Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

From the kid who brought you Fargo Rock City — the first book in history to garner the praise of Stephen King, David Byrne, Donna Gaines, Sebastian Bach, Jonathan Lethem, and Rivers Cuomo — comes Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs — the first book in history to examine breakfast cereal, reality television, tribute bands, Internet porn, serial killers, and the Dixie Chicks.

Countless writers and artists have spoken for a generation, but no one has done it quite like Chuck Klosterman — with an exhaustive knowledge of popular culture and a seemingly effortless ability to spin brilliant prose out of unlikely subject matter. Whether deconstructing Saved by the Bell episodes or the artistic legacy of Billy Joel, the symbolic importance of The Empire Strikes Back or the Celtics/Lakers rivalry of the 1980s, Chuck will make you think, he'll make you laugh, and he'll drive you insane — usually all at once.

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is ostensibly about movies, sports, television, music, books, video games, and kittens...but, really, it's about us. All of us. As Klosterman realizes late at night, in the moment before he falls asleep, "In and of itself, nothing really matters. What matters is that nothing is ever 'in and of itself.'"

"[D]espite sparks of brilliance, [it] fails to cohere....[A] skilled prose stylist with a witty, twisted brain....Remove all the dated pop culture analyses, and [it] has enough material for about half a really great memoir." Publishers Weekly

"[M]any of his long argumentative riffs...seem dated and unprovocative. The occasional piece rises above this minor-key white noise....Humorous, slick, aggressively forgettable." Kirkus Reviews

"The funniest thing I've read in an ice age....Chuck Klosterman is a Gulliver among the cult-crit Lilliputians. America should wrap her freckled arms around Klosterman's scrawny neck and press him to her bosom. He may be the last true patriot among us." Gary Shteyngart, author of The Russian Debutante's Handbook

"Chuck Klosterman has the time and inclination to think through the issues that you didn't even know were issues. Laugh at him, or with him, or both...but you will laugh, dammit, you will laugh." Bob Odenkirk of "Mr. Show"

From the author of Fargo Rock City — the heavy metal memoir The New York Times Book Review hailed as "ridiculously engaging" — comes another hilarious and discerning take on popular culture, exploring everything from the crucial role of breakfast cereal to how John Cusack films destroy the modern meaning of love. In Fargo Rock City, Chuck Klosterman established himself as one of the funniest and most insightful writers of his generation, with an exhaustive knowledge of eighties culture and an enviable ability to spin brilliant prose from unlikely subject matter. Now, in the natural successor to that acclaimed debut, he examines every cultural phenomenon of modern times, from Internet porn to tribute bands, from Billy Joel to basketball rivalries, in a book as thought-provoking as it is entertaining. Part hipster rant, part (semi-) sophisticated cultural criticism, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is filled with observations that will have every reader laughing in recognition. Reality television is both tragic and irresistible. Internet porn completely baffles him. The Dixie Chicks are the new Van Halen because teenage girls are the new teenage boys. Each topic is connected by small passages that pull together a massive cultural quilt, one that Chuck has stitched to "playfully help people understand what they know through who they are." Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is an intelligent look at the "trivial" subjects that shape our lives, and a compulsively readable gem.

From the author of "Fargo Rock City" comes another hilarious and discerning take on popular culture, exploring everything from the crucial role of breakfast cereal to how John Cusack films destroy the modern meaning of love.

Countless writers and artists have spoken for a generation, but no one has done it quite like Chuck Klosterman. With an exhaustive knowledge of popular culture and an almost effortless ability to spin brilliant prose out of unlikely subject matter, Klosterman attacks the entire spectrum of postmodern America: reality TV, Internet porn, Pamela Anderson, literary Jesus freaks, and the real difference between apples and oranges (of which there is none). And don't even get him started on his love life and the whole Harry-Met-Sally situation.

Whether deconstructing Saved by the Bell episodes or the artistic legacy of Billy Joel, the symbolic importance of The Empire Strikes Back or the Celtics/Lakers rivalry, Chuck will make you think, he'll make you laugh, and he'll drive you insane — usually all at once. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is ostensibly about art, entertainment, infotainment, sports, politics, and kittens, but — really — it's about us. All of us. As Klosterman realizes late at night, in the moment before he falls asleep, "In and of itself, nothing really matters. What matters is that nothing is ever 'in and of itself.'" Read to believe.

Chuck Klosterman is the author of Fargo Rock City and a senior writer for SPIN magazine. His work has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, GQ, and The Washington Post. He is six-foot-two and does not suffer from lycanthropy.

Contents

1 This Is Emo

(carnivore interlude)

2 Billy Sim

(reality interlude)

3 What Happens When People Stop Being Polite

(Pat Benatar interlude)

4 Every Dog Must Have His Every Day, Every Drunk Must Have His Drink

(Monkees = Monkees interlude)

5 Appetite for Replication

(an interlude to be named later)

6 Ten Seconds to Love

(metaphorical fruit interlude)

7 George Will vs. Nick Hornby

(Ralph Nader interlude)

8 33

(Fonzie recalibration interlude)

9 Porn

("kitty cat as terrorist" interlude)

10 The Lady or the Tiger

(hypothetical interlude)

11 Being Zack Morris

(50-50 interlude)

12 Sulking with Lisa Loeb on the Ice Planet Hoth

(anti-homeless interlude)

13 The Awe-Inspiring Beauty of Tom Cruise's Shattered, Troll-like Face

(punk interlude)

14 Toby over Moby

(Johnny Cash interlude)

15 This Is Zodiac Speaking

(Timothy McVeigh interlude)

16 All I Know Is What I Read in the Papers

(boom!)

17 I, Rock Chump

(waiting to die interlude)

18 How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found