Saturday, May 17. 2008
I will never look at tuna fish sandwiches the same again.
I've wanted to read Les Claypool's novel since he released it in 2006, hoping for some insight into his skewed perspective on life, and this it has in spades. It reads like snapshots of his life growing up are used to provide the infrastructure around which the novel is wrapped. You get a feeling that Claypool lived many of these events in real life, though maybe not the gruesome parts, though his macabre sense of humor is certainly evident.
The book is basically a fishing tale of two brothers, gone very awry. Primus fans can almost picture Claypool and guitarist Larry LaLonde as the brothers, bobbing around in a small boat in one of northern California's backwater bays, drinking beer, eating stale sandwiches, and baiting hooks with grass shrimp. In fact Primus song and character references abound throughout the novel, the old diamondback sturgeon making an appearance, in fact playing a major role, and much of the story takes place in El Sobrante, the backwater town that features prominently in Primus songs and the place where Les and Larry grew up.
The book is a little slow to start, but becomes more engaging the deeper you go, by the final bloody climax your hooked like a sturgeon, and the twist at the end is disconcerting.
The jacket references the writing to be something akin to Hunter S. Thompson, but aside from the many drug references I don't see it. Thompson's drug referencing rants were always fantastic, beyond the pale of imagination, and usually bitingly satirical. Claypool's use of drugs in his work is a much more gritty, honest, pale, nauseous and sweaty portrayal of drug abuse with no satire at all.
It's a good read, not for everyone, graphic sex, drugs, and violence, and fishing. I took a 30 minute shower after I finished and still didn't feel clean. Felt a little seasick too.
Technorati Tags: Review, Les Claypool, Primus, South+Of+The+Pumphouse
Thursday, November 9. 2006
I fell in love with Sharon Osbourne when she was fat and relatively unknown. I fell in love with her when, in defending her husband on the Howard Stern Show, she threatened to beat the living shit (I assume that was the word due to the bleep injected) out of BOTH members of the Insane Clown Posse.
Here is this old, short, fat woman who is so in love with her husband that she is shooting fire from her soul because they DARED defame him. I knew little about her other than she had been with Ozzy forever and a day and well - she had balls.
Years later, much of the world fell in love with Sharon and the rest of the Osbourne clan. It was hard hearing people who couldn't name a song that he wrote, let alone like him musically as I did, say how cool he was. Ozzy was taboo. Now the world loved him. They fell in love with his family and their antics. Sharon was crowned one of the most beautiful people in America by People Magazine, foul mouthed, obscene, full of laughter and love for her family. When we covered Ozz Fest this summer, I wished for the chance to meet Sharon and tell her, "Hey broad, I wish I had balls as big as yours!" Sharon would get the broad. She would understand it was a compliment. But alas, it didn't happen.
When I heard she'd written a book, lets just say I RAN to the store and picked it up. Couldn't wait for shipping.
What I learned is Sharon, in fact, is a hard as nails broad who loves her family more than life itself. I still can't for the life of me understand why she forgave her father. I wouldn't have. I can't believe she forgave Ozzy. I know I wouldn't have. But she also gave him back as good as he did. One of the things I learned from her book is that my mantra in life is good. "Fuck em if they can't take a joke." Sharon has lived her life on those terms.
I knew the book was supposed to be Sharon's story and nothing more. I thought, however, I would hear more Ozzy. Yeah, there is a lot Ozzy, but this is truly her story. Her start as a child in a very unconventional household, where love was bought and then taken away. Verbal abuse and an emotional wasteland. Her start in the music industry as a woman in a time where women were not in charge of things. The way her father used both Sharon and her brother and, well, everyone who came near him to advance himself, rather than give a hoot about family. She took her lumps and moved on, not lingering on the past other than to learn from the mistakes. Yes, she had a hard life, but damned if I could find a single note of regret. I found another thing in common with her. Yeah you are going to make mistakes, shit is going to happen, but don't regret it. Move on. Start again.
This was the first book in a long time that actually had me laughing out loud. It covers her birth in England to present day, with flashes to her preparations for Ozzy's first anniversary of sobriety in present time. She takes you through the sordid history with her father, his ties with the mob, betrayal by her family, her struggles with her weight, her relationship with Ozzy and their children, and through her cancer. And she is very honest. This isn't a warm and fuzzy life, but it is hers, out there for all to see.
