Lester Bangs, birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom

by M.G. Wood

BORN IN FLAMES: TERMITE DREAMS, DIALECTICAL FAIRY TALES, AND POP APOCALYPSES by Howard Hampton is a collection of Mr. Hampton's pop culture analyses and reviews over the last 20 years or so. But, most of Mr. Hamptons observations and critiques are not about the last 20 years or so, his focus is more of a retro-nostalgic study of how the 1970's were the good-`ol-days, the trash-film-punk-music-golden years.

Where as our grandparents talked about the glorious bloom of the suburban Eisenhower years or the white-bread-whites-only-white-shirt-white-milk world in pre-depression America, Mr. Hampton seems to pine for the dirty streets of New York before Giuliani Time turned NYC into DisneyWorld: The Urban Experience, Mr. Hampton remembers a time when Coppola's APOCALYPSE NOW was considered a failure, days when rock music had a social significance.

BORN IN FLAMES is not all cranky raging against the dying light, there are some very funny observations about some of our favorite American idols: Quentin Tarantino, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, and FORREST GUMP.

Mr. Hampton proves his worth as a true-blue American with his seemingly obsessive fascination with Elvis Presley, but not just Elvis the rock god or Elvis the sex god or Elvis...the god; no, Mr. Hampton has a fetish for Elvis movies. Because, all the while Mr. Hampton is weighing the level of damage Elvis movies have done to our fragile cinematic nation, he just can't seem to quit Elvis.

To Howard Hampton's credit, he makes no bones about paying dues to the great rock critic Lester Bangs, of whom he clearly idolizes(please read Bangs' brilliant PSYCHOTIC REACTIONS AND CARBUREATOR DUNG). Lester Bangs' influence is smeared all over Mr. Hampton's prose, and Mr. Hampton more than holds his own. Mr. Hampton, like Lester Bangs, has a knack for mixing just the right amount of name-dropping, pop culture references, skepticism, and passion, to give the reader the shove he/she needs to search out the great art that lies just beneath the surface of trash that covers the cultural landfill of America.

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