Yes. Lester Bangs could write. Boy, could he write.
But so can this woman, in her essay about Lester Bangs (but it is really about so much more).
But, of course, Bangs wasn’t a rock star. He was a poet. He was totally fucked. Bangs was writing literature, as much as he wished at every moment while doing it that he were writing a three-chord power ballad instead. Rock ‘n’ roll is for lonely people. Literature is for terrified people. You put the two together into the kind of rock n roll literature Bangs created and you get an art form so luminscently emotionally crippled that no one can do anything but fall head-into-cement in total pathetic love with it. Which is what I’m pissed off about not having the chance to do because I was born after Bangs and this, right here, is the closest I can get to fucking him or his writing and let me tell you, it is not enough.
Please read the whole thing. It is a bold, passionate, and confessional piece of writing, smart, sharp, and aching with feeling. I am so glad I came across it in my web surfing this morning.
Someone put Helena under hypnosis – this may be just the tip of the volcano ready to blow white hot lava.
Of course one thing’ll lead to another and some jamoke without a poke will find his muse in Mount Helena, objectify her, the magma will begin to roil and the pyroclastic flow will commence. Isn’t this the way islands… I mean writers are born?
George – isn’t she just wonderful? I can’t find out where else she might be writing. I love her taste in books, too.
Wow, what a wonderful piece of writing!
//Calliope was a sex object, and an ex-girlfriend, and That Bitch Who Broke My Fucking Heart, even if Homer was blind and gay.//
Hahahaha… I think Lester would approve.
Thanks for sharing…
That piece reminds me – powerfully – of just about the ONLY thing in Almost Famous that rang true to me: P S Hoffman’s character (a thinly disguised Bangs – no?) saying words to the effect of “it’s all about being by yourself and listening to records”. Nerdly, unworldly shut-in that I am, the rest of the film seemed to be a paean to how awesome it is to hang with really cool people. Now I’m gritting my teeth and trying to forget my issues with Cameron Crowe’s work….
Still and all – thanks for sharing that, Sheila.