Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs

Have you read the book Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by the hilarious and stunningly witty Chuck Klosterman? Well... you should. I've recently moved homes and in the process of unpacking I find myself getting caught up reading [long] passages from some of my favorite books. It makes for an entirely too long unpacking process. I first read Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs the summer before starting a Media and Communication program. Suffice to say, I started the program with inquisitive, critical eyes. It is an astounding analysis of media and pop culture. In a round about sort of way, what I am saying is, it is a great book.

But, why would I decide to share this tidbit with you, reader, on a music blog? While flipping through Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs I came across something that I thought was not only funny, but completely fantastic. I find hilarity in the following Klosterman passage for a few reasons; 1. parts of what Klosterman is saying surfaced in a conversation between Greg and myself yesterday- in reference to conversation with people who know nothing about anything, 2. I feel slightly akin to the mentioned music geeks, 3. given the case that I had an IQ north of 140, the mentioned conclave would describe my zion. Enjoy this small excerpt.

"I used to think there was nothing worse than being trapped in a conversation with someone who knows absolutely nothing about anything. However an acquaintance taught me this wasn't true. 'There's one thing worse than talking to a person who knows about nothing,' he said, 'and that's talking to someone who know about nothing except music'. You know the kind to which my friend refers. You've met him at underattended rock concerts and in empty downtown taverns, and he inevitably adores the Moody Blues. But try to imagine if one of those people was so adroit at being singularity obsessive that he actually got paid for it. Imagine if the weirdo who seems to live in your nearest locally owned record store suddenly had a 152 IQ and a degree from Tufts. And now imagine a hundred of those people coming together for four rainy days in Seattle, all of them totally fucking stoked for the opportunity to compare The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society with Danish physicist Niels Bohr's field theory on radioactive decay.

I was one of those people.

Now, let me be completely clear about something: I had a wonderful time at EMP. I'm precisely the supergeek who enjoys forty-minute conversations about side three of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music album. The pencil-necked eggheads at 'Crafting Sounds, Creating Meanings' are-sadly-my people."

- Chuck Klosterman, Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs