I would love to be a fly on the wall when him and Stephen Baldwin get in the same room. He was on Celeb Big Brother here and although he's a fucking MANIAC and icky born again christian spouting left and right, he too is a funny bastard!
In reply to this comment by kymbos:
I traverse the internets, righting wrongs and loling at funny videos...

I love Alec. So dry, so funny.
In reply to this comment by alien_concept:
In reply to this comment by kymbos:
7 votes? What? Ridiculous.

*promote

Ahhh you're a goodun, thank you mate!

In reply to this comment by kymbos:
7 votes? What? Ridiculous.

*promote

Ahhh you're a goodun, thank you mate!

Can't go wrong with Bukowski or Vonnegut.

And then there is this:

http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/

In reply to this comment by kymbos:
I'm reading Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club, which is a pretty good page turner.

I'm interested in reading some classic American literature if anyone would recommend some for a guy who has never really read any of the classics (like Mark Twain, Hemmingway, Fitzgerald).

I'm green.

Actually, my personal favorite is Poe. And you could probably read all of the stories I mentioned in the earlier comment in a day or two. But this is about your personal preference. A Connecticut Yankee is cultural satire and is kind of timeless. Sawyer and Finn are coming of age stories - quite good, though a bit dated. They are certainly more often included in American Lit classes.

Look at that - you can read all three (and Poe and others) right here.

In reply to this comment by kymbos:
Gotcha. So you wouldn't start with Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer or something higher profile? I've literally read none of them.


In reply to this comment by jonny:
I meant that even if you don't especially enjoy a classic novel, you haven't completely wasted your time - you're still probably better off for having read it. But yeah, enjoyment of a book - just like music, food, and art - is all about personal taste. I've read very little Russian literature, basically for fear of exactly the same reaction as yourself. (Oddly, though, I did enjoy A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which is about as depressing and plodding as you can imagine.) If you're not fond of the Russians, there are some Americans you should probably avoid too - Faulkner, Steinbeck and some (not all!) of the other early 20th century writers probably first among them.

I meant that even if you don't especially enjoy a classic novel, you haven't completely wasted your time - you're still probably better off for having read it. But yeah, enjoyment of a book - just like music, food, and art - is all about personal taste. I've read very little Russian literature, basically for fear of exactly the same reaction as yourself. (Oddly, though, I did enjoy A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which is about as depressing and plodding as you can imagine.) If you're not fond of the Russians, there are some Americans you should probably avoid too - Faulkner, Steinbeck and some (not all!) of the other early 20th century writers probably first among them.

In reply to this comment by kymbos:
Well, I'm not sure you can't go wrong with classics. I guess it comes down to taste in the end, but I found myself bored to tears with Russian classics, for example. I'm somewhat embarassed to say I just couldn't get through Crime and Punishment - it had no pace, for mine. As someone well read, this is probably sacrilege to you, but then I found the Lord of the Rings trilogy similarly overcooked.

Well, that's the thing about classics - you can't really go wrong with any of them, so yeah, A Connecticut Yankee is as good place to start as any. But it really comes down to your own preferences. Guys like Faulkner and Melville are generally considered giants of American literature, but I can't stand their stuff and would be very unlikely to recommend them. Steinbeck is another great that, while I personally like most of his work, a lot of people don't care much for it, even if they appreciate the quality.

You might find Good Reads a useful resource for finding the classics you'd most enjoy.

In reply to this comment by kymbos:
Hey, thannks for the leads. I just watched some of Midnight in Paris, and realised I'd never read the classics. Would you suggest I start with your Connecticut one?

[edit] woops, meant to reply on the talk post.

Twain is a great choice - definitely read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. It's LOL funny. Some of my favorites among the American classics are Poe, Emerson, Washington Irving, Walt Whitman, Joseph Heller, Vonnegut (is he counted as classic yet?). Edgar Allen Poe is a must. I first read The Pit and the Pendulum in my 30s and it scared the shit out of me. He clearly had access to the best drugs available in the world at the time. Other top Poe choices - The Black Cat, The Cask of Amontillado, and The Tell-Tale Heart.
In reply to this comment by kymbos:
I'm reading Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club, which is a pretty good page turner.

I'm interested in reading some classic American literature if anyone would recommend some for a guy who has never really read any of the classics (like Mark Twain, Hemmingway, Fitzgerald).

I'm green.

In reply to this comment by kymbos:
What the hell is wrong with you people?

*promote.


Thanks for the promote!

Congratulations! Your comment has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

(Ahem)...

porn.

Congratulations! Your comment has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

My quivering quiver.

In reply to this comment by kymbos:
The more I look at that sentence, the more perverted it seems.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
It's going into my quiver.

It's going into my quiver.

In reply to this comment by kymbos:
I especially love this: "Non-coercion fails to capture all, maybe even most, of what it means to be free".

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Thanks. Yes, I have been taking it to Ron Paul and the free market fundies lately, much in the spirit of this article, though I could probably use a little work on my bedside manner. *bookmark*

Thanks. Yes, I have been taking it to Ron Paul and the free market fundies lately, much in the spirit of this article, though I could probably use a little work on my bedside manner. *bookmark*

In reply to this comment by kymbos:
Saw this and thought of you. Forgive me if I'm wrong (I can get avatars wrong), but you bang on a lot against libertarianism and Ron Paul, right? You might like this: http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2012/01/why-im-not-a
-bleeding-heart-libertarian/

No worries, and agreed. It would probably only take one trip to beggar's canyon, or another promote, to sift. I probably promoted a bit soon after the quality to get maximum value out of them, but what can you do.

In reply to this comment by kymbos:
Wow, you were plugging away at this one! Thanks for the interest, Spoon are awesome.

In reply to this comment by oritteropo:
*promote