This one is for the old-timers that recall Hart, who was an actress, singer, and wife of Broadway's Moss Hart. I knew little about her and simply haveThis one is for the old-timers that recall Hart, who was an actress, singer, and wife of Broadway's Moss Hart. I knew little about her and simply have been fond of her for her many years on To Tell The Truth, but she barely mentions that show in this book. Instead it's about her lavish, spoiled life--proof that those with money have a greater chance at success and power.
I found her desire to not be political refreshing until the final chapter, which oddly focuses on her leadership of the New York arts council. She totally skips any personal information from her past decade and instead pushes the concept that tax dollars should be used to support arts organizations. But she doesn't give a fair chance to the side that says the government has no business making decisions regarding what is art, what should be funded in the private sector, and why hard-earned tax dollars should go to pay for elitist organizations. This seems to be a typical Democratic view that the average person should pay tax money to support the lifestyles of the rich liberals.
Other than a bad last chapter it's a slow, gentle read and one that reveals a number of aspects from her past that were surprises. She is always so positive that it's a bit refreshing, but that also means she doesn't get into the real dirt of any life stories. She's simply classy, at all times, and seems unaware that she isn't an average person....more
Zero Stars for this worthless booklet that has little to do with Karen Carpenter and mostly is about the author pushing her distorted queer studies agZero Stars for this worthless booklet that has little to do with Karen Carpenter and mostly is about the author pushing her distorted queer studies agenda as well as her personal life.
It's half the size of a normal book and has what amounts to 60 pages of normal text, making it seem more like a biased term paper or long magazine article. It is completely written as a first-person experiential piece--it's not about why Carpenter matters to the world but why the singer matters to the author and the people she represents: queer and Filipino. Even using that as the theme it's a failure. Who cares why Tongson feels a connection to her namesake or feeling psychic spirits in the supposedly haunted studio where Carpenter recorded or why the writer's grandmother cut her hair before her wedding? Yes, it gets that ridiculous.
In this rambling nonsense she makes all sorts of unsubstantiated statements based totally on her impressions. It reflects everything that is wrong with today's approach to "research" and "gender studies." Instead of looking at objective data or outside sources, it totally misuses facts taken out of context to reflect Tongson's experiences and views that are not typical or societal or accurate. For her to call Karen Carpenter "not straight" is a shocking statement to make without evidence and to constantly quote queer studies authors puts a slant on this book that distorts any value it might have.
I agree that Karen Carpenter matters to the music community for a variety of reasons and was an amazing one-of-a-kind voice, but this misses almost all the valid points that could have been made. If you care about the wonderful singer than skip this because in terms of music history Karen Tongson doesn't matter....more
Quickie bio thrown together after Little Richard died, it’s basically an expanded discography that barely mentions his private life and subjectively gQuickie bio thrown together after Little Richard died, it’s basically an expanded discography that barely mentions his private life and subjectively gushes throughout. It’s essentially a long Wikipedia entry that glosses over lots of the singer’s faults and failures, with no details about many major public and private milestones. The irony of the book’s title is that it’s too short and makes the singer’s life seem small.
There are a few interesting tidbits dealing with the music business, but the last 50 years of his life get’s summarized in 30 pages. I found out he had a son I hadn't known about, but the young man is only mentioned in three sentences in the book. There's almost nothing about his homosexuality, though it's hinted at in a couple spots.
Not worth reading, especially when the author tries to make Little Richard sound like the greatest of all time. He was an early star of rock and roll who spent the rest of his life recovering from delusions of grandeur....more
While it contains some good stories about how some of his famous music was written, this misguided author spends almost half of his book reminiscing aWhile it contains some good stories about how some of his famous music was written, this misguided author spends almost half of his book reminiscing about his time in France when he was 19 as a student of a famous music teacher name Boulanger. He says his family convinced him that his letters home to his family from his late teen years in France were worth publishing in book form. They're not.
It's hard to understand how Fox thought there was anything of merit in the over 100 pages devoted to his letters or memories that have almost nothing to do with his music career. Skip straight to page 101 (in paperback edition) where he returns to New York at age 20, but even then it's another 20 pages before anything interesting occurs and the author insists on weaving his time in France throughout the rest of the book in asides placed in italics.
The book needed a good editor to cut the first hundred pages and summarize it in a few paragraphs, then get to the meat of his career, when he starts writing music for movies and television. Fox's repetitiveness needed to be cut out (he'd mention the same details 2 or 3 times in different chapters). There are also many errors in the book, incorrect dates and misinformation about what was happening with a TV show. It seems that in putting his memories down on paper Fox failed to do any research to confirm what he recalled, so some of his TV facts are wrong.
It's really a 2-star book but then in the middle he tells a great story about his involvement with the Grease movie musical, which he was fired from and received no money from the multi-million selling soundtrack even though he produced most of the songs. The book gets an extra star for slamming industry greats like Dizzy Gillespie, Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. Yes, he actually has a negative story about Dolly Parton in this book, where the cutthroat country star forced his song out of a movie so she could stick her own in. Streisand is here too, and while she at first seemed nice you find out she really was just using him to compose a song for The Main Event because she didn't like the upbeat song already written. Fox's song never was used and the original composition became a big hit.
He also was involved in a number of other things he doesn't often get credit for, including the early Tonight Show and The Match Game, as well works that producers took credit for that he receives no payments even though they'd played on TV for 60 years.
So if you're patient you'll find some good inside music industry dirt here, though Fox coats it in sugary sweet wording to try not to offend anyone. Almost everyone he works with is wonderful and he "understands" when he is given a $500 buyout for composing the amazing Wide World of Sports theme, that of course ran every weekend on network TV for over 50 years and could have earned him hundreds of thousands in royalties.
