toward 3:10 p.m. – share a moment in the hotel room. Here’s the brilliant analysis of that scene by movie critic Roger Ebert: “Crowe and Bale play this dialogue so precisely that it never reveals itself for what it really is, a testing of mutual insight. One trial of a great actor is the ability to let dialog do its work invisibly…” Yeah, I’m a huge fan of invisible dialog.

So what happens? Inexplicably, Wade decides to help Evans deliver him to the train station. They’ll do it together (against Wade’s loyal gang of cutthroats)! Why Wade just doesn’t order his men not to shoot at them and then stroll down to the station is, well, stupid.

So they dodge, duck, run, and fight against Wade’s gang all the way to the train station. And if you were expecting action? Forget it. This is one of the worst gunfights in cinema history – with thousands of bullets flying and only bad guys being shot (because everyone knows they can’t aim).

Evans ends up dead – shot by Wade’s loyal lieutenant. He is, after all, trying to rescue his boss. Psycho killer Wade, distraught that his men have actually had the audacity to succeed in freeing him, guns them down in revenge for Evans’ murder.

Unbelievable? Completely.

Do yourself a favor and only rent “3:10 to Yuma” if you’re ready poke it with a stick. Otherwise rent “Unforgiven.” That’s a real western.

Labels: 3:10 to Yuma, Bad-Cinema, Movie Review

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An Interview with NFL Expert Kerry J. Bryne

(Yeah, we like football. On Sunday mornings, DaRK PaRTY pours Miller Lite on our corn flakes, pulls out the Sunday sports section, and then calls our bookie with for a few grand in bets. Then we break out the whiskey, dial up a few cheerleaders, and party like its NFL Game Day, which it is. Then, of course, we wake in our New England Patriots pajamas next to the wife. Still, we do like football and when we want information we called Kerry J. Bryne, the founder and main troll over at the best NFL site in the world: Cold, Hard Football Facts. Here is everything you need to know about the 2007 NFL season and the upcoming play-offs)


DaRK PaRTY: What have been the three biggest surprises of the 2007 regular NFL season?

Kerry: Well, I guess number one would have to be the New England Patriots at 16-0. I know it’s been an endless story everywhere so it seems old and unsurprising. But, let’s face it -- nobody expected 16-0 because it’s never happened before. Hell, we knew the Patriots would be good, but we predicted 12-4 good. In retrospect their march to 16-0 seems to have an air of inevitability. But, really, if something’s never happened in history, and it’s something people said could never be done, it has to be a pretty big surprise when it happens, doesn’t it?

TWO – The rebirth of Brett Favre. We had him written off for the great big cheese larder called retirement. In fact, we caused a bit of snit among Packers fans when we dubbed Favre “Old Yeller” – sure, he was once the best dog on the prairie, but it was time to put him out of his misery. Production-wise, he was completely washed up and his play was beyond reckless – costly interceptions that almost single-handedly lost games for his team time and again. In 2005, in something like nine of Green Bay’s 12 losses, he had the ball in his hand in the fourth quarter with a chance to tie the game or take the lead and threw picks in every single one of those opportunities. It was piss-poor quarterbacking and any other QB would have been benched.

He responded here, at age 38, with one of the best seasons of his Hall of Fame career: Personal bests with 7.8 YPA and 66.5 completion percentage; a mere 15 interceptions, tied for the fewest since his MVP and championship 1996 season; and a 95.7 passer rating, third best of his career and only a micro-fraction behind the 95.8 he posted in that same 1996 season.

Hell, when baseball players show that kind of improvement so late in their careers Congress launches and investigation. Favre has literally had a career year – at age 38. Even if he wasn’t 38, the improvement from 2006 to 2007 has been remarkable.

THREE – The deafening silence of the Colts. For years, this team has generated fawning praise and attention out of all proportion to its actual on-field accomplishments. It was a flashy team that generated hype, but showed little substance.

Now here they are, the defending champs, and even better than last year. And suddenly, in the hype surrounding the flashy Patriots, NOBODY is talking about the Colts.

That’s a mistake.

The true irony here is that this may be the single greatest team in Colts franchise history. If they win the Super Bowl, they certainly will be the best team in Colts franchise history. The 2007 Colts are 13-3 and would have been 14-2 if they had put up any kind of fight in the finale against Tennessee. They scored 450 points, second highest total in franchise history (2004 Colts, 522). Their +188 point differential is second best in franchise history (2005 Colts, +192). And only the 2005 Colts have won more games (14), but that team couldn’t win a single playoff game.

