A Tale of Two Memoirs

Serving the Servant: Remembering Kurt Cobain - Danny Goldberg (ECCO)

As I delved into music industry veteran Danny Goldberg's memoir of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain; Serving the Servant: Remembering Kurt Cobain, I was struck by Goldberg's admission that time, age, and what ever other degradating factors, have caused gaps to form in his recollections of Cobain and the era.

Goldberg's rather revealing comment in the introduction of a book with the word "remembering" in the title, certainly seemed to me that was seeking a proverbial get out of fan-boy jail free card, in case his recollections miss the mark with Cobain super-fans.

As I progressed through the book, at times I was left to wonder if this was a Cobain memoir or just an opportunity for Goldberg' liberal political screed. My advice would have been to stick to the music - I for one don't care about your politics or your desire to once again spread the missed-take on Nancy Reagan's purchase of new china for the White House. Just for the record Mr. Goldberg, a private foundation funded the purchase, not taxpayer dollars. Guess I should have expected this stuff from the former CEO of the Titanic liberal talk radio network, Air America.

For a guy who should have had an extremely intimate relationship and first hand knowledge of Cobain from his time as Nirvana's manager, there was a surprising lack of revelatory stories based on that insider proximity. In short, not much new to see here that hasn't already been posited in any number of prior Cobain tomes.

Serving the Servant, isn't a bad book as much as a missed opportunity to tap into first hand interactions, access to band members and those closest to Cobain for unique stories to either build on the legend or to dispel myths and inuendo surrounding this often tortured man-child.

Leadership...Not the L-Word They Had in Mind

Lead From the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change - Stacey Abrams (Henry Holt)

@staceyabrams - "Trump's refusal to concede the election if he loses, proves he is a petty man uninterested in our national stability." 10:29 AM - 20 Oct 2016 - Twitter

Stacey Abrams, the Democrat candidate for Governor in Georgia in the 2018 election, LOST to Republican candidate, now Governor of Georgia Brian Kemp by 54,723 votes; yet as recently has last week she still claims to have won and has NEVER conceded. She makes this claim in speeches and national television appearances and newspaper interviews with some regularity.
Let me be perfectly clear; this is not a demonstration of LEADERSHIP, it is a demonstration of a childish, LOSER.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised; the Democrat party seems hellbent and ready to charge forward with a bunch of young, upstart candidates who aside from whack-a-mole, socialist tendencies all have one thing in common. The group includes the often hailed Abrams, former Texas Senate candidate and Congressman Robert Francis O'Rouke, and former Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum; all of whom gather buckets of national, liberal media attention despite the simple fact that they are all LOSERS!

Heck, look at the current top of the polls, Democrat, Presidential candidates and you've got two-time LOSER (1988/2008) former Vice President, Joe Biden and 2016 LOSER, Senator Bernie Sanders. Yep the Democrats have seemingly hitched their wagon to a band of LOSERS.

In her book, Lead From the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change, Abrams tries to portray a positive outlook and message that she tends to repeat over and over to the point of redundancy. I think it speaks volumes once again, about political correctness run amok the the original title of this campaign tome being, Minority Leader: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change. I guess anything to try to re-package and re-purpose. 

Dazed and Confused

Jimmy Page: The Definitive Biography - Chris Salewicz (DaCapo Press)

Biographer, journalist, broadcaster and New Musical Express senior, features writer Chris Salewicz sets a high watermark by laying title claim to being the "definitive biography" of the guitar legend Jimmy Page.

As for the results; Jimmy Page: The Definitive Biography, is at times chronologically sketchy, ping-ponging through years and stories, often in the same chapter, without a discernably coherent timeline or story line. I am not an over-sensitive fan-boy, who wouldn't be happy about anything written about their all-conquering hero; I do tend to lean towards stories that move from point A to B to C to D.
The book does reveal a lot of details on Page's rise from in demand session player to songwriter and onto rock God status. One thing I will credit Salewicz with doing, is dispensing with the childhood tales of woe, abuse, poverty and the phoenix-like rise through the power of music, that normally dot so many rock star bios.

While I was never a huge Led Zeppelin fan, i thought I knew tidbits and trivia about Page so I was surprised to learn about his start as a studio musician and his songwriting and partners penning tunes for pop stars of the era.

Like most, I knew about his time with the Yardbirds, which at points featured Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, but I didn't know he joined the band as a bassist. His shift to guitar happened when Beck had an ongoing bout with tonsillitis during an extended tour.

If this was the first foray into Page's story it may have earned Salewicz's a different level of acceptance for his take. In the end it comes off as a stitched together bits and pieces of stories told elsewhere, yet carefully packaged as a fly on the wall's view of a legendary musical figure. Biography? Yes. Definitive? Not so much.

Inside The Beltway Fiction

The Good Lie – Tom Rosenstiel (ECCO)

Tom Rosenstiel literally wrote THE book on journalism, in the form of Elements of Journalism, and has been a inside the Beltway observer for decades from his perch at the American Press Institute, so it’s not surprising that he has created a series of fiction reads that balance DC insider knowledge and insights into the newspaper/media industry.

