A Psychotic Frog Hates Me

To be honest I have no opinion at all about the band, who I’d never given more than 30 seconds thought to before this week. Though I did mention them in print once, 31 years ago — hence my current quandary. I vaguely remember confusing Long Island’s Psychotic Frogs with the Psychedelic Furs when I…

What a Teaching Resource

Apparently I had a big day on Twitter without anybody letting me know. Cool — It’s been a few decades since I’ve been dismissed as a reactionary, even if it’s thanks to my inability to hear ’90s r&b the right way. (I’m not sure what their beef with my Teena Marie feature is, beyond her…

A Fake Fatherly Advice Column

University of Detroit, where I did my first year of college, was a Jesuit school; the only A+ I ever received in a class was Philosophy 101, taught by an amazing Jesuit priest. Every issue of the Varsity News featured an advice column called “Dear Abbot,” answered by the head of the monastery. In the…

Fake Letters to the High School Editor

Fairly certain these ran in an April Fools’ issue of my high school newspaper in suburban Michigan, for which I was the editor at the time. Not only did I write all of them; I typed them into columns on an actual typewriter, picked the headline fonts, conjured the artificial adverts, designed the page, and…

Don’t Know Much About Historiography

As if my to-read list wasn’t long enough already, that damn Eric Weisbard had to come along with the 65-page, 1750-or-so-title bibliography to his new Songbooks: The Literature of American Popular Music and blow my Austin Public Library holds out of the water; they only allow me seven at a time, not the 30 I…

Hell Goes on Forever and the Stairway Never Ends

July 30, 2020: I don’t know Dave Segal (though apparently we have 43 facebook friends in common, and I may have written a review for an alt-weekly he had something to do with once), but it’s amusing how upset he’s been getting about a book I published just short of three decades ago and I…

Still Lazy After All These Years

Amusingly endless Twitter thread from last week (is “Twitter thread” even what they’re called?) about a review I wrote in….1995! People get so defensive about that Radiohead band, jeez.

Fanmail From Some Flounder

We get letters! Or at least, we used to. (Why am I using the editorial we? I hate the editorial we.) Anyway, I obviously didn’t write these, but I’m reviving them for old times’ sake. More to come, once I sort through that box of clippings at the top of the closet.