You get the feeling that this team is quietly lurking in the shadows of the NFL season, waiting to pounce on its quarry and tear it to shreds. Honestly, it will not be surprising is if they win the Super Bowl.

DP: Let's talk New England Patriots and their 16-0 regular season record. How good are they really?

Kerry: Well, we put a lot of stock in our Quality Standings, and they tell us that the 2007 Patriots were probably the greatest regular-season team in history.

Before I get to why, first a little background: Our Quality Standings are the foundation of our Quality Stats, which, in turn, are the foundation of the Cold, Hard Football Facts. There is no magic formula to our Quality Stats – the term simply refers to stats that have a direct correlation to winning football games.

Our Quality Standings, specifically, measure each team’s performance only against opponents with winning records (or what we call Quality Opponents or Quality Teams).

The theory behind it is this: performances against bad teams don’t mean shit. Great teams are either going to pound bad teams – big whoop – or they’re going to put it in cruise control and not really play their best ball. Every year there’s a team that puts up big numbers but then when you look back at the Quality Standings you find that they really didn’t beat anybody. Almost invariably, these teams don’t do anything in the playoffs.

So these games against bad teams don’t tell us much. So we literally dismiss them.

We want to know how teams perform when the pressure’s high and the opponent is tough. These performances give us a look at the true essence of team: they’re either pretenders who will wilt, or truly great teams that are strengthened in the forge of tough competition.

It’s a fairly effective formula come playoff time. Since we introduced this “Quality Wins Quotient” in 2004, teams with the better record against Quality Teams are a remarkable 25-8 in the playoffs. Vegas favorites, over the same period, are 23-10. Teams with a better overall record are a mere 19-14. Home teams, meanwhile, are just 18-12. You can see more about the Quality Wins Quotient as it relates to the 2007 playoffs here.

So, with all that said, our look at the 2007 Patriots through the prism of Quality Wins indicates that they may just be the greatest team of all time.

They’re 7-0 vs. Quality Teams this year, matching the 2003 Patriots for the best record ever vs. Quality Teams. The 2003 Patriots, of course, went on to win the Super Bowl, giving them a perfect 10-0 record vs. Quality Opponents. That 2003 Patriots team didn’t blow anybody out of the water. But they played more than half their games against Quality Teams and beat every single one of them.

Only one other team in history beat 10 Quality Teams in a single season: the dynastic 1979 Steelers went 7-3 vs. Quality Opponents in the regular season and 10-3 including playoffs. There weren’t a lot of puff-cakes in that team’s schedule.

But more impressive than the 7-0 record of the 2007 Patriots is the utterly dominant way in which they beat these Quality Teams. These seven Quality Opponents include a record four wins over division winners (Indy, San Diego, Pittsburgh, Dallas) and wins over two other playoff teams (Washington and N.Y. Giants). New England outscored these Quality Teams by a whopping 38.3 PPG (points per game) to 19.0 PPG – a +19.3 PPG differential.

To put that 7-0 record and +19.3 PPG into context this year, consider that only three other teams boast as many as four wins over Quality Opponents (Indy, 4-3; Jacksonville, 4-3; Dallas, 4-2. The Packers, meanwhile, are 3-1 vs. Quality Opponents and second to New England with a +5.5 PPG differential. So, as you can see, New England is ridiculously far ahead of the field.

They’re also ahead of the field of greatest teams in history. Our Quality Standings don’t go back before the founding of the ColdHardFootballFacts.com in 2004 (we are working on a historic database). But we did take a look at the performance against Quality Opponents of the greatest teams in history and found that only the 1962 Packers and 1985 Bears even come close to the 2007 Patriots:

2007 Patriots (16-0 overall): 7-0 vs. Quality Teams, +19.3 PPG

1985 Bears (15-1): 5-1, +17.9 PPPG

1962 Packers (13-1): 3-1, +17.5 PPG

1991 Redskins (14-2): 6-2, +15.0 PPG

1984 49ers (15-1): 4-1, +12.0 PPG

1972 Dolphins (14-0): 2-0, +10.0 PPG

1975 Steelers (12-2): 4-2, +6.9 PPG

1992 Cowboys (13-3): 3-2, +0.6 PPG

1999 Rams (13-3): 0-1, -3.0 PPG

DP: As a New England die-hard -- I'm confident they'll go the distance. But the Colts are worrisome. What are your thoughts on Indy?

