Meh.
Paulo Coelho comes to me well-recommended. I'm told The Alchemist is a life-changing book and Aleph is captivating. Maybe I should have started with one of those.
I can't say I loved Adultery. It wasn't terrible, and this is a virtue of Paulo Coelho being everything as a writer I was told he would be. His style is accessible and conversational. You can blow through large chunks of text while sipping a coffee or a beer and you're never left grasping at what happened. However this story, while well told, wasn't terribly compelling.
Adultery is the running inner monologue of a woman in her 30's who has everything she can ask for -- perfect children, a husband who adores her, a fulfilling career, the ability to flit about the world at a whim -- and yet is terribly unhappy, largely because she chooses to be. She inexplicably one day blows a politician (who happens to be the ex-boyfriend from high school that she was so into that she fantasized about him constantly through her adolescence), and that kick-starts a vicious cycle self-hatred and bad decision-making, all while her doting husband tries desperately to help her find her way of whatever depression and melancholy she happens to be in.
I find characters who do the super-entitled pity party ("woe is me, I have everything) to be grating, especially when they narrate the story, as in Adultery and Douglas Brunt's Ghosts of Manhattan. It's hard to empathize with them as a reader because for me at least, it's impossible to understand them, especially when at the end, they haven't changed very much because their lives are so insular, so perfect, they're not required to. Adultery's narrator, Linda, almost ruins two marriages -- her own and her lover's -- and never has to face the consequences. She's spared the humbling embarrassment of having to say she cheated, while putting her lover in a position to lie to his wife's face. At the end of the day, her relationship with her husband somehow ends up stronger because she realizes that she has it all and decides it's not a prison. I mean... come on. Reading this calls up some advice my dad once gave me: the worst thing you can give a woman is everything she wants.
I will say this: Paulo Coelho's style is everything it's cracked up to be.
Pros: Easy Read, crackling style
Cons: Whiny narrator, no significant character change at the end.
2 out of 5 stars.
Saturday, February 27, 2016
Friday, February 19, 2016
It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year...
That's right, pitchers and catchers have reported to Spring Training! That means Opening Day is around the corner, and summer very shortly after. Aren't you excited?
I make no secret about my Yankee fandom. I like to think it's one of my most endearing qualities. But this isn't a post about being a Yankee fan. Spring Training also means that softball season is about to start out here, but this isn't a post about that either.
No, this is a post about connection.
Every year, millions of fans of the 30 MLB teams prepare themselves for a summer of various levels of commitment to the idea that their team can win a title. Some fans will watch every game, most won't. Some fans will attend every home game, most won't. But on some level, everyone will have at least some interest in their hometown team. On some level people care. And on some level, people hope for the kind of unity victory brings.
I know this is true of all sports, but for some reason, it feels more true about baseball. And I think I know why.
Football, the players wear masks. Their careers tend to be short. And in most of those careers, teams that don't win out don't stay together very long. Basketball, the average length of time one player stays with one team is about five years. Baseball, however, teams are kept together for years, decades in some cases, and even the teams that don't stay completely together, there's never a wholesale turnover. There's continuity. And while the Yankees win most of the time, most teams spend at least some time being competitive. And you can always trace a link from one team's great player to its next through less than three degrees of separation. And it's something you can link directly back to your childhood. It's something I appreciate more now as I'm now so much closer to 40 than I am to 20.
For instance, one of my favorite players retired a couple of years ago, Derek Jeter. He came up to the majors in 1996, when I was turning 18 and going to college and drooling over college girls. 1996 was also the first Yankee championship of my lifetime. The year before Jeter came up, Don Mattingly -- longtime Yankee first baseman and the player I grew up idolizing -- played his final season in a career that started when I was three. He played most of his career on a team that had all-time base stealing champion Rickey Henderson and fellow Hall-of-Famer Dave Winfield. Winfield was brought to the Yankees in 1981 to anchor an outfield that featured Reggie Jackson, who was a member of the 1978 World Series Championship team that won when I was about two weeks old. And right there, I've just charted my entire life through one team. That is not a terribly rare occurrence.
