[Hard Nose the Highway] is an object lesson in Giving the People What They Deserve any way you look at it. If you think they deserve a ration of anguish to keep their molars bright, you can find it here if you read between the ferns. If you dream at night of infinite Gitcheegumee lapping panaceas to salve us all through the Seventies, Hard Nose will soft-on in seconds flat. If, even, you kinda feel that this prevalent public (and critical, yup yup) attitude of blanket acquiescence for the existential excreta of all these droll mulling popeye geniuses deserves finally to be rubbed in the used Kleenex of its own passivity by the overbearingly downy stroke of just one gross and sustained insult to your intelligent sensibilities—you got it right cheer.

But look where he's been of late, it's making him lazy. Last year Van parlayed a...