Kerry: Well, you saw my thoughts about the Colts above in the first question. The 2007 Colts are probably the best team in franchise history and already took the Patriots to the wire back in November. They have all the ingredients you need: great coach, great quarterback, great defense and, more importantly, they’re all wearing Super Bowl rings, too. They’re also the first team in history to win 12 or more games in five consecutive seasons.

If they were to beat the Patriots in the AFC title game – and I’d give them about a 40-percent chance of doing so – it would be treated by the media as the “upset of the century.”

But it really wouldn’t be that great of an upset. This is a very, very good Colts team – probably a great Colts team – and is very capable of beating the Patriots.

DP: The NFC was interesting this year. What team do you think is going to emerge at the Super Bowl contender and why? And what is your Super Bowl prediction?

Kerry: We like Green Bay. We really do. Dallas has received all the hype. And, obviously, the Cowboys are a great team and won their regular-season meeting and will host the Packers again if they both advance to the NFC title game.

But Dallas has a few warts that get covered up by its great offense and by the general hype that surrounds America’s Team. Namely, for all their big names and Pro Bowlers, they have a very inefficient defense, at least among playoff contenders. They stand at a mere No. 17 in our Bendability Index, our way of quantifying the “bend but don’t break” phenomenon. Opponents need just 106 yards against Dallas to score the equivalent of 7 points. Whereas No. 1 San Diego forces opponents to march more than 126 yards to score the same 7 points.

It tells us that Dallas is doing a lot of little things wrong to make it easy for opponents to score, whether it’s poor red zone performance, turnovers, and poor field position. Indeed, our Special Teams Index reveals that the Cowboys were a mere 22^nd this year in that category. Basically, the Cowboys don’t make opponents work very hard for points.

Green Bay, however, was the single most well-balanced team in football this year, even more so than the Patriots. They rank between number three and number seven in every single one of our Quality Stats, from offensive and defensive lines, passing offense, passing defense, offense and defensive efficiency, even special teams and relative scoring differential. The Packers were packed in from number three to seven in every single one of these categories. That’s pretty fuckin’ impressive. You can see the whole breakdown here.

For Green Bay, it will all come down to the performance of their greatest asset and greatest liability: Brett Favre.

If he plays like the vintage 1996 Brett Favre we saw for much of 2007, the Packers will win a rematch with Dallas. If he plays like the vintage 2005 Old Yeller we saw in the Thursday night loss to Dallas this year, the result will be the same. Favre was dreadful that day, resorting to his old Rex Grossman-style “gunslinger” (a euphemism for “shitty quarterback”) ways, just tossing away hopelessly misguided passes into the hands of Dallas defenders.

Remember Favre got hurt that night and the offense improved dramatically when untested Aaron Rodgers came in off the bench because he played smart football and didn’t throw stupid passes. The Packers actually outscored the Cowboys, 17-10 I believe, after Favre went down.

Green Bay is definitely the more solid all-around team. If Favre plays smartly, the Packers go on to the Super Bowl. If he doesn’t then Dallas advances. Pro football is pretty simple that way, actually. You can break down all kinds of stats (and we often do). But at the end of the day the team with the quarterback who plays better that day invariably wins.

DP: Let's hand out some awards. Who was the best offensive player of the year? Defensive player of the year? And what two teams were the absolute worst?

We just handed in yesterday our Pro Football Weekly/Pro Football Writers of America year-end awards ballot.

We picked Tom Brady, obviously, as the best offensive player in football this year. I don’t know if there’s much of an argument there. A guy already destined for the Hall of Fame has a career year, breaks numerous records, throws for the third most yards in history and, more importantly, leads his team to a 16-0 record.

Yes, there’s a groundswell of support for Brady’s battery-mate, Randy Moss. We can understand that sentiment. Consider that New England’s entire corps of wide receivers in 2006 caught just 12 TD passes. Moss caught a record 23 this year. Clearly, he remade the New England offense (as we predicted when he was acquired back in April.

But it’s a QB’s league and you can argue that nobody in history played the position better than Brady did this year.

On the defensive side of the ball, we named Indy safety Bob Sanders our defensive player of the year. It strikes some as a clichéd choice. He’s generated a lot of hype and this “Superman” status among his fans on the web. But we don’t care about the hype and the buzz, only the substance.

