http://djdocrok.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/oh-snap.jpg
― deej da 5'9 (deej), Friday, 27 February 2009 17:04 (fifteen years ago) link
I see my friend's Wikipedia edit still stands:
July 2009 saw the release of Rabin's Scribner memoir "The Big Rewind: A Memoir Brought To You By Pop Culture"[4], a project that found its genesis partly in the enjoyment Rabin took in tending to and caring for his own Wikipedia entry.[5] The book uses pop culture as a springboard to discuss its author's tragi-comic adolescence as a guest of a mental hospital, a foster family whose patience and generosity he jokes "knew only strict, unyielding boundaries" and the Jewish Children's Bureau group home system as well as his career with The Onion and disastrous stint on "Movie Club With John Ridley". The book ends with a chapter about Rabin's unsuccessful audition to fill in for Roger Ebert as a guest critic on At The Movies. Scribner will also be publishing a book version of "My Year of Flops" in 2010. [6]
― Your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet (polyphonic), Tuesday, 14 July 2009 23:39 (fifteen years ago) link
wtf this is terrible news
― Then, it dawned on me: "I HAVE BEEN PLAYED!" (omar little), Tuesday, 14 July 2009 23:42 (fifteen years ago) link
So apparently Nathan Rabin put out a call on Twitter for people to host readings by him in their homes. And a friend of mine volunteered. And so now Nathan Rabin is supposedly reading at her house. (I'm invited, but it's this Saturday and I've already got plans.)
― jaymc, Thursday, 31 March 2011 15:27 (thirteen years ago) link
GHOST TWITTER
― NAME (Lamp), Thursday, 31 March 2011 15:30 (thirteen years ago) link
"Nathan Rabin is Reading at My House" doesn't really have the same ring to it
― whelping at his sandpapery best (DJP), Thursday, 31 March 2011 15:31 (thirteen years ago) link
The Ghost of Nathan Rabin is Haunting My House (My House!)
― NAME (Lamp), Thursday, 31 March 2011 15:33 (thirteen years ago) link
im not making a joke btw im voicing a persistent complaint of mine
The Onion A/V Club is so wild. Like I'm sure even people like Ann Powers and Rob Harvilla and Maura Johnston and probably anyone this side of SF/J couldn't possibly get as many eyes on their writing as the A/V Club stuff gets. Like the big "important" Fennessey/Nitsuh/Keleffah articles we pass around here dont have a fraction of the comments/eyes they have on some of the most basic listicle ish
― Slag Surfin' (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, 31 March 2011 15:37 (thirteen years ago) link
the question is, do bay area gangster rapper dudes know about the onion a/v club...
― who is john nult? (dayo), Thursday, 31 March 2011 15:41 (thirteen years ago) link
their music writing is inessential but the interviews are great
― adult music person (Jordan), Thursday, 31 March 2011 15:51 (thirteen years ago) link
the question is, are dayo's lazy zings funny to anyone but him
― timbo slice (D-40), Thursday, 31 March 2011 16:08 (thirteen years ago) link
& the answer is no
yeah i was gonna say they put out a pretty good amount of music content but the overwhelming majority (and where most of the hits come from) is more general pop culture stuff, and it's seemed like album reviews have taken up a smaller and smaller amount of real estate on the front page over the last couple years. xpost
― some dude, Thursday, 31 March 2011 16:09 (thirteen years ago) link
im not at all surprised they have such a huge readership, absent allmusic guide they were p much the only critical writing i used to see around
― timbo slice (D-40), Thursday, 31 March 2011 16:11 (thirteen years ago) link
The A/V Club's comments section is the absolute dregs
― Number None, Thursday, 31 March 2011 16:11 (thirteen years ago) link
^^ yes (i mean, first! (i mean, canceraids!))
i like to imagine Nathan Rabin someday finding this thread, coinciding with Ethan's return to ILM
― some dude, Thursday, 31 March 2011 16:12 (thirteen years ago) link
Like the big "important" Fennessey/Nitsuh/Keleffah articles we pass around here dont have a fraction of the comments/eyes they have on some of the most basic listicle ish
I detected a distinct AV Club influence in Pitchfork's unedited LCD Soundsystem data dump this week.
― da croupier, Thursday, 31 March 2011 16:16 (thirteen years ago) link
Though I'd assume people are coming for the comment-box afterparty in the AV Club rather than the blather above it
― da croupier, Thursday, 31 March 2011 16:18 (thirteen years ago) link
AV Club articles are getting to be like the SEMINARS at a gathering of the juggalos nowadays
― da croupier, Thursday, 31 March 2011 16:20 (thirteen years ago) link
the aesthetic range on offer in their CURRENT REVIEWS section is p "..."
i had no idea that the a/v club was a big thing... weird.