The second installment in the Peter Rena/Randi Brooks political fixers series The Good Lie offers up storyline that, while it shows similarities to the Benghazi situation, also features an insider knowledge of the comings and goings of the very political side of Washington.

Rena, a former military investigator who went onto a career as a Senate staffer who hung out his shingle as a consultant, is one of those memorable characters, smart, with a gruff exterior and an honorable edge that cuts against the “normal” comings and goings in DC political circles. Rena drives the story through its paces as those in the circle around the President try to keep the lid on the cover up of what actually happened in North Africa when a renegade Army general died in a terrorist attack on a U.S. embassy.

As the story unfolds, Rena and company are tasked with conducting and independent investigation, to get answers for the President. It is that inner circle that tries mightily to keep the lid slapped tight, but soon the story begins to trickle out and the media side of things start to push Rena’s investigation closer to the truth. It is the truth that is at the root of not on the story but the concept behind the The Good Lie. Rosenstiel has hit on another winner and will have you looking toward what is next for Peter Rena.

I Hear Mute People

The Silent Patient – Alex Michaelides (Celadon)

Every once in a while, a book comes along that has a reputation that proceeds its arrival onto bookstore shelves. Alex Michaelides debut novel, The Silent Patient, is one of those books; a unique, yet pretty straight forward story as psychological thrillers go. 

The tale involves a seemingly troubled, beautiful artist, who stands accused of murdering her husband and then goes mute, not uttering a single word in her own defense. Assumed to be psychologically challenged, Alicia Berenson is confined to a mental institution; where a series of psychotherapy professionals try to break through the wall she has built up around herself.

 

Enter, Theo Faber, a psychotherapist who seems utterly hellbent to work with Alicia and boldly go where no therapist has successfully gone before and bring her back to the world of the living and speaking. It’s the hellbent part that should be tip off for folks who want to try to figure out where all this is heading.

As with all great psychological thrillers – you will either have the breakthrough you seek, or you will upon the story’s conclusion do a healthy face palm for not realizing the path that you have been on all along. While The Silent Patient, is very well put together, I was able to see a bit of the classic, The Sixth Sense in between the lines and that Faber was a whole lot bigger to this story than just a hyper interested, committed metal health practitioner. That best guess on my part, may have reduced my overall impression and the impact of the story for me.

Have a Drink on Me

On Drinking - Charles Bukowski - Edited by Abel Debritto (ECCO) 

The new collection of writings, On Drinking, by Charles Bukowski, edited by Bukowski expert Abel Debritto, you get everything you should have come to expect from Mr. Bukowski; at turns the writings are colorful, profane, elegant, and caustic. Bukowski is a prolific scribbler and this collection offers up the scratchings of poetry, short stories, magazine quotes and observations.

On Drinking, proves that EVERYTHING was fodder for Bukowski writings - events big or small or seemingly insignificant. Bukowski On Drinking is really drinking as a catalyst for writings on women and sex and life and family and sobriety and all things Bukowski. Clearly a drunkard himself, Bukowski offers up some colorful thoughts, observations and prose about drunks, especially those who are not himself.

Many skilled practitioners of the art form of writing have bemoaned the difficulty of churning out words, that often give reference to the strain of giving birth. Bukowski does seem to give credence to the stream of thought. In fact he seems to lend credence to the line the alcohol lubes the system and ease the flow of words onto the blank page.

Some of these scribblings drip with an intense loneliness and despair, while others display and all out, reckless abandon and humor. Much of what is gathered here seems to be imbued with a sense of telling the real world to go F itself. That attitude makes this collection a must read for those who aspire to the form.

Judgment Day for Judgment

Judgment: A Novel – Joseph Finder (Dutton)

Joseph Finder is one of my all-time favorite authors. He has done an amazing job of crafting tightly woven plots, compelling characters and stories that will suck you in and keep you turning pages and guessing right to the very end. Add to that his willingness to kill off a main character along the way just to ratchet things up.

With his new book, Judgment, I am left questioning Finder’s judgement. First, there are the totally out of place, backhanded slaps at Donald Trump, ranging from a dog chewing on a Trump figurine chew toy (?) to a running commentary on branches  of the U.S. government that deal with all things Russia, are underfunded/understaffed. Not sure how these offhand remarks (Russia collusion?) served moving the story along?

Plot Holes

Couple that silliness with plot holes throughout and storylines that swerve off the road and go nowhere and you’ll be left scratching your head. You have to wonder how it is that the seemingly all knowing, all seeing antagonist somehow misses when the protagonist, Judge Julianna Brody has a series of meetings with representatives of the federal government.

The ending was a dramatic miss, where Brody gets to walk straight into a high powered meeting at the private residence of a Russian oligarch so she can confront her tormentor directly. Now this is a guy who has been portrayed as being so ruthless, or surrounded by ruthless killers who would not hesitate to kill off anyone who gets in the way; yet she gets to walk out of the house unscathed. In fact there were so many opportunities that Judge Brody could have been dispatched that it defies logic and any grip on reality.

It was my respect for Finder’s skill that kept me plugging along, reading to the end, in an unrealized hope that things would take a turn for the better, that never happened.