And there is plenty of substance behind his selection as Defensive Player of the Year. Most notably, Sanders is the best player on one of the best defenses in the league. He’s tremendous against the run, and he’s the leader of one of the stingiest secondaries in the NFL. The Colts rank number three in Defensive Passer Rating (a “Quality Stat”) and number two in passing yards per attempt against them. And, as we showed earlier this year, the Colts defense is lost without him back there.

His impact on that unit is profound. We discussed his fairly quantifiable statistical impact on the defense and on the Colts in general early this season.

Over the past two seasons, the Colts are 10-4 (.714) without Sanders in the lineup, which is pretty good. But they’re a remarkable 32-6 (.842) when he is in the lineup.

As for the two worst teams, you gotta give a nod, of course, to the Miami Dolphins. Not only were they one of the few teams in history to lose 15 games in a season, but they have to suffer the indignity of losing out on the division race to New England by an embarrassing record of 15 games.

But don’t forget St. Louis, too. One of our readers, a guy named Brian Sheppard, created for us something called the Relativity Index, which measures how teams perform relative to the average game of their opponents. The Rams were dead last, an average of 11.8 PPG worse than the average performance of their opponents. Even the 1-15 Dolphins were only a mere 10.2 PPG worse than average.

St. Louis has truly become the Most Miserable Show on Turf and the decline from its heyday just a couple years ago has been stunning and dramatic.

Labels: 5 Questions, ColdHardFootballFacts, Football, interview, Kerry Byrne, Sports

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5 Bands That Should Have Been Enormous – But Blew It.

The Replacements

Origin: The ‘Mats (as their dedicated fan base used to refer to them) were formed in Minneapolis as a punk rock garage band in 1979. One of the band members – Tommy Stinson – was just 12 years old at the time. They played punk rock music with pop sensibilities and the crackling energy of an arena rock band.

Band Members: Paul Westerberg (vocals, guitar); Chris Mars (drums, vocals); Bob Stinson (guitar); Tommy Stinson (bass)

Best Album: “Tim” (1985)

Second Best Album: “Let It Be” (1984)

Best Song: “Can’t Hardly Wait”

Second Best Song: “Bastard of Young”

Why They Should Have Made It: Rock and roll magazine “Trouser Press” once declared the Replacements “the world’s greatest rock and roll band.” The band played legendary live shows – filled with seething energy and punk-rock power. They toured with R.E.M. and Tom Petty. For awhile the Replacements were the darlings of the music press and popular with their peers in the industry.

What Went Wrong: They were drunks. The band often showed up to gigs totally shit-faced. They refused to release any videos for MTV at a time when it was necessary in order to break into the national scene (they submitted a video for “Alex Chilton” that showed the band sitting on chairs and a couch doing nothing). They were banned from “Saturday Night Live” because they were drunk on stage and Paul Westerberg swore during their performance. In the end, they all hated each other and broke up.

Shrewd DP Observation: They were so damn close, but arrogance proved to be their downfall.

Where Are They Now?: Paul Westerberg launched a solo career. Bob Stinson died at age 35 in 1995 after years of drug and alcohol abuse. His brother, Tommy Stinson, is a member of Guns ‘N Roses. Chris Mars joined Golden Smog and then had a solo career and is a talented artist.

Screaming Blue Messiahs

Origin: The Screaming Blue Messiahs formed in 1983 in London. The trio had a distinct sound: a hard-driving, punk-infused rockabilly with amazing guitar work from Frontman Bill Carter.

Band Members: Bill Carter (vocals, guitar); Chris Thompson (bass, vocals); and Kenny Harris (drums)

Best Album: “Gun Shy” (1986)

Second Best Album: “Bikini Red” (1987)

Best Song: “Wild Blue Yonder”

Second Best Song: “Let’s Go Down to the Woods”

Why They Should Have Made It: The album “Gun Shy” is an alternative gem – a ferocious foray into Americana. The band tour with Echo and the Bunnymen and David Bowie once declared them his favorite band. They became extremely popular in England – often showing up on the cover of “Sounds” magazine. In a review of “Gun Shy,” Melody Marker magazine said: “This is the album The Clash meant to make when they recorded ‘Cut the Crap’.”