There just isn't enough about his most famous TV work from the 1970s: Love American Style, Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, and The Love Boat. His Killing Me Softly song gets the same minimal details mentioned in three different spots but never really goes into much depth. Instead he devotes way too much to his ballets and symphonic pieces, and of course a ridiculous amount to his French music teacher. It's a mishandled opportunity, but has enough strong material in it to make parts of it worth reading....more
Some good stories from the most egotistical celebrity writer I've ever encountered, a guy who constantly calls himself "famous" and "rock star" and inSome good stories from the most egotistical celebrity writer I've ever encountered, a guy who constantly calls himself "famous" and "rock star" and includes almost nothing negative in the book about himself. It's all about the songs he wrote that became "hits," even though I'd argue that many of the songs I've never heard of and some aren't as popular as he claims. There's actually some incorrect factual information in the book as well, with all of it sounding like he's simply bragging and needs to exaggerate. And it's filled with unnecessary profanity, which comes across as a desperate attempt to seem hip.
Essentially each chapter in the book is about a song and he can get pretty specific about how he wrote them. Then he usually ties in some kind of story about how the song was recorded or something unusual that happened with the song. I have to admit, there are some pretty good stories in this book (the Taiwan mafia story is like reading a thriller) and it could have even been a 4-star read--but his big jerk attitude dilutes the impact of many chapters.
The artist side of him wants to constantly namedrop so that we're all aware that he knows many famous people. The bigger the star, the more Marx wants you to know that he's their "friend," but it's odd that he'll go many years without talking to his "friends." In a couple cases he disses some supposed friends (Kenny Loggins doesn't come off looking very good!) and the point to most stories seems to be how many celebrities he knows and how famous he has become. It gets really repetitive and boring to hear that.
He writes, "Most famous people are pretty stupid....In order to sustain their popularity they need to focus 99 percent of their energies and attention on themselves." Ah, look in the mirror, Richard. That's all you do in this book instead of writing something relatable about your real life or those you really know well.
Probably the weirdest thing in the book is that he think he has the mental ability to "will things to happen." The longtime vegan seems to follow a spirituality where it's mind-over-matter and that it isn't circumstances or providence that brings people together, it's Richard Marx deciding in his mind it's going to happen. Bizarre.
As an only child who grew up in what I'd consider an upper class home (though he tries to deny it), there's nothing normal or average about this guy. He started helping with his dad's radio jingles as a child, fell into backup singing and songwriting at 18, had what he claims are ideal flawless parents, flies all over, buys what he wants, has the perfect ex-wife, great kids, ideal current wife, always succeeds--but there's nothing about drugs, addiction, tough times, relationship issues, or struggles. Even when he stops selling records he tries to make it sound like it was his choice to switch careers. He makes it all appear easy and perfect, and after a while I just want him to act like a normal human being.
Marx's book ends up being as much bland pop with catchy hook stories as are his songs. And he's fooling himself if he thinks he was a "rock star"--he'll be remembered for being pure AC beautiful music all the way. So he needs to write a real memoir with more personal stories to tell....more
Mostly boring memoir that gets way too #BLM political and doesn't really reveal much other than that Alicia Keys can be kind of bitchy and hold a grudMostly boring memoir that gets way too #BLM political and doesn't really reveal much other than that Alicia Keys can be kind of bitchy and hold a grudge. She was given her freedom way too young (running around the streets of New York at 11), skipped ahead in school two years, started having sex at 13 or 14 (though she doesn't get specific), and was a real rebel. We're supposed to admire this woman?
Throughout all of this she is claiming to be a sensitive, spiritual person, but by the end of the book I didn't like her. She is very judgmental, doesn't do much research on political issues beyond the headlines, and seems to support abortion even though her mother was turned away by an abortion clinic, changed her mind, and had Alicia. When your life is saved by a mother who chooses to not abort, shouldn't you be a bit more grateful? When Keys second pregnancy comes she considers aborting the baby, then writes a life-affirming song and her own song helps her decide to keep it. While I admire what she does for AIDS children in Africa, she needed to go one step further and affirm all life in the womb but she fails to do that.
Instead a large portion of the last part of the book is devoted to Oprah (way too much buying into Oprah's bland quasi-spirituality), the Obamas (yawn), and her claims that many more blacks are killed by cops than are reported, making it in her mind the major problem in America (ignoring that something like 90% of blacks are kills by other blacks). She also seems enthralled with Egypt but fails to address the horrible crimes there or the history of slavery in that nation. Her support of the black community is somewhat ironic since she makes clear her mother was very white and her dad was an absent, uncaring black father who she hated to the point that she wrote him a letter telling him she wanted nothing to do with him.
The book is fairly well written but there is so little substance to it beyond it being a PR release for her to align herself with all the right causes. There's not much in the chronology beyond, "Then I made this album" and "Then I went on this tour." If you are a die-hard supporter and fan you probably love it, for the rest of us it's disappointing, doesn't reveal enough, and isn't worth reading....more
A somewhat interesting book as far as it goes, though it doesn't go far enough. This is a very personal look at Eartha Kitt from a very biased daughteA somewhat interesting book as far as it goes, though it doesn't go far enough. This is a very personal look at Eartha Kitt from a very biased daughter who puts her mom on a pedestal. It's non-stop telling us how great Eartha was, and I guess it's nice that a daughter feels that way. But the whole thing goes way too long (322 pages!) due to the lack of solid content to fill the pages. All sorts of things are ignored or summarized in a sentence or two that should have had more depth, while the author is extremely repetitive trying to use the book to spin her mother as being always kind.
The most interesting part is that Eartha looked black (she's believed to be half black but she never found out who her father was) and her daughter Kitt looks white (her dad was white), which leads to an interesting discussion of race. At first the point is clearly made that, like Martin Luther King said, everyone should be treated the same no matter what the color of their skin. It was even nice to read the author making the point that Obama could just as much been called white as black, so skin color means nothing.
