Exactly 11 years ago, Miles Zuniga was jetting off to Amsterdam with his Austin-based alt-rock outfit Fastball to try to put some touring muscle behind its latest release, The Harsh Light Of Day. Expectations were high, given the surprising mainstream success of 1998’s All The Pain Money Can Buy, which the band milked for almost two years. Fast-forward to today, and Zuniga has humbler aspirations for his first solo effort, These Ghosts Have Bones (33 1/3), a wrenchingly personal, fitfully melodic ode to the breakup of his 10-year marriage. Though Fastball is still very much a working entity, Ghosts’ quirky centerpiece, “Marfa Moonlight,” would’ve undoubtedly been a much different animal with bandmates Tony Scalzo and Joey Shuffield involved. The same goes for the rest of this inward-looking song cycle. Zuniga will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with him.
Zuniga: This book is hilarious. Or shall I say books? Everyday Drinking is a compendium of three of Mr. Amis‘ out-of-print books: Kingsley Amis On Drink, Everyday Drinking and How’s Your Glass?. They all deal with one of his favorite subjects: booze. Kingsley Amis on champagne: “Champagne is only half a drink. The rest is a name on a label, an inflated price tag, a bit of tradition, and a good deal of showing off.” And so it goes. My favorite chapter tackles the hangover (I can’t believe there’s still not an easy way to get rid of one), which Mr. Amis splits into two parts, the physical hangover and the metaphysical hangover. “A hangover is the result of a shock to the system, chiefly from alcohol, sure, but also from fatigue—lack of sleep, burning up energy in ridiculous and shameful activities like dancing—and thirdly from other poisons contained in tobacco, unsuitable food and badly ventilated rooms.” There’s a chapter entitled “The Boozing Man’s Diet.” “The first, indeed the only, requirement of a diet is that it should lose you weight without reducing your alcoholic intake by the smallest degree.”
Amen.
Video after the jump.