What Went Wrong: The band’s first top 10 hit was “I Wanna Be a Flintstone,” a novelty song (although a good one). It was a pop-infused number that didn’t do justice to the driving, angry rock from their previous efforts. It was simply the wrong image and ultimately it killed them. Dropped by their label, increase infighting among the members, finally led them to call it quits in 1989.

Shrewd DP Observation: The Screaming Blue Messiahs should have stuck to their roots. The Flintstones? Come on, man!

Where Are They Now?: In 2005, Bill Carter joined MySpace and released three previously unreleased Screaming Blue songs. He works as an artist in England. We don’t have any information on Chris Thompson or Kenny Harris (although Harris is the main contact on the SBM’s web page).

The Rave-ups

Origin: The band was formed in Pittsburgh in the early 1980s, but relocated to Los Angeles were they became an alternative cult hit. They played straight alternative rock and garnered strong reviews from critics.

Band Members: Jimmer Podrasky (vocals); Tim Jemenez (drums); Chuck Wada (guitar); and Douglas Leonard (bass)

Best Album: “Town and Country” (1985)

Second Best Album: “Chance” (1990)

Best Song: “Positively, Lost Me”

Second Best Song: “Respectfully, the King of Rain”

Why They Should Have Made It: The Rave-Ups were damn fun. They were the “it” band of Hollywood’s young actors in the 1980s – including Molly Ringwald. They played two songs in the movie “Pretty in Pink,” which lead to them being signed by Epic Records. Their punchy, pop-infused tunes were hits on college and alternative radio stations. Many critics predicted them as the “next-big-thing.”

What Went Wrong: The producers of “Pretty in Pink” screwed the Rave-ups by leaving them off the bestselling movie album – which most likely would have propelled them to stardom. Then the band became embroiled in a lawsuit with their record labels which put them on a three year hiatus at the peak of their popularity. In a nutshell? Bad luck ruined their chances.

Shrewd DP Observation: After a Rave-Ups show in Providence, Rhode Island in the late 1980s, DP spoke with Frontman Jimmer Podrasky and he was still bitter about being rejected by the producers of “Pretty in Pink.”

Where Are They Now?: Jimmer Podrasky has reformed the band and has an album – but no record contract. No word on the other band members.

Treat Her Right

Origin: Boston blues rock band, Treat Her Right, was founded in 1984. The band is often mentioned as helping make punk-blues (known as cowpunk) popular.

Band Members: Mark Sandman (guitar, vocals); Billy Conway (drums); Dave Champagne (guitar, vocals) and Jim Fitting (harmonica, vocals)

Best Album: “Treat Her Right” (1986 – reissued 1988)

Second Best Album: “Tied to the Tracks” (1989)

Best Song: “I Think She Likes Me”

Second Best Song: “I Got A Gun”

Why They Should Have Made It: Treat Her Right could play – and their concerts were dynamite. Their bluesy, barroom grind became popular on college radio. They signed with RCA records that reissued their debut and put a lot of money into the band’s second album. They were also popular with other musicians. Rolling Stones backup guitar player Bob Anderson urged them to reform in 1995 and under his direction they released an acoustic album of cover songs.

What Went Wrong: Another talented, original band screwed by their record label. When “Tied to the Tracks” didn’t sell well, RCA basically pulled the plug.

Shrewd DP Observation: Mark Sandman and Billy Conway went on to form the band Morphine, which had some success in the 1990s with albums like “Cure for Pain” and “Yes.”

Where Are They Now?: Mark Sandman died during a Morphine concert in Italy in 1999. His death was deemed a heart attack. He was 46. Billy Conway works for Hi-N-Dry, an independent record label he helped found. He still plays. Jim Fitting went on to play with the band The The. Dave Champagne founded the Jazz Popes and occasionally plays with his wife under the name the Heygoods.

The Screaming Trees

Origin: The band was founded by high school students in Ellensburg, Washington (about 90 miles from Seattle) in 1985. They were part of the growing grunge scene and their music mixed elements of psychedelic, punk, and heavy metal music. They were named after a guitar distortion pedal. And they were damn good.