It's a shame that the appreciation for baseball seems to be declining because that connection is declining. Connection with a home, with a city, with something that's not only bigger than you, but something that you can agree upon with your neighbor at a ballpark regardless of your station in life, your religious beliefs or even your attitudes about race. Two guys at Yankee Stadium wearing Yankee jerseys are both Yankee fans, and together for the three hours at the ballpark. They share a drink, they share triumph and defeat, they share opinions on which players suck. At the end it's over, and they go back to their respective lives, homes and differences of various levels, but in those few hours they were family of a sort.
They say baseball is something that's inherited, that fathers pass on to sons (or mothers to sons, or fathers to daughters, mothers to daughters, whatever). If I ever have kids and I can pass on an appreciation for baseball and all the commonalities fans have with one another, all the things we share at the ballpark, and how we directly connect one player to the next, and one moment to the next, I will have honestly done my part to make the world a better place.
Unless the little crumb snatcher turns out to be a Red Sox fan.
I make no secret about my Yankee fandom. I like to think it's one of my most endearing qualities. But this isn't a post about being a Yankee fan. Spring Training also means that softball season is about to start out here, but this isn't a post about that either.
No, this is a post about connection.
Every year, millions of fans of the 30 MLB teams prepare themselves for a summer of various levels of commitment to the idea that their team can win a title. Some fans will watch every game, most won't. Some fans will attend every home game, most won't. But on some level, everyone will have at least some interest in their hometown team. On some level people care. And on some level, people hope for the kind of unity victory brings.
I know this is true of all sports, but for some reason, it feels more true about baseball. And I think I know why.
Football, the players wear masks. Their careers tend to be short. And in most of those careers, teams that don't win out don't stay together very long. Basketball, the average length of time one player stays with one team is about five years. Baseball, however, teams are kept together for years, decades in some cases, and even the teams that don't stay completely together, there's never a wholesale turnover. There's continuity. And while the Yankees win most of the time, most teams spend at least some time being competitive. And you can always trace a link from one team's great player to its next through less than three degrees of separation. And it's something you can link directly back to your childhood. It's something I appreciate more now as I'm now so much closer to 40 than I am to 20.
For instance, one of my favorite players retired a couple of years ago, Derek Jeter. He came up to the majors in 1996, when I was turning 18 and going to college and drooling over college girls. 1996 was also the first Yankee championship of my lifetime. The year before Jeter came up, Don Mattingly -- longtime Yankee first baseman and the player I grew up idolizing -- played his final season in a career that started when I was three. He played most of his career on a team that had all-time base stealing champion Rickey Henderson and fellow Hall-of-Famer Dave Winfield. Winfield was brought to the Yankees in 1981 to anchor an outfield that featured Reggie Jackson, who was a member of the 1978 World Series Championship team that won when I was about two weeks old. And right there, I've just charted my entire life through one team. That is not a terribly rare occurrence.
It's a shame that the appreciation for baseball seems to be declining because that connection is declining. Connection with a home, with a city, with something that's not only bigger than you, but something that you can agree upon with your neighbor at a ballpark regardless of your station in life, your religious beliefs or even your attitudes about race. Two guys at Yankee Stadium wearing Yankee jerseys are both Yankee fans, and together for the three hours at the ballpark. They share a drink, they share triumph and defeat, they share opinions on which players suck. At the end it's over, and they go back to their respective lives, homes and differences of various levels, but in those few hours they were family of a sort.
They say baseball is something that's inherited, that fathers pass on to sons (or mothers to sons, or fathers to daughters, mothers to daughters, whatever). If I ever have kids and I can pass on an appreciation for baseball and all the commonalities fans have with one another, all the things we share at the ballpark, and how we directly connect one player to the next, and one moment to the next, I will have honestly done my part to make the world a better place.