However, Kitt then takes a turn to speculate that Eartha would support Black Lives Matter and probably march in the streets with them. Nothing could be more different from what MLK taught than Black Lives Matter. The group is anti-white racist and is looking for equity, not equality--it bases it's agenda on the color of skin and demeans others that aren't black. Eartha's #1 rule was to "be kind," and no group is less kind than the radicals and criminals hiding behind BLM. She also was a big believer in independence and freedom, which stand against the basic socialist beliefs of Black Live Matter. So to say Eartha would support the group means she would have to contradict her beliefs, or she would just be like all the other black hypocrites that claim to be for racial equality but support a racist group to be politically correct.
On the other hand the fact that Eartha stood up in the White House to President Johnson and condemned the Vietnam War long before Jane Fonda did (costing Eartha her career) proves that the woman is a radical on her own. She seemed to want to defend the underdog, since she herself was one--given up by her mother who married a man that didn't want children.
So many parts of the book are interesting, probably one-third of it. But the sections about Kitt and her mom traveling or Kitt celebrating holidays or the two of them at home are pretty boring. Kitt doesn't really even tell enough about herself, rushing through her two marriages so fast that you might miss the fact that she divorced a first husband who she later asked to move close to her and her second husband.
If you're looking for any behind-the-scenes stories about any Eartha projects you won't find them here. Nothing about her famous Christmas song being made, nothing about the acting beyond basic credit mentions, a sentence about Batman cranking up her fame but no details about the show. There needed to be more specifics about all of it, not assuming we had read one of Eartha's memoirs.
The end of Eartha's life is well detailed and sad, but there's not much about Kitt after that. So the story is really about a mother and daughter who both adore each other, and puts a positive image on an entertainer whose persona became very catty, dark, and witchy. According to her daughter, Eartha Kitt was nothing like the Catwoman we saw on screen....more
Spoiled princess writes about her privileged life, with little drama and a lot of padded pages. While Priyanka claims it's not about her sophisticatedSpoiled princess writes about her privileged life, with little drama and a lot of padded pages. While Priyanka claims it's not about her sophisticated looks, pretty much everything falls into her lap due to her rich background (both parents were doctors) or her beauty.
She does give a basic outline of her life and much of it in India is confusing. Unless you understand the culture or country, her details about places, people, and customs become boring because she doesn't explain much. She acts like she assumes we know what she's talking about. Nowhere does she explain the caste system or how she can live with her rich upbringing (she had servants to do everything for her) while bemoaning the poor in the streets.
Her parents treat her like a princess and do whatever she wants, with a stage mother who practically pushes her into everything while Priyanka's younger brother gets ignored. The author wants to convince us how wonderful her parents are, but they often abandon their children for months or years at a time. There's a horrible story of how at age seven her mother takes her hours away to a boarding school without telling her she will be left there--Priyanka sits on the playground day after day looking at the gate waiting for her mom to return and rescue her. What kind of parent does that without talking to the child first? She chalks this up to her great parents teaching her how to be independent; I read it as being the reason she grew to be an very insecure adult who hates to be alone or ever be criticized. They certainly were not the ideal parents she makes them out to be.
The really interesting section is about her three years in America as a teenager, living with relatives and not her parents. Sadly, it's way too short and lacks many details. She clearly states that her years in "conservative" Iowa and Indiana were amazingly positive and accepting of her ethnicity; meanwhile her times in New York City and Boston were filled with bigotry and bullying. When she moves back to her own country to finish high school, she continues to be looked down upon by fellow upper class Indians (including her relatives) for being too dark skinned or speaking with a bit of an accent. Yet she fails to make the connection that the people in her life that accepted her were the conservative Christians, and the ones that rejected her were the liberals. Has she not figured out that she married a guy raised in a conservative Christian culture, which represents the only positive acceptance she ever had in life?
Whenever the book goes to India she writes in more detail but it's much less interesting. She stumbles into a Bollywood career with absolutely no acting experience. She then is plucked by American record producers for a music career even though she never sang a note professionally in her life (her singing voice was dubbed in Bollywood films). And then a TV executive calls her out of nowhere asking if she'd consider acting in America, giving her a chance to audition for a lead role in what becomes Quantico. No work involved, no working her way up like normal people. She obviously was selected due to her looks and upper class style, though she doesn't want to admit it. I'm still baffled at how she was selected for any of these things without any experience (especially the recording deal, which makes no sense as she tells it), proving that life isn't fair for average people--it's the rich, beautiful folks that get the breaks.
If you're looking for any personal insights into her dating years, forget it. There's nothing here. She at times uses a paragraph to summarize many years instead of giving us stories worth reading. There is no mention of any drug usage (extremely rare in a celebrity memoir) and based on this book you assume she must have never had sex, since she says nothing about it. Instead of padding the book with minor repetitive information about her country or clothing her mother wears we need her to tear down the wall and let us in to her real life.
Even her marriage to Nick Jonas is confusing and lacks detail. Oh, she goes into the weird wedding ceremonies and customs, but actually talking about what she did with Nick to fall in love isn't in this book. They just exchange some emails for almost two years, get together a few times without really dating, and decide to get married on a whim, just like her parents did. Without explanations and stories it sounds like a fairy tale. And that's not a compliment for an adult memoir.
She finds a few things to complain about, such as her many flights from India to the U.S. in order to be a star in both countries or the negative internet commenters that she hates. Poor Priyanka, to be so rich and famous that she is tired from all that flying or that she actually has people calling her on some of her choices in a country where free speech is a basic right. Everything she gripes about is pretty insignificant. Priyanka's life, as presented here, has been picture perfect.
This short book (just over 200 pages) sounds like a cheerleader thanking all the people who helped her get ahead in life (with way too many unknown names in it from teachers to pageant officials to record executives) while trying to act humble in tacking on a final chapter that explores her "inner house" that includes her non-profit charity and her star husband. She promotes a new Netflix movie coming out this and ultimately it all feels like the book was put together as PR spin to further her career. It all comes across as being unnecessary and, truly, unfinished.
