His first book, a semi-autobiographical Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural N*rth Dak*ta, published in 2001, tells the story of what it was like growing up in a small Midwestern town where the only meaningful pastime was listening to rock band Kiss and a legion of god-awful heavy metal bands in the form of Dokken, David Lee Roth, Motley Crue and Poison.

In spite of the depressing nature of the book, Hollywood is now working on a script for a film based on the title.

Klosterman's immersion in heavy metal has given him the credentials to become an expert on the subject. Last year when the British Broadcasting Corporation made a documentary about rock and roll, Seven Ages of Rock, Klosterman was one of many music critics interviewed by the broadcaster.

Obituary writing may not be the best beat in journalism and Klosterman has trafficked in worse subjects. His third book, Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story, published in 2005, is a book about deceased rock stars. In this travelogue, Klosterman visited places where young rock stars died; Seattle (where Kurt Cobain shot himself), Memphis (where Jeff Buckley drowned himself), and Moorhead, Minnesota (where Buddy Holly crashed his plane). In this overlong musing, he ruminates about American and the world's obsession with celebrity - in between his rants about his dysfunctional relationships with three women.

His best-selling book Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto is a collection of pop culture essays that tackles subjects as trivial as Billy Joel, Pamela Anderson, hit computer game The Sims, MTV reality series Real World and a Guns *n Roses cover bands.

Given the parade of dull subjects, it has been quite a wonder that his books sell and that he has a significant number of followers who would shell out money for his work.

The reason probably is that it is difficult to resist his ironic, generation-X charm, a self-aware slacker who could spend two pages for self-loathing about his immobility and another four for inconclusive rants on the artistic merit of Nirvana's best-selling album Nevermind.

This is what he said about himself in Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs: "I'm a *Gen Xer,' OK? And I buy s**t marketed to *Gen Xers'. And I use air quotes when I talk ... Get over it."

Klosterman is comfortable mocking and making fun of anything thrown at him by the establishment, be they the music industry, the government, or his editor at the publication he worked for.

I don't know for sure if his slacker ethos is responsible for him being sacked from the editorial board of Spin magazine four years ago, but ever since his departure from the music rag little was seen or heard of him.

So, no one really knew what to expect when Klosterman's publisher, Scribner, published another book from him, especially with its nonsensical title like Eating the Dinosaur.

Eating the Dinosaur is another collection of Klosterman's unpublished essays on a variety of issues. And other than one piece that talks at length about why people give question in a media interview - in which Klosterman interviews some of America's most famous interviewers including documentary filmmaker Errol Morris and National Public Radio (NPR) producer Ira Glass - which could serve as a manual in a journalism workshop, other essays in Eating the Dinosaur are quintessential Klosterman.

The third essay in the book, "Tomorrow Rarely Knows" sees Klosterman investigating modern man's fascination with time travel. Arguing for the implausibility, if not futility, of time travel, Klosterman took his cue from the work of the writer famous for his time traveling subject, H.G. Wells; hit movies on time travel such as Back to the Future, Twelve Monkeys, Planet of the Apes and obscure ones like Primer. In the essay's conclusion, he argues that time travel has no merit whatsoever other than eating dinosaur meat - hence the title of the book.

Klosterman is at his best when he writes about music, and the second essay in the book, "Oh, the Guilt", is music writing at its finest. In this captivating piece, Klosterman draws parallels between the lives of Nirvana singer-guitarist Kurt Cobain and Texas-based religious cult Branch Davidian David Koresh. He argues that both men died in tragic circumstances after being persecuted for being "odd".

It is beside the point that Cobain shot himself in the head. He died a frustrated man, knowing that the music industry would not allow him to create his own "hermetic culture" in which he could be uncompromised and insular with his music. His last album with Nirvana, In Utero, is described by Klosterman as a "guilt rock" - the sound of Cobain feeling guilty for all the mainstream success, the limo rides and the red-carpet treatment. And in spite of the abrasive and uncompromising sound of the album, it would still be considered a mainstream rock record that sold in the millions.

Koresh, whom Klosterman describes as a frustrated rock musician - he played guitar and was in a band just like Cobain - was successful in his attempts to become insular and hermetic and was prosecuted by the US government for going his own way. Both Cobain and Koresh, Klosterman argues, were victims of a society that places primacy on conformity and has little tolerance for otherness.

By proving that it is possible to make an apple-to-apple comparison between Cobain and Koresh "Oh, the Guilt" and 13 other insightful, yet entertaining essays in the book . well, other than two mediocre pieces on sports . are probably the best pop-culture analysis out there.

Eating the Dinosaur

Scribner, 256 pages

This book was published in the US by Scribner in October last year, but only the hardcover version is available at some of Jakarta's up-market bookstores.

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