Unless the little crumb snatcher turns out to be a Red Sox fan.
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Reviews: Ex-Heroes, Ex-Patriots
Hey all!
Still doing the GoodReads reading challenge, and now to review books 3 and 4 on my list, both from the Ex-Heroes series by Peter Clines.
Ex-Heroes
Still doing the GoodReads reading challenge, and now to review books 3 and 4 on my list, both from the Ex-Heroes series by Peter Clines.
Ex-Heroes
| One part Avengers, one part Dawn of the Dead, sprinkle a little of The Warriors in there and you have Ex-Heroes, an entertaining novel that clips along at a rapid pace. Two years after civilization fell, Los Angeles became split into two communities: The Mount, a converted movie studio lot watched over by a mismatched team of super heroes-- The Mighty Dragon (glides, invulnerable, breathes fire), Cerberus (scientist in a giant armored suit), Gorgon (vampire stare), Zzzap (living electric dynamo) Regeneration (heals himself and others) and Stealth (genius billionaire fashion model turned ninja)-- and the Seventeen, an LA gang that seeks to expand its turf in this new world order. Between the two groups lies the rest of LA's 5 million residents, all dead, all walking. But things get a little more weird when the zombies -- the ex-humans-- start talking. And making demands. I like superheroes and I like some zombie stuff, so of course I liked this book. It screams of an idea that's too good to pass up, a "why didn't I think of this?" sensibility. There are some small issues to be sure regarding an improperly reflected diversity in the city of Angels, but overall this was a very enjoyable read. 4 stars (out of 5) Ex-Patriots
|
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Review: Assassin's Code
It's time I started reviewing the stuff I consume again, be it books, music, movies, or whatever. I'm not a critic by trade, just someone who likes stuff. I'm involved in Goodreads' reading challenge. 12 books, 1 year. I think I'm going to beat that.
I skipped my review of the first book I read this year, Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon. We'll get to that later this week. For now though, I give you my review of Jonathan Maberry's Assassin's Code, the fourth book in his series featuring Department of Military Sciences agent Joe Ledger.
I skipped my review of the first book I read this year, Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon. We'll get to that later this week. For now though, I give you my review of Jonathan Maberry's Assassin's Code, the fourth book in his series featuring Department of Military Sciences agent Joe Ledger.
I've become a big fan of the Joe Ledger series. I look at it as the popcorn movie in my TBR list. Are we getting deep, life changing events? No. Are we getting radical philosophical shifts? Of course not. But what we are getting is fast-paced, highly entertaining action. And I'll take it.
The fourth novel chronicling the adventures of Joe Ledger and Echo Team is set primarily in the Middle East, where the covert rescue of American political prisoners in Iran put Joe directly in the middle of two longtime warring factions: Arklight, a group of highly trained (and long-lived) female warriors, and the Red Order, The Catholic Church's secret group of vampire assassins. Yes, you read that right. Feeding this powder keg are eight nuclear weapons, stolen and hidden all over the world, set to blow at a moment's notice.
This is, like I said, the fourth in a series. Jonathan Maberry isn't breaking new ground. The series has a very James Bond-esque thrill ride, and I'm okay with that. Yes, it got a little hokey, especially toward the end, but it was hugely entertaining! And considering what I read right before I picked this up, that was enough.
4 stars.
Pros: Fun to read, intense action
Cons: A little hokey, hard to catch up if you haven't read the series.
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
Movies I Need to See, Part I
A friend of mine, Thom Carnell, is doing a "366 movies in 366 days" challenge this year. It's ambitious. It means watching great cinema and crappy popcorn flicks, it means watching things that aren't quite in your taste spectrum, and it means flat out watching things you just hate. He's even reviewing them all. To that I say, good for him.