Surprising stories poorly told. This incredibly negative, depressing book has some interesting stories from Mariah Carey's childhood, including a lot Surprising stories poorly told. This incredibly negative, depressing book has some interesting stories from Mariah Carey's childhood, including a lot of details about her horrible family, but it's so poorly written and repetitive that you almost want to give up after reading 100 pages of nothing but negativity. Then you move on to almost another hundred depressing pages about her early career and first husband. Over halfway through the book there hasn't been one positive, upbeat, or carefree moment at all--which is quite the opposite of the image Mariah Carey likes to project.
Only about 30 of the 340 pages contain anything positive, but it doesn't first happen until she meets Derek Jeter closer to the 200 page point. It only lasts for 20 pages, then you dive back into her non-stop sad stories where she blames everyone else but herself for her problems. The only fairly positive thing comes near the end of the book when she rushes to summarize her last twenty years and includes a couple pages about Nick Cannon, but otherwise the memoir is one of the most negative I've ever read.
The lack of redemptive qualities in the text are surprising since Carey claims to be such a deep person of spiritual faith and thinks God gave her a vision as a child to inspire the world. She claims to have a huge following of "Lambs" that understand her spirit and who she inspires. But this isn't inspirational in the least.
She is to blame for many of her adult problems and she choose to stick with some really bad characters, including her first husband, her mother, her brother, and her sister. To now complain about how terrible they were to her (including institutionalizing her and working contracts to their advantage instead of hers) seems sour grapes for her own inability to act and think like a real adult. Yes, she had an amazingly traumatic childhood, but once you become a multimillionaire pop star in your mid-20s, you no longer can blame others for your allowing them to mistreat you for the next twenty years when you sign the deals and you keep them on the payroll.
The book is way too repetitive, even telling some facts twice, and timelines jump all over the place in what appears to be her attempt to hide some things. She starts the book claiming time means nothing to her, and anyone that has had to work with her knows the disrespect she shows others by failing to show up at agreed up on times. But it's also a way for her to control others and hide her inabilities. What it really needs is a serious editor to stand up to her, cut 100 pages, then insist that she cover the last couple decades in much more detail.
It also is too braggadocious when it comes to her claiming music success, thinking her songs are classics by reprinting the simplistic lyrics throughout. Yes, she did win awards and set some Billboard records, but life should be measured by much more than that. She seems delusional in spots and fails to address some of the very public problems with her flighty, rude personality. The mental picture Mariah Carey has of herself doesn't match reality, and makes the reader suspect how accurate a picture she then presents of the other people that get bashed so boldly on the pages. After the hundredth mention of her horrible brother or mooching mother or trashy sister or controlling husband we get the point--she has an axe to grind and is using the memoir to get back at others instead of self-reflection and inner revelations.
So instead of focusing on interesting stories of albums or recording sessions or working with others or her own failures, she keeps returning to the hurt child that is mad at her family and ex-husbands. While she claims emancipation, it becomes obvious that Mariah Carey is not really free as a butterfly at all and hasn't really found her meaning....more
Like a pop song, this simplistic book just touches on a few repetitive hot topics and fails to go into any emotional depth. It was written way too sooLike a pop song, this simplistic book just touches on a few repetitive hot topics and fails to go into any emotional depth. It was written way too soon (when he was 28!), by a kid that became famous too quickly and is unable to adequately communicate his feelings or experiences. Yes, he was famous for a couple years, but he doesn't tell you enough inside stories about what life was like to give the reader any sense of his struggles or successes.
You'll learn very little about Bass's childhood or even how he came to *NSync. He was in some high school singing groups and just got a call one day saying this Orlando group needed a bass singer. That's it. He does mention some young partying in high school, but tries to claim he was a good Christian boy that knew he was gay--even though he never touched another male and doesn't really mention Jesus or his beliefs in the book.
There are only three interesting parts of the book: The first deals with Lou Pearlman and Bass's version of how the boys stupidly signed away any profits. It's shocking to hear that after three years of million-selling albums they were still personally making about minimum wage.
The second is about Justin Timberlake forcing the group to break up. JT doesn't look good here and now years later we see what a jerk he has been not only to his fellow *NSync members but to his wife and others. It's unclear why everything thinks he's so talented and cool, because he comes across as all about furthering himself and hurting those who trust him.
Finally, there's Bass's coming out story, which again lacks depth or any emotion. He claims to have been "born gay," which of course is impossible to know, and he didn't actually have any physical contact with another male until well into his 20s. Then he tries to hide his boyfriends, sabotages his relationships by having guys move in then not want them around. And he quickly has to publicly come out in People magazine when the media catch wind of his sexuality. It's sad to hear him justify his choices and hurt his family by not talking to them in person.
There is a fourth section about his training to be a cosmonaut, which is bizarre. He was in Russia for four months and was about to go to the Space Station before Russia demanded millions from him that he couldn't pay. How can a guy be in Russia all that time and not provide any real inside stories of dealing with them?
The book is way too short at 192 double-spaced pages with big borders to hide the fact that there's not much content here. It seems to be a PR move to try to put his spin on a couple of things he was criticized for in the press. He brags often about himself, the group (were they really "the number one pop group in the world" and comparable to the Beatles???), the women who wanted him (he doesn't go into any details but claims to have dated some), and how many offers he got for movies, TV, etc. (again, no specifics). One other beef--his co-writer Marc Eliot writes a trite "introduction" to the book--why would Bass have his co-author write an intro instead of Joey Fatone, his best friend?
I can't say I respect Lance Bass after reading this. He loves to blame-shift and comes across as a wimp who doesn't stand up for what he believes is right. Nice guy? Probably. But no backbone nor moral standards, despite what he claims. And he seems internally out of sync with himself, unable to deal with reality or fame.
