SUPERGROUP AND OTHER MUSIC GOINGS-ON

Because I'm highly frivolous and secretly love to ROCK, I have to plug the transcendent new reality show on VH1: SUPERGROUP

I'm assuming that all I'll have to do is utter the premise and people who also secretly love to ROCK will flock to it. Sebastian Bach, Ted Nugent, Jason Bonham, Evan Seinfeld, Scott Ian from Anthrax...in a house...to form a band...come on everybody, the show sells itself. Recent highlights include: a visit from Evan Seinfeld's wife: pornstar Tera Patrick, who he introduces as "an actress and model." For those of you who don't know, Evan's AKA is Spider Jonez or something, he's some hardcore director...

They put together their first song (named inspiringly "Take it back") and they love it. But a top producer calls it "dated," "so 80s" and asks "take what back?"

The only criticism I have of the show is that they're only in the house for 12 days. Why not send them underground and lock them there indefinitely for our amusement?

Things I've Learned Lately While Downloading Music
- Buying albums is a horrible idea.
- I always like the bands after they've broken up.
- Lately, I'm into Mike Andrews, The Stills, and realize that I have a bit of a brokeback relationship with Jack White. I wish I could quit him. Then I heard some songs by The Raconteurs.
- I should never buy the latest albums from bands I liked when I was in high school no matter how good the reviews are. Examples: Pearl Jam, the Pet Shop Boys, Morrissey. Recipe for disappointment. All music is best served without the wives and children and sometimes bands are just due for the "best album in a decade" review no matter how bad the album is.

Ramblings, Readings and The P.u.litzer

Why do all Pulitzer Prize-winning novels suck? I got about 100 pages into Gilead and thought...an act of God couldn't make me finish this book. I should have known when the blurbs called it "grave" and said the author gets at "incandescence" in "her own time" that that usually means the book is plotless, slow and the writer is really old. Which I guess makes the writer a prime candidate for a Pulitzer. I haven't read the most recent Pulitzer winner but it seems that the award is getting worse every year. Even though I can't completely endorse Kavalier and Clay, I admired the prizedolers for taking a chance on a relatively new voice at the time: Michael Chabon. The Hours just flat-out sucked as does most of Michael Cunningham's work, imho...Why don't the Pulitzer people just make the award a secure online application exclusive to tenured writing professors at the Iowa Writers Workshop and call it a trophy ceremony?

Here are some books I've read lately that are absolutely the cat's meow and nothing softer:

War by Candlelight (Daniel Alarcon)
Never Let Me Go (Kaz Ishiguro)
The Egyptologist (Arthur Phillips)
The Plot Against America (Philip Roth)

The Alarcon short story collection is stunning. There are four and five stores I'll remember for years. And he's my age and he teaches in Oakland...the bastard.

Thanks to my friend, Paul Davis and his lady Daria, for reminding me to write in this damn thing every once in awhile.

Check them out at: anginamonologues.blogspot.com