Killing Yourself To Live...85% Of A True Story

Don't worry, I haven't gone all "American" and have come up with some ghastly manifesto about being 15% dead (or something) but just wanted to bring the book I'm currently reading to your attention. Chuck Klosterman seems to have attained some sort of status of "geek cool" (did I just make that term up?) in the pop culture world by writing about, er, pop culture. You might recall Seth Cohen in The O.C clutching a copy of 'Sex, Drugs And Cocoa Puffs' around with him in various times of trouble ("Why does no one, specifically you Summer Roberts, love me? At least I have my book to turn to for solace". That's not actual dialogue but you get the picture). Thanks to an error at my local library, my copy of the aforementioned has yet to turn up (cheers, Tompkins Square Park branch) though it does seem to result in my bumping into my "mate" (i.e I had a meeting with him once) Alan Cumming whenever I'm in the area. Actually, that's probably worth a posting in its own right so I shall go back on topic...

ANYWAY (as Chuck himself would write), Klosterman has been described as, "the reigning Kasparov of pop culture wits-watching" (what does that even mean? That he knows what he's going to write about in four articles time now?) and discovering his columns in Spin and Esquire has been a literary highlight of my time over here. For a music writer, Klosterman perversely agrees with the argument that his job is simply, "writing about your mail", and this sets him apart from his worthy wordsmith peers. Chuck's latest book finds him attempting to visit the various locations in this fine country where musicians have taken their own lives...but with musings on our author's own worries and theories. It won't be for everyone but if the notion of imagining how your own sudden death might get relayed to your friends and family sounds appealing (of course, I hope you're in fine health) or the devoting of six pages to how Radiohead's 'Kid A' (in Klosterman's opinion) seems to have predicted 9/11, then you should probably stop reading this drivel and open up the pages of his far more eloquent work. If I was doing the blurb - now there's a dream job - for "Killing Yourself To Live", I would write, "it's literally quite a trip". But I'm not so I won't. Hmm, that just might be the most post-modern passage I've ever penned.

Chuck's book takes place in the summer of 2003, which got me to thinking about what a crazy few months I had back then as my work sent me all over the world (Los Angeles! Barcelona! Washington D.C! Oldham!) in the name of "sport". Surely, I could have spun a few tales out of that but who, ultimately, would want to read it (one's own wife and family don't count)? Should I resolve then to write about the past year? Imagine: some editor somewhere will believe in my "voice", the book will come out to tumultuous praise, I'll be compared to a chess Grand Master by some Ivy League graduate and then give book readings in exotic locations before signing the words 'Best wishes' with a stylistic flourish. The press will be desperate for a follow up but I'll never bite, preferring to rest on my laurels and shall carry on being paid to visit car parks in different countries because "very important football matches are taking place there" and we all need instant replays of goals, don't we?