This is all about whose pretty little C list head was found in a locker at Grand central Station, which no longer famous former star was eaten by her This is all about whose pretty little C list head was found in a locker at Grand central Station, which no longer famous former star was eaten by her own pet poodles (they might look chic, dear, but they have no taste at all), who put this there and that there and had to be revived by medics who could not believe what they were seeing, who couldn't do it without various types of rigs and harnesses, who did it an extraordinary number of times in one weekend and was filmed the whole time, and so on, and so forth. It was good honest sleazy fun when it was published and stuff like being gay and doing drugs was rather scandalous, but I think the powder has worn right off its puff now. A relic of more innocent times....more
Why didn't I review this one before? Probably because I'm a leetle bit embarrassed - okay, more than a leetle bit embarrassed - to have read it at allWhy didn't I review this one before? Probably because I'm a leetle bit embarrassed - okay, more than a leetle bit embarrassed - to have read it at all. I remember reading this on a jolly family holiday in Dorset, a short walk away from Thomas Hardy's cottage. Georgia was making sandcastles and bouncing on trampolines and there was I reading about gay serial killers who eat their victims and then each other. It was inappropriate. No other word.
As stupid books go this was insanely gruesome but it was all the kind of pasted-on photo-shopped necrophilia, you couldn't really believe a word of it. Kind of book a 17 year old goth boy would write. So this is a novel recommended to all 15 year old goth boys. They'll think it rocks to fuck and back....more
Health warning : This is a big glossy book of essays about the outer edges of society.
It's fun.
Oh, all right, it's actually not fun.
When you open up Health warning : This is a big glossy book of essays about the outer edges of society.
It's fun.
Oh, all right, it's actually not fun.
When you open up this big glossy book you'll see the first section of the book is called "Autoerotic Fatalities". So of course you'll just have to read it right there and then, and then when you've finished, including the sub-section called "Conversation with an Asphyxiophiliac" (they obviously got to him in time) you'll find that your complexion is now an unappealing sea-green and you rather wish you hadn't read it at all, and you'll find yourself looking upon the simplest domestic items with new insight - the curtain rail, the ironing board and the humble carrot will never be so innocent again - but at least now you can regale your friends and relatives with descriptions of photos captioned "view of the body showing chain harness attached to car bumper" and "the deceased slumped over a vacuum cleaner on a dining room table".
But, you know, this book is very useful in bringing to a sudden halt otherwise tedious situations. When the Jehovah Witnesses come to the door next time, tell them that there's something that has been bothering you recently. Keep the Amok Journal handy, near the front door, and then you'll be able to grab it and show them page 112 and say
"Isn't it terrible what goes on on the modern world.. what does the Bible say about about autoasphyxiation? Is it technically a sin at all?? And what about trepanation? It was an ancient technique used to exorcise evil spirits from people's brains. Fairly crude really, you just got a hammer and bashed out a chunk of skull. Would you disapprove? Was Jesus trepanned or did he trepan other people? And what about this section here... page 210... people that like to suspend themselves from the ceiling with hooks through their flesh - what does the Bible say about that? Oh, don't run away... Jehovah's Witnesses, please come back!" ...more
This fairly wretched novel is JCO shooting dead boys in a barrel. I dunno, it seems like taking the easy option to me - you takes your Jeffrey Dahmer This fairly wretched novel is JCO shooting dead boys in a barrel. I dunno, it seems like taking the easy option to me - you takes your Jeffrey Dahmer (you remember him, he was a lonely boy who wanted a gay sex pet to do his every bidding, and he read a book on brain surgery and he thought that if you drilled the right hole in a man's head it would stop him from realising you were a dangerous psycho and leaving, so he practised on a few guys who unfortunately like died which was not Jeffrey's intention, but he was practising, you can't get these things right first time - okay, okay, I know this hobby of Jeffrey's is probably politically incorrect but he was a boy with problems) - anyway, Joyce takes Jeffrey and renames him Quentin, rearranges a few details, adds plenty of stuff which wouldn't have got into the papers (Quentin does his DIY drilling, Quentin mucks about with his deceased boyfriends, Quentin gets in a towering rage with them because they die too quick and don't co-operate at all, yes, a bit sick, true, but only .5 on the American Psycho scale) and then writes the whole thing like it's Quentin's semiliterate journal full of VERY ANGRY CAPITALS and zany punctuation and endearing little hand drawings (how to drill your zombie correctly). Now then, I've read "What I Lived For" and I know Joyce Carol Oates can write like a living goddess so that means she can churn out this Zombie kind of stuff before she's finished her morning muesli. I think someone must have drilled a hole in Joyce's head.
