Bastards of Young

The Replacements were a big part of my college years. I first heard their catalog of music after moving to Minneapolis in 1987. Granted, by that time they had released their final album with their original lineup and they were no longer playing local clubs. But their music was still revolutionary to me in the ways that Paul Westerberg's lyrics and Bob Stinson's guitar work made me think that music could still be great and fresh even without popular radio help.

This summer I spent a couple days reading Jim Walsh's "All Over But the Shouting" about the Replacements 1979-1992. The book consisted of interviews that were printed prior in various publications and interviews that Walsh did himself. It was a book that I've been meaning to read since it came out almost two years ago, but as they say 'The best laid plans...'. Anyway, I wanted to read it for quite a while.

Before I give my thumbs-up/down on it, I should admit I'm biased regarding the author. Walsh worked as the music editor at City Pages and the St. Paul Pioneer-Press (when I was there in 1996). He was also a musician of a minor note during the same period that the Replacements were playing local clubs. I never found Walsh's writing coherent or particularly insightful. His writing style comes across as the aborted love fetus of Lester Bangs and Virginia Woolf -- that is self-indulgent stream-of-consciousness B.S. I was less interested in knowing about Jim's personal mindset than I was in knowing what Wilco's set list was on their last show at First Avenue.

Walsh nearly sprains his shoulder patting himself on the back early in the book by placing himself as Westerberg's muse for the song "Unsatisfied". Several sentences later he writes that he didn't add that anecdote to make readers think he had any part in Westerberg's song, but you can't have it both ways my friend.

Walsh's book was without a narrative string. It merely consisted of one interview linked to another. Overall, the book disappointed me and I was left hoping that Walsh could have hit a homerun on this one -- even though I didn't expect it. His best work dealt with Bob Stinson's death (presumably due to a drug overdose) in Uptown. Walsh printed the eulogy that he wrote for Stinson's funeral and it was admittedly touching.

Despite the Replacements local ties, I never met or spoke to any of the band's members over a beer at a local tavern. Bob was the closest. I would see him occasionally at local establishments and his drug issues and mental instability were apparent. His mother still works at the Uptown Bar on Hennepin. I remember one time I was there having a beer with a friend and we were discussing famous rock-and-roll flameouts. I mentioned how Stinson's death seemed inevitable. I probably was talking too loud because a woman (I later found out was his mother) brought us our beers and said to us "Well, we did the best we could."

The Death of the American Dream: A documentary

“Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson” is an interesting look at one of the most interesting, er, ‘non-fiction’ writers in American letters. The film, directed by Alex Gibney, has a limited release and made it to the Twin Towns a week ago. What I found interesting was that, in an obvious paean to the founder of Gonzo Journalism (a sub-set of the New Journalism movement of the mid-late sixties), the film wasn’t a complete over-the-top gushing about the man. The film not only examined his talents (“Hell’s Angels” ranks among my top non-fiction novels all time), and his excesses (drugs, guns, alcohol, and did I mention drugs and alcohol?), but his failures and his diminished abilities toward the end of his life.
Among the really great interviews in the movie were Tom Wolfe and Pat Buchanon. Buchanon, who was Nixon’s speechwriter when Thompson was on the capitol beat during the early 70s, showed a particularly dry wit and appreciation for Thompson’s writing talents. Wolfe credited Thompson with supplying audio tapes of Ken Kesey’s rolling party with the Merry Prankster’s for his seminal work “The Electric Acid Kool-Aid Test.” Democratic candidate George McGovern and Jimmy Carter were also included among the interviews on the life of Thompson. Thompson’s best work culminated in “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail,” which was a compilation of his work for Rolling Stone during the 1972 presidential primaries, and the book that became required reading for every pot-smoking college freshman “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”. The crushing loss of McGovern, and subsequent writing failures -- the Ali fight in Zaire in which he got loaded and failed to show up and cover the event – were part of his spiral downward.
Thompson, according to RS Publisher Jann Wenner and Wolfe, was caught in a box that he created. He could no longer cover events because he was bigger than the events themselves. Coupled with that, his drinking and drug use was taking a toll on his writing acuity. His final years were Hunter covering Hunter. As much fun as the man’s persona seemed, he was in essence a sad man who couldn’t deal with diminishing skills and an inability to publish the great American novel.
One of the strangest points in the film was when Thompson’s son, Juan, was interviewed about his father’s death. Apparently it was a sunny winter day in Woody Creek, CO, when Hunter took a gun to his head and ended his life. Juan stoically recalled the day as being very peaceful and that his father undoubtedly chose the setting to end his life. Juan, in a very odd choice of words, called it “a warm family moment.”
Thompson ended his life in the same way that his hero, Earnest Hemingway, ended his. Still, as his first wife Sandi said, for fans who thought that Thompson’s act was one of strength, they were mistaken. Sandi said that Thompson’s act was cowardice and that he left while the battle was still at hand. His weaponry of words, according his ex-wife, could be useful today as the failures of the Bush Administration roll on.

Frank McCourt's "Teacher Man"

I finally got a chance to read a couple books that I’ve been meaning to get to. The first one was Frank McCourt’s “Teacher Man” and the other one was Jim Walsh’s story on The Replacements, “All Over but the Shouting.”

McCourt, who came to America as a teen-ager from Ireland, taught in New York public high schools for three decades. During the time he was dismissed from a couple positions and ran into pretty much the same issues that every other high school teacher has run into. There wasn’t as much sex, drugs and alcohol as I remember my students talking about, but maybe he just left those things out as a matter of taste.

Although the book was published several years back, my reading list is quite dated. Both my sister and wife had both read the book and while my wife didn’t like it, my sister said that I should read it. My sister taught in public schools in Milwaukee for several years as a speech pathologist. She’s since left schools to a stay-at-home mom. My wife felt the book was too negative and that he didn’t even seem to enjoy being a teacher.

There was a larger point that McCourt was making, however, and I didn’t take it as being an overly negative image of education in general. Any person who has spent time in a classroom has felt his frustration with the students’ unwillingness to learn for learning sake – cripes they’re teen-agers after all, a bunch of rock-head phy-ed teachers for administrators, negligent parents, or helicopter parents who NEED to have smoke blown up their asses regarding their children’s academic abilities. It’s enough to drive you to drinking. And, of course, it has. Still, there is a sweet undercurrent to McCourt’s path as a teacher. Eventually he developed his teaching voice and recounted a few of the students who affected his life in very meaningful ways. Overall, I thought the book was a powerfully strong voice in favor of teaching. I don’t know if McCourt realized how strongly he felt about teaching until he left. Oh yeah, he wrote a book or two after he left teaching and didn’t have all of those ungraded essays staring at him.