Band Members: Van Conner (bass); Gary Lee Conner (guitar); Mark Lanegan (vocals); Mark Pickerel (drums)

Best Album: “Sweet Oblivion” (1992)

Second Best Album: “Uncle Anesthesia” (1991)

Best Song: “Nearly Lost You”

Second Best Song: “Shadow of the Season” (1993)

Why They Should Have Made It: The Screaming Trees were one of the few grunge acts that got great reviews. They were the peers of Nirvana and Soundgarden – both bands which became huge acts when the grunge sound went national. The band’s single “Nearly Lost You” was one of the best songs on the movie soundtrack for “Singles,” which was an enormous commercial success. They were a headline act in 1996’s Lollapalooza tour.

What Went Wrong: The Screaming Trees just couldn’t put personal difference aside. In-fighting, bickering, and various side projects got in the way. When “Nearly Lost You” hit big the band already had a new drummer. After the tour to support the bestselling “Sweet Oblivion” album, they basically broke up. The grunge scene passed by and well – that’s all she wrote.

Shrewd DP Observation: Dedication proved to be The Screaming Trees downfall. All the band members had side projects. Van Conner played with Dinosaur Jr. for most of 1991 rather than help support the release of the band’s first major studio album “Uncle Anesthesia.” Bad move.

Where Are They Now?: Mark Lanegan has been a vocalist for many bands since The Screaming Trees broke up. Gary Lee Conner has a new band called Amanita Caterpillar. He works as a newspaper courier in Texas. Van Conner (Lee’s brother) has a band called VALIS and works for Boeing in Seattle. Mark Pickerel left the band in 1992. He has a band called Mark Pickerel and His Praying Hands.

Read our picks for the 10 Best Soundtracks ever here

Labels: Music, Rave-Ups, Screaming Blue Messiahs, The Replacements, The Screaming Trees, Treat Her Right

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Best Book

“The Road” by Cormac McCarthy

“All the Pretty Horses” left a bad taste in our mouths about McCarthy. We found that popular novel to be pretentious in every sense – it was a maudlin affair filled with forced writing. But our opinion about McCarthy changed after we picked up “The Road.” It’s a beautiful novel – a celebration of human connection. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic America and features a father and son traveling down an ash-ridden road looking for the ocean – and possibly some hope. It is a true treat for readers.

Worst Book

“Hundred-Dollar Baby” by Robert B. Parker

It was written in 2006 – but the paperback came out this year (and it’s when I read it). Ouch. As life-long fans of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser series it dawn on us after “Hundred-Dollar Baby” how badly the series as been going for the last few years. We used to believe the rote and formula of the Spenser novels was one of its strengths. Not anymore. The series is tired – and old (kind of like Spenser). “Hundred-Dollar Baby” is the definition of an author mailing it in.

The book was so bad we implored Parker to kill Spenser off.

Best Surprise – Book

“Alex” by Mark Katesniko

We’ve recently discovered the magic of graphic novels – and while the genre can be hit or miss, Katesniko’s beautiful drawn and powerful story of despair was a marvelous achievement. “Alex” (published in 2006) is about an artist who suffers a breakdown and moves back to hometown hoping for a new beginning. Instead, he struggles with alcoholism and the loss of his dreams. Amazing read.

Biggest Disappointment – Book

“Darkly Dreaming Dexter” by Jeff Lindsay

With all the hype for the series about a serial killer who kills other serial killers (and the inspiration for the Showtime TV series), we were expecting great things from Dexter. Alas, the first novel is a grand waste of time. It’s poorly written with plot holes so enormous that Dexter’s ego could actually fit through them. It’s also a book that doesn’t even try to disguise its disrespect for women.

We gave reader 10 damn good reasons to avoid this one.

Favorite Poems

We have been privileged to have published a lot of good poetry from a lot talented poets this year. But two poems really stood out for us in 2007.

Haha…

Alexis Ryan gives us an aggressive, dazzling poem about being a woman in love.

Enjoy it HERE

Quiet Contemplations in my Hometown Church on Christmas Eve

Poet Jess Myers has a wicked wit – and her autobiographical poems are brutally honest and riveting for readers. This one simply dazzles.

Enjoy it HERE

Our Favorite “Best Of” Lists

The 12 Coolest Women in Rock History

What’s not to like about a list that includes rock goddess Joan Jett and Garbage vixen Shirley Manson? Women rock!

Channeling our inner 12-year-old, we picked out the five games that stole most of our quarters in the 1980s when local newspapers used to write scathing editorials about how mall arcades were nothing short of serial killer breeding grounds.

Our list of 18 awful bands that should be erased from rock history. Caused quite a stir on several Internet music forums because we included Radiohead on the list.

