The Bombast Transcripts

Steve McLaughlin writes: "When Chris Locke isn't writing business blockbusters like The Cluetrain Manifesto and Gonzo Marketing ,his alter ego Rageboy is churning out issues of the webzine Entropy Gradient Reversals. The Bombast Transcripts: Rants and Screeds of RageBoy is a collection of EGR's best and worst musings since it first hit the Web in 1996." (Steve's review continues below.) The Bombast Transcripts: Rants and Screeds of RageBoy author Christopher Locke pages 288 publisher Perseus Publishing rating 8 reviewer Steve MacLaughlin ISBN 0738206334 summary Subversive provocateur of the business world's version of "No more Mr. Nice Guy," packaged for your convenience.

While some writers are just starting to publish on the Web, Chris Locke is already offering readers a second helping of EGR in print form. This is just the sort of brain twisting high jinks that's made Locke infamous in the business and technology world.

The Bombast Transcripts reads like a recipe for some exotic elixir: One part prose, one part poetry, a splash of marketing genius, a double-shot of volatility, and some freshly squeezed satire. But be warned. You have to take the book in a bit at a time to avoid overdosing on Locke's unorthodox style. Over and over again Locke reminds readers that "I do not Question Authority, I piss on it at every opportunity."

In one chapter Locke recounts his nightmare conversation with the Under Assistant Counsel to the Executive Vice President for Legal Affairs at the 666 Corporation. In another he proclaims that "the greatest invention of the 20th Century is not the microchip, not extra-orbital flight, not bio-engineering" but instead "rock and roll." And who could forget chapter titles like "DiChirico Fends Off the Spectral Bats of Andalusia" and "Moe Ron Hubbard on Diuretics"?

This is not to say that The Bombast Transcripts is just 288 pages of random thoughts and hallucinogenic ramblings. Locke has also sprinkled in some of the most insightful ideas and commentary about business, technology, and the media. He lends his advice to companies that still don't understand how to communicate on the Web: "Congratulations on that new corporate homepage! You sound like a sexless droid with a badly damaged Personality Module." And who could forget the passage that reads: "I think many of us would prefer that those who don't 'get it' ... would either a) do so quickly, or b) get the hell out of the way."

I'm sure a lot of people will wonder why on Earth they should pay for something that they can already get for free on the Web. (That's what people used to say about cable television.) First off, think of The Bombast Transcripts as your portable guilty pleasure. It contains some of the best EGR moments, and you can literally open it up to any chapter and then let the mind games begin. Second, EGR subscribers have been getting something for nothing for years now. Now's the time to leave some change in the give-a-penny, take-a-penny dish. Just think of it as doing your part for the cause.

The Bombast Transcripts takes readers inside the sausage factory that is Chris Locke's mind. Please, no flash photography. You see how some of the ideas from both The Cluetrain Manifesto and Gonzo Marketing first sprang to life. It's not always a pretty sight, but the end result makes it all well worth it. I highly recommend ordering a healthy serving of The Bombast Transcripts, even if you've had a taste of it before.

You can purchase The Bombast Transcripts from Fatbrain. Want to see your own review here? Just read the book review guidelines, then use Slashdot's handy submission form.

Comments

Aren't reviews supposed to be impartial?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it be too much to ask that in future reviews that are overtly glowing and read more like a marketing spiel than a review not be put on the site?

Re:Cluetrain Manifesto....hmmmmm

[fpaynter]

Funny, that's not how I read it. All the dot commage fluff was about venture capitalists and greedballs uniting. Cluetrain is about a shift in cultural attitudes.

Anyone actually read Cluetrain Manifesto?

[maxpublic]

Anyone actually read this book? It's vague, overgeneralized bullshit littered with yuppie feel-good terms from start to finish. Wildly popular with the folks who don't want to deal with dry, boring economic facts - why bother when you can get excited over hype?

Of course, we know just how much of a clue the author had. Derive what little advice you can from the book amidst all that clever misdirection and non-speak and then compare that to what happened during the dot-bomb....

Max

review style

[Axeon]

And who could forget the passage that reads: "I think many of us would prefer that those who don't 'get it' ... would either a) do so quickly, or b) get the hell out of the way."

I could. It's very cliched. I'm not acquainted with this blog but that's precisely why I bring this up; without anything else to go on, I read this review and think, if this is his best material I don't want to read the book. Which is why I think the reviewer should make a conscientious effort to select the strongest quotes for the uninitiated, because they take it as representative and will conclude it's not worth reading if it isn't very good.