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The Bombast Transcripts: Rants and Screeds of RageBoy®

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Beyond description
Genius at work. Chew on carpet while you wait.
Delicious Poetic Nonsense
Not what you think....nor expect...
"You have GOT to READ this guy!!"

The Bombast Transcripts: Rants and Screeds of RageBoy®
Christopher Locke
Manufacturer: Basic Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0738208051

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With The Bombast Transcripts, Christopher Locke (a.k.a. RageBoy, that iconoclastic cybervoice of dissonance, disdain, and all things provocative) is leaping from your screen to your bookshelf. Look out. The scathing rants from the creator of Entropy Gradient Reversals--probably the most wittily outrageous, cryptically observant, and eagerly puzzled-over Web zine ever to pollute the airwaves--are explosive.

As a tag, screed is only partly accurate for the contents of this volatile collection; they're long harangues, all right, but by no means monotonous. Listen in as Locke lets his alter ego loose in friendly chat with IBM's Lou Gerstner (well, actually an exit interview with Lew Firstner, pompous and clueless chairman of the 666 Corporation). As he not-so-clearly illustrates what "getting it" means (by pondering T.S. Kuhn, voodoo ceremonies, and a sacred space you can't enter with your mind on, let alone your shoes). And as he gleefully admits that most of his readers "seem to enjoy abstruse and obfuscatory exegeses on themes that utterly elude them" but apparently "alleviates their anxiety about not knowing anything that wasn't covered by Geraldo." Don't be insulted; be alleviated. Locke may indeed be the Web's most acerbic gonzo journalist and techno-semiotic social critic, but he's also written for Forbes; worked for MCI, Ricoh, and the Japanese government's AI project; and been named one of the top 50 business thinkers in the world. If you missed out on this cyberpundit's irreverent rants the first time around, catch him now (if you can). As Locke himself reminds us, "Being totally insane is hard work. People don't realize that." They should now. --S. Ketchum

Book Description

From the hilarious to the sublime, the essays and observations of cultural commentator extraordinaire, Chris "RageBoy" Locke.

In more ways than one, Chris Locke has raised a godawful racket on the Net. Under his alter-egotistical nom de plume, RageBoy, and through his webzine, Entropy Gradient Reversals, he has entertained and enlightened thousands of readers from some of the world's largest companies, governments, and institutions-including those from which he's managed to escape.

Now for the first time in browser-free format, The Bombast Transcripts brings together the best of his worst. And his worst is very good indeed. Marvel as one of America's foremost social critics interviews pop-media superstars such as IBM's Lou Gerstner, Sayanarology's Moe Ron Hubbard, Godzilla, Mr. Ed, and, in a twisted hall-of-mirrors tour de force, RageBoy himself. Tremble in awe as mysteries of the universe unfold, from thermodynamics and cutting-edge neurophysiology to sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll. Thrill to obfuscation so arcane you'll need to be sedated. Laugh so hard you'll think you have been.

While Locke's semantic antics will have you in stitches, his real aim is for the jugular-via a triple bypass transplanting business, media, and social mores into a carnivalesque landscape of the imagination where conventional logic bellies up and flatlines. Part scathing send-up of commercial techno-fetishism, part hysterical stand-up on the theme of spiritual bankruptcy, part intimate memoir of a vibrant and uncompromising life, The Bombast Transcripts will rock you, shock you, and leave you pondering what The Economist once called "the wisdom of RageBoy."

From The Bombast Transcripts:

"Wandering barefoot on the Lower East Side of New York, over a thousand dollars cash in my pocket, looking to score, bring back for the holy freaks the one good thing. Odysseus adrift. Also in my pocket, the Tarot, the Waite deck I'd just bought that day. I went into The Eatery on Second Avenue and my waitress saw the cards. 'I was raised by Gypsies,' she said. 'I will tell you about the trumps if you like.' I had just dropped another tab and had little time left I knew, but she sat with me and pointed to each of the major arcana, the Lovers, the Fool, the Tower, Death. Then stopped. 'You have two Magicians,' she said...."

Customer Reviews:

Beyond description.......2003-09-23

This is the crash course in understanding the fundamentals of the necessity of change as seen through the eyes of the author, Christopher Locke. Everything you previously thought was lore is turned on its head in riotous fashion in The Bombast Transcripts. Each chapter takes apart some standard you thought was a given, an immutable and constant attribute of practically every aspect of life in the western world.

