Category: Andrew Earles

The drunken sidekick (played by Bruce Campbell!!!)….check!!!

The female spy/crew member (she’s added some wrinkles since Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead) that’s good with the gadgets…..check!!

The ghetto-less Miami….check!!!

Fires, explosions, ramble-tamble in the busy streets….check!!!

A seemingly broke and harrassed spy that manages to dress like a garden variety sushi bar/martini-sipping assbag…..check!!

I’m hooked.

Pasted below is my review of Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer By Chris Salewicz

This review was to run in the print version of The Memphis Flyer’s literary supplement, but due to my belligerent disregard of the needed word count, it’s online-only. Still, it appears that a lot was cut. Online is better than no-line.

Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer By Chris Salewicz Farrar Straus and Giroux, 640 pp., $30

Introducing: Everything you’ve ever want to know about Johnny Mellor — aka Woody Mellor, aka Joe Strummer (of the Clash) — who tragically passed away in 2002 due to an undiagnosed heart condition. But talk about exhaustive biographies: Chris Salewicz’s Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer takes the cake. Most music biographies fall victim to too much pre-fame, pre-relevance, and youth coverage, and Redemption Song is no different. Occasionally in the opening pages, Salewicz does flash-forward and back through Strummer’s adolescence, the Clash era, and post-death accounts from friends and relatives. For the most part, though, Redemption Song follows in chronological order, and the highlights of the first 160 pages — some of it slow reading — are as follows: 

Strummer’s older brother suffered from depression and committed suicide when Strummer was 18. This had a massive impact on Strummer’s life and creative drive, including Strummer’s pre-Clash concern, the 101′ers, a decent pub rock band that never released recordings while together. Salewicz also traces during this period the ongoing development of Strummer’s stoicism offstage and drama and high energy onstage, behavior that came to its fruition with the Clash. Naturally, the Clash sections of Redemption Song beat out the book’s beginning and end in terms of readability. Most interesting is the fact that the band was created by an impresario, just like the Sex Pistols, who had Malcolm McLaren. The Clash was more or less masterminded by a lesser known but equally brilliant London scenester/hustler by the name of Bernard (â€ÂBernieâ€Â) Rhodes. The political phrases pasted on Strummer’s Telecaster, for example? That was Rhodes successfully launching a trend that carries on to this day. 

Salewicz’s writing is workmanlike, and he gets the job done. It also helps that the author was a good friend of Strummer’s. This intimacy benefits Redemption Song, peppering it with minute details that a less familiar biographer might not know. After the Clash folded, Strummer busied himself with sporadic projects, including but not limited to soundtrack work for Sid and Nancy, co-writing much of the second Big Audio Dynamite (Mick Jones’ post-Clash project) album, and recording a 1989 solo album, Earthquake Weather, which turned out to be a flop. 

The closing portion of Redemption Song is given over to Strummer’s final three to four years with the Mescaleros, his handpicked band, which made a respectable impact by jumping all over the musical map: reggae, roots-rock, ska, and much cover material. It was with this group that Strummer reignited the spark that burned hot during his days with the Clash.  Clash fans are encouraged to check out Pat Gilbert’s Passion Is the Fashion: The Story of the Clash. For Strummer fanatics, see Redemption Song. — Andrew Earles 

 

See previous post for explanation. Again, I have not watched these.

Part 4

Part 5 

I do not like to watch myself, but perhaps you’d like to watch me. Haven’t seen it.

Number One.

Number Two.

Number Three.

Here’s everything that I’ve written for The Onion A/V Club…SO FAR!!!!

Itching to purchase a mass market paperback thriller for your next plane ride? Do it at Target, where they are 2 – 3 dollars less than the cover. One crime writer that will not be found at the red dots (unless he writes a big one) is Andrew Coburn. Overlooked but still living in the fruitful world of little books, Coburn is an addictive stylist (see his two part short story in the collection, Men From Boys) that puts most thriller meat grinders to shame. I’m in a, uh, recent reprint of Goldilocks right now. My reading practices are as follows:

I keep my finger in one mass market paperback at all times. Before bed, I read some type of (usually movie/music/literary/crime-based) non-fiction. The third concern will be a title that falls under “literary fiction.â€Â Both great and terrible magazines fill up the spaces in between. I own a troubling number of books that’ve never been cracked.