Being a fan of Ozzy made me feel close to the story. A lot of what she was talking about, I knew or knew of. I remembered the bat, the dove, Randy's death, her almost murder, the million trips to rehab. I remember it all. But I remembered it from Ozzy's side. I remembered what the press released. I also didn't realize how involved she was with band management. Some of the names both she and her father worked with were impressive to say the least.
I was enthralled with the entire story, to the point where sleep has been minimal. Staying up until I couldn't see the words, getting up early just to finish. It took me a day and a half. My only regret is the book was too short.
I can't say enough good about this book. If you want to spend a few days alone with a woman who is full of love and laughter, and has a great big pair of grapefruits, get this book. You won't regret it.
Wednesday, August 16. 2006
In a land awash in the post-industrial consumerism of the late 20th century, a land seemingly enchanted with the phrase "He who dies with the most toys wins," it's sometimes hard to remember the other phrase, "You can't take it with you." One thing you will take with you is your memories, and I have spent the last few years trying to gather more of those rather than accumulating bits of crap that have to be sorted, stored, and warehoused. School memories, snake hunting stories, expos or conventions and oh ... the concerts. Thousands of concerts.
Big bands, little bands, high schoolers, retirees, hot jazz, cool funk, or riotous punk. Of all my memories, the concerts always come to the top of my lists. The Ramones, XTC, Genesis, AC/DC, god my list is seemingly endless. My only regret is that except for my brief stint as a high school journalist I failed to document any of them and that saddens me, and is a failing I mean to correct here.
Concerts big and small have different effects and meanings to different people. Lots of times it's just seeing a band, watching them plow repetitively through their catalog, playing along as if on some automated music production line, going through the motions to make sound fill the air until their time is up. Other times concerts take on the aura of a religious experience or a historical event. While I have seen many concerts, for me only a small handful reach that level. I have had near-religious experiences both in the past and recently.
The Ramones were one from my long ago past, Hank III or The Zico Chain are some from my recent history. Some of the bands and concerts have gone on to literally change the world we live in today. I am certainly not the only person who feels this way about concerts, either. I always wanted to do a book, and failing that, I started this website instead.
This week I was buying some technical manuals at a local Barnes & Nobles and I spied something on their "new" table. I usually don't get sucked in by such obvious marketing tactics, but what I found was a book that absolutely blew me away. Called "I Was There: Gigs That Changed the World", this inexpensive softbound book is aimed straight at my soul. As I flipped through its pages and counted off the bands I saw between its covers, I found it hard not to get whisked back to those nights in smoke-filled clubs, or the huge stadiums, or reading about the shows you couldn't possibly attend in the popular music press of the time.
The book is filled with stage and behind the scene photos from the events. The people still seem so incredibly young and I feel so incredibly old. I know that Johnny Rotten grew up to be an adult, but seeing that 25+ year old photo of the Pistols at Randy's Rodeo in San Antonio when he was literally a punk kid and so was I, reading the words again, it all just came flooding back. Seeing the Ramones again as twenty-somethings fresh from the stage. And the shows I didn't go to, but followed in the press or on TV or have heard legendary stories about, they are all there too. James Brown at the Apollo in '62, The Beatles at Shea Stadium in '65, Johnny Cash playing at Folsom Prison in '68 with Merle Haggard in the prison audience, the make or break for Johnny's career, Bowie's last "Spiders" show, Zeppelin's epic 5-night show at Earl's Court in London in '75, Clapton's first comeback show after nearly slipping away to smack, the infamous Ramones show in London in '76, it's all there in black and white and in color. The words, the pictures, the spirit. I got chills down my spine just glancing through it.
It's not just all the good shows either. The dark spirit over Altamont, the show that ended the "free love" of the ,60s, is in there, as is the cloud that hangs over the First Festival of Chilean Song in '69 that helped launch the cultural revolution that put Allende into power in '72, ending in a miltary coup that saw the festival's promotor, musician Victor Jara, his hands mercelessly broken, tortured, executed and buried in a mass grave in the stadium where the festival was held. These are counterbalanced by such stories as George Harrison's epic Concert for Bangla Desh and Bob Geldof's Live Aid.
I couldn't put this book down, even in the car driving home I caught myself sneaking little peaks at the traffic lights. When I got home I read it cover to cover.
Half the price of a concert ticket, this book is a must-have for any live music fan just for the memories it evokes. I know what a LOT of people are going to be getting for Christmas this year.
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