I know I promised reviews, but I'm not crazy about doing reviews. When you write them, you try to convey everything the author wrote - as if you actually understood everything he wrote. Reviewers try to sound as intelligent as the author. If they were, they would have written the book instead of reviewing it. This is why I would not call the following snippets reviews - because I am as intelligent as the following authors (Crystal, Vonnegut, Gladwell, Dylan). And I don't want to dumb down my status as a world famous blogger. An odd concept - to be world famous; yet nobody even reads this blog = flabbergasting. We will dissect the word flabbergasting later. For now, some snippets from the following books that I enjoyed. Enjoy.

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Conquered on Wed., January 25, 2005
A Million Little Pieces, A Million Little Question; Yes, how Clever? No Very.
James Frey is on the stand, or sofa, being questioned by the strongest black woman alive, Oprah, who feels lied to about believing in his memoir "A Million Little Pieces". I read it. First, I will give you two reasons why I read books. One being the, I'm deeper than I really am reason, and the other being the real reason. You decide which is witch. Number one reason - I have no idea what I'm doing in life and maybe reading between other people's lines will help me figure this whole thing out. Number two reason - books are perspectives and I'd like to have more perspectives of this world than what happens in Southington, CT. Aight. So that's why I read books and I chose to read Frey's memoir - -?
Oprah endorsed it, she was in love with it and placed a sticker on the cover, her stamp of approval. Frey started drinking at 10 years old. From what I remember, and what he remembers, by around 18 years old he was getting drunk everyday and using other drugs everyday - mostly an alcohol / crack diet. The Frey Diet Guide in stores next Christmas. Makes for great celebrations. Finally by 23 his parents took him to a drug clinic to get clean. He agreed to go and said this was his last chance at life.

Again – reading books are about gaining perspectives. To think about the life of a drug addict is disgusting and you can’t help but think of the scum of the Earth. However, as my old pal Ann Frank said something like “Generally speaking, there is good in everyone”. And after reading “A Million Little Pieces” you can’t help but think there is good in James Frey. That is how convincing his memoir is. But wait. It’s a memoir so I didn’t need to be convinced this was a true story. Our perception of memoir is – true story. Not based on a true story, but all true, as far as the writer recollects. Didn’t need convincing.

In short, Frey recovers from addiction, writes a book and it becomes a best-seller. I need to get one of those. Oprah endorses book, Smoking Gun? does research and claims Frey’s a liar. His pants were on fire today, January 26, 2005, live on Oprah’s show. Yeah, Judy, down the street, she taped it for our fam. What a lady. She’s got a memoir coming out soon by the way – but back to Frey. Oprah didn’t hold back. She brought up all the questions. Was the dentist story true? Was Lilly real and did she hang herself? How long did you really spend in prison? Why if you recovered from such tragedy did you need to embellish anything? The last question is the one I’m concerned with. If the overall story, recovering from drug addiction, is true then I still recommend reading this book. That is what the book was about – how he recovered. Drug addicts go to clinics, do the 12-steps, and most find a higher power. However, Frey claims all throughout the book, he denies God’s existence, the 12-steps and AA. He beat the addiction, in which he does not believe is a disease, by making a choice. To use or not to use, that is the choice, and is how he told readers how he recovered.

The truth came out in the other questions. Lilly did exist, she did commit suicide, but she cut her wrists, opposed to hanging herself as the book sells. I’m over that lie, or embellish. And Frey couldn’t really tell the Oprah audience about the dentist episode. He didn’t really remember, but reluctantly said there are documents. I won’t lose sleep over that. Nobody still understands why he would embellish those little details because the rest of the book did not revolve around any of that. Lilly did exist and commit suicide. She was a girl he fell in love with in the clinic, also a crackhead. And I’m sure the love story captured many female hearts who gained the perspective that even crackheads can find love and I CAN’T? Damn bitch. This is not the story. Well, the story in the book. The story that he lied, or embellish, is the after story; afterward (maybe his next memoir). The story in his book is about recovering from drug addiction.

I am not trying to let Frey off the hook. I’m just like all of you (except superior), I go to the book store, I find a book I love and I read that shit. Like I said, to gain perspectives. I gained a few with this motherlover. Publishers need to define what a memoir is and consider what journalists do not do – and the journalists do not do and they do not do for a living. Fact checking people.