Andy Williams just skims the surface of his career with very few personal details of his life or stories behind his music. Instead of giving us any inAndy Williams just skims the surface of his career with very few personal details of his life or stories behind his music. Instead of giving us any insight he deflects by actually telling more stories about others than about himself. He spends way too much time on the Kennedys (about 10% of the pages) and seems very defensive of famous friends who have gained a lot of negative publicity (Sinatra, JFK, RFK, his ex-wife who shot her lover to death). In the end the book seemed like a humble brag--where he tries to tell us how insecure he is but how many famous people he knew and how rich he got.
The early parts of the book are best, where he talks about growing up in Iowa and being pushed by his father into the music business with his brothers. His dad taught him to be a perfectionist when putting on a show, and that caused a lot of anxiety in Andy (who later in life came to hate being on stage). Even in reviewing those early years he provides some snide negative comments about those he has a beef with, including his dad. That trait runs through the book and reflects his Iowa Stubborn background, where the proud people act like they're kind while ignoring you or insulting you.
Once he gets to his career he focuses a lot on a couple of people who help catapult him to success, particularly Kay Thompson. The two are an odd pairing and her mentorship turns sexual, though he doesn't go into depth on their affair. She seems to have single-handedly given him his career and the structure he needed to make it--but even Thompson gets slammed by Williams when he discovers she is making a lot of money off of his newfound success. This guy holds grudges while smiling outwardly.
When he finally hits it big the book falters and over half of it seems to be name-dropping the famous people he knew, including wasted pages on the backgrounds of many stars we already know about. It's weird that Williams doesn't give us any details about conversations or activities with these big names--just saying that he spent the night listening to gospel music with Elvis or playing golf with a U.S. president is not really telling us life stories. And if you're looking for any background details on how some his famous songs came to be you won't find it here--he doesn't even mention some of them nor seem to understand which ones will live on in history. For example he focuses often on "Butterfly," which was a very early hit that many have never heard, but ignores "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year," which will be played every holiday season for centuries.
The Kennedy section is frustrating because Williams is a Republican and although he becomes so close with Bobby Kennedy that he flies across the country with him on a private jet and vacations often with the Kennedys (including with Jackie), we're supposed to believe the two never talked politics nor did Andy ever reveal his voter affiliation? It was only when Kennedy ran for president and asked Andy to be a delegate for him that Williams said he was a Republican, to which Bobby simply told him to switch parties.
It is interesting to hear the inside story about what went on the night of RFK's murder but Andy's defense of the Kennedys and his claim that they were anti-Mafia are naive and historically inaccurate. There are many statements made in the book that are factually incorrect or wrong-sided opinions.
I had hoped for much more openness and self-awareness in this book. He does state that he regrets traveling too much for work and missing time with his kids (as most celebs do in memoirs) but in the end he places himself on a very high pedestal. While he was, to me, the greatest male vocalist of all time, it would have been nice to have him share more of his failings instead of trying to make himself look so perfect....more
Sometimes interesting but often unsatisfying book about a gay graduate student working at D. C. strip clubs. While the cover and title make the subjecSometimes interesting but often unsatisfying book about a gay graduate student working at D. C. strip clubs. While the cover and title make the subject obvious, what isn't clearly stated until way near the end of the book is that Craig Seymour wasn't just some sex-hungry gay kid that liked to let men touch him--he actually is an established music writer who had a career at major publications as both a critic and editor. He then uses about twenty percent of the latter part of the book to focus on his interviews with celebrities, which totally changes the book's tone. And the final pages do a quick summary of how confused he is about what all this means.
He certainly was not a typical guy dancing in the strip clubs--he was older than most, teaching as a grad student at a major university (though not an "elite" school the way he claims), he had never had sex with a man other than his boyfriend (who seemed to have no trouble with Craig stripping), and he decided to do a grad school thesis on strip clubs in D.C. before actually joining the industry.
A lot of the first half of the book is too tame or academic, with stories of the guys he interviewed at the clubs. He doesn't really provide much insight into these men because the talks are shallow and held at the workplace in between sets. Much of this seems like rehash from what he wrote in grad school, and the reader has to assume that the author recorded all the conversations since there are so many specific direct quotes.
The book only gets interesting once it shifts into being more about Seymour--when he decides to try stripping while he's continuing to teach a university course and completing his master's degree. His boyfriend/roommate is alluded to but their relationship isn't explored, and one has to wonder why Craig's supposedly monogamous guy would approve of hundreds of men touching Seymour's very private parts. The question arises about what does it mean to be monogamous or to "have sex," but the author never address it directly. He was certainly committing sexual acts with thousands of men over the course of his relationship, so was he really faithful even if no anal consummation occurred with his clients?
The fun part of the book starts once Craig decides to stop stripping, gets bored with the boyfriend of seven years, and starts to have sex with other men for the first time. His boyfriend kicks him out that night and suddenly the author starts going down the path of experiencing as many men as possible and he even starts drinking in his late 20s (which he hadn't done before).
The author doesn't go into a lot of detail regarding his hookups. A couple of descriptions are okay but for a book about sex work there's very little sex in it. He seemed to want the focus to shift on the lives of others (club workers and clients) to avoid his having to deal with analyzing his own choices. It's so obvious that he had a great life before he quit his strip club job--happily living with his first and only sexual partner--but once stripping stopped he needed the attention of men outside his home, so he became just another twisted, rowdy, horny middle aged guy as he aged.
He did go back to stripping off and on, but in the midst got it in his head that he wanted to be a writer. So without any experience or training he took on some work as a freelance critic for free publications, which grew into a major career. His life is proof that many "journalists" have absolutely no training or education in what it means to be a true objective writer, and the fact that Entertainment Weekly hired him without more than a couple articles to his name proves how low the standards are that that (and other) publications. Believe it or not, his being a stripper, and his including it in his resume, is what usually got him the writing jobs.
