Go read it.
Thanks and thanks and thanks again to Brother Bobby Bones, who first introduced me to Shuggie’s music.
-D. M. Collins
my very, very long interview with Jimmy Espinoza of Thee Midnighters is up at L.A. RECORD. April 16, 2013
Read it here.
-D. M. Collins
My Three O’Clock interview is up on L.A. RECORD. April 6, 2013
This one was a pleasure. Please read.
-D. M. Collins
Stephen Kalinich interview September 28, 2012
This was already posted in issue 108 of L.A. RECORD, but now it’s on the website. It was quite a joy to interview someone of his light, enthusiasm, and history. He’s a true American poet, and I love him to death. So glad he’s back and doing more poetry, as well as a little music of his own as “Stevie Nobody.”
So much of your work is about peace. You knew even then?
Yes—at 12 or 13 I was writing about world peace and believing I could help bring it about. I’ve had different experiences with that now. We have to fight as aggressively for peace as we do for war. I don’t mean necessarily with guns, but we have to be strong because the forces of evil against us are very organized and very strong. And good has a tendency to be nice and sweet and not as organized. We gotta organize goodness! Without making it cultish or dictatorial. I’ve never seen anyone really do it. The way I think now—sometimes if evil comes into your house, you gotta defend it. And I mean defend it. Not just wish good thoughts. Good thoughts will get you killed. You understand the difference? I’ve grown to realizing peace needs a physicality in this world.
I also wrote an expanded review of the Stephen Kalinich/Jon Tiven album and posted it. Unfortunately I can’t be at Kalinich’s show tonight, because I’m DJ’in.
interview with Tim Heidecker (of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!) September 15, 2012
Somehow I was pulled into interviewing Tim Heidecker at the last minute for L.A. RECORD. I’m not saying I was unprepared, but I had only about 24 hours to get this together. He and I didn’t have my famous chemistry, and he had no interest in talking about the sexual inappropriateness of David Liebe Hart, but I still got some great answers out of him, largely about his recent album. Read it here.
Interview: Drew Denny June 5, 2012
I got to interview my old friend Drew, who has an amazing new movie out! I had a blast doing the interview: rarely have I been so productive while drinking.
Okay, that’s a lie. I’m always productive while drinking. Booze is my Adderal.
Interview: The Shrine June 1, 2012
I love this fucking band so much! Metal is wonderful, stoner rock is great, and frantic, loud, fast-paced jams are basically the most fun things I seem to listen to live nowadays. I can’t listen to these guys without slapping my knees and looking like an idiot, yet I don’t care. This is music I listen to best when wearing a vest with buttons on it.
Anyway, read my interview with them on L.A. RECORD. It was in the last issue in print a couple months back, too, but it’s just seeing the light of day on the web now.
Jimmy Cliff Interview April 10, 2012
The Jimmy Cliff interview I did a couple weeks back is now on the L.A. RECORD website.
by champoyhate
Will the Republicans rig the election in McCain’s favor? October 17, 2008
Reading this recent interview with Greg Palast, I have to come to terms once again with the grim but true fact that Republicans are rigging EVERY possible county’s election that they can in this country, using the political bulimia of binge and purge to make sure Dems’ votes don’t count. The Rethugs did it in Florida in 2000, they did it in Ohio in 2004 (even if Kerry wouldn’t have won the state, he should have been noticably closer than he wound up being), and now they are doing it in Colorado and New Mexico and god knows where else.
And that’s why it’s a sneaky trick of McCain’s camp to pretend that ACORN is some kind of voter fraud machine that could have any effect on the election at all. Sure, maybe a couple guys registered fake names like “Mary Poppins” or “Peter Pan,” but Peter Pan can’t go down and actually get a ballot. ACORN checks those but by law has to submit them anyway. It ain’t their fault, and it ain’t the same as lying to kids in Colorado about their voting status or purging minorities from voting roles like the Republicans do. We need to fight back by volunteering to be part of the process on election day, to make sure the people taking the ballots aren’t giving out false information to the people waiting in line to be a part of democracy. And when you do vote, make sure NOT to back down! Argue or do whatever you have to, but make sure you get a ballot and make sure you see them put it in the same slot as everyone else’s ballot!
UPDATE: Seems that Greg Palast’s research ain’t always what it should be. Or at least that’s one dude’s take. It still doesn’t change the fact that Rolling Stone, the New Yorker, and countless other publications have found similar stuff all over, but maybe don’t quote Palast’s piece on rural New Mexico as part of your anti-fascist tool kit.
Miranda July – “How to Tell Stories to Children” May 7, 2008
I couldn’t sleep last night, so I cracked open my Dave Eggers-edited The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007 and plunged into the story where I’d left my bookmark three weeks ago. The story ended up being about an older woman and her motherly relationship with the child of some of her friends, a third-person account of a coming of age story, and it was touching and very sad and lonely-feeling, and didn’t help my insomnia at all.
I hit the sack, felt more and more awake, got up, and started in on an old short story I’d been working on a while back. But I felt my creative juices congealing, so picked up the short story I’d just read and started re-reading it. And only then did I see that the author who had moved me so was Miranda July.
Okay, so I was aware of her before, but this was seriously the best thing in the anthology I’ve read so far—and that includes the expose of the Burmese band Iron Cross and a report about Darfur (though that’s kind of an apples-and-bazookas comparison—would you rather read a short story or hear a dying child scream?).
It’s my intention to go out and buy her recent short story collection as soon as possible. Here’s a clip of her reading from it last year. Not only is her reading good, but for some reason, you also get to hear Becky Stark cracking wise!
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