Wow. We have UFO’s: Seeing Is Believing on Natty G tonight. Hosted by the late Peter Jennings. I’ll miss my mom’s birthday to watch a good UFO documentary (not really), and this is one of the best.

Next, a rerun of the Burn Notice debut on USA. Let’s chat about Burn Notice for a sec. “WHEN SPIES GET FIRED, THEY DON’T GET A CALL FROM HR, THEY GET BURNED!!!â€Â

Fan fiction is one thing, but this series’ MacGyver agenda has sired a weird phenomenon on YouTube. Watch the previews first, and then enjoy the “personalâ€Â clips that are about five or six grabs down…like this one.

I think so.

Let’s Go To Prison – For a crappy little comedy (see Grandma’s Boy), IT DELIVERS THE LAUGHS (see Grandma’s Boy)!!! Most are had during the first 15 or 20 minutes, and most are better than average, crude one-liners. Crude always gets me. 

Alpha Dog – Much better than I had imagined, but that’s coming from a true crime fanatic that lazily followed the real case while it was in and out of the news and read most of the post-incident features in the big mags (and books – see Scary Monsters and Super Freaks…sort of the Best American Crime Writing for the entertainment biz). I loathe to admit it, but Jay Tim can actually act and does a great job in his role…not that playing a shit-talking wanna-be gangsta is that far from his “training.â€Â This is the movie that Bully tried to be; a harrowing picture of morally deficient, rich, white yo-kids in their early 20’s that get away with almost everything they attempt. 

VitaminWater “Formula 50″ – Taste like the Kool-Aid of childhood. My fave VW flavor, besides the green tea (which rarely available in my parts). I’m a consummate bev-head, now buying several stupid brands on a regular basis. I even purchased a Mountain Dew “Big Rigâ€Â energy drink today. It heftier than a tall boy, and packed about 300 more mg of caffeine than I normally injest on a daily basis. I make a lot of unwise decisions. Even after .50 Cent sold his investment in VitaminWater for a gazillion dollars, they still print this on the side of the bottle (grammatical errors are left intact): “inspired by today’s most talked about artist, hottest record producer and talked about movie star, this ‘not-so-hypnotic’ tonic contains (hint hint) 50 (per) cent of many of the important vitamins that you need every day….however, unlike mister fifty (or ‘fiddy’ as the kids say), this drink does not contain talent, a seven-figure recording deal, platinum jewelry, a big entourage or a bulletproof vestâ€ÂÂ 

Skunk Magazine (subhead: “stinkin’ it to the manâ€Â) – You can go here for a better explanation of this impulse gift from a friend. I do not indulge in the diggity dank, but every HI-larious aspect of the culture can be found here. Makes High Times seem like AARP. In my issue, features include : Trailer Park Girls Gone Wild, Clitoraid, Erbo Pipe, Hell Froze My Grow, and an interview with L.A.’s ‘dopest’ attorney, Allison Margolin. Not giggling yet? Check out the contributing writers in the masthead: Bud Vila, Freddy Watso, Dumbass Dirt Farmer, Rex Bones, Mary Jane Green, Mother Shabubu, Trippy MacShroom, Professor Smokeface, Sparky, Dr. Pot, The Rev, and the ominous Jeffrey Steinborn. 

 

Read about it here: https://www.slate.com/id/2169125/

(Sorry, posting with Safari – they steal my toolbar)

The lawsuits, the fakery, the hopeful downfall or arc of disinterest, these are all fine things.

The main, deserved focus is usually missed: The embarrassing, godawful writing.

Fiction keywords and phrases: gay hustler, runaway, abuse, slumming regional dialogue written by an outsider, Dennis Cooper, drug abuse, horrible childhood, .

If these easy avenues are what you look for in fiction, pack your lunch. Do not return. There’s plenty out there catering to your needs.