What I have been reading lately #48

The Skating Rink-- Roberto Bolano

Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town -- Nick Reding

Tattoo Machine: Tall Tales, True Stories, and My Life in Ink -- Jeff Johnson

What I have been reading lately #42

A Dog In a Hat: An American Bike Racer's Story of Mud, Drugs, Blood, Betrayal, and Beauty in Belgium by Joe Parkin

Joe Parkin raced bicycles in Europe (mostly Belgium) in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This book talks about his experience. There are actually fewer stories about performance-enhancing drugs than I had expected and more stories about outright cheating. For example, I did not know that in small kermis races it is (or, at least, was) common for riders in the final stages of the race to makes deals with and offer money to other riders to be allowed to win. Also, it is (or, at least, was) common for riders to be helped and pushed along by team officials riding in nearby cars when no one was around to see.

Burma Chronicles by Guy Delisle

Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle

Guy Delisle is a French-Canadian animator. He spent a few months working in North Korea for a French animation studio and then wrote a comic book about it. Later on, he went with his wife and child to Burma while his wife was working for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders). He wrote a book about that as well.

What I have been reading lately #35

CBGB's: Thirty Years from the Home of Underground Rock-- Introduction by Hilly Kristal; afterword by David Byrne. This was a book of photographs. It took about forty-five minutes to read.

Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock-and-Roll's Legendary Neighborhood by Michael Walker. I once knew someone named Michael Walker, but not the one who wrote this book. This book has lots of information about many musicians, including (but not limited to) Cass Elliot, Frank Zappa, Joni Mitchell, Steven Stills, Micky Dolenz, David Crosby, various member of the Turtles, and everyone in Led Zeppelin.

Thirty-Nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss by Tom Davis. Tom Davis wrote for NBC's Saturday Night Live program for many years and was one-half of the comedy team of Franken and Davis. He has many interesting stories to share and tells them in an amusingly random fashion.

Below: Tom Davis (right) and Al Franken (left) with some of their co-workers.

What I have been reading lately #34

Ronnie by Ronnie Wood

For over thirty years, Ronnie Wood has been one of the guitar players for the Rolling Stones. Before that, he played with the Faces and the Jeff Beck Group. This book is his autobiography, and here are some facts I learned while reading it:

• Ronnie Wood was one of the first members of his family born on dry land -- he describes his family as "water gypsies" and says previous members had always been born on canal barges.
• Ronnie Wood's family and school were both very supportive of his musical and artistic talents as a youth.
• Ronnie Wood has met, has hung out with, knows, or has partied with every single important person in the last forty years of music and entertainment, and he mentions each and every one in his book. Examples include Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Rod Stewart, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Ronnie Lane, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Graham Chapman, Ginger Baker, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Keith Moon, Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Patti Boyd, George Harrison, John Lennon, John Belushi, Bill Murray, Groucho Marx, Tony Curtis, Maradona, Pete Townsend, Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix.
• While driving his first wife to the hospital to deliver their first child, he and his friends gave rides home to California Governor Jerry Brown and actor Warren Beatty.
• Ronnie Wood picked out furniture for his new baby's bedroom with the help of Diana Ross.

Below: The Faces

• During the course of his career, Ronnie Wood has earned and squandered a lot of money.
• In addition to being a professional musician, Ronnie Wood also paints and draws and has made a lot of money selling his artwork.
• Ronnie Wood seems like one of the happiest, most easy-going people who ever existed.

Below: Ronnie Wood with some of his children.

What I have been reading lately #30

Hero of the Underground by Jason Peter with Tony O'Neill

Jason Peter was an All-American defensive lineman for the University of Nebraska during the 1990s. From there, he went on to play for the Carolina Panthers. His career, however, was cut short by injuries, and he quickly sank into the world of drug abuse. This book tells about his years spent abusing drugs and then finally recovering.

Interesting facts about this book:

• On the cover it says, "My journey down to heroin-- and back". It probably should read, "My journey from prescription painkillers to cocaine to crack cocaine to heroin (with a little crystal meth as well)-- and back". Maybe there wasn't room to put all that, or maybe the publishers just thought heroin sounded the scariest, but I think the jacket blurb misrepresents the book.
• Jason Peter has very strong views on different treatment options, mostly quite negative. He is especially annoyed at psychologists, group meetings, 12 step programs, religion, and treating addiction as a disease.
• Jason Peter also has very, very unpleasant things to say about former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz, specifically about how Lou Holtz treated Peter's younger brother.
• Reading about people's completely deranged drug binges and then futile efforts to quit can actually be sort of boring after awhile. I still liked the book, however.

What I have been reading lately #6

I just finished reading John Albert's Wrecking Crew: The Really Bad News Griffith Park Pirates. It has everything - baseball, punk rock and heavy metal, amusing stories about junkies. The book is similar to The Bad News Bears, except, of course, without Walter Matthau.