I think little James Frey started writing this book, and I do believe he wrote the book, in a sense, to relieve the horrid of being and recovering from being a drug addict. He wrote it and somehow got it published. The publisher said it should be a memoir and Frey agreed for he believed THE STORY was true. He wakes up and he’s on Oprah. He’s on the best-seller list. The publishing company qualified it as memoir; he believes it’s memoir. Anyone that thinks Frey wrote the book to make millions and doop or lie to the American people (I hear Asians are reading it too) is wrong – or maybe I’m still entrapped by the story of someone overcoming drug addictions.

Still, the story was about HOW he overcame the addiction. No God, no AA, no 12-steps. He made the decision to not use and that is what I thought was the inspiring part to all readers and especially to former drugs addicts. I don’t understand how even Oprah did not ask the question of whether how he got sober was true or not. That is the question. I want it answered by Frey and the publisher. And if the answer to that question is that his recovery method is true, I still recommend reading it.

Don’t BUY it. Libraries still exist. Look in the Fiction section. I think? Because there is still some truth to “A Million Little Pieces”. And I have to believe “generally speaking, there is good in everyone”. Maybe even in James Frey.

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Conquered on Tues., November 14, 2005

A Man Without A Country by Kurt Vonnegut
Like a softball player turned linebacker, Kurt Vonnegut hilariously and intelligently tackles our government, technology, comedy, writing, other artforms and war, in his latest book A Man Without A Country. How sad? The only writer I actually read in college, and one of the most revered novelists in American history, and the man does not have a country. I on the other hand, have published only two human interest stories (that were not interesting at all) and I own a country. It's too hard to spell so let us move on. Hocus Pocus was the first book I read of Mr. Vonnegut's. This led me to read Slaughter-House-Five - both in which he rambles on about much of the same topics listed above. However, when he wrote Slaughter-House to the Five, he was a much younger man, and so was this country (now 82; in 1969, he was eh 46). Watch out, another however is coming at ya = However, his opinions about the world we live in are unfortunately quite similar. And when I mean quite, I mean it. Not a vocab word you just throw around kids. Let's look at some background on the man before we turn softball player/linebacker.
Vonnegut is a World War II veteran. He saw the destruction of Dresden (much of what Slaughter House Five was about). World War II was coming to an end. Dresden seemed like a city that escaped fighting and was a safe area for many. Vonnegut falls asleep, wakes up and the entire city is destroy - "It was the largest massacre in European history. I, of course, know about Auschwitz, but a massacre is something that happens suddenly, the killing of a whole lot of people in a very short time" (17). The British killed about 130,000 on that day of Feb. 13, 1945. He does not know how he was not killed. A friend reminded Vonnegut that he was 'nothing but a baby then'. This supplied him with the subtitle to Slaughter-House-Five "The Children's Crusade", and was finally able to write a book about Dresden, 23 years after the massacre.
Vonnegut has experienced war first hand, not from a journalistic point of view, so his feelings about war should hold more weight than people we watch on tv with their opinions and solutions for the world's problems. He feels sad for future generations because technology disconnects us with what is really important. He hates the H-bomb and the Jerry Springer show. And of course, wars will always exist, and will always be fought by the poor and declared by the rich. Vonnegut has always used comedy as a corrective tool. He jokes about never really doing drugs, except smoking weed once with Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia, and that one thing people abuse more than drugs, is fossil fuels. He says we are wasting it, destroying the earth and this will result in teenagers missing their junior prom. How awful!
Vonnegut feels sad about the state of the world and wishes the humor and intelligence of Mark Twain and Abraham Lincoln still existed today to comment about our present government.
He questions the meaning of life, wondering if all it's about is blowjobs and golf? And he believes "no matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious and charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful...the priceless gift that African Americans gave the whole world when they were still in slavery was a gift so great that it is now almost the only reason many foreigners still like us at least a little bit...a gift called the blues" (66-67).
The funniest part of the book is in the following snippet: "If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts...The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable...sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something" (24).
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Conquered on Satur., November 12, 2005

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
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Conquered on Wed., November 23, 2005
Blink - The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
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Conquered on Wed., November 30, 2995
Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre (Peter Finlay)
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Conquered on Thurs., November 2, 2005

700 Sundays by Billy Crystal

Billy Crystal, or some of his more urban friends like to call him, Billy Cristal, lends us the literature version of his Tony Award -winning play, 700 Sundays. I started reading it, and then realized I was right. Publishers were wrong to print Mitch Albom's name on the covers of Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Billy Crystal wrote those books. Anyone remember reading Albom's books and picturing Crystal? While drinking Cristal? I didn't at the time, but the voice of 700 Sundays is very reminiscent of Albom's books. I guess it's a two way compliment. Albom sounds like Crystal; Crystal sounds like Albom. Add another Jew and it'd be a 3-way. - Mitchy Boy gentile? Furthermore; or less...

