Ed's Picks For November 1997

1. That Life: John Gotti
   John Gotti. My favorite contemporary gangster. Unfortunately, he's doing hard time somewhere. Oh, the fashions that have been stolen from us! This site is only of average quality, with more broken links than I care for. It's all worth it for that shot of Gotti in that nice double-breasted job as wall paper on the first page.

2. The Frank Sinatra WWW Page
   It's Frank's web. We just surf on it. I love this site, especially Howard Cosell's introduction to Frank's 1974 concert at Madison Square Garden, The Main Event. I lament the fact that I will never see a Sinatra concert. I've also heard there was an article in The New Yorker recently outlining what a bad guy he was...like that was any surprise. I still dig him.

3. The Unofficial WWW Jack Chick Archive!
   I'm glad someone is chronicling Chick Publications, one of the most perverse publishing concerns ever. You've probably seen a few of these. I used to be assailed by these folks whenever I would go to an outdoor concert. They're these bizarro comic books with creepy religious themes. I wish this guy would update his site more regularly, though. Worth it for the scans of the comics, which make great wallpaper for your computer. Scare your cubicle mates.

4. Thee Geraldine Fibbers Shrine
   Here's a band I've been obsessing on lately. The Geraldine Fibbers are this sort of cross between X and Patsy Cline. Upon first listen to them, I thought they were more cheery than X, but after reading the lyrics, I found them to be even bleaker. Glorious.

5. Steal This Book
   Abbie Hoffman's seminal hippie-dippie classic, teaching you how to stick it to The Man. Admittedly, some of this stuff is dated, but he scores points for being one of the few truly subversive individuals to come out of the hippie movement and stay that way to the end, which I hear wasn't very nice.

6. PoliceScanner.Com
   To enjoy this little treat, you will need RealAudio, but you probably already have that, right? Live police broadcasts from New York City, Dallas, and Los Angeles. Sort of like "Cops" on the web. I've listened a few times, and mostly heard cops giving out tickets, but I'm sure if you quit your job and listen around the clock, you will be the first to hear that truly sensational crime.

7. The Onion
   An insane version of "USA Today," The Onion is the only newspaper I believe in.

8. IEC Web ProForum-Internet Telephony
   ALERT! Nerd reference. This is a fascinating introduction to an interest of mine, voice over the Internet. The phone companies really don't like this one. This technology holds promise for sticking it to them. That's right, make your long distance calls over the 'net, err...someday...maybe. Not nearly as easy as it sounds, this is one of the most fascinating areas of research today. There are still a number of technical barriers, but just like the saying "parts are parts," packets are packets.

9. Total News
   Maybe this month's Top Ten list should be called the "Stick It To The Man" special edition. Total News has got it right. The web was built on communication AND appropriation. Total News gives you one source to read the news from all the major news web sites, all conveniently framed within their site. CNN didn't like that though, so when you click on their link, it opens the page in a new browser window. I heard an apocryphal story that the Total News folks operate their site from a small office behind a taco stand. Drop a note to me if you know more about this.

10. The Matrix Oracles
    Who needs the 1-900 Psychic Hotline when you have this? This is the place to go for all your oracular needs, from Tarot to Runes, to good old fashioned fortune cookies.