Once he tries to impress us with his interviews of people like Mariah Carey and Mary J. Blige I started dosing off--that's not what this book was supposed to be about and it was pretty boring. Then the end quickly wraps with him getting melancholy over the shuttering of the D.C. gay clubs.
The final three pages are somewhat analytical about his life, and he's absolutely right that he (and pretty much every gay man) is looking for attention, admiration, and acceptance--never happy with it from one person, always looking for a new guy to stroke his...ego. But then Seymour cops out and claims he's just confused over his past, is very lonely, that he'd never recommend to anyone that they strip in clubs, but that he's happy with his life today. Huh?
The whole thing is interesting and unique but poorly constructed and edited, and there could have been much more specifics on his life and sexuality. The end left me feeling like the author still doesn't understand why he allowed thousands of men to touch his private parts for money. And if he doesn't, then we certainly never will....more
Fascinating, well-written book mostly about Willie Nelson's sister that stumbles two-thirds of the way through and has a very unsatisfying ending, basFascinating, well-written book mostly about Willie Nelson's sister that stumbles two-thirds of the way through and has a very unsatisfying ending, basically skipping the last 30 years of their lives. Ultimately this book is the story of Bobbie Nelson because she is very verbal and emotional. She tells stories that are not only hard to believe but tug at your heart, including parents that abandoned her in childhood, how easily she falls in love with any guy that pays attention to her, having her three sons dragged away from her by her in-laws, and having two of those boys die in their 30s.
Willie is neither verbal nor emotional, and he delivers very few facts beyond some broad history that we could have picked up from Wikipedia. As a matter of fact you'll find much more about Willie online than he reveals here. Bobbie gets five stars, Willie only gets two stars.
The biggest surprise is how similar this is to Matthew McConaughey's book, which wasn't as well written and was filled with too much philosophical nonsense. Willie and Matthew, both womenizing Texas boys who ended up making the Austin area home, seem to be similar rebels that are addicted to dope and pride themselves as being family men (Willie had at least eight kids from three wives and a few assorted girlfriends). Both books are filled with lots of spiritual God talk, wanting us to believe that these two rambling lawbreakers are deep believers. After reading both books in the same week I can attest that both Matthew and Willie are self-centered outlaws that are very good to their families, suffered big tragedies as children, reject objective critiques, and have stable women in their lives to help them survive life (in Willie's case it's his sister).
The concept of having Willie and Bobbie go back and forth with alternating chapters of only 3-4 pages works in Willie's favor, making him sound like he's revealing things when in truth she is the one spilling the family secrets and Willie either reacts to his sister or adds to her stories. Like McConaughey, Willie loves to share hints of his naughty side, for some reason proud of his cheating on his wives, having children with random women, moving a couple dozen times in adulthood for no reason, not able to keep a job so he had to just play music in bars, and taking an illegal substance for fifty years.
But if you're looking for much about Willie's successes, how songs were written, stories about his movie career, or anything from the past thirty years you'll be extremely disappointed. On The Road Again gets two sentences. The Highwaymen get a paragraph. And unless I missed it, Always on My Mind isn't even mentioned while instead the duo overpraise Willie's writing ability for a few songs I've never heard of.
The first two-thirds of the book reads like a soap opera and covers up until the early 1970s. Then things take a turn just about the time Willie starts on marijuana. His portions get shorter, his sister (who joins him on dope) makes more bad relationship choices (you'll lose track of all the people these two sleep with while they're married to others), and suddenly it's 1991 with the last thirty years wrapping up in a few pages.
I came away concluding that these deeply-flawed, constantly-anxious people are products of their childhood. With parents that walked away when they were toddlers and their having to hide from authorities as preschoolers in order to avoid going to an orphanage, they both have spent their lives running and never happy with anyone beyond the grandparents that raised them. They also both fall in love with just about everyone, and Willie even defends that he thinks it's totally normal to be in love with 5 or 6 women at the same time.
Ironically, the grandparents were devote Christians that didn't believe in smoking, drinking, drugs, dancing, pre-marital sex, or any of the other vices that Willie and Bobbie so freely enjoyed throughout their lives. How do they make up for this split personality, where they have spent their lives doing the opposite of what the grandparents they admire and love so much taught?
They cling to the hymns of their grandparents' church. The rebel authors constantly tell us how spiritual they are, and how they cling to hymns, though neither seemed to live it the way their Christian grandparents taught. Willie even gets into some silly theology about reincarnation and pushes liberalism while ignoring the Bible he claims to believe to be true.
This could have been a much better book if the siblings would have analyzed how their bad choices resulted in bad things happening in their own lives and how negatively they probably impacted their own family members. Instead they seem to be searching for resolution that never comes, calming their childhood anxieties with drugs or sexual affairs.
What they have put on paper is certainly worth reading, shocking in many spots, and should be turned into a dramatized TV mini-series because there's so much heart-breaking tragedy that it's almost hard to believe....more
This isn't much of a memoir--it's mostly parenting advice, complaining about radio stations not playing female country artists, and verbalizing anxietThis isn't much of a memoir--it's mostly parenting advice, complaining about radio stations not playing female country artists, and verbalizing anxiety. And while I admire Sara Evans' Christian faith and her claims about trusting God, she spends a lot of the book worrying about everything or not accepting her circumstances.
She ultimately blames most of her problems on her childhood accident when she was hit by a car, as well as her parents' divorce, and what she calls PTSD. What I'm more interested in is her first marriage, her famously splitting from her husband in the middle of Dancing With The Stars, and insights into the music business. Unfortunately there's nothing in this book that I was looking for. She barely mentions DWTS, hardly mentions anything about the music business beyond claims of sexism in radio (without much evidence), and must be legally bound to not discuss her first marriage because she avoids it.
