Author: J T. Ramsay

The more edu­cat­ed a feller is the more use he is to his class. John Dos Pas­sos’ Man­hat­tan Trans­fer mas­ter­ful­ly illus­trates an epoch of Amer­i­can his­to­ry preg­nant with big ideas, yet held in a choke­hold by cap­i­tal­ist expan­sion and inter­na­tion­al con­flict. As Amer­i­ca strug­gled to accept urban­iza­tion and mass immi­gra­tion, forces such as nation­al­is­tic ten­sion, anti-com­mu­nist…

With Octo­ber near­ly upon us, it’s about time for Black­mail Is My Life to final­ly roll out its own fall guide of sorts. Expect some short fea­tures on artists and albums, as well as DVDs, movies, tele­vi­sion and books I’ve been dig­ging into late­ly, includ­ing: Yo La Ten­go’s endur­ing psy­che­delia; LSD March and the mys­ter­ies…

Men­tal health remains as taboo a sub­ject as it ever was. The absur­di­ty of the top sports sto­ry is noth­ing less than mind­blow­ing, whether it’s true that Owens attempt­ed to kill him­self or not. The mes­sage was clear: it’s impos­si­ble to sus­pect a man as pow­er­ful, tal­ent­ed and wealthy as T.O. would so much as…

T.O. attempts sui­cide? What­ev­er hap­pened, get help and get well soon.

MVP! MVP! [This is a fee­ble attempt to buffer the pain of last night’s loss. Los­ing to the Astros can be so demor­al­iz­ing. Then again, so is watch­ing Rick White pitch.]