He and I differ in tastes. He's a lot more into things that are elevate movies to an artwork. He's into stylistic choices with shots and scenes, he's into obscure films by obscure film makers (and believe me, he knows his shit. Check out The Bonus Material Podcast, where he and two co-conspirators talk about film and filmmaking. Eye-opening stuff), whereas I'm admittedly much more simple than that. Do I love a great story? Absolutely. Do I enjoy cool cinematography? Sure. I don't necessarily require them to have a good time at the movies (however, a bad story will almost 100% of the time result in a bad movie and a terrible time at the movies. I'm looking at you, A Most Violent Year).
Anyway, I throw up this story as a prologue for the movies I'm most excited about this year. Keep in mind that I'm going to update this list frequently as more stuff comes out. And yes, trailers.
Kung Fu Panda 3. I'm into animated movies. So sue me. DreamWorks has a wonderful thing going here with KFP and How to Train Your Dragon. I grew up in the 80s in New York, where you could watch kung-Fu flicks every Saturday afternoon. I loved that. The Kung-Fu Panda series is a great homage/spoof of all that nonsensical and fun pseudo-mystical stuff from that era. And who doesn't love that?
Deadpool. Another attempt at recreating this character onscreen. (His first time in X-Men Origins: Wolverine was just... no.). It's amazing what a madcap trailer from a guano-psychotic video.game will do these days. It seems like this time they managed to capture the essence of the character, a dangerously unstable, fourth-wall breaking, regenerating, cancer-stricken mercenary. It'll either be really good, or really bad. I've gotta see it.
Zoolander 2. If I'm being totally honest, there is no burning desire to see this for me. I thought the first one was funny, but it was also 15 years ago. My girlfriend wants to see it, so if I want to drag her to see something I want to see, this sacrifice must be made. You feel me, right guys?
Race. A bit on-the-nose with its title, this follows Jesse Owens and his winning 4 gold medals in the 1936 Olympics... in a very Nazi Berlin with Adolf Hitler watching. Maybe they'll touch on the issues he dealt with at home, being a Black Man from Jim Crow's South. Worth watching, I think.
London Has Fallen. Olympus Has Fallen was a fun action movie, no reason to think the next one won't be as well.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Tina Fey as a female war correspondent in Iraq. The trailer's decently funny, and this could be pretty good. Why not?
10 Cloverfield Lane. Some years back, JJ Abrams put together a trailer for a found-footage monster movie set in New York City that featured the head of the Statue of Liberty being torn off. That trailer became Cloverfield, and despite all its promise, it was one of the most disappointing movie experiences of my life. Since then, JJ has done two Star Trek movies and a Star Wars movie, and I can't help to think he's learned something in the experience. So I'm going to double down and see this one, which will either be really good or reeeeeallly bad
And that takes me to the end of the winter. Next time I do this, it will be Summer Blockbuster Season. Which means, comic book movies. And there will be reviews.
He and I differ in tastes. He's a lot more into things that are elevate movies to an artwork. He's into stylistic choices with shots and scenes, he's into obscure films by obscure film makers (and believe me, he knows his shit. Check out The Bonus Material Podcast, where he and two co-conspirators talk about film and filmmaking. Eye-opening stuff), whereas I'm admittedly much more simple than that. Do I love a great story? Absolutely. Do I enjoy cool cinematography? Sure. I don't necessarily require them to have a good time at the movies (however, a bad story will almost 100% of the time result in a bad movie and a terrible time at the movies. I'm looking at you, A Most Violent Year).
Anyway, I throw up this story as a prologue for the movies I'm most excited about this year. Keep in mind that I'm going to update this list frequently as more stuff comes out. And yes, trailers.
Kung Fu Panda 3. I'm into animated movies. So sue me. DreamWorks has a wonderful thing going here with KFP and How to Train Your Dragon. I grew up in the 80s in New York, where you could watch kung-Fu flicks every Saturday afternoon. I loved that. The Kung-Fu Panda series is a great homage/spoof of all that nonsensical and fun pseudo-mystical stuff from that era. And who doesn't love that?