― NAME (Lamp), Thursday, 31 March 2011 16:22 (thirteen years ago) link
there does need to be some kind of juggalo-like term for people whose defining trait is knowing every line of dialogue ever spoken by Milhouse Van Houten (xpost)
― dayo technology (some dude), Thursday, 31 March 2011 16:24 (thirteen years ago) link
Haha OTM.
― jaymc, Thursday, 31 March 2011 16:53 (thirteen years ago) link
― da croupier, Thursday, March 31, 2011 12:16 PM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
that's otm
― Slag Surfin' (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, 31 March 2011 16:55 (thirteen years ago) link
Rabin's interview with Ghostface was one of the most hilarious disastsers I have ever seen. iirc it went mostly like this
Onion AV Club: so what are some of your favorite old soul artistsGhost: [silence]
― in my world of loose geirs (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 31 March 2011 17:03 (thirteen years ago) link
THRILLHO
― Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Thursday, 31 March 2011 17:07 (thirteen years ago) link
hahahaha
― dayo technology (some dude), Thursday, 31 March 2011 17:09 (thirteen years ago) link
AVC: What do you think is the biggest problem with hip-hop today?
GK: A lack of originality, that's it. Everybody's coming out the same.
AVC: Do you think that's changing? Is there anyone coming along right now that you're excited about?
GK: No, fuck hip-hop. I ain't feeling that shit right now. I don't even listen to hip-hop. I just do this shit because I gotta feed my family.
AVC: What do you listen to?
GK: I listen to shit. I listen to old music, man.
AVC: Like soul music?
GK: Yeah, soul music.
AVC: Who are some of your favorite soul artists?
GK: [No answer.]
― in my world of loose geirs (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 31 March 2011 17:12 (thirteen years ago) link
Ugh, Nathan Rabin.
Pretty sure that dude edits his own Wikipedia page.
― reggaeton for the painfully alone (polyphonic), Thursday, 31 March 2011 18:28 (thirteen years ago) link
You know, I think what the AV Club has been good at catering to is an audience of middlebrow pop-culture fans whose sensibility coalesced in the 1990s (around the period when the Onion itself seemed mega-smart and amazing) -- they've really stuck with that audience and sensibility, so I'm never surprised by the size of the readership. I don't mean it as an insult when I say it has that precise thirtysomething mildly-geeky thing down, like married guys in big-city suburbs in their offices IMing each other about Pixar movies and the Flaming Lips. The same audience as the Independent Film Channel, which currently runs loads of 90s sketch comedy, Portlandia, and the Onion's news show. (I say "guys" because there's something very 90s college guy about it.) It's like if Richard Roeper / Ben Mankeiwicz types, Stiller/Garafalo types, Nick Hornby, and a few Pitchfork types all rolled together into one thing, sensibility-wise, and attracted America's soon-to-be equivalent of 50 Quid Man.
― oɔsıqɐu (nabisco), Thursday, 31 March 2011 20:55 (thirteen years ago) link
oh those poor dears, they'll live and die never knowing about the avalanches
― Bleeqwot the Chef (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 31 March 2011 21:02 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah IFC's been very shrewd about buying up basically every TV show that had anything to do with Judd Apatow from 1992 to 2002 and rerunning those around the clock
― dayo technology (some dude), Thursday, 31 March 2011 21:07 (thirteen years ago) link
ugh just about everything rabin does is awful, hip-hop or no
he's going thru every simpsons episode, writes three humorless paragraphs of summary offering no insight
he's going thru every now! that's what i call music (american) cd and it's shit, not as bad as the new "this was pop" (i think) feature tho
not sure why he has the biggest profile of the avc writers
― zachlyon, Saturday, 2 April 2011 09:10 (thirteen years ago) link
he is the textbook definition of "monkeycheese"
― Slag, Saturday, 2 April 2011 09:40 (thirteen years ago) link
My Year of Flops rules pretty much across the board.
Yes the comment section is abysmal, but which comment section isn't? If I had a blog or newspaper or something, very first thing I would do is shut off comments. Who cares what some anonymous fuck thinks about an article.