700 Sundays is reminiscent to Albom's above books in that it's about a loved one. The number of Sundays refers to Crystal's approximation of how many Sundays he spent with his father, Jack. Jack played a huge role in shaping Billy's route toward hosting 700 Oscars, and making people laugh at the expense of poor people (Comic Relief). He worked Monday-Saturday; which left Sunday as the only day Billy, his two older brothers and Mother could spend with their father. Chinese food, Yankee games and Jazz music bonded the family, spending most of their time in the living room, in which Jack White might refer to as the Crystal Family's "Little Room":

Well you're in your little room

and you're working on something good

but if it's really good

you're gonna need a bigger room

and when you're in the bigger room

you might not know what to do

you might have to think of

how you got started in your little room

da da da

Crystal's in the bigger room now. I think he knows what to do? But before the Crystal we know today, there was Uncle Milt.

Uncle Milt created the Commodore Music Shop in New York City that played a major role in igniting the New York City Jazz scene. The greats hung out there - Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis help me out here dad). Billy got to meet them; they called him "Face". He got to see his first movie with Billie Holiday; they called each other Miss Billie and Mister Billie. He was around 10 years old. Later, Billy's father took over the Commodore Music Shop, his brother's went off to college, and Billy got to listen to jazz with his dad all by himself - every Sunday.

Knowing the jazz muscians enabled Billy to meet someone that became a great friend; this being Yankee legend, number 7, Mickey Mantle. Billy recalls his first ball game. His dad got his game phamplet signed by Mantle; twenty-one years past, they met and Billy got it signed again.

Billy's father also exposed Billy, and the boys, to comedy, bringing home comedy CD's from the Commodore store. Bill Cosby and Sammy Davis Jr. were some of Billy's favorite. His father held free Jazz concerts on Saturday's; emceeing, making crowds laugh. Billy wanted to be him. He, and his brothers, performed skits for their parents in their living room. Company came over to eat dinner, fastly, in anticpation for another show. Jazz, Mickey Mantle and Comedy, Billy learned from his father, and were all he cared about...Until...

...until he discovered his penis... "It's a weapon of self-destruction and you don't need U.N. inspectors to find it. You know right where it is every second (Crystal 105). Thomas Jefferson, Kennedy, Eisenhower and Clinton fell victim to the penis. He started to like girls, putting his performing career on hold. And the first girl he had a crush on, made sure there was no performing - she denied him. He was 15 and devastated. His dad got mad, saying "look at you", referring to how down Billy was because of this girl. An arguement pursued. Billy's dad left to go bowling with the mother.

Billy awakes to the sound of what he mistakenly thinks is his mother laughing. The next thing he hears is "Billy, Billy, Daddy's gone". His father suffered a heart attack at the bowling alley.

Jazz as the popular music was taken over by rocknroll; similar to how Billy's love for Jazz, the Yanks and Comedy was taken over by his penis. However, in this book, Billy makes it apparent, the 700 Sundays he spent with his father will never be taken over by the fame and millions of dollars he's made performing. "549" is still the greatest room he's ever worked.

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Bob Dylan - Chronicles Volume One by um? Bob Dylan
coming soon...the soon being when I finish this damn book...

The Tipping Point - How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

in short, a book about epidemics (fashion, disease, crime). And I will relate it to the epidemic I researched - The 1983 epidemic of high collared wearing, short haired female gym teachers...They took over our nation's (which is the best nation in the world, you know?) physical education - in which, all us older and wiser folks know, gym is the only reason we as Americans are still in shape. Yet, there is something intimidating about someone that wears their collar up; unless of course they are a male - that means they are just trying to be cool while achieving the complete opposite. However, when a female pops her collar, it means something...And when I realize what it means, I'll email you...


John Henry Days - Colson Whitehead