Zoolander 2. If I'm being totally honest, there is no burning desire to see this for me. I thought the first one was funny, but it was also 15 years ago. My girlfriend wants to see it, so if I want to drag her to see something I want to see, this sacrifice must be made. You feel me, right guys?
Race. A bit on-the-nose with its title, this follows Jesse Owens and his winning 4 gold medals in the 1936 Olympics... in a very Nazi Berlin with Adolf Hitler watching. Maybe they'll touch on the issues he dealt with at home, being a Black Man from Jim Crow's South. Worth watching, I think.
London Has Fallen. Olympus Has Fallen was a fun action movie, no reason to think the next one won't be as well.
And that takes me to the end of the winter. Next time I do this, it will be Summer Blockbuster Season. Which means, comic book movies. And there will be reviews.
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Stuff I Read in 2015
For the last couple of years, I joined Goodreads.com's reading challenge, where you set out to read a certain amount of books in a year and then try to get through them all. In 2015, I tried to do 12, but managed to finish 11 (the last one, Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon, I just was too tired in December to get through). I picked a few books by favorite authors, some by people that I've never read. Some were surprisingly bad, others were better than I expected, and one was The Martian.
So today, let's give you the rundown of what I read last year, listed alphabetically.
52-Pickup by Elmore Leonard: I read Get Shorty and Be Cool when I was in my early 20's and decided I was a fan of Elmore Leonard. I named one of my characters in my most recent novel in his honor (Dutch). I started this book expecting it to be an awesomely gritty crime story. Instead, I found it to be horribly dated, what with the free-flowing racial slurs and very outdated sensibilities. It was written in the 70's though, so I won't say he had lost touch, but the book definitely did not age well. 2 stars.
Beautiful You by Chuck Palahniuk: Palahniuk is another favorite of mine, having read six or seven of his books, including Fight Club and Choke. Beautiful You is the story of a woman who is made to be the guinea pig for a new generation of sex toy designed by a powerful businessman that has disastrous side effects up to and including death. These sex toys have turned women all over the world into masturbation addicts, and only the guinea pic, through mastery of her own sexuality, has a chance of stopping his plan for world domination. It's a well-written, off the wall story that I had a ton of fun with. 4 stars.
The Dead Run by Adam Mansbach: Yes, the Go The Fuck To Sleep guy. I liked another book of his (Rage is Back) and gave The Dead Run a look. I'm glad I did. In it, Mansbach weaves together a noir/supernatural tale that weaves together a smuggling story with a cult worshiping an immortal Incan priest. What really impressed me more than anything is that it seems Mansbach has a deep respect for ancient myths and legends regarding older cultures, and sprinkles that stuff liberally in the last two books of his I read (Rage is Back also had a mystic aspect to it, along with deep roots in B-boy culture. Another day though...). It was a great thrill ride and quite a compelling page-turner. Adam Mansbach is more than a gimmick children's writer. 4 stars.
Debbie Doesn't Do It Anymore by Walter Mosley: I have a Walter Mosley book that I haven't gotten around to reading, but when I saw the premise to this one, I had to pick it up. Porn mega-star Debbie Dare retires after the death of her cheating, abusive, porn-producer husband dies and finds herself burdened with the enormous debt her husband incurred to various LA lowlifes. In addition to figuring that out, she must reconcile with her family, his family, and the son she had when she was a teenager. It's a great setup, but it never quite got past "simmer" for me. I found myself engrossed enough to read it in a day and a half, but never quite got the payoff I was looking for. Not bad, but not great either. 3 stars.
The Dragon Factory by Jonathan Maberry: Book Two in his Joe Ledger series, of which I had read one and three and loved. The Dragon Factory features Joe Ledger and his DMS team pursuing a group of geneticists descended from Josef Mengele, who have created genetically engineered mythological creatures (dragons, unicorns, etc) for hunters sport... and to create an unstoppable army of fearsome potential to rule the world after