I got a comment on an article once that said "Fuck Chuck Klostermand and his bullshit intellectualism, Cook is the new crown prince of music journalism" and who am I to disagree with SeductiveBarry's astute assessment? Ever since then, though, I've had a weird rivalry with Chuck Klosterman that, much like the romances exacted and protracted in this book, is completely one sided with myself as the hopeless loser, so outclassed that my opponent is likely unaware there is even a contest going on.

I read this book in spurts over the last 6 months, basically a chapter or two every time I found myself at the bookstore for an extended period of time which has allowed me to slowly digest what is wrong with it:
1) For a critic, he has rather pedestrian tastes in music. His insight is honest and dead-on, but his subject matter generally seems undeserving of the pedestal he erects.
2) This book is near wholesale rip-off of Ross McElwee's rather singular film Sherman's March, which came out 20 years before this book. Both follow through on a preposterous, dubious quest (Klosterman visits the sites of rock star deaths, McElwee retraces Sherman's march to Atlanta) only to use it as a vehicle for visiting old girlfriends and then sitting in hotel rooms reminiscing about them. But that is excusable, in that anyone with a soul and any creative talent wants to do their own Sherman's March after seeing it. McElwee is more insightful, but Klosterman is funnier and ultimately more human in the end.

What's right about it is more important:
1) He is funny as hell, up there with David Sedaris and John Waters as the funniest modern writers talking about their art/selves.
2) This book makes me want to write more, and write more about writing, and then write more about that unafraid of how meta one can go before one finally implodes. I wanted to tear through the ending so I could write this. but, most of all
3) He can project his heart with pinpoint accuracy on the reader. You fall in love with these woman that you feel you fail to know very well in the same way he fails to know them. He can make a Beckett scene out of being stoned in a Montana hotel laundromat and classical literature out of Def Lepperd .
4) He's a good enough writer that he made me write this in pathetic mimicry of the tone of the book.

"Flipping back and forth on the rental car radio between an '80's Retro Weekend!' and an uber-conventional classic rock station, I hear the following three songs in sequence: 'Mr. Roboto,' 'Jumpin' Jack Flash,' and a popular ballad from the defunct hair metal band Extreme. Well, that settles it: Styx and Stones may break my bones, but 'More Than Words' will never hurt me." -- on page 132

Ostensibly an assignment - during his time as a columnist for SPIN magazine circa the summer of 2003 - regarding visiting the death sites of rock musicians (Buddy Holly in Clear Lake, Iowa or Kurt Cobain in Seattle, Washington, et al.), author Klosterman instead sort of delivers something akin to an early 21st century version of Steinbeck's Travels With Charley with his witty, often touching, and occasionally deep Killing Yourself to Live. Setting forth from New York City in a rental car - "Death rides a pale horse, but I shall ride a silver Ford Taurus" he quips - that he christened with the Star Wars-related moniker 'Tauntaun' (just as Steinbeck adorned his green GMC-model truck/camper with the Quixotic-name 'Rocinante'), Klosterman solitarily crosses the continental U.S. to converse with the various folks he meets along the way while also pondering the crossroads of his unresolved romantic life, which involves three women from different regions. Some of the book's best moments are when things happen naturally and/or as a result of those happy accidents - such as the sincere literature-based conversation with an astute young waitress in North Carolina, or an old barfly providing some increasingly odd-sounding but otherwise genuine lifestyle advice in a small town in North Dakota - amongst Klosterman's requisite and sometimes random thoughts on the American popular music scene. While I didn't appreciate his scathing take on Elvis Presley - and I get it that not EVERYONE is a fan like me - there were other times that he slyly hit the proverbial bullseye, whether it was how U.S. adolescent guys routinely gravitate towards Led Zeppelin fandom (guilty as charged!), examining the fascinating misfire resulting from the four original KISS members intentionally all releasing solo albums in 1978, or a reminder of how Nirvana's popularity was waning against Pearl Jam in 1994 until their frontman's tragic suicide sadly reversed that course. This one was a little more personal in nature than some of Klosterman's usual essay collection style - harkening back to the excellent Fargo Rock City, which introduced me to his writing in 2020 - and when it was good it was really good.

Ibland, ganska ofta, maler Chuck på om nåt helt sjukt tråkigt band som jag aldrig kommer orka googla och det känns som om ögonlocken blir tyngre och tyngre
men så
BAM
skriver han nåt som är SÅ KUL eller SÅ SANT.

Så man förlåter honom. Sen börjar det om igen med nåt annat band.

Let me start by saying I generally like my job. Sure, there are days where I show up and can't wait to go home, but in general, it's alright. That being said. I work in a cubicle for a big corporation in Austin, TX. I _am_ what the movie Office Space is about. When that movie first started to gain cult status, every fucking person I worked with would say "Oh, man, that movie is about me." Really? Really? You just quit going to work one day? And then you asked out waitress? And then you stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from your employer? And then you quit your job and went to work construction? Because if not, I'm pretty sure that movie is not "about you." But ANYWAY, if I were to follow my Office Space journey it would not end with a burned down building and me shoveling crap into a wheelbarrow, it would end with me being Chuck Klosterman. Now, I have neither the desire nor the talent nor the skill nor the inclination to really do what he does. I mean, the sitting around all day doing drugs and drinking beer and writing about whatever bullshit popped in my head, that I think I could do. But the work it actually requires to write good (sic) and intersting is not really all that appealing to me. So thanks, Chuck, for following the dream that I am too lazy to.

But, seriously, KISS? You love KISS?

It's just like the dust jacket says: feels like you're having a conversation with one of your closest drinking buddies on all things pop culture. Fun read for sure, though I can't imagine reading another Klosterman novel for at least 6 months.

Chuck Klosterman is like my guilty pleasure. He took a story he was writing for a magazine article and stretched it out into a 270 page book! I think I like him because he writes; how my mind works....one thing reminds him of something else, which leads him to something else and next thing you know he's off talking about something entirely different but relates it all together. The overall plot is O.K....but that's not really the point. I have a few favorite parts... One of them being how "Kid A" is the official soundtrack of 9/11 and if you listen to it in it's entirety (as I am right now) it documents that days events through the music, even know that album came out in 2000. My other favorite part is his theory on how everyone goes through a similar "Led Zeppelin phase" in their life (1998-1999 for me) and that every straight man born after the year 1958 has at least one point in his life when he believes Led Zeppelin is the only good band that ever existed, and no other rock group can ever generate this same experience. Pure genius!

It took me a while to get through this book, but I found it entertaining and lol-ed at parts. It was unlike my usual type of book, not your typical autobiography/biography either. I loved the premise and the different sites the author visited were cool. The author is very blunt and doesn’t hesitate to give his opinion, which I find refreshing!

Chuck Klosterman.....not sure how to describe this. He's. He's a stream of consciousness writer which can be hit or miss with me. For example, I hate Charles Bukowski, but I tend to like Henry Miller. I think Chuck Klosterman is snarkier and much funnier than the former and as interesting as the latter. It's hard for me to credit stream of consciousness writers with much as they pride themselves on writing off the top of their heads. They're like buying a square mile of ocean from a chef and agreeing you'll eat whatever you find in there and attribute the tastiest mouthfuls to the previous owner. That said, I'm delighted by him. He's sort of a post-modern naturalist romantic. He's living in a world which isn't anything like the world of the 19th century poet -- it's hard to explain but he doesn't think that he will never see a poem as lovely as a tree. That said, he sees meaning -- almost desperately -- in everything around him. All of his relationships, rock music, drug addled exchanges, chance encounters with random people. And when I wasn't laughing at his writing, I was finding meaning in them too. Unless I thought they were just pointless. Which also happens. But for me, not much.

I was disappointed. Klosterman has always been a super self-aware writer making interesting commentary on pop culture, often bringing a philosphical element that I certainly haven't seen before, but this goes to levels of ridiculousness in this book.

On the surface this looks like an interesting story (85% of a true one) that involves his search for the sites where rock stars died - the assignment was for an article, but as his cross country search wears on, he finds he can only think about the women in his life and how they remind him of members of the band KISS.

I have trouble deciding if the chapter where these women have an imaginary argument with him, where one even says that they all speak in his voice in his syntax because he's the one controlling / editing the whole conversation, was brilliant(and I didn't really get it), or if it was simply tedious.

This all might have been a very satisfying read for someone else (perhaps someone who knows more about rock & roll), but not for me.

i realized very early on in this book that i don't like chuck klosterman very much and that i did not need to read about his relationships with hot babes, his search for hot babes, or about the hot babe he was drunk with who dangerously climbed upon a roof top, while he sat there and thought about how weird and exciting it would be if she plummeted to her death, all the while hoping he was going to "get lucky." grrrrr.

also, i don't trust a music writer who, though my age, has never ever bought a vinyl record, and is proud of that. i mean, c'mon ...

there are nice moments here, but they are overwhelmed by all the things that are ... not nice. and the anti-climactic climax is anti-climactic. if you're going to vaguely fictionalize a half-baked idea, at least give me a startling ending.
grrr.

This felt like my first long form go around with CK and he delivered. (Pretty sure I’ve read “sex drugs and cocoa puffs”, but only about a million yrs ago.)

What a wistful and gnarly road trip punctuated with punchy pop philosophy at the end of nearly every paragraph. I was hooked. But I think it also helps that I’m a fan of rock-n-roll who’s had her fair share of fallings out with lovers ❤️

Reads like a love-sick, 13-year-old's memoir. Still, funny in parts, but not as good as Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs.