2004 Book Review

I finally got down to it. Here are all the books I've read in the past year, and just like the movie review, I've used a bit of pop culture past to rate the books. The reviews aren't going to be too long, and I promise that I won't use the line that I ended my sixth grade book report, "And if you want to know the rest, you have to read it yourself."

Quick story, when I was a kid I left a book report until the last minute (it was a Hardy Boys book). The thing was, I read a million Hardy Boy books and this time I just couldn't read that crap any more, despite the fact that I had an oral book report the next day. I decided to read the back cover and make up the rest. I ended up saying that famous line, fooling no one and received my first F.

So with out further adieu, the 2004 books:

The Secret Societies Handbook This was basically an encyclopedia of secret societies. They can't be much of a secret if I bought the book at Barnes and Noble and it didn't really tell me anything I didn't know.



Junky by William S. Burroughs. Very solid book, like "On the Road" I probably would've been more shocked if I read this in the 1950s, but it's almost 60 years later and I've seen all of this stuff on the evening news. Strong writing, strong characters, good book.



Fever Pitch by Nicholas Hornby. I liked this book a lot. I think I would've liked it more had I been an English soccer fan. Lots of stuff went over my head, but the overall message is the same on both sides of the pond. Hornby is a hell of a writer.



The Naked Olympics by Tony Perrottet. Even though I detest the Olympics, I liked this book. Pretty good account of what went on thousands of years ago in ancient Greece. I bought this book during the summer Olympics and it was a cool read.



Empire Falls by Richard Russo. Ok book. Too many characters, every time the action would pick up, he'd go into flashback mode (very annoying), but he does a tremendous job explaining the intracies of small town New England. Very vivid.



Straight Man Richard Russo. I'll give Russo credit, he's good at writing about depressing people that you sort of want to see how they turn out. Not easy to do. The thing is, I didn't give a shit about any of them. Quick read, not too bad. Sort of a carbon copy of "Empire Falls", though that was much better. Russo could've done better.



Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux. Excellent book. This guy went from Egypt to South Africa by train, bus or car. He gets a bit preachy now and again, but Theroux's travel books are great. I'd read this guy any where.



Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken. Since I'm not a big Republican fan, I liked this book. He sort of goes off track and is not shy about smashing you over the head with his message, but for the most part I agree with him. It's sort of like a bizarro Fox News, which evens out the scales, I suppose.



Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich. Tremendous book. Just awesome. It's about a bunch of MIT students who figure out a way to beat the odds while playing poker. From start to finish a thrill-packed book. I think this would make an awesome movie. One of the best books I've read all year.



The Complete Peanuts 1950-52 by Charles Schulz. The BEST book I've read all year. Laugh all you want, but Schulz had a vision for his comic and damn if he didn't keep it going (until he had to kowtow to Madison Ave.) Do yourself a favor and pick this thing up. It inspired me to pick up the pencil and start drawing again.



The Boston Braves 1871-1953 by Harlod Keaese. It was cool to read about old Boston and the way it was when there were two teams vieing for the baseball attention of the Boston fan. Reads like a text book, so if you have no interest in the Braves, you may want to skip it.



Mr. Show, What Happened by Naomi Odenkirk. A little self-serving at times, Odenkirk is the wife of Mr. Show co-star Bob Odenkirk, so I doubt that it's too objective. The good thing is that this show kicks ass and there was a lot of trivia and other behind the scenes stuff.



A Civil War by John Feinstein. I'm glad I read it, because I've always been fascinated by military school life, but there was way too many characters. If Feinstein just focused on one or two guys from each team it would've been much better. He decided to go for the whole scope, which takes away from the book in the end.



The Beatles: Tell Me Why Album by Album, Song by Song by Tim Riley. Terrible book. Easily the worst I read all year. I was really looking forward to this and Riley just disappoints with tedious descriptions about each song. And this was stuff that most Beatle fans know. No behind the scene stuff, no reasons as to why the songs were written. Just a craptastic book. Read it if you want to hate the Beatles.



Black Mass by Dick Lehr and Gerald O'Neil. The FBI and the Irish Mob were in bed together through most of the 60s, 70s and 80s ... this is the story. The reporting in this book is top shelf and the way it is presented is awesome too. Leher and O'Neil were Globe writers who broke this story and they are the experts. Terrific tome.



Moneyball by Michael Lewis. Probably the most important sports book since "Ball Four" by Jim Bouton. Lewis goes inside the inner sanctum of Oakland Athletics GM Billy Beane and sees how a "modern" franchise is run. Before he wrote this book, Lewis knew nothing about baseball (or very little), which might have been a detriment. Here it is a positive as he does not have any preconceived notions or old school prejudices.



Zodiac Unmasked by Robert Graysmith. For the better part of two years I was obsessed with this serial killer. I saw a show on the Discovery Channel about him and it completely blew my mind, it was almost like a movie. The book isn't too bad, though Graysmith does fall into the trap of having a hypothesis and making sure every single piece of evidence works with that hypothesis (even if it doesn't fit sometimes).



Storied Stadiums by Curt Smith. This book out and out sucked. Worse than the Beatles book. Smith attempts to chronicle baseball history by using stadiums as a conduit. Sounds like a great idea and if this guy knew how to write without going off on mindless tangents or dropping nonsensical and unexplained non sequitors in the middle of paragraphs, it may have worked.

NO MAYOR McCHEESE FOR YOU!

The Family by Ed Sanders. I guess I was on a serial murders kick at the beginning of this year, eh? Sanders' book is the best one that I've ever read about the Manson Family, even better than "Helter Skelter". He doesn't just go over the court case against this merry band of pranksters, he delves into the history and even hung around with these guys to research the book. This dude has balls. You have to respect that.



A Right to Be Hostile by Aaron MacGruder. I love Boondocks. Whenever I get the paper, it's one of the first things I read. I like the art, I like the writing, I like the shout out to black pop culture and I like the fact that MacGruder is about my age. The one problem with this book is that like eating ice cream for every meal, it can be a bit too much. I found myself not getting outraged like I do every day, but becoming glazed over. Still, I'm glad I own this ... another inspiration.



Journals by Kurt Cobain. On the front cover of this book, which was made to look like a notebook, it says "If you read, you will judge." I felt very strange and dirty reading Cobain's personal diary. Courtney Love is a fucking bitch for publishing this. It should've been burnt or stored away. It was not meant for public consumption.



Big Book of Baseball Lineups by Rob Neyer. Neyer is one of my favorite writers, it sucks that ESPN.com charges you to read his daily stuff. This book is probably the best baseball book I got all year. He meticulously goes through each team and creates a bunch of different line-ups. Great idea. When I finished this book, I knew a lot more about the sport I love.



Faithful by Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King. Never have I looked forward to reading a book as I did with this one. I was seriously disappointed. King and O'Nan know their stuff, I guess, but there was no extra insight. They told me everything that I already knew. Why should I waste a few hours of my life reading a bunch of stuff I already know.

And O'Nan is one of the all time biggest geeks ever. He is 35-years-old and still brings a glove to games. Not only that but his insane quest for foul balls made him bring a net to a game. A fucking net! He also begged people for balls and autographs. He sucks. Seriously.

The King stuff was pretty good, but the O'Nan stuff was terrible.

World Champs ... again

The Patriots won the Super Bowl on Sunday evening and you can begin by thanking me.

See this hat?



It's my lucky hat. (That's not me under it) Since Game 4 of the Red Sox/Yankees ALCS, if I wear that hat on the day of a playoff, my team wins. I am now 11-0 with this hat on. 4-0 in the ALCS, 4-0 in the World Series and 3-0 in the NFL Playoffs.

The ironic thing is that in Greek mythology, and upside down trident is considered bad luck. Sort of like the horse shoe superstition in our American mythos. If the horseshoe is facing down, it is said that the luck runs out. I guess were a lot more like the ancient Greeks then we think.

We went to Skaus' house for the game and it was a good time. Ryan and his crew were there, Skaus and Sara's soccer friends were there, all-in-all about 12 people watched the Pats beat the Eagles for their third Super Bowl victory in four years. It's a dynasty, or so they say. It's very satisifying to be living in the Bay State right now.

Pats win 2003 and 2004 Super Bowls, the Sox win the Series and right now Boston College (whom I could give a shit about) is one of the last unbeaten college basketball teams in the country. Also, the Celtics are in first place.

Besides the Pats win, another cool thing happened on Sunday. I bought two squares on Thursday ... pretty much the last two ones and because Al was bugging me to. During the game, I forgot my sheet at home. I thought I had Pats 1 and Eagles 4, so when the Eagles scored their last touchdown and New England couldn't convert, I was pissed. I actually threw the lucky hat across the room.

Turns out I was wrong, it was the other way around. The Eagles had one and the Pats had four and the final score was Patriots 24, Eagles 21. That means I won $400! Nice little bonus. It was all ice cream and cookies though, I lost $50 on a straight up bet. I took the Pats -7. Oh well, can't win them all.

Here's the thing, I was going to do my 2004 review of all the books I read last year, but I'm too damn tired. I'll do it tomorrow ... I swear.

I made a HUGE mistake

Actually, I made two mistakes. I'll tell you the smaller one first, since it's easier to describe. Since Aly went with my mother, my aunt, cousin, Ellie, Keri and a bunch of other people to see "The Lion King", I thought it was a good idea to go home and start cleaning out my old bedroom closet.

For years my parents have been getting on my ass to do this because I have 18 years of Sports Illustrated meticulously stored in there. They are all very carefully placed in old ice-cream cone boxes (the perfect size and shape for holding magazines) and they were all in numerical order from December 29, 1986 until January 5, 2005.

Before I went home I went to the local discount store and bought three 50 gallon tubs to store the SIs. The reason? I was putting them in the basement and I didn't want them to get wet when the cellar floods.

After filling the first tub with ten years worth of Sports Illustrateds (about 520 copies) I now have to figure a way to get this from my bedroom (second floor) to the basement. Way, way, way to heavy to carry. So I decide to push the tub. I got to the top of the stairs and then got in front of the tub. BTW, this thing is about the size of a coffin for a 10-year-old and weighs about 250 pounds.

I manage to get it down the stairs with minimal damage, actually one issue comes out and gets ruined but that's ok, it was this one:



Anyway, I didn't really give a shit because it was a Yankee. And it was Alfonzo Soriano.

So I continued pushing this thing through the living room, down the hall and to the precipice of the cellar stairs. I tried doing the exact same thing as I did with the other set of stairs but something went wrong. Every single Sports Illustrated I owned from 1994 through 2005 spilled out every where. It was a mess. Just a pure, unadulterated fucking disaster area.

I lost it. I started swearing, kicking things, yelling, I acted like a three-year-old. I knew it was a dumb idea, but I did it anyway. So all of those years of hard work of making sure that each magazine was perfect, that no one smudged anything that they were all in order went down the stairs in 30 seconds. God. Just thinking about it pisses me off.

I cleaned them all up and then started on the second tub. Instead of filling it upstairs I brought it downstairs and brought the magazines downstairs too. It took a bit longer, but at least I wasn't spending a half hour cleaning magazines off the cement floor. I guess I learn from my mistakes.

Speaking of mistakes, Thursday I was pretty depressed at work. Nothing went wrong that day, but I think I missed the boat on something that could've made my (professional) life a bit better. And the thing is, I know the exact day when this happened. That doesn't occur too often in life.

Let me back up a day to set the story. On Wednesday night we had our normal semi-monthly Chili dinner. It was Colleen, me, Skaus and Jamie and Drew. Very small as far as Chili's nights go, but whatever, it was fun mainly because our waitress sucked and we made fun of her a lot.

Colleen was telling us high school stories (she's a teacher) and Jamie turned to me and asked, "Whatever happened to you and the teaching thing?" Good question. What ever did happen with that? A few years ago, I took the Massachusetts teaching test and I passed. It's a pretty tough test and I was pumped that I passed it on my first try, not a lot of people do.

So, even though I didn't have my Master's Degree yet, I was able to teach in Mass schools. I worked every connection I had in Revere, Amesbury, Bedford, where ever. I got a few interviews, but they all said the same thing, "You don't have much experience." In Amesbury they said I should take a year off and student teach.

So, I sort of gave up. As committed and enthusiastic I was about teaching, I just kept running into brick wall after brick wall after brick wall. It's one of the very few times in my life that I wanted something so bad, but never got it. Eventually, I forgot about it and just concentrated on my present job, which isn't too bad, but it's not what I really wanted to do.

But Jamie's question started to jog my memory, I remember before starting an intro to education course in the fall of 1993 thinking, "Yes, I can see myself as a teacher. Definitely." As the semester porgressed, I remember talking to someone and them saying, "Why do you want to become a teacher? You'll never make any money."

That cinched it for me. As far as I knew, when I got out of college with my English degree I was going to making a lot of money somewhere. Plus, I started to think about when I had to do my prepracticum and how I didn't have a car and what a pain in the ass it would be to get to Andover High School or where ever. Never mind that that was two years away and something could've been figured out.

So, I junked the teaching idea over money. Fucking money. Like I said, I tried to pick it up later in life, but time had already slipped by and it was really too late. What really sucks is that I would've been a great teacher. I like kids, I have an easy way of handling them and when I substituted I had a great time teaching high school and elementary school.

But now, now that's all gone. The one thing that I learned from that mistake is that I'm never going to base a decision on money. Of the top things in my life I wish I could change, that would have to be number three.

To change the subject a bit, on Thursday we sent in our application for the apartment, I really hope the background check goes ok, because I don't know if I can handle another month of looking for places to live. That has been a huge pain in the ass. I like the place we found and I'm really looking forward to finally having a place with Aly.

Speaking of Aly, last night we went to an Italian restaurant in Medway (I think) to celebrate her grandmother's 85th birthday. She honestly doesn't look that old, nor does she act that old either. If I have half the energy and pep she does when I'm that age, I'll be very happy.

Pats. Super Bowl. Tomorrow. This is what I wrote on SoSH on Wednesday:

Ok, I'm a Patriots fan. Not an original die-hard, but I've been on the bandwagon since the Tuna and Bledsoe came around. Not coinicidently enough, that is when football moved to number two as my favorite sport.

(The Red Sox and baseball are the only team and sport that I could not do without, if the Pats, Celts and Bruins all moved to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, I'd be sad, but I'd be suicidal if the Sox did that.)

In any event, are you really that pumped and jacked for Sunday's game? I mean really excited?

I was for the game in 1997, 2002 and 2004, but for some reason I can wait for Sunday. I'm looking forward to it, because it's going to be a great game and it IS the Super Bowl, but I'm not half as excited as was for those other years.

I think it comes down to the Sox winning the World Series. Every other championship or championship came that has been played in Boston (or with Jordan ... I know, I'm a bandwagon loser for being a Bulls fan in the 90s) has been a pale second to the Sox winning. I knew this, deep down, at the time.

Now, it seems, nothing is as sweet. I doubt that I'll ever have that sort of jubilation that I did when the Sox won it in October ... don't get me wrong, I'd love to try and feel it again next year and the year after that, but nothing is the same as your first time (in both sex and heroin ... or so I'm told).

And I don't mean to sound like a wah-wah, but I just wanted to gauge the fandom here. Am I alone?

Some people agreed with me. A lot didn't. Now, I can say that I officially don't agree with myself. On the way home today, I got more and more pumped up for this game. It should be a real good one and one day I'm going to be really bummed when I think of the fact that I took this team for granted. Go PATS!

I have to admit something ...

The last two installments of 19 Thoughts weren't that great. The Aquaman blog was tepid at best and the Saturday entry was disjointed and rushed. I promise, oh loyal 19 Thinkers, that I will do a better job in the upcoming entries.

I have another installment of the Life of Jim:

For a guy that wasn't up on pop culture or watch much TV, Jim used to pull out some cool tricks out of his bag when he'd get pissed. Tricks that were based on stupid shows. For example, if Jim would get mad at me or our other roommates, he'd start talking to himself in his room (most of the time we were in the common area). Then he'd say, "Fuck it, I gotta talk to someone!" and then run into the bathroom and slam the door.

