Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs : Book Review

"Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs" is a collection of short stories and essays by pop culture guru, Chuck Klosterman. You may know Klosterman as a regular writer for Spin Magazine.. I highly recommend this book if you like the following things:

A) Masters of the Universe (specifically Orko)
B) Motley Crue
C) Larry Bird
D) Intellivision (and the subsequent George Plimpton ad)

E) AC Slater (we know Skeey is on board with this one)

I was introduced to Klosterman's work by Bill Simmons, the Sportsguy on ESPN Page 2. I have been a Simmons loyalist since the late 90s when he was the Boston Sports Guy for Digital Cities, a defunct website run by aol.com. Simmons' site was kind of a Boston sports cult where admittance was subject to having a 56k modem and knowing who William Zabka was (what he "is" now is a Kurt Cameron like jesus freak who was nominated for an Oscar). I happened to reach the lofty status of contributing writer for Bill in 2000-2001 before he jumped to the mothership. I actually got to meet Bill at a special screening of Beyond the Mat at the defunct Cheri Theatre in Boston which was special for two reasons: 1) watching wrestling fans with t-shirts on that said "SUCK IT" get all emotional when Jake the Snake Roberts talks about rampant drug abuse and 2) the scary amount of enthusiasm from my friend Jeff when he found out he could have my other ticket to the show. Anyways, once Simmons went to ESPN, he had a back and forth column with Klosterman where they sparred about various pop culture issues. Once I read that, I knew that I had to pick up Klosterman's book.

My impressions of this book are two fold. On one hand, the book doesn't flow well because the stories are all completely different. This is a complaint about style more than substance because when I purchased this book, I knew it would be short story format. So I took this into account before reading this book. A slight complaint nonetheless.

However, the stories, when they stand on their own, are witty, often times hilarious and quite profound because Klosterman tackles untapped material (Saved by the Bell, the Sims) and turns it into 20 page manifestos. My favorite such story involved his time spent with a Guns N' Roses tribute band ("Appetite for Replication") in the midwest. The way he describes how they drive to their shows, get high in their van, drive real fast, and consistently strike out with their faux groupies was laugh out loud funny but not done in a way that mocks this cover band. His analysis of the Real World phenomenon ("What Happens When People Stop Being Polite") and how kids try and take on their own Real World persona (the Drunk Dominic guy, the obnoxious Puck guy, the sort of intellectual Jud guy, et al) was interesting to me because I reluctantly admit to having watched every season up through Paris (This doesn't even take into account the repeat marathons I also watched and the reunion shows).

Klosterman's musings are perfect for anyone between the ages of 30-38 (aka products of the 80s) who have an affinity for MTV, heavy metal, stupid television and Star Wars. He also speaks to the basement dwellers who spent their formative highschool years discussing the merits of Saturday Morning Cartoons, ROB the Robot for Nintendo and the greatest drum solo by Neal Peart . All in all, I highly recommend this book if you enjoy beating pop culture subjects to death or enjoy using gratuitous pop culture references in book reports about pop culture.

Good day.