Hey Rube (1.5 stars)
By Hunter S. Thompson, $23
Ponder the process by which Hunter S. Thompson became the world's premier Hunter S. Thompson imitator. Drugs, of course. Booze, undoubtedly. But also: cheap notoriety. Somewhere after his book on the '72 campaign, he became a brand, Gonzo™. He could retail his garish persona without doing the hard work—reporting, sentence-crafting—that was always the underrated key to his greatness. It's been downhill since. This book, a collection of rants on sports, politics and culture from his erratic column on ESPN's website, is another Gonzo™ product rollout: all hopped-up spleen, very little real soul. It wouldn't be out of place in an alt-weekly in Akron.
DVDs
The Complete Gidget Collection (NR) (2 stars)
Sandra Dee, Deborah Walley, Cindy Carol, James Darren
Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment; $27.95
Four years before Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon got sand in their suits, Sandra Dee and James Darren launched the Surfing for Dummies craze with Gidget, about a wannabe surfer girl stalking studly wave-wrangler Moondoggie. Also included are sequels Gidget Goes Hawaiian, with Deborah Walley in the title role, and Gidget Goes to Rome, starring Cindy Carol, an unknown then and now. Campy fun, but unforgivably, not released in their original wide-screen aspect.
The Trouble With Girls, Speedway, Spinout, Harum Scarum, Double Trouble, It Happened at the World's Fair (Various ratings) (2 stars)
Elvis Presley, Nancy Sinatra, Mary Ann Mobley, Shelley Frabares
Warner Home Video; $14.97
Need a theme for your next party? Ask the cats to come as their favorite Movie Elvis —Vance Reno, Danny Fisher, Pacer Burton—and the dolls as his fab girlfriends, then play these '60s musical adventures. After the army, Jailhouse Rock Elvis became Generic Elvis: a good-hearted, singing rebel, as fast with his fists as he was with the honeys. Forty years later, these titles easily qualify as guilty pleasures.
BOOKS
Trees are dying from anti-Bush sentiment as the volume of president-bashing volumes increases. How are they selling? As ranked by Amazon.com:
37 —
Losing America, Robert C. Byrd
40 —
Obliviously On He Sails, Calvin Trillin
78 —
Worse Than Watergate, John Dean
111 —
Against All Enemies, Richard Clark
169 —
House of Bush, House of Saud, Craig Unger
728 —
The Price of Loyalty, Ron Suskind
1,133 —
American Dynasty, Kevin Phillips
3,037 —
Bush Must Go, Bill Press
4,083 —
The Lies of George W. Bush, David Corne
4,461 —
The Bush-Haters Handbook, Jack Huberman
6,394 —
The Book on Bush, Alterman, Green and Green
30,153 —
Stop Bush in 2004, Michael John Dobbins
56,571 —
The I Hate George W. Bush Reader, Clint Willis
5 Reasons to attend First Friday Despite the Heat
1. You can't truly appreciate the viscosity of oil paint until you've watched a canvas drip on the floor.
2. Cheap red wine takes on a unique taste at a room temperature of 92 degrees.
3. Sweaty bodies rubbing in narrow halls brings solidarity to the arts community.
4. Watching wood sculptures burst into flames is fun.
5. Artsy chicks wearing less!
CD
bydeathsdesign (3 stars)
Don't Test the Universe
One of the top acts in the Vegas hard-core scene proves how it got there: tight riffs, in-your-face vocals and a strong sense of urgency. The production on the band's debut is solid, and the songs are well-constructed, if indistinguishable from each other and most other hard-core bands out there.