Dead Man's Curve

Here is the beautiful cover to the new issue of the New Haven Review, which contains my hefty essay "Dead Man's Curve: The Slow Crash of the Touring Musician," in which I mention Baroness, The Exploding Hearts, Cap'n Jazz, Friends Forever, Ike Turner, Bob Seger, Red Sovine, Cliff Burton, David Bowie, J. G. Ballard, Mad Max, dog food, and of course Jan and Dean. You do the math.

A cavalcade of A.V. Club news

A frantic glance at the clock on the wall seems to verify that I have been writing for The A.V. Club -- that is, the non-satirical, pop-culture-criticism wing of The Onion -- for six years now. It's been a crazy ride, and by that I mean mostly good-crazy. It seems that someone agrees with me, too, because I am proud to be at liberty to divulge the irrefutable fact that I have a veritable cavalcade of positive A.V. Club news to report:

1. I have been made a Senior Writer of The A.V. Club, which has nothing to do with my age, at least I hope not. In any case, it is an honor and privilege, even if it is the setup for a bad Golden Girls joke or something.

2. My ambitious, epic, sprawling, Brobdingnagian new monthly column about '90s punk rock, Fear Of A Punk Decade, debuted today. As befits such an ambitious, epic, sprawling, Brobdingnagian new monthly column about '90s punk rock, it's pretty rad. Really. Just ask me.

3. As of today I have also assumed co-authorship of The A.V. Club's monthly, big-fancy-award-nominated, comic-book review column, Comics Panel. I kick it off by reviewing some comic books. It seemed only apt.

Pitchforked

Hey, so... After doing this music journalism thing for years upon years, I have at least secured a byline in the world's preeminent music publication: Pitchfork. I reviewed Four (Acts of Love), the latest solo album by former Nick Cave foil Mick Harvey. Hopefully it's just the first of many such acts of criticism I will commit on Pitchfork's name.

Science fiction trains and Neil Young explained

New today: These Things Matter just posted their podcast with me about the myth and music of Neil Young, and Clarkesworld just ran an article by me about the history of the locomotive in science fiction. Why? What's the significance? I DON'T KNOW!

Do Android-Makers Dream of Electric PKD?

The promo gods just dropped this on my doorstep: the upcoming trade paperback edition of David Dufty's How to Build an Android: The True Story of Philip K. Dick's Robotic Resurrection. And my cold replicant heart did a little leap.

Burning down the house

Just got a copy of As You Were, a great new comics zine from Silver Sprocket. The theme: DIY punk house shows. Every story in here is drop-dead awesome and brings back so many memories of going to/putting on/playing house shows over the years. Not to mention my long-lost past as a cartoonist and zinester. The kids, it seems, are alright.

Spoilers for The Office finale

Neutral Milk memories

Way back in the early '90s, Denver was the home of the yet-to-become-iconic Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel. Denver just happened to be my home, too. So I wrote an article for The A.V. Club about those early days. Neutral Milk went on to do legendary things, but I'll always love those scrappy, crappy early recordings. Granted, the nostalgia doesn't hurt.

Let's all go to the science fiction disco

Just got my contributor's copy of Adventure Rocketship! with cover art by Stanley Donwood (of Radiohead fame) and some of my writing re: J. G. Ballard, Sun Ra, Kraftwerk, Parliament, Brian Eno, postpunk, etc. Damn proud to be a part of it.

Calel

Below is my pseudo-tribute to the mythos of Superman, first published in 2009 by the late, great, weird-fiction magazine Farrago's Wainscot as part of a series of linked vignettes titled "Seven Men (in Various States of Fabrication)." No, I don't really know what I was thinking.

VI: Calel

Ice cannot harm me, nor fire. Swords and pitchforks fall blunt against my skin. My thews, taut and thick, are knotted with monstrous energies. There is a furnace in my breast, a flintlock in my spine. My name is Calel. I never wanted this.

But I cannot remove what God has seen fit to install in my body. I often feel as though I am his finger, as if there is a vast, intangible fist behind me through which courses divine love, divine will, divine might.

And then abruptly, in the midst of such rapturous delirium, I remember. I remember where I come from. I remember who I am. As base as it is to hold one's soul at arm's length from heaven and covet it so, I cradle what little is left of myself as if it were an orphaned child, wasted from thirst and hunger.

But at night, I forget. At night, I fall. At night, the cloak calls.