Classic or Dud: Chuck Klosterman

(not that i'm saying that i think he's unethical, but that until now his shtick seems to be explicitly non-ethical)

it's like an advice column where people write in and are like "i was at a coffee shop and I got up for a second and someone took my seat." and then the ethicist advises them on the appropriate course of action.

oh, in that case i'm sure he'll do great

I usually avoid the Ethicist column like the plague - too much portentous solemnizing and faux-certitude - but I'll probably check it out now, just out of curiosity. Maybe Klosterman will be able to deliver his sermons with enough of a wink to lighten the mood.

"Best known for his Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs collection" Really? That's his biggest book?

which other one is more popular?

Fargo?

nah. i'm sure this isn't scientific but fargo is #42,378 on amazon, sd&c is #9,032

sd&c was the one seth cohen read.

^^^^ important influence

Huh, well there you go, can't argue with sales. I always thought Fargo was the one that made his name and then Killing Yourself to Live cemented his rep. Those seem to me like original, substantial books even now, whereas S,D&CP is a hideously titled collection of glib, dated essays. Much prefer the less schticky Klosterman IV - he's underrated as an interviewer. I prefer seeing him do interesting things with a format as unpromising as, say, a Wilco profile for Spin, rather than going the full Klosterman with the kind of flip bullshit that used to fill his Esquire columns (the one about why people hate America being a low). So, um, basically I like him best when he’s not doing the thing that has made him one of the most successful journalists in America.

S,D&CP is my least favorite of his books (haven't read the fiction) because it indulges in a lot more faux-generational/"we all do this, and if you don't you're a self-hating liberal" bullshit that unfortunately tends to do better than the more openly idiosyncratic essays in his later books and Fargo.

"i'm a weirdo obsessed with a facet of pop culture" just doesn't sell as well as "we are the generation obsessed with a facet of pop culture"

The podcast that Grantland posted yesterday - a conversation between he and Joe Walsh - has so many moments where he disappears up his own ass trying to find a point. But it's Joe Walsh, so it has a certain nutty charm despite Klosterman.

From way upthread

A couple months back they featured Klosterman, and the first book he plugs is Atlas Shrugged

I am shocked that this ambitious, successful, reactionary writer loves Ayn Rand.

pretty much everything this guy does in public (and in private for all i know) is an unmitigated disaster, so i guess... good luck NYT?

The podcast that Grantland posted yesterday - a conversation between he and Joe Walsh - has so many moments where he disappears up his own ass trying to find a point. But it's Joe Walsh, so it has a certain nutty charm despite Klosterman.

they certainly share "life is good" as a philosophy.

xp Should retitle it The Challopsian or What Would Axl Do?

Alfred - they go through that song LINE BY LINE.

"Did you own a Maserati?

Not then, but I do now.

You lost your license --

I lost my whole wallet!"

It's strangely funny.

You lost your license --

I lost my whole wallet!

^^lol i would love to kick it with joe walsh

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_JErXQWk0cgM/TPOV8AKJXqI/AAAAAAAAAxk/hF31n2l1dTk/s1600/SoWhatJoeWalsh.jpg

pretty terrible: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/magazine/halfhearted-half-brother.html

Joe Walsh is so rad. He's got my vote!

Well in a way Klosterman's probably going to make that column more honest, by dispensing with the pretense and making it indistinguishable from Dear Abby.

It will still, of course, be terrible.

i don't see anything terrible in that column Mordy posted

"oh noes the dude known for saved by the bell riffs didnt use the catergorical imperative in an advice column about sick cats, emmanual kant is spinning in his FUCKING GRAVE!!!!"

