Over at Esquire, I run down the best novels about JFK in honor of the 50th anniversary of his death.
Salon Article
Over at Salon, I help parents ditch their kids’ annoying music about cows and pigs and sharing for something a little hipper.
Article in Esquire
Esquire allowed me to write an article about how Billy Corgan ruined the new In Utero reissue by Nirvana.
Nirvana’s In Utero is getting the royal treatment as a 20th-anniversary triple disc/one DVD expanded reissue, out September 24. The blowout collection promises demos, alternate mixes, unreleased tracks, and some irresistible liner notes, which, according to Rolling Stone, include “Cobain’s handwritten lyrics, a four-page letter [Steve] Albini wrote the band prior to recording detailing his plans for In Utero, plus liner notes written by comedian and occasional In Utero tour opening act Bobcat Goldthwait.”
This all sounds like a Marshall stack of goodness to the unwashed Gen-Xer inside us all. But there is a problem. This well-intentioned box set is coming out too late. The expanded reissue album is dead.
For that, we can all thank Billy Corgan.
Wensink Overload?
August 14 will go down as the day I nearly crashed the World Wide Web. I had not one, but two articles published in respectable-like places.
First, Salon ran my obituary of blues legend T-Model Ford.
Then, the New York Times ran my article on combating our toddler’s ant problem by seeking out someone called “The Bug Lady.”
What’s in a Nickname?
Patrick Reads on NPR.
Patrick recently read the unreleased short story “Krenels,” a fictitious history of the Kentucky Colonels professional basketball team, on NPR’s UNBOUND.
New Articles in Salon.
Salon recently ran two wildly different articles I wrote:
“The Weirdest Album to Ever Go Platinum” about the 20th anniversary of The Breeders’ Last Splash.
“Gun nuts’ strangest subculture: Book clubs” about the literary scene found at mega gun shows in America.
Essay in The Millions
The Millions recently published my ode to poets for National Poetry Month:
Article in Oxford American
Very honored to have my recent interview with the most famous bugler in America appear in one of my favorite magazines, Oxford American.
For fifteen seconds a year, Steve Buttleman is the most famous man in America. On the first Saturday of every May, sporting his famous red jacket and tiny black hat, he marches from the white pagoda behind the Churchill Downs Winner’s Circle, lifts a polished brass horn to his caramel-colored mustache, and plays “Call to Post.” Buttleman’s rendition—a brief ditty that signals jockeys to lead their horses into the starting gate—grabs the attention of movie stars in Millionaire’s Row, infield drunks, and countless television viewers. It’s also the sign for Kentucky Derby fans to clutch their betting slips and start praying.
Read more here.
Regular Column at Weeklings.
I am proud to say I’ve taken on a twice-monthly gig writing essays for the Weeklings. If you don’t know this site, it’s jam packed with pop/culture essays from very talented writers.
So far, I’ve written about rock album “Growers” and the similarities between Smokey and the Bandit II and Jean-Luc Godard.
Home of Bestselling Author Patrick Wensink 