Category: Recollection

Book Recollection: Guitar Man: A Six String Odyssey

It’s been a week, so now time for my traditional review of the book I recently completed reading.  This particular piece of literature/documentary was given to me as a gift from my brother Ron due to the similarities of the  author’s late endeavor to learn the guitar and my own efforts to master the instrument.   The premise of this book is the chronicling of Will Hodgkinson’s commitment to performing a gig.  The catch is the author does not know how to play the guitar, but set the date of the live audience event around 6 months out.   Having lived (actually still living) through the hardships of understanding the fundamentals of the guitar, this particular book really hit home and if nothing else provided some badly needed therapy to know someone else out there has struggled as much as I have.   I must admit, I was impressed with his commitment to immerse himself not only into the efforts to learn enough about the guitar to perform at his gig, but also to go underneath the technique and travel throughout the music world to meet with pioneers in the guitar field – including a tour through the deep south of the US to get closer to the birthplace of the blues.  I am not sure if this book would appeal to an individual that couldn’t relate to the hardships of learning the guitar, but I found it a very entertaining and actually looking forward to reading his sequel (Song Man) also given to me by my brother. 

 Now on to those items that stuck with me after finally putting the book down:

Continue reading Book Recollection: Guitar Man: A Six String Odyssey

Book Recollection: Ronnie

Anybody who knows me knows I like the Rolling Stones…. and that I absolutely can’t stand the Beatles but that pretty much goes without saying since those two bands really don’t mesh well.  I was excited to see Ron Wood put out an autobiography since I have actually drifted towards him as my favorite guitarist.  Not to slight Keith, but he is pretty much in a downward spiral.  I also really like his artwork and almost broke down and bought one about 6 years ago when I was in Denver the night they were playing – as Ron mentions in his book he used to pair up his gallery showings with the concerts.  I didn’t feel like spending the money at the time ~$1100, but 2 years later that print was worth much much more than that…. someday I will have one.  The book was a pretty quick read and clearly English.  As with the Slash book, it really didn’t dwell much at all on the craft of his guitar skills as opposed to the wild life and numerous debts.  The early years were interesting since I really didn’t know that much about his past before joining the Stones.  It is amazing how many famous people he has met, rocked with, wife swapped and lost money too.  What was really nice is the book is full of his photographs and his artwork – he actually sketched all of his houses.

Here are some highlights that stuck with me:

Continue reading Book Recollection: Ronnie

Book Recollection: The Year of Living Biblically

 A year or so ago my brother gave me a previous book by A. J. Jacobs entitled Know It All about the author’s journey to read the entire Britanica Enyclopedia from A-Z.  Hands down, that has been one of the best books I have read for some time.  A. J. has a very dry humor that can hit like a fish in the face and leave you laughing well into the next couple of pages.  Couple that with the opportunity to learn more stuff than ever thought possible in a relatively short book.  Laughter and education almost always warrants a 5 star effort in my rating system. 

Ron also bought me A. J.’s latest offering entitled The Year of Living Biblically.  Honestly, this title concerned me when I first saw it, but based on his last book, I was definitely going to give it a chance.   I think his previous novel may have had more humor, but definitely an equal amount of education and entertainment.  Once again, I lost a hefty share of sleep while consuming every page of this book because there were times I just could not put it down – this from a somewhere less than devoted religious individual.  Ron must be trying to tell me something 8^)

Although not up to the Know It All level, I still give it a 5 star effort based on the tremendous amout of knowledge gained about the Bible (my baptized religion doesn’t really encourage self-reading of the Bible so a lot of this was new – apparently we are not qualified to interpret the Bible … or more likely, they do not want us to because quite frankly there are lots of jaw dropping passages in there.  I have never considered the Bible a literal life pattern, but rather a moral guideline – you do not have to be extremely religous to understand the morality behind “Thou shall not kill”.  Sidebar – about 7  years ago I was talking to a coworker and was describing a discussion I saw on TV with someone who believed the Bible should be accepted as literal truth and required compliance to get to heaven.  To my astonishment my coworker stated he believed the same.  My jaw dropped, but I let it pass in accordance with good advice previously given on not engaging in politics or religion at work – I was aware of some things in the Bible at that time and would have enjoyed questioning him about those, but now I am more armed.