There's no depth to anything in the book except when she wants to spout advice about step-parenting and being a Christian who doesn't want to follow anyone's rules. I found myself disagreeing with many of her conclusions, thought she gave some really bad parenting advice, relied too much on making sexual stereotypes, and had really simplistic views of Christianity with some bad doctrine. She's not a person I would ever take advice from and she misused this book--instead of sharing deep stories and drawing conclusions about how she has grown or changed she wastes most of it rambling and rebelling. While she may have been "born to fly" as a singer, this memoir never gets off the ground....more
Brutal is right--horribly written book that is so negative and depressing that I had to stop after reading one-fourth of it. I've read hundreds of celBrutal is right--horribly written book that is so negative and depressing that I had to stop after reading one-fourth of it. I've read hundreds of celebrity memoirs and this ranks close to the bottom. Instead of offering a balance of honesty and hopefulness, the book's first chapters are totally negative jumping between her overdosing, using cocaine, getting abused, hating her co-workers, making sex tapes, etc. And through it all she blames her ex-husband.
Once she starts condemning her dying father you can see why he wants nothing to do with her. This was a very lost, misguided woman, who would do best to get out of the spotlight and find her real self instead of spewing all this hatred and blame on others.
Female empowerment doesn't get communicated this way. Brown's co-author does a really bad job communicating and it often makes no sense or logic. I'm sure if I would have stuck it out there would have been redemption in the book but I am smart enough to know when to stop having another person's dysfunction shifted to my brain. I wouldn't want anyone to read this book, especially impressionable young women. Skip it....more
Ken Ehrlich thinks very highly of himself and has taken over 300 pages to tell us about the amazing job he has done producing the Grammy Awards. WhileKen Ehrlich thinks very highly of himself and has taken over 300 pages to tell us about the amazing job he has done producing the Grammy Awards. While there are some interesting behind-the-scenes stories of stars that throw tantrums or the pain of dealing with management teams, it's mostly a dull year-by-year history that focuses on Ehrlich praising himself non-stop.
An objective outside perspective would show that he's not that great and the Grammys are often poorly produced beyond the one or two highlight performances. The more you read on in the book you realize he overuses the same artists like Sting or Bono and often will have one singer participate in two of the 14 Grammy music segments each year, which makes no sense when there are dozens of artists left out. His musical tastes are not normal and he brings groups onto the show that defy logic. Namely, many of the long telecasts have fallen flat to the shrinking Grammy audience but Ehrlich keeps claiming he's doing his best work ever.
It would have been better to have an objective reporter do this book with Ehrlich's cooperation. It would have been nice to get all viewpoints on some of the controversies alluded to. The author throws a bunch of stars under the bus, especially comedians that have hosted the Grammy Awards. Ellen DeGeneres comes across as a diva who only cares about herself. Garry Shandling got shafted from future shows after making a realistic on stage comment condemning Ehrlich's cutting off Frank Sinatra's thank you speech. Ehrlich comes across like a power-hungry king that doesn't see his distorted views that may actually harm the show.
All of this would have been better if told from an objective standpoint. Instead this just reads like a series of self-praising honors that the writer gives to himself....more
This overly-long and at times rambling book is, like its subject, an interesting mess. While Simpson claims to be an "open book," in truth this is a cThis overly-long and at times rambling book is, like its subject, an interesting mess. While Simpson claims to be an "open book," in truth this is a carefully selected group of stories in which she constantly tells us how smart, talented, and vulnerable she is, claiming that she wants to be a role model and that she wouldn't change one thing from her life. If that's true, she's really the most delusional celebrity ever to write a memoir.
Instead she comes across as a ditzy, dumb, man-hungry, anti-feminist, immoral fame-whore who was raised by two parents who seemed to want to get rich off of their kids. From childhood her dad seemed to want to take advantage of Jessica's singing voice, while her mother did the same later with the clothing line that mom built into a billion-dollar business. At no point do the two ever seem to be good parents, and Jessica just does whatever they tell her well into her 20s. None seem to have any moral boundaries, even though her dad was an evangelical pastor and Jessica claims throughout the book that she is a Christian. Her lifestyle choices don't match what she claims are her beliefs.
You know about the alcoholism that she finally was forced to confront when friends intervened two years ago. She drinks, a lot. For a girl from a church where drinking isn't allowed it's just the first example of her not living her claimed faith. The sexual promiscuity is most shocking--she sleeps with just about every guy she meets and very quickly. She glosses over a few in the book but gives specifics about four. She thinks nothing about bragging about wild sex outside of marriage, even getting pregnant with two of her kids before she's married. There's also the drug usage, which she says she needs to sleep and lose weight but was really just another bad habit.
Through it all she has an incredible lack of self-awareness or accepting of any responsibility. She clings to men, then blames them for all her problems. Her dad, her first husband, her crazy famous secret boyfriend John Mayer, her football star boyfriend Tony Romo, her doctors, and now her current husband. There is no remorse shown from her in this book and she throws virtually every man in her life under the bus.
The one guy who seemed to have her back--Nick Lachey--is given almost 140 pages and it's a pretty candid revelation of a not-so-happy Hollywood life. But she is despicable in taking advantage of his strengths then discarding him for no real reason other than how he looks at her. She is the one who doesn't communicate yet blames him for her needing to file for divorce.
Her father also gets thrown under the bus and literally forced out of the closet. She says at the end that she gave him passages to read before publishing, so we must assume he okayed it but he comes across as a money-hungry control freak who says horrible things to a daughter that remains faithful to him, searching for his approval.
She gives herself way too much credit in her abilities and doesn't see that she was manipulated by many of those close to her. She comes across as coy, flirty, naive, and then suddenly turns on other because she's mentally unable to process things normally. Is the reason her childhood car accident, where at 23 months she was thrown into a windshield? Is it her dad moving around so much when young, not truly being a good family leader, expecting his child to help pay the bills? Is it her limited education by dropping out of high school and later getting a GED?
Is it her sexual assault as a child by a female friend? The harrowing scenes of her being mocked in school as a lesbian after her closest friend reveals to others that Jessica was sexually assaulted is just heartbreaking, but she treats it like it's no big deal.