This is a real slow motion car crash of a book, very enjoyable, this is a splurt of coffee all down your shirt book, this is a wander through the housThis is a real slow motion car crash of a book, very enjoyable, this is a splurt of coffee all down your shirt book, this is a wander through the house looking for someone to say "hey you GOT to hear this" to, even if it turns out to be the dog - they have to hear it! Goldman was some brave soul, putting the big boot into Elvis and then turning round and doing the same for Lennon. Respect to Albert, this guy liked to live dangerously. Or maybe he had a death wish. Goldman's research is such that Elvis has a new interesting sexual predilection every 50 pages or so, and clearly the fixed principle Albert adhered to throughout was "always believe the worst thing anyone tells you". Now that's what I call entertainment....more
The girls on the beach Are all within reach If you know what to do
I suppose hTHE LIFE OF BRIAN IN 12 SONGS
1) At first it was all fun, sun and bikinis.
The girls on the beach Are all within reach If you know what to do
I suppose he doesn't just mean "grow very long arms"
2) Then it was the troubled pop genius
They say I got brains but they ain't doin me no good..I just wasn't made for these times sigh sigh heavenly harmonies oooh ooh aaaaah
3) Then the drugs kicked in
I know that you'll feel better when you write us in a letter and tell us the name of your favorite vegetable
Er, okay Brian! We will do that!
Dear Brian
My favourite vegetable is the cucumber.
Best wishes
Your Number One fan
P Bryant
ps - I feel better already
4) Then even more drugs
A blind class aristocracy. Back through the opera glass you see the pit and the pendulum drawn. Columnated ruins domino!
The dwindling number of fans : "Wow, this is deep stuff..."
5) Then there was a confrontation.
Brian : Over and over, the crow cries uncover the cornfield
Mike Love (for it is he) : Over and over the what? What is this shit, Brian?
6) Then there was much munching of burgers and gobbling of milkshakes
A big pot and tripley chin Oh what condition my condition was in Laughing at myself but what a crying shame What ever happened to my Greek godly frame?
7) Then there was staying in bed for a few years
no songs at all during this period
8) Then they hired a psychiatrist and there was a fair amount of soul searching
All my life I've been runnin' scared Feelin' shut out, no one cared Not my mother, not my brother Crazy beatings by my father Boo hoo Boo hoo
Record company president : "I realise you're Brian Wilson but if you think we're releasing this crap then you need another psychiatrist."
9) But the psychiatrist - we'll call him Eugene Landy - had boundary issues
Track 1 : Music and lyrics by : B Wilson/E Landy Track 2 : Music and lyrics by : B Wilson/E Landy Track 3 : Music and lyrics by : B Wilson/E Landy Track 4 : Music and lyrics by : B Wilson/E Landy Track 5 : Music and lyrics by : B Wilson/E Landy
10) So Brian and the other Beach Boys sued the ass off this guy and eventually prised Brian out of his deathlike grip. I understand he is no longer licensed to practise. Years passed and at last a new wife hove into view
Don't let her know she's an angel I'm scared that she'll want to go free
11) And everything turned out all right in the end
Oh my gosh happy days are here again I can see the twinkle in the people’s eyes Goodbye blues, happy days are here again
Melissa, the great new wife : "Brian, I just know you're strong enough to finish Smile now." Brian : "I think you're right, Melissa. But I couldn't do it without you. And Van Dyke Parks."
12) And finally a note on Brian's working methods
I get a lot of thoughts in the morning I write 'em all down If it wasn't for that I'd forget 'em in a while
The gruesome story of BW's psychology is enough to make me want to go to bed for ten years too. This book was (ghost) written whilst BW was in the clutch of Eugene Landy, the guy who invented 24/7 psychiatry, and the guy who likes to co-write songs with his patients, as long as their name is Brian Wilson and they might sell a million. As I recall this book was the subject of a lawsuit, probably from Mike Love. Well, that's not so unusual. He sues Brian on a regular basis, and sometimes he's even completely justified. But this book is quite unique - uniquely odd writing, weird phrases, off-centre descriptions, overblown emotionalism. Nowadays, of course, Brian Wilson fans can read it knowing that the story eventually had an entirely unexpected happy ending, with Brian's emotional rescue and the artistic triumph of Smile and That Lucky Old Sun. In fact, the whole damn story is amazing. ...more
Beach Boys fans read this excellent book at their peril. There are a very few good vibrations in the story of BrWE'VE BEEN DOING DRUGS ALL SUMMER LONG
Beach Boys fans read this excellent book at their peril. There are a very few good vibrations in the story of Brian Wilson and his group, but there's no shortage of extremely bad vibrations. By the end of the book you may feel you're heartily sick of each and every drug-addled, money-obsessed, talentless washed-out Beach Boy with the exception of Brian himself. These days they're a living, breathing embarrassment. They sue each other perpetually, and Al Jardine and Mike Love now tour America with rival bands claiming to be the Beach Boys. Pity rich pop star Brian Wilson. First he was bullied and humiliated by his father, the repulsive Murray Wilson. Later he was bullied and harrassed by Mike Love. Years after that he was taken prisoner by a deranged psychiatrist who terrorised him 24 hours a day and was paid for by himself on the orders of his own family. Top that!
