Benjamin Leatherman

Looking fine and divine at the Whitehouse

​Despite it's name, you won't find President Barack Obama kicking it old school inside this chic Craftsman Court lounge, which is modeled after the illustrious presidential residence from which it draws its moniker, right down to the portico columns out front.

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We get a lot of weird books and CDs in the mail, but the 600+ page RightWing Bob: What The Liberal Media Doesn't Want You To Know about Bob Dylan is near the top of the list. The book, the Bob-obsessed A.J. Weberman (and not by the blogger who runs a site of the same name, the equally Bob-obsessed but otherwise unaffiliated Sean Curnyn) makes the case that Dylan isn't at all what people think he is.

Weberman appears to be a certifiable loon: A self-proclaimed "underground journalist and rock critic" who, apparently, last worked for The East Village Other in the early 70s, and claims to be a Youth International Party (Yippie!) leader, the friend of John Lennon and Abbie Hoffman is the and the author of such other books as The CIA and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy and a Rudy Giuliani biography called Homothug.

Crazy, right? Actually, he's been called "The King of All Dylan Nuts" by Rolling Stone.  He claims to be "the only person ever thrown a tomato at Nixon" and was once attacked on the street by Dylan himself after the singer caught him digging through his trash. Weberman says Bob Dylan "has the mentality of a racist White Southerner during the Jim Crow era of race relations. He used certain key code words in his songs, while innocuous on their surface, when they appeared in proximity to one another their related lesser used meanings sent virulent racist messages to those who already were aware of the poetry's overall racist framework."

The book begins:

"The Veracity of my translations regarding racism rests not with one poem, but on a recurrent racist theme in a long series of poems. Because of this I suggest you read the book from beginning to end. This is also imperative because once I define a word I expect you to remember it when it re-appears."

At that point I stopped reading because, well, even if Bob Dylan was a Nazi it couldn't possibly be worth reading 666 pages about.

nickcaveandthebadseeds.com

Multi-media master. In addition to his musical work with The Bad Seeds, Grinderman and The Birthday Party, Nick Cave has penned screenplays, scored films and just released his second novel.

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Things getting better with age is an age-old cliché that rarely holds true for anything beyond the obvious "fine wine" analogy, but we can safely add "Nick Cave's career" to that short list.

Now on the far side of a half-century of life, the last few years have been remarkably fertile creatively for the longtime frontman of The Bad Seeds and we've noted as much here and here.

His creative roll continues apace with the publication of his second novel, The Death of Bunny Munro and White Lunar a double-CD collection of some of his film soundtrack work with fellow Bad Seed Warren Ellis.

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Much like Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the fate of protagonist Bunny Munro is never in question in Cave's new novel. With that major plot point given away in the title, Bunny is all about character development and Bunny Munro, a sex-obsessed traveling salesman-cum-lothario, is quite a character. An anti-hero by turns despicable and oddly compelling, he hits the road, as usual, after his wife's suicide, but this time with son Bunny Jr. in tow and the father/son dynamic is explored at length as Bunny Sr. wends his way toward his inevitable end.

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Many tales unfold along Mill Avenue in Tempe every weekend, whether it's a philosophical exchange with a bongo-beating busker or a drunken encounter with ASU cheerleaders at the Cherry Lounge. But one Tempe resident has made Mill Avenue the setting for an elaborate serial novel.

Cover illustration copyright © 2008 Rebecca Gunter : http://soap-committee.deviantart.com

Mill Avenue Vexations is an ongoing literary project of Kyt Dotson, a former anthropology major at ASU who hangs out on the busy Tempe strip every weekend. The novel revolves around the character of Vex Harrow, a goth hottie who drives a cab for a living. Many of the stories revolve around Vex's fares, friends, and family conflicts, and include details of familiar Mill hangouts like the Graffiti Shop and the Coffee Plantation.

Dotson's been doing this since 2005, when he self-published the first volume of Mill Avenue Vexations. He's currently on his 9th volume, and has also produced seven one-off "single stories" set on Mill and featuring the character of Vex Harrow. Dotson's series has become popular through Internet availability, and also through Dotson himself, who hands out free copies of each volume on Mill Avenue when they come out (look for a guy with long black hair, a cane, and a black strip painted over his eyes).

The writing inside the volumes of Mill Avenue Vexations is intricate, filled with character details like "James had slicked back his hair and wore a fishnet shirt that showed off his every individual flexing muscle" (from "Lost Sphinx Cat") and descriptions such as "They sparred in guarded pantomime" (from "All the Night's a Stage").

Dotson calls his series "Gothic Occult Fiction Featuring Detective Vex Harrow" and has already inspired some fan fiction based on his characters. Check out the Mill Avenue Vexations Web site for the fan fiction, full stories, and more. -- Niki D'Andrea

The horde of amateur music critics at Pitchfork Media has just crapped out a tome titled The Pitchfork 500: Our Guide to the Greatest Songs from Punk to the Present (Fireside). The book purports to present "edifying essays" about the greatest 500 songs of the past thirty years and "all-new reviews" of songs by artists like Nirvana, Sonic Youth, U2, Metallica, Bruce Springsteen, and dozens of other stuff people have already heard and already have their own opinions about.



What's so funny about Pitchfork attempting to present a definitive guide to anything is that 13 years ago, Pitchfork was a small, upstart "Web 'Zine" -- the cyber-equivalent of a cut-and-paste-and-photocopy publication, with inexperienced music writers going on and on with endless, rambling reviews of obscure indie music. Granted, the site has grown immensely since its humble beginnings and now claims to land 1.6 million unique visitors per month. And that's part of the problem with this book -- it shows a clear line from indie buzz king status to "Rolling Stone rock critic-conglomerate imitator."

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By Thomas Bond

While some musical groups fade into mere memories, that was never going to be the case with The Clash, once famously dubbed “the only band that matters.” More than two decades on from their break-up, interest in the group remains high. How high? Well, a new concert album The Clash Live at Shea Stadium was issued last month and today marks the release of “The Clash,” a 384-page book that tells the band's story through quotes from its members.

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