this guys really fucking hateful, I went to his website and looked at some of his other stuff, heres a piece that he did about Kurt Cobain

Nirvana broke up
Kurt's bass player and drummer
Work at McDonald's

I wonder if Hole
Was named after the cavern
Kurt blew through his head?'

Musical genius?
Voice of a generation?
Or dead blond asshole?

The world will miss him
The world will mourn Kurt Cobain
The world is stupid

He played his guitar
Sang of alienation
Wish I'd shot him first

A sensitive guy
Wore dresses, asked to be raped
Worms crawl in his ass

How many Cobains
Must die to end the madness?
At least two more, right?

Courtney's such a bitch
She won't share her heroin
Junkie brains go SPLAT!

Grunge king hates his life
Frances Bean's dad goes bye-bye
12-gauge in the mouth

Call this nirvana?
Psycho wife, screaming daughter
Give me hell instead

I'm always depressed
I play depressing music
Guess I'll kill myself

Smells like teen spirit?
No, smells like a dead body
Entertain us NOW

Boo-hoo, Kurt is dead
Let's hope Gen X follows suit
Or at least Miss Love

Dead junkie rock star
Mistaken as a poet
By youthful retards

"I'm not gonna crack"
Sang Cobain in "Lithium"
Guess what? Cobain cracked

Been dead for a year
Don't miss Seattle at all
Stomach feels better





plus he went to jail after he pleaded guilty for beating his girlfriend

Just a few quick things on this...

One...I really thought the article was less a slam on Joe Strummer and more a comment on how we look at our stars...and I think it points some hypocracy in art that we take for granted. Strummer makes an interesting study because he was given a pass on his background that often performers aren't granted. Would he be given the same pass in today's world?

Two...Just beause the guy beat his wife, which I disagree with, doesn't mean that we just cast anything else he has to say aside and that somehow negates any argument he can make on any subject. He served his time, why dwell on it? If we eliminated people from discourse because of individual acts which we find reprehensible, we'd end up with some pretty boring discourse, and we would have eliminated many great idea throughout history by people who were far less than perfect.

Three...I thought the Kurt Cobain haikus were hysterical. I find a guy witht the world at his feet blowing his brains out and leaving behind a wife and child, the wife somehow getting villified the whole time for his selfish action, is much more offensive than someone making crude jokes.

It's an excellent point, but given the two pieces pasted into the thread, it seems sacred-cow-slaughter is Goad's only schtick. The underground lie is a better and more powerful piece, and I agree with a lot of it. Unfortunately, it's also the same counter-counterculture trick of his same Strummer and Cobain pieces. Is there a place for it? Absolutely. I just think it would be more effective with a suggested alternative-to-the-alternative. It's a lot easier to say something sucks rather than offer solutions.

I'm not saying that we should disregard what he said because he hit his girlfriend or that he wasn't at least a little right in the cobain hiaku, I was just saying that he is really hateful which he pretty much admits to on his website. For some reason I found this guy to be interesting so I read some more of his piece and almost all of them just seemed to be about what he thought was stupid or what he didn't like which isn't really constructive and is mostly just ranting, plus in the interview he was talking about how good it felt to see the blood pouring out of her nose

I'm not a defender of all things Goad. But, while I agree with Sketch's point that it is easier to tear down without offereing alternatives, I also think that he does have some interesting points that he makes in much of what he writes. In particular, his stuff about race is interesting and while it doesn't offer a solution to a problem that no one else has been able to solve either, he does point in some directions, especially in relation to having a truly open and honest dialogue rather than a stilted one where certain subjects are taboo and people talk so carefully that they say nothing. And his review of Gay Hamburgers was pretty damn funny.

And, I think the biggest appeal for me is he does often take on subjects like race and class that are often either dismissed by the right wing or talked around in such polite and boring tones by the left. Maybe the language seems theatrical and pumped up for shock value to some, but frankly I know a lot more people that talk like that than I do who speak elequoently at length like some college professor. So, I find the style more easily digestable and more pleasant to read.

I think my biggest problem with Goad is that I can't tell how much of what he says is satire and how much he actually believes, because if he is largely sincere then he's a pretty loathsome person