The best part is that Chris does it in so many different ways in one book. There's flat out ranting and there's cutting ridicule including interviews with himself, Rupert Murdoch and the famous one with Mr Ed. (Yes, the horse.)

Using those cliched critic's terms of rollercoaster ride or rollicking good yarn don't do this volume any justice whatsoever. In fact, this book defies any label you might care to ascribe.

In fact, I defy anyone to come up with a label for this book.

Genius at work. Chew on carpet while you wait........2002-07-16

I only have one thing to say about this: "The Solution is Poetry". Excellent reading. Warning, you may not get it if you consider yourself too smart and significant.

Delicious Poetic Nonsense.......2002-04-22

There are people who will swear by this book, there are people who will hate the book. There is no middle ground, i have checked and tried it out. Either you love it or you hate it. Poetic Nonsense in finesse and the finest form.

This will cure your longing of the cluetrain manifisto stuffs. Beautifully written and meaningless at some point, but you goona love it i guess, you gonna crave for more, and then subscribe the newsletter.

GO buy the book, and immerse yourself. I have read some part of the book more than 3 times. Amen.

Not what you think....nor expect..........2002-04-07

I just finished Bombastic Transcripts, so if you have bothered to read this at all you're probably wondering so what did this monkeyboy think? Good question, honestly I am still pondering it mulling it over in my head and probably will for a bit. It is a quick read, it's an interesting read, but fundamentally it's not a light read. It takes a little time for digestion and pondering... I suspect I will read it again in the next month or two and reconsider, hell maybe throw this whole review out.

So here's my advice go buy the book, RageBoy needs the cash. If you like Tom Robbins, Hunter S Thompson, and the Gonzo style read away, you'll enjoy it. Perhaps you will find some stuff to digest, even without ingesting any substances on the Schedule I drug list.

If you didn't like Cluetrain Manifesto, Gonzo Marketing, or any Gonzo writing buy the book anyways, for the reasons stated above. Then hide the book in your bookshelf and wait until a really dark night, one in which your soul is screaming for mercy while the night rages in a Category 5 Hurricane and your only fresh reading material is a copy of Reader's Digest you have flipped through already 15 times. Your mind goes hungry, for something unanswered and unknown, and you will recall this book hiding in some dark corner of the bookshelf covered in dust and a three month old edition of Fast Company magazine. You will pull it off the shelf and find yourself drawn to the words expressed inside and the walls of illusion come crashing down inside your mind. Either that or you'll take a gun and pull a Hemmingway. Doesn't much matter to me, if you survive reading it you might even find yourself signing up for Entropy Gradient Reversals, but let me warn you the shotgun is alot quicker and painless, but it's not nearly as much fun.

"You have GOT to READ this guy!!".......2002-01-28

That was my introduction just over a year ago to Entropy Gradient Reversals and the evil genius mind(s) behind it, Christopher Locke/RageBoy. From that first mind-blowing, breathless reading of his newsletter, I was alternately charmed, alarmed and disarmed by the decidedly unpretentious Chris Locke. His new book, the Bombast Transcripts, a collection of essays previously published to the Entropy Gradient Reversals mailing list, contains that first newsletter that caught my imagination, and so many more.

As I've read through this book, I have found myself again reacting to it in the visceral way that I had to become accustomed to as one of his faithful Valued Readers at EGR. While some may call him pompous and crass, I find him to be merely open and honest. Then again, I've always had a soft spot for intelligent, over-indulgent, semi-vulgar Don Quixotes. His chosen windmills are big business that don't have a clue (IBM et all, no small potatoes here) and, while a book about business practices would normally make my eyes glaze over while putting me in a semi-catatonic state, I find this book to be human and engaging at every turn. Each essay stands on it's own as either a rant or a screed, yet each could also be expanded into its own little book. Irreverent, engaging, transforming, contemplative, hilarious....and each page is more of the same.

While I read Locke's words, I get the feeling that I am a part of something much bigger and more important than anyone can guess, especially those that think the internet is nothing more than a collection of chatrooms and porn sites. No, I get the feeling I'm getting a glimpse of a creation, a rapturous inferno of truth and emotion, two key elements that, when exposed to each other under the heat of RageBoy's passion, cause a brilliant flash of evolution that could change the world as we know it. What a wonderful world that would be.

Idealistic? Maybe. Bombastic? Hardly. Evil Genius?? Indeed.

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