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You Don't Know Me But You Don't Like Me: Phish, Insane Clown Posse, And My Misadventures With Two Of Music's Most Maligned Tribes (2013)

by Nathan Rabin(Favorite Author)

3.15 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1451626886 (ISBN13: 9781451626889)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Scribner

review 1: I'm really curious about the cultures of Phish and Insane Clown Posse and Juggalos. I also almost always enjoy reading memoirs about mental illness. Seems like this would be the perfect book for me. But, it was just okay. There were some funny stories from the author's concert experiences, and I laughed out loud at descriptions of Greyhound and Detroit. But, overall, the book was flat and didn't live up to my (admittedly high) expectations.
review 2: Expectations: A book about two bizarrely disparate but equally fanatical fanbases and how "at the heart of it, we're all just people, man", and how certain bands inspire such rabid devotion in people that it actually creates an entirely new subculture, and why some artistic projects and ventures have "fans" and oth... moreers have "fandoms". Reality: A weirdly meandering road trip story where the author whines incessantly about his slow descent into madness but never offers up anything more substantive than "I took a lot of drugs and lost a lot of money". It's not so much a cohesive account of the author's experiences as it is a bizarre series of chunks of information. I imagine the pitch for this sounded something like, "First, we'll talk about Phish! Then about Juggalos! Then about Phish again! Then about bipolar disorder, but only in a relatively general way so I don't embarrass myself! Then about Juggalos some more! And the last chapter will be an obtuse open love letter to my wife!". There's no unifying thread that ties all the separate elements together, and I don't feel like I came away from reading this having contemplated any new ideas or having learned anything at all. Chuck Klosterman (a commonly cited example of a self-indulgent writer, but at least I find him funny) does this thing where he takes two completely disparate ideas and puts them together in one short essay, tying everything together quite tidily in the end. It feels like that was the shape of the idea that Nathan Rabin had for this book, but nothing ever really comes together. I was bored by the time I was two-thirds of the way in. This, incidentally, is almost certainly the first time anyone has ever united the concepts of "bored by" and "juggalos", ever. Wouldn't recommend this one. less

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