So in this book, Jacobs spent 8 months trying to live the Old Testament as literal as possible and same for 4 months with the New Testament.  I can’t believe his wife put up with him during this endeavor especially while dealing with the birth of twins.  To help him on this effort, He had a number of different spiritual advisors in different religous camps in an effort to understand all of the nuances and interpretation conflicts.  With the exception of Bill Bryson, I think there are few people who put as much effort into their writing craft. 

Now on to the stuff that stuck:

Continue reading Book Recollection: The Year of Living Biblically

Book Recollection: Steve Martin – Born Standing Up

It has actually been a couple of weeks now since I finished this book, so unfortunately, I do not have a lot of content for this recollection.  This of course really means that there was not a lot that really stuck with me in regards to this autobiography.  I have always liked Steve Martin so I was actually pretty excited about reading the book.  When I was younger I remember always watching SNL with my brother Ron and it always made us laugh – yes, there was a time many many years ago when SNL was actually funny – I gave up on that show a couple of years ago because quite frankly it is boring and stupid – if there is something entertaining they beat that horse until it morphs into grating … but I digress.  I am also a proud owner of many of his albums (large black vinyl disks that have little grooves in them which are translated into sound via a diamond tipped needle that rides along in the grooves … help for the cyber generation out there).   This book is a fairly quick read and flows very conversationally.  Here are the few things that stayed with me:

  • Steve started his standup at a very early age working a little comedy/entertainment side show at Disneyland – was close to where he grew up
  • He definitely worked very very hard at his craft and althought it looks spontaneous he actually plans out many of his acts.   This even included taking the people out of the theater to provide a more interactive experience – guessing the theater owners didn’t exactly warm up to this idea since it left the seats empty
  • Worked for the Smothers Brothers variety show
  • His shtick was to appear totally out of synch – jumping from one logical thought to a completely different one resulting in the audience continually thinking about what was to come next
  • He has now strengthened his relationship with his sister
  • His motivation was continually trying to earn his father’s respect who apparently didn’t think much  of his career choices.  I do not think he ever obtained this before his father passed away.
  • He is still extremely funny since more than once I laughed out loud at something he had written

That’s it.  Nothing to earth shattering.  Again, it is a very quick read and worth the time to get some insights into a true comedian.  I was a little shocked by the high marks in the Amazon rating system (around 4.5 at the time I looked).  I would probably put this closer to 3 myself compared to the other books I am reading at the moment.  In fact, I hope to post a true 5 star book recollection tomorrow.

Here’s to the life of the one and only Wild and Crazy Guy

Book Recollection: Slash

After two weeks from reading or listening to a book, I like to reflect back on what actually made it to long-term memory.   I am of the opinion that most pages in a book contain fluff, drivel and generally boring material.   However, every few pages, there is generally something there that lights my bulb or surprises me.  If that specific piece of information stays with me past a couple of weeks, then it was worth my time spent consuming the material.  Unfortunately, there are many books that I can’t even remember a single fact or quote – that equates to once serious waste of time.  Anyway, I figured it might be worthwhile to start putting some of these insights to paper (figuratively).  This will also give me a way to quickly look back and recall the key points in a book – besides, you never know how long the ol’ long term memory will stay intact – every snowboard half-pipe crash I take keeps knocking some stuff loose. 

So, two weeks ago I read the autobiography of Guns N Roses lead guitarist cleverly entitled “Slash”.  He happens(ed) to be one of the guitarists I admire(d) and thought I would gain some insights into what makes him such a good musician and how he goes about arranging his leads.  Well, I was wrong on that pre-assessment since there was little to no information on those two topics.  Some information did stick, but in general, I was disappointed.   Beyond the glorified heroin abuse, non-stop drinking and desire to smash other people’s things there really was not much else.  I realize this is the stereotypical rock star life and this is what their marketing sector embraces, but I have not read a book yet (any Rolling Stones book, Scar Tissue, Hammer of the Gods etc.) where the author thoroughly enjoyed the experience of dependency…. and at least lived to write about it).  As a public figure, I can’t help to think that making a formal statement against the bad aspects of this behavior would have a positive effect on the individuals that look up to them (and why people think these individuals are worth patterning their life after is whole different post). 

Anyway, like I said, there were some things that I remember:

Continue reading Book Recollection: Slash