AVQ&A: Part 1

If I could only read one web site for the rest of my life, it would be The Onion's non-satirical entertainment page, the A.V. Club. I love how their staffers creatively and intelligently discuss all manner of pop culture with little pretension, and I especially dig their weekly feature, the AVQ&A, "where we throw out a question for discussion among the staff and readers. Consider this a prompt to compare notes on your interface with pop culture, to reveal your embarrassing tastes and experiences, and to ponder how our diverse lives all led us to convene here together."

I'm a lurker, not a commenter. Still, since the Q&A began last September, I've routinely answered their questions in my mind, and considered exploiting 'em for my own blog fodder. So now's the time. Here are my responses to their first six inquiries...

9/12/08: What was the first album you bought with your own money? It was a soundtrack, either Saturday Night Fever or Grease, but both were Xmas gifts for my mom. The first album I bought just for myself -- a cassette -- was Foreigner's 4, mainly because "Urgent" was to me, well, urgent. I still dig that cover... As for singles, I bought Chic and Anita Ward disco discs as holiday presents for my big sisters, though the first 45 I got just for me was the Surfaris' "Wipe Out," which I bought at Payless and played over and over. I no longer own it, but it's a tune I still love.

9/18/08: What's your most-rewatched movie? All time? A tossup between Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Raising Arizona and The Big Lebowski. Recently, The Dark Knight.

9/25/08: What one book would you most like to make the rest of the world read? Evel Incarnate: The Life and Legend of Evel Knievel.

10/2/08: What canceled-before-its-time TV show do you miss the most? Chris Elliott's Get a Life, though that could easily be remedied by a DVD release of the complete 35-episode series.

10/9/08: What was your most embarrassing early celebrity crush? Farrah Fawcett. This cleavage-y 1977 magazine cover was entirely responsible. Boobs.

10/17/08: What is the best live music show you've ever been to? There's no one standout, but I've had great times at the many Girl Trouble and Mudhoney shows I've attended over the years, and I'll never forget the first time I saw the Replacements (in 1989), the Cramps and Sonic Youth (separately in 1990), the Rolling Stones (1994), and the Detroit Cobras (2002), among others.

10/23/08: What was your most disappointing concert experience? The Ramones, Seattle's Paramount Theater, 1990. Having played It's Alive and their other albums many times, and being plenty familiar with their well-documented shtick (the loud fast tunes, the 1-2-3-4s, the leather jackets and torn jeans, the pinhead, etc.), I pretty much predicted everything I wound up experiencing (except for spotting members of Girl Trouble in the first few rows)... Runner-up is the reunited Stooges show at Bumbershoot in 2005, as I felt I pretty much already saw the same show on the then-recent Live in Detroit DVD... I still love both bands, but at both concerts, my expectations were too high and the results were underwhelming.

10/30/08: What was your most memorable Halloween costume? The Ben Cooper Batman rig I rocked on Halloween '73. I continued wearing it for months afterwards, 'til it was in shreds.

To be continued, okay?