COMPLEX CHORDS AND REAL MENTAL ILLNESS
What all these people wanted was - more hit songs! More! Another million seller! Now! It was so blatant, it was brutal. By 1963 the exhilaration of making hit record after hit record quickly became a relentless treadmill. Brian was the sole creative force in the group. (Compare Beatles here). By the age of 22 he was composer, lead singer, bass player, arranger and producer. After two years of that he had his first breakdown and quit touring. The wave crested in 1965 when everything was working out - Brian had fired Murray Wilson, his caricature domineering alpha male worst-nightmare father who had formerly though he knew everything about managing a band and producing records too. They'd all agreed that Brian shouldn't tour any more. There was a perfect logic to it - Brian stayed home and wrote more hits and the group toured. But then he began to change. Within three years there was "Pet Sounds", which wasn't received with delight by the other Beach Boys, the still astonishing single "Good Vibrations", and then the artistic and personal disaster of "Smile" (was ever a project named more ironically?). There was Brian's increasing psychological problems and the commencement of heavy drug intake. And there was the complete revolution in youth culture too, so that by 1968 the desperately unhip Beach Boys were pulling crowds of 200, hopelessly out of fashion. The 1960s was a very fast decade.
WHAT'S MY FAVOURITE VEGETABLE? BRIAN WILSON
During the next 20 years (!) Brian was not a functioning human being. His colossal intake of drugs and food was in inverse proportion to his tiny output of songs. The whole sorry saga makes for gruesome reading. "As Carnie remembers, her father began most of his days with a dozen eggs and an entire loaf of bread" and for dinner "he'd eat his entire steak in two bites". From the late 60s to the mid-80s the other Beach Boys were perpetually dancing around trying to get Brian to lay more golden eggs for them. They tried anything they could think of, including tough love (pretending to fire him from the group). They ended up hiring a 24-hour-a-day showbiz psychiatrist to rescue him, Dr Eugene Landy. And before you could say "medical ethics" Brian had started writing songs again but they were credited to "Wilson/Landy". So the Beach Boys sued the psychiatrist. You have to laugh.
AN UNEXPECTED HAPPY ENDING
This story of grim Californian irony does have a happy ending though - after trudging through Peter Carlin's (always well-written and readable) catalogue of unhappiness we arrive at the year 2001 when Brian, now married to Melinda Ledbetter (who sounds like one of the few really nice people in the whole book), finally - 34 years later! - finishes "Smile" and even performs it live on stage to universal acclaim. And as we know Brian continued to create and even wrote a whole new album which was .. well, pretty good! ("That Lucky Old Sun").
SADDER BUT WISER - AGAIN
As you finish the book you think "Enough - I don't ever want to read another word about these horrible Beach people or about poor tormented Brian - I just want to listen to their beautiful music". And in some ways I'm sorry I did read this book. It's strange to admire the Beach Boys' great mass of brilliant music so much but to dislike them all as human beings. Except Brian of course. You don't dislike him, but you do pity him. I don't believe the author intended to perform hatchet jobs on all these people, he just let the ghastly facts speak for themselves.
If you're going to read this you need to have a sick bag ready. But Lennon fans probably owe it to themselves to chomp through this pile of bile, thisIf you're going to read this you need to have a sick bag ready. But Lennon fans probably owe it to themselves to chomp through this pile of bile, this ream of spleen, these 700 pages of hate-mail, as a cold turkey shock therapy corrective to the meretricious Saint John vomitoriums usually coughed up by the hacks, half-friends, distant relatives and showbiz bindweed who throng the Beatley shelves. It's entrancing to read a book of such unmediated contempt, for according to Goldman, Beatley John was a paranoid violent junkie who probably murdered Stu Sutcliffe and whose every song was a variation of Three Blind Mice.
That said, the first 200 pages are a great detailed and convincing account of JL's complex upbringing and when it was published 90% of this stuff was new to me. And while I'm on that subject, Beatley John fans should not miss the recent British film "Nowhere Boy" which is about this very period. I went to the movies to see something else, I really didn't wanna see a bloody film about Lennon, but lo! it turned out to be a great little movie. ...more
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