(love ilx tho, but this is a message board, totally different)
― filthy dylan, Saturday, 2 April 2011 21:23 (thirteen years ago) link
Oh and the music reviews are definitely bad, but I sort of prefer them tacitly admitting "hey we're kind of boring and probably going to be way into the next National album" instead of Pitchfork pretending like they're ahead of the curve or something when really they are just psyched on the new National album. I do like the film reviews which seem to be pretty generic and fair and usually helpful.
― filthy dylan, Saturday, 2 April 2011 21:26 (thirteen years ago) link
AV Club's music arm has always felt like an afterthought compared to the film/TV stuff. The writing's average at best and their tastes make NPR look cutting-edge.
― Simon H. Shit (Simon H.), Saturday, 2 April 2011 21:40 (thirteen years ago) link
just reading his piece on julia phillips http://www.avclub.com/articles/silly-lil-show-biz-book-club-3-is-julia-phillips-h,9397/. he strikes me as having some seriously unpleasant issues with women.
― i'm not a lawyer, but i play one on a messageboard (stevie), Monday, 1 August 2011 23:03 (thirteen years ago) link
That last Nabisco post is so OTM.
― jaymc, Monday, 1 August 2011 23:09 (thirteen years ago) link
definitely. i'm impressed that they've managed to make it work, financially. but it feels hermetic in a not-very-healthy way.
― i'm not a lawyer, but i play one on a messageboard (stevie), Tuesday, 2 August 2011 07:12 (thirteen years ago) link
That last Nabisco post is so OTM.― jaymc, Monday, August 1, 2011 7:09 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
― jaymc, Monday, August 1, 2011 7:09 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
I know. I kind of what to start a thread of like "100 things in every Onion A/V Club commenter's home"
1. Muppets box set
― james blood ulver (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, 3 August 2011 15:39 (thirteen years ago) link
2. Hipster Puppies book
― Dave Zuul (Phil D.), Wednesday, 3 August 2011 15:54 (thirteen years ago) link
(sorry)
3. Nathan Rabin - The Big Rewind: A Memoir Brought To You By Pop Culture
Just kidding. Nobody bought this.
― Number None, Wednesday, 3 August 2011 15:56 (thirteen years ago) link
err, I did (kindle edition, even) and I recognize myself way too much in Nabisco's description :-(
― licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Friday, 5 August 2011 08:17 (thirteen years ago) link
I wouldn't frowny-face about that -- I'm guessing a lot of why the description rings true is that I'm basically describing friends of mine after college!
― ንፁህ አበበ (nabisco), Friday, 5 August 2011 18:23 (thirteen years ago) link
am i being super contrarian to think that its really not a big deal that dude wants to write about his experiences w/ 90s rap & that this is a little of an overreaction?
http://100hundredthousandmillion.tumblr.com/post/24214720622/boy-the-earth-used-to-talk-to
i know this is somewhat ironic considering how i arrived @ this board by arguing w/ a personal list ned made, but the fact is you'd only want to read nathan rabin's rap thoughts if you're already in the cult of nathan rabin's writing, anyway.
i also have a problem w/ the way race is used here, as if there aren't plenty of black ppl who are like "hip hop died in 1999" as well. whiteness comes into play more imo in trying to make objective, state-of-the-art claims that argue about the accuracy of your vision of history over others, less so in the simple fact of speaking to your tastes
not that rabin's piece doesn't have some wince-worthy lines about being white or w/e but, idk, maybe im getting old but i feel more like a live & let live sort of thing -- like, i feel like we already 'won' the battle & mainstream & street oriented rap is considered worthy of coverage, to the extent that rabin felt the need to come at this from a pretty clearly personal angle
― littledotheyknow (D-40), Saturday, 2 June 2012 18:35 (twelve years ago) link
no shots at rabin, but between MCA dying and Ween breaking up, I'm really enormously burnt on reading white dudes' experiences with everything right now.
― rock the swagon and g.o.a.t. it (Whiney G. Weingarten), Saturday, 2 June 2012 18:37 (twelve years ago) link
yeah..."lol white ppl" is Tumblr's favorite "I get to opt out of unpacking what I disagree with" trope these days. which is kinda cool with me insofar as you really can't have too much of white ppl being made more aware of how their privilege informs their thoughts/opinions/tastes, but less cool with me in how I think it gets used a lot, i.e., by other white ppl looking to score playground points
― decrepit but free (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Saturday, 2 June 2012 19:10 (twelve years ago) link
^^^yeah very true
― littledotheyknow (D-40), Saturday, 2 June 2012 19:21 (twelve years ago) link