Best Movie

“Eastern Promises”

How can a movie that features a naked knife fight in a steam room be bad? It can’t. David Cronenberg has created a nightmarish, brutally violent gangster movie. Viggo Mortensen (who could have been forever typecast as Aragorn from the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy) delivers one of the finest performances of the year as the mysterious Nikolai – a Russian immigrant to London who works as a driver for the son of a Russian mafia godfather. The movie is visually stunning and not for those who can’t handle ultra violence. But the real achievement is the acting – especially the crackling chemistry between Mortensen and Naomi Watts.

Worst Movie

“The Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer”

Sometimes the option of sticking your head into a used public toilet is better than watching a movie. That’s how utterly amazingly terrible this sequel is: not that the first “Fantastic Four” movie was any good to begin with. But how is it possible to make two duds in a row? Can a third possibly be in the cards? One hopes not. The problems are many – from plot to writing to acting (Chris Evans is insufferable as Johnny Storm). But the worst part of the film is watching Ioan Gruffudd as Reed Richards and Jessica Alba as Sue Storm trying to feign a loving relationship. These two actors have such a limited range that cardboard cut-outs could have ignited more passion on the screen.

Biggest Disappointment – Movie

“I Am Legend”

Zombies, last man in the world, gun fights, explosions – and a deserted New York City. Plus the whole movie is based on a respected science fiction classic. How could this not work? The movie begins with such promise. The plot begins to unfold just like the Richard Matheson novella. Matheson’s premise was that his hero (played by Will Smith) – the last survivor of a plague the killed mankind and turned them into hordes of vampires – has become a monster to the vampires. He, in fact, becomes the stuff of legends: thus the name of the novel. But the Smith vehicle copes out and the last 20 minutes of the movie descends into bad cliché.

Here are our thoughts on Matheson’s novel.

Biggest Disappointment #2 – Movie

“Number 23”

The trailers for “Number 23” gave us jitters. The movie looked like a twisted whodunit – with horror movie thrills. They should have hired the director of the trailer to make the rest of this car bomb of a film. “Number 23” is dog vomit on a popsicle stick. What should we expect about a mystery involving a dog catcher? Basically, the usually reliable Jim Carrey reads a book about a detective obsessed with the number 23 – and decides the book is about him. The leaps of creditability and coincidence to make the plot work are like a three-year-old trying to use a hammer to insert the square peg into the round hole. It’s enough to make a grown man moan.

Our Three Favorite Interviews

We interviewed more than 30 scholars, musicians, authors, and other experts on a variety of topics this year – from ants to ghosts. But our three favorites (and it was close) were:

Friday the 13^th

Black Washer and Brenna O’Brien run the fan site about the Friday the 13^th films at Fridaythe13thFilms.com. Who knew that there could be such passion and knowledge about Jason Voorhees – the hockey mask wearing psycho killer?

Led Zeppelin

Paul Sinclair, the lead singer of Get the Led Out, a Led Zeppelin tribute band, showcased his love of Led Zeppelin music and insight into why Zeppelin’s music remains so timeless. Besides, he loves to sing “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” in concert.

Dracula

Academic Elizabeth Miller looks so – well normal. But she happens to be the world’s most knowledgeable scholar on Dracula. She answered questions about Bram Stoker’s novel and its incredible impact on literature, movies, and on Western culture.

Our Favorite Under God’s Right Arm Column

“The Cult of Darwinism”

Reverend Colson Crosslick (yes, we’re related to the pious old cleric through marriage to one of our aunts) of Ripsaw, Arkansas, has stirred the passions of liberals and conservatives alike with his fiery right-wing Christian columns. He saves his best stuff for attacking Darwin (and Nathan Lane) and this column really shows off his incredible reasoning and intellect.

The Trouble with Mormonism

Mitt Romney finally talked about his religions beliefs – but he didn’t cut to the bone about the weird and crazy beliefs held by the Mormon religion. We do that for him.

A Vote for Labor

Corporate America has done a remarkable job of demonizing the union worker. And so far the most aggressive and successful public relations plan in history has worked. Union membership is down – and so are salaries and benefits. Congratulations!

Banning Harry

We’re not fans of the Harry Potter novels (unless they are being read by children), but we’re certainly not for banning them because they contain magic. Hey, didn’t the Iliad have magic in it?

Labels: Dark Party, Essay, literature, Movies, Under God's Right Arm

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