“Look down at me and you see a fool; look up at me and you see a god; look straight at me and you see yourself” — Charles Manson BY JESSICA DURKIN Author and noted misanthrope Jim Knipfel re-invents the fairy tale for modern times with this wonderfully bizarre and twisted collection of short stories. He takes the supernatural elements of fairy tales and places them into an urban, modern-day setting. He amuses, confuses, and ultimately delights in this book of brutal satire that tightrope walks the borderline between fantasy and reality. Knipfel , who got his start back […]
BOOKS: Metal Guru
BY CHRIS DIPINTO It’s an understatement to say that when I heard about the new book Randy Rhoads – The Quiet Riot Years (with an accompanying DVD), I was totally psyched. Randy’s playing, look and songwriting changed the course of music and his influences can still be seen and heard today. I never stopped trying to figure out his riffs, his playing style, and what he brought to the stage. I was good at copping other players’ styles but couldn’t fully master Randy’s. I read every article and searched out every picture of the guy, but never completely understood […]
BOOKS: 50 Shades Of Laid
SenSexual: A Unique Anthology 2013 is a treasury of steamy, provocative, authentic works, bound to broaden the erotic literary experiences of the reader. Susana Mayer, PhD, delivers for the first time in print, the same mix of soul stirring, edgy, brazen writings, along with the authors’ illuminating backstories and her occasional revealing commentaries that have lead to raucous laughter, unabashed tears and occasional squirming at her long running Erotic Literary Salon in Philadelphia. Fifty authors have contributed tender memories of love, spirited sexplay and spicy communications to this exceptional two-volume anthology, transporting the reader through heart-pounding, seductive, occasionally kinky […]
BOOKS: The Most Deadly And Dangerous Drug Corner Is Inside Your Friendly Neighborhood Grocery Store
FRESH AIR: Dealing Coke to customers called “heavy users.” Selling to teens in an attempt to hook them for life. Scientifically tweaking ratios of salt, sugar and fat to optimize consumer bliss. In his new book, Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Moss goes inside the world of processed and packaged foods. Moss begins his tale back in 1999, when a vice president at Kraft addressed a meeting of top executives of America’s biggest food companies. His topic: the growing public health concerns over the obesity epidemic and the role packaged and […]
REWIND 2012: The Year In Phawker Interviews
Talk is cheap, especially on the Internet, but at Phawker it’s totally free, baby — at least for you, dear reader. Trolling through the vast and dusty Phawker archives, we have dug up fat sack of conversations from the past year that are worth re-visiting: Dick Dale, King Of The Surf Guitar; graphic novelist Charles Burns, the Edgar Allan Poe of right now; photographer Joe Kazcmarek, who tirelessly chronicles the murder-scarred backstreets of North and West Philly; Jim Reid, lead singer of The Jesus And Mary Chain; Anton Newcombe, cult leader of The Brian Jonestown Massacre; Hardball host Chris Matthews; […]
BOOKS: Lord Of The Zings
Back in the day, when rock critics weren’t just zoo-kept follow-fashion monkeys pounding out corporate press releases for peanuts, Meltzer was the 800-pound gorilla at the backstage meet-and-greet. Meltzer, together with Lester Bangs and Nick Tosches, formed a terrible triumvirate of rowdy rock scribblers, angel-headed gutterpunks who wrote like Milton’s satanic majesty and rocked like Keith Richards’ liver. Check out A Whore Just Like the Rest, a compendium of his feverish rock crit musings, if you want to truly understand how the wild horses of rock were tamed into a corporate pony ride. With the winter of his discontent looming […]
BOOKS: Q&A With John Waters, Lord Of The Trash
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] This conversation with celluloid-transgressor-turned-authority-on-all-things-wicked John Waters originally ran back in 2010 upon the publication of his book Role Models. We are re-running on the occasion of Waters bringing his one-man Christmas show of shows to the Troc on Thursday. Stay tuned, we will be giving away a couple pairs of tickets. As for the the interview, we talked about LSD, outsider porn, fuzzy sweaters, uptight gay bars, Charlie Manson, Johnny Mathis, censorship, why the Chipmunks are far superior to the Beatles, and why he hasn’t made a film in year. *** PHAWKER: Before we get started, I […]
NPR FOR THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
Illustration by ROBERLAN FRESH AIR What did Jesus look like? The many different depictions of Christ tell a story about race and religion in America. Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey explore that history in their new book, The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America. The book traces how different races and ethnic groups claimed Christ as their own — and how depictions of Jesus have both inspired civil rights crusades, and been used to justify the violence of white supremacists. The Ku Klux Klan could not rely on Christian doctrine to […]
WORTH REPEATING: Lee Atwater’s Infamous Last Words
THE NATION: It has become, for liberals and leftists enraged by the way Republicans never suffer the consequences for turning electoral politics into a cesspool, a kind of smoking gun. The late, legendarily brutal campaign consultant Lee Atwater explains how Republicans can win the vote of racists without sounding racist themselves: You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re […]
The Sins Of Gen. Petraeus & The Military-Media Complex
Illustration by WILLIAM BANZAI7 EDITOR’S NOTE: THE FOLLOWING IS AN EXCERPT FROM A JUST-PUBLISHED BUZZFEED PIECE BY MICHAEL HASTINGS, THE NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER WHO WROTE THE RUNAWAY GENERAL, THE ROLLING STONE PIECE THAT TOOK DOWN GENERAL STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL BUZZFEED: The warning signs about Petreaus’s core dishonesty have been around for years. A brief summary: we can start with the persistent questions critics have raised about his Bronze Star for Valor. Or, that in 2004, during the middle of a presidential election, Petraeus wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post, supporting President Bush and saying that the Iraq policy was working. […]
BOOKS: A Q&A With Punk-Noir Surrealist Charles Burns, The Edgar Allan Poe Of Right Now
Illustration by ALEX FINE EDITOR’S NOTE: Cartoonist/illustrator Charles Burns, master of the punk-noir macabre, will be discussing his work at the Free Library tonight. To mark the occasion, we sent him some questions about The Hive (Random House), the just-published second installment of his new graphic novel trilogy, his first major work since 2005’s Black Hole. However, before we get to the Q&A, there are 10 things you should know about Charles Burns. They are.. 1. Though born and bred in the high rainyland of the Pacific Northwest, Charles Burns has resided in Philadelphia — Northern Liberties, to be exact […]
BOOKS: The Kids Are Not Alright
CBS NEWS: Photographer Richard Ross captured images of over 1,000 juvenile inmates housed in over 200 detention centers and correctional facilities throughout the U.S. and Canada. According to his website, the “Juvenile in Justice” project explores the “treatment of American juveniles housed by law in facilities that treat, confine, punish, assist and, occasionally, harm them. The hope is that by seeing these images, people will have a better understanding of the conditions that exist,” he writes on his website. The following images contain excerpts from interviews conducted by Ross with several young inmates. The photos were shot between 2005 […]
BOOKS: Willie Nelson To Release Memoir With The Greatest Title In The History Of Reading And Writing
HARPER COLLINS: In Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die, Willie Nelson muses about his greatest influences and the things that are most important to him, and celebrates the family, friends, and colleagues who have blessed his remarkable journey. Willie riffs on everything: music, wives, Texas, politics, horses, religion, marijuana, children, the environment, poker, hogs, Nashville, karma, and more. He shares the outlaw wisdom he has acquired over eight decades, along with favorite jokes and insights from friends and others close to him. Rare family pictures, beautiful artwork created by his son Micah Nelson, and lyrics to […]