Hollywood Shack Job Dr. James Cushing No one knows more about rock music’s role in the movies than Harvey Kubernik, and the “celebrity interview book” will never be the same after “HSJ.” To read it is to delve into the real showbiz world of how deals get done and who knows whom, but that’s just the start. Kubernik knows just the right questions to ask of just the right people, and blends authorial moxie with scholarly devotion. Accurate, informative and compulsively readable, the book is by turns laugh-out-loud funny and elegiac. It’s both historically “objective” and intensely personal, firmly focused but with a sense of improvisation; informed  by a belief in “the canon” of rock and film, but attuned to the idea that anything can happen at any time for any reason. Most movingly, it deeply celebrates the excitement of rock and film while suggesting that the computer revolution may have put a ceiling on that excitement by negating public life. The last chapter – Kubernik’s “fan’s notes,” the filmography-as- autobiography -- was my favorite because it blends these things above most dramatically. I whooped aloud when I saw the name-check of Floyd Mutrux’s totally neglected Dusty & Sweets McGhee, a movie I saw in 1971 and never heard a word about since, other than in “HSJ”!  And even though it was a British property, the author found room for the 1973 masterpiece O Lucky Man!, which is still the best use of rock I’ve seen in a major motion picture. The best interviews here are as intimate and full of surprises as a classic Dylan LP. Strongly recommended for all students of post-WW2 American culture. Dr. James B. Cushing is a College English Professor, teaching Modern Poetry at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) San Luis Obispo, and has been the host of the KCPR-FM (91.3) radio show "Miles Ahead" since 1997. The show airs on Thursdays from 8-10pm. Cushing has been a DJ since 1981, initially at KPFK, Los Angeles, then from 1986-1997 at KCBX, San Luis Obispo, and from 1997-present at KCPR. He is the only member of the Cal Poly faculty to appear in the punk-documentary "The Decline of Western Civilization," and has published three books of poetry.