So yesterday I was hung over and emo, suffering from mud butt and sitting on the shitter for extended perids of time, because I was too lazy to get up and come back. I read some Joseph Conrad, but dude is always kind of a bummer: he pulled an Elliott Smith way before it was cool (he used a gun instead of a knife, and lived to write another day, but close enough). In search of something hopefully a little more uplifting, I set into the copy of Mark Oliver Everett’s Things the Grandchildren Should Know sent to me last week by the wonderful folks at St. Martin’s. Everett, of course, is better known to the masses as E, the mad genius behind rock band Eels. He is also perhaps lesser known as the son of legendary physicist Hugh Everett III, who coined the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum physics, the idea -to put it much too simply- that everything that could possibly happen is happening, and/or has already happened in some other parallel world running simultaneous in time to ours (take a bong rip of Salvia and it’ll make way more sense). Anyways, Mark Everett is definitely an interesting person, so his book sounded like some nice light Sunday reading, right? Within the first couple of pages, his sister’s boyfriend attacks him with a knife, his sister attempts suicide for the first time (it took a couple tries before she got it right) E finds his dad dead of a heart attack at 51, and contemplates suicide himself as he visualizes driving off a bridge: Not exactly Chicken Soup for the Soul. That being said though, E’s self-effacing, conversational writing style, coupled with the already stated unique aspects of his life make Things the Grandchildren Should Know the kind of book you can’t, and won’t put down (I didn’t until I fell asleep). Though I’m only halfway through, I can already tell this will be a book I’ll be including in my yearly effort to make my friends and family smarter by buying them books for Christmas. It’s up for pre-order now on Amazon, and comes out next Monday. If you’re not really a book person (which isn’t likely since you’ve read this post this far) you can also get the gist of Everett’s life in the PBS special “Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives” airing October 21st at 8 PM. Or you could just watch the video for “Novocaine for the Soul” and call it good. Your call.

NBC commentator Tim Russert died this afternoon after “being stricken” at his Washington DC office:

Russert, 58, collapsed while recording voiceovers for his Sunday morning interview program, NBC reported. He was initially reported to have suffered a heart attack while working in his office on Washington’s Nebraska Avenue, but the network said later only that he was “stricken at the bureau” and subsequently died. Further details were not immediately available.
Russert served as NBC’s Washington bureau chief and the host of “Meet the Press,” the top-rated Sunday talk show, which had an enormous influence on politics and was marked by his aggressive style of interrogation. As a frequent commentator on the “Today” show, “NBC Nightly News” and other shows, Russert wielded such clout that when he declared that Sen. Barack Obama had wrapped up the Democratic nomination last month, his pronouncement was treated as a news event in itself.
Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw gave MSNBC viewers the news of Russert’s death at 3:40 p.m.

That shit is FUCKED. Meet the Press was seriously the highlight of my Sunday.

One Rock ‘n’ Roll legend down. Bo Diddley, rest in peace.

From Wikipedia:

On May 17, 2007, Bo Diddley was reported [13] to be in intensive care in Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska, following a stroke during a concert at Council Bluffs, Iowa on May 13. He had a history of hypertension and diabetes, and tests indicated that the stroke affected the left side of his brain, impairing his speech and speech recognition. A spokeswoman said there were no further details on his condition, or how long he would be in hospital. A later report indicated that Diddley was in “guarded” condition.[14]

While recovering from the massive stroke and heart attack, he came back to his home town of (McComb) for the unveiling of a plaque, on the National Blues Trail devoted to him. The plaque stated he was “acclaimed as a founder of rock and roll.” He was not supposed to perform but as he listened to the music of local musician Jesse Robinson, who sang a song written for this occasion, Robinson sensed Bo Diddley wanted to perform and handed him a microphone. That was the first time Bo Diddley performed publicly since his stroke and heart attack.[15]

On June 2, 2008, Bo Diddley died at 79 of heart failure at his home in Archer, Florida

Bo Diddley