One of the benefits of being fifty-three is that I’ve got a lot of firsthand experience. If I had a magic button that would force everyone to live under the system that they advocate, I’d press it so hard and so many times that I’d break my finger. If you support Hamas, I’d make you…
Immigrants: Here’s what I experienced in Japan thirty years ago
January 7, 2016
Europe has decided to accept hundreds of thousands of Muslim immigrants, but the Europeans feel that it’s wrong to demand that these people behave the way pale-skinned non-Muslims are expected to behave. The reason that European authorities are paralyzed is that they’re motivated entirely by an obsession with differentiating themselves from those who they see…
In case they run out of ideas
June 15, 2015
Former Sony Pictures Entertainment chairwoman Amy Pascal started her own production company Pascal Pictures after she left her former position. Someone told me that Pascal is looking for ideas. Well, my book Hallucinabulia: The Dream diary of an Unintended Solitarian has enough material for a hundred films. I’m just trying to be helpful. You know,…
A recycled post
January 24, 2015
I’m too tired to write a new post, so here’s a recycled one from my old Website. I spent the day gathering video and photos in preparation for the Pierre Rehov interview. My swinish neighbors are having their weekly deafening party. Also, in two weeks Brother Cat has gone from a creature afraid of his…
The person I came closest to murdering
September 17, 2014
Adapted from Ghosts and Ballyhoo: Memoirs of a Failed L.A. Music Journalist. The person I came closest to murdering is a lot like those who now threaten to murder me. Odd coincidence. So There You Are I met “Carmen” the Cardinal Ghost on November 6, 1987. Two days later, she invited me to her apartment…
A sign that the apocalypse is imminent
April 15, 2014
We are doomed. The world is about to end. How do I know that the apocalypse is imminent? Because after fifty years, there’s finally a good Japanese pop band. It’s called Tricot, pronouced “tree-ko.” Our destruction won’t be pretty. Tricot may be over before it really begins. Although most English-speaking press say that it’s an…
Improvement is not always conscious
December 23, 2013
Those of you who’ve read Ghosts and Ballyhoo may have noticed that I make only one mention of Tony Levin, on pages 42-43. This was not deliberate. My friend Steiv Dixon and Carmen were Levinites, as they called themselves. They introduced me to Tony Levin’s best work. As a result he became one of my…
A forgotten memory resurfaces
December 13, 2013
Mom saved all my letters. I found them in a box marked “Tom’s letters,” sensibly enough. Mom didn’t always write such precise descriptions on her many, many, many boxes. Most are unmarked, or they say, “Memorabilia,” or “Photos.” Even the boxes marked “Wictor photos,” for example, have lots of non-Wictor images in them. Tonight, in…
One of the greatest actors alive
November 2, 2013
Courtney Stodden has left Doug Hutchison. I don’t know much at all about either person. When they got married, I heard excerpts on the radio of a TV interview they gave. Just for fun I Googled her and saw what she looked like before she acquired her present appearance. It’s odd that he’s aged two…
My crimes of self-defense
September 25, 2013
When I got to college, my punk roommate Joe Cady turned me on to ska. I wasn’t really aware of it. Of course, I knew about reggae because I was a Police fanatic. One of my favorite songs of all time is “Walking on the Moon.” The bass line and tone, the melody, Sting’s plaintive…