There are many things for her to regret, to apologize for, to do some soul searching about and realize that she's the opposite of a faith-based role model. It's actually all a very sad story that's a prime example of everything that's wrong with Hollywood, modern evangelical Christianity, parenthood, the music business, and blame-shifting "empowered" women. After 400 pages I still can't figure out how this under-educated woman with only a passable singing voice is in a mansion, taking a dozen people on European trips, and has a clothing line that makes a fortune....more
Clueless, crazy, uneducated TV star gets into Christian Science, drugs, hippie lifestyle, and uses his rich mother's money to have an aimless life. ThClueless, crazy, uneducated TV star gets into Christian Science, drugs, hippie lifestyle, and uses his rich mother's money to have an aimless life. That's the summary of this book.
What surprised me most about Nesmith was how he thinks he's really educated and smart and inventive, when really he is a guy that quit school, ran away from home, caught a lucky break as a Monkee, mooched off others, make horrible decisions, then wandered the rest of his life. He admits few people liked him, but that seemed to change when he got the money from his mother's estate. Suddenly he could live the high lifestyle without really ever doing anything.
He goes through a number of wives, cheating on them and now sad that the last woman he committed himself to abandoned him. He got sick after she left him, then wonders what it is that doctors can't explain. He "heals himself" by staying in bed a long time and getting over the breakup.
He likes to brag, a lot. Famous people he hung out with, things he claims he "invented" like music television (though it's not true--he was merely copying what they were doing already in Europe and at the request of a record executive), the music he produced that never sold well, and his patent for putting video with virtual technology.
The strangest thing is the last 20 years of his life are summarized in just a few pages at the end. It seems like he emotionally checked out in the late 1990s or this book was written so long ago that it took two decades to publish it.
It's just a frustrating read, with very little about the Monkees. In the end the words I kept thinking about Nesmith were "loser" and "clueless." His mind is weird and he's as bad as all the reports from his stubborn Monkee days. He uses the book to push Christian Science without ever really explaining what the beliefs are. He, in a way, pushes drugs too, especially LSD. He admires great "thinkers" but doesn't really explain what makes them so important. This pseudo-intellectual "riff" is just a bunch of noise.
This is a pretty bad book--a surface look at the career of a somewhat successful radio host who humble brags throughout that he's one of the greatest This is a pretty bad book--a surface look at the career of a somewhat successful radio host who humble brags throughout that he's one of the greatest in history. But he's not--he admits to failing to prepare, not being interested in working, and having no real training beyond the half dozen radio jobs he was fired from. So this book is really about brand extension--he admittedly got himself a PR pro who convinced him that he needed to expand his brand and soon he was on TV, getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (which makes no sense since he's not a national star), and "writing" this book (that he admits he didn't actually write).
There's almost nothing personal in it beyond his bragging that he's a big party boy, did a lot of drugs, had a lot of sex with very young guys, and drank a lot. That explains how a guy with little talent worked his way up in the radio business--he snorted, drank, and slept with his bosses, which he admits freely here but he fails to see that it was living wildly that allowed him to get promoted.
The comments he makes about radio are often incorrect or represent a guy who doesn't understand the overall business (though he does defend the medium as not dying). I've worked at over a dozen radio stations and much of what he claims "everyone" in radio does is just false. He has very narrow experience in radio and didn't really work successfully at many stations or in multiple formats. Much of what he describes about himself in the book explains why he's not that good on the air.
Meanwhile he skips quickly over his upbringing, doesn't discuss the fact that Elvis Duran isn't his real name, barely mentions a couple of gay lovers without going into details, and shares less about his personal life on paper than he does on his morning show.
There is one very good chapter that's surprisingly about politics. He is friends with Eric Trump and Duran reveals himself to be somewhat conservative on some issues. He admits to having voted both Republican and Democrat. His perspective on how crazy divisive people are, by rejecting someone they disagree with on only one issue, is a strong message that needs to be heard.
Otherwise the book is boring and kind of a waste of time. Entire chapters are just filler. One on what's great about New York City? Really? One about the celebrities that listen to his show and praise him? Even the section on Dr. Oz "saving" his life lacks details, and it's hypocritical for Duran to spend pages discussing his weight loss surgery and plastic surgery, then claim in his conclusion that looks don't matter. Just like he claims to be not a rich celebrity, then a few pages later says he spent $30,000 a month on clothing.
The book will be praised by those who enjoy listening to a fake morning radio show host because it's just an extension of that. But those that are looking for some real insight into this man's upbringing, lifestyle, sexuality, or career will be disappointed....more
This supposedly gay empowerment book is the opposite--it shows the selfish, petty, unkind and self-destructive side of the gay lifestyle. Cheren and tThis supposedly gay empowerment book is the opposite--it shows the selfish, petty, unkind and self-destructive side of the gay lifestyle. Cheren and the co-author bounce back and forth throughout the poorly-written book between the disco music club scene of New York City to his life of sex and drugs. When AIDS finally enters the picture he and all those around him aren't introspective enough to consider that their own bad choices could cause any of their problems.
Instead the book is filled with jealousies, lots of cheating, partying to cover emotional insecurities, banging hundreds of guys, and way too much detail about the music business. Most of the songs he writes about I've never heard of and the disco era was so short-lived that it doesn't need this kind of detail.
Who in the world thought this guy's life story was worth 460 pages (and at one point he claims to have not included everything he originally wrote!)? In the end he says he wanted it on paper so he could empower future gay men, but in truth it should scare us that so many supposedly intelligent people destroy their lives with rampant promiscuity and drug abuse, then scream that they want others to pay for it. Yes, we should have compassion on those that make bad choices, but to brag about it shows a lack of self-understanding that so many in the community seem to have. If anything he puts on paper all the hypocritical problems with those that proclaim to be loving and tolerant but in truth are quite the opposite....more
Loading...