While in the bathroom, he'd pretend that he was actually in the confessional room that the kids from the Real World go into when they have a gripe with one of their roommates. Instead of talking into a camera, Jim would just talk real loud about what his roommates did that pissed him off. He'd do this for five or ten minutes, or until someone had to take a shit.

Then he'd come out, say he feels better, and pretend nothing ever happened.

Saturday night, Aly and I went to a graduation party for her roommate. Her roommate has already graduated high school, college and law school. She got her LLM in December, so her boyfriend decided to throw her a bash. It wasn't too bad. Chris, Sara's boyfriend, lives in this really, really, really nice house in the South End. The place is so nice that Vincent Price used to live there.

Yes. That Vincent Price. For some reason Chris has a bunch of pictures of him scattered around the apartment. Mostly we hung out with Stacy and Anthony, Sara's two friends from Florida and Niall. I think I may have written about Niall before, but he's one Aly's friends from Ireland. Hell of a nice guy and he has his own web site. If you get a chance, check it out at:

http://www.nialljlennon.com

He's got a lot of cool pics and has some pretty good stories. Well worth reading. Actually, I was tooling around on his site earlier today and it inspired me to rethink what my site is going to look like. I met with Nick tonight and we did a mock up of the site which is going to be called www.room19comics.com. Basically, there is going to be the cartoon taking up most of the page, underneath are going to be three boxes: one has all links to my contact information, writings, resume and older strips. The other has the first two paragraphs of my blog with a link here and the third box has links to other sites that I fancy.

Nick did a tremendous job and I can not wait for this thing to be on line. I think it will be up within a few weeks. Seriously, this thing is going to look really professional and terrific. I know that I've been moving sort of slowly (fuck, who am I kidding, it's been going at glacial speed), but it's all going to be worth it in a few short weeks. Please stay tuned.

Sunday, all Aly and I did was make dinner and lay around. Two nights in a row we were up past 2 am, so we were fucking dead tired. When the hell did this happen? I didn't even drink either night and I was dead meat all day, both days! Man, the younger me would hate the older me. When I was younger I could party it up on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and still tip a few back on Sunday during the football games. Now just staying up late gets me toofy.

I'm such a pussy.

Shit. I forgot the most important thing that happened in the last few days, Aly and I finally found an apartment! We're going to be relocating to Brookline Village in March. The place is pretty nice, it's a basement place about a half mile from her present house. There are six rooms and the rent is $1000. It's pretty hard to beat that.

At first, I wanted the place in Somerville, but the more I thought about it, the more this place makes sense. I will have way more freedom (I won't have to pick up and drop Aly off at the T every morning and night) and the neighborhood is much better. Also, and here is the most important thing, it's literally a two-mile walk to Fenway Park.

Ever since I was a little kid, I've wanted to live close to Fenway Park. So essentially in the time it took me to walk to Chris Baird's house, I can be at Fenway Park watching the World Champion Boston Red Sox. The more I think about it, the more pumped I get.

This is the time of the Hot Stove season that I hate, everyone is signed, no one is making trades (except for the Cubs who traded Sammy Sosa, whose first home run Jay and I saw when he was still a Texas Ranger, to the Orioles). I'm not wild about this trade for either side, for one thing I don't think that the Cubs got a good return on the trade. But on the other hand, this isn't the 1998 Sammy Sosa the O's are getting either.

Last year, their problem wasn't hitting, it was shitty pitching. So unless Sammy is going to toe the rubber, then it's just a name to battle those new Washington Nationals. For the Cubs, it may turn out to be a good deal, no matter who they get. Reportedly, Sosa had worn out his welcome at Wrigley Field (which was unthinkable even two years ago) and his departure may be addition by subtraction.

But, the Sox aren't doing shit right now. It's all Patriots, all the time. Did I tell you that the Pats made the Super Bowl? Well, that's where they're going to be on Sunday evening. Jacksonville, Florida. Not sure why that city was chosen, but that's the site of Super Bowl XXXIX.

The reason why I haven't been writing much about it, is because not much news has been coming out of Jacksonville. Aside from Eagle wide receiver Freddie Mitchell saying something stupid about Patriot safety Rodney Harrison, it's been a quiet week. That's ok, they'll do their talking on the field.