The Evil Empire: 101 Ways That England Ruined the World
Rather than still his snarkiness by merely designing ads - Steven Grasse runs the Gyro agency out of Philadelphia - directing videos (A Perfect Circle; Eagles of Death Metal) and producing B-movies (Bikini Bandits), the author has now taken on Dear Old Blighty with his first book. Grasse doesn't like the U.K. And he wants reparations, to boot.
The tiny tome would stand simply as a testament to Grasse's rude silliness and decidedly anti-p.c. rhetoric, what with its bold, graphic woodcut - like illustrations and easily laughable headlines for each page - long chapter: "They Run Their Pubs Like Soviets," "They Hooked The Chinese on Opium," and "They're Way Too Polite." It would stand simply, if it wasn't so damned rich in historicity. "They Gunned Down Tens of Thousands of Defenseless Africans" alone (based on 1898's Battle of Omdurman) is both frankly factual and gorgeously fanciful writing. So too are "They Invented the Machine Gun" and countless other chapters.
But where Harp readers are concerned, Grasse knows where to roll his rock. Along with using notorious Socialist and Crass drummer Penny Rimbaud to scribe his foreword, Grasse writes ominously/humorously of theirs being the country that knighted Elton John, gave the world the feuding Gallagher brothers, can't deal well with genuine hip-hop culture, made soccer into a world sport and took the soul out of rock 'n' roll itself with posturing posy fops like Coldplay and Franz Ferdinand - to say nothing of the Beatle Lennon making his band's case over Jesus Christ Our Lord. Good show old chap. Pip pip.
By A. D. Amorosi
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