Customer Reviews

Jesus Was Way Cool

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4 star:		(1)
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John S. Hall knows where it's at. This book is my favorite & nicest collection of masterpieces of poems ever. His mixes of mysticism, religion, pop sexual blatancy & the essential concepts of world philosophy finesse into normal sentences that are so nice they can be sung or voiced to melody... & he does do that on cd's & on stages.
I've seen the title piece "Jesus Was Way Cool" quoted in dictionaries like Shakespeare to define language. My other favs like "Open" & "Sensitive Artist" are just a few more cornerstone watermarks for history. ( John, does that part make sense? please edit ...he didn't get back to me fast enough, im writing this on my own, usually he helps me, he wrote the intro to my first great Work, "document zippo" & i consulted him & referenced him in dialogue prose in "Xero, turn-of-the-millenia," he is also my attorney. i wonder if he can sue himself for this.)
Compared to his newer pieces like "America Kicks Ass" which is brilliantly...[i was going to have him edit this part & make this a sentence] his Work sustains itself blah blah [actually can you end it for me please? i asked him, but these are important times, & he is probably doing something important right now & perhaps even political!]

Okay, I'm not that big of a fan of poetry myself, but Hall's writing is genious. I first learned of Hall through King Missile- a band that basically takes John's poetry and places some wack music in the background. I loved the lyrics of the songs and Jesus Was Way Cool offers almost the same entertainment as the music.

All of the works here are extremely clever, funny and entertaining. Most of the pieces are almost stream-of-conscious and leave you wondering what it would be like to be in the author's head. You don't have to be well-read to enjoy this poetry even though it is obvious that Hall is. His references to history and use of words illustrate that point.

To really enjoy the poetry though, I highly recommend listening to King Missile. If you like this poetry, hearing John speak the words he writes will double your listening pleasure.

Really funny, more fun to read than most poetry books (whoops, that probably makes me sound uncultured) -- but you might have to be a King Missile fan to appreciate it completely.

Really great book. Lyrics to many of King Missile's songs, as well as regular spoken word pieces, all of which make really good reading. If you know any of King Missile's stuff (especially if you know pieces other than the overplayed "Detachable Penis"), then you know how funny they were. Even the funny pieces in this book -- and most are hysterically funny -- are also surprisingly thoughtful and have many layers of meaning.

The title is deceiving! This book is anything but a realigious poem book. A friend showed me this a while ago and I totally loved the poem "Take Things From Work" it's a must read for all opressed workers!! Ha ha