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/06/10/magazine/10ethicist/10ethicist-articleInline.jpg

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/06/10/magazine/10ethicist/10ethicist-articleInline.jpghttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/06/10/magazine/10ethicist/10ethicist-articleInline.jpghttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/06/10/magazine/10ethicist/10ethicist-articleInline.jpghttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/06/10/magazine/10ethicist/10ethicist-articleInline.jpghttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/06/10/magazine/10ethicist/10ethicist-articleInline.jpg

mordy otm

i guess i dont read enough newspaper columns where randos tell me how to live my life to know if this is terrible or not

everyone's very aware of yr aversion to reading

frightening to think that klosterman got this gig off of that ridiculous at the time even more hilarious in retrospect 'breaking bad is better than the wire cuz the wire is liberal and breaking bad is serious moral show cuz good guy turns out to be bad guy' grantland piece.

You can’t love someone out of guilt.

sizable portion of the NYT readership will beg to differ

http://rgr-static1.tangentlabs.co.uk/images/bau/97815986/9781598693416/0/0/plain/portable-jewish-mother-guilt-food-and-when-are-you-giving-me-grandchildren.jpg

frightening to think that klosterman got this gig off of that ridiculous at the time even more hilarious in retrospect 'breaking bad is better than the wire cuz the wire is liberal and breaking bad is serious moral show cuz good guy turns out to be bad guy' grantland piece.

― balls, Sunday, June 10, 2012 11:25 AM (23 minutes ago)

oh my god, had never read this

It makes sense that they would hire Klosterman, because they need young readers, and young people love Klosterman. He is very in tune with young people, so will speak to them. And they will listen, because it is Klosterman, voice of a generation, who will be familiar to everyone of that generation, which is young and likes young things and especially young people telling them the best ways to go about doing young things and solving young problems in a voice they understand, because they are young and generally don't listen unless someone is speaking to them in a language they understand. Plus there was the time he reviewed "Chinese Democracy."

Was Joel Stein too busy?

in that ethicist column a guy asks if he should be welcoming to his disliked half-sister because of her loneliness and need for companionship -- he explicitly says "does someone else’s desire for connection .. outweigh my personal preference?" -- and chuck spends three paragraphs explaining why the guy does not need to be welcoming to his half-sister merely because she is related to him.

i actually thought that was the least bad of the 3

well yeah it did not include the part where he explains that the way you know it's ok to own a pet but not ok to own a human is that it is currently socially acceptable to give away a pet. ethics!

okay, this is pretty weird

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8624514/chuck-klosterman-david-petraeus-scandal-living-cia-conspiracy-theory

looks like it's just a coincidence but still, what if....what if....

It's a sign of something.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/chuck-klosterman-corners-guy-at-party-wearing-dio,33615/

I had a funny exchange with my dad a few weeks ago. He said, "Who's this terrible guy they have writing the Ethicist column now? It was always kind of bad, not now it's awful!" He'd never heard of Chuck Klosterman, so I gave him an abbreviated spiel on Klosterman and his crimes. He said, "OK, but that doesn't explain why they gave him this column." I had to agree.

The Onion article about Klosterman/Dio is utter genius.

Listening to him on Bill Simmon’s podcast this week, and his tales are mostly so...dated.

I’ll never forget him being on Simmons pod back in fall 2015 and predicting Trump’s popularity would peak in Feb 2016 and then it’d be downhill after that. In fairness at the time I thought he was actually overestimating Trump’s prospects.

the new podcast looks dire

was there ever a more certain "dud"

this should've been a defend the indefensible thread

The episode of I Don't Even Own a Television on him a while back was good, though it made me embarrased for ever having read and enjoyed any of his stuff way back when--though admittedly it was just the one Billy Joel piece I liked (and not the one that Billy himself was pissed about).

Came across this, took me back to an earlier ILM era

Perhaps the best insight into the world’s fascination with the band came in a Chuck Klosterman 2002 Spin magazine article. First of all, he pointed out that they were no novelty band. In fact, their music was genuinely revelatory. He wrote, “The White Stripes have done what great rock bands are supposed to do — they’ve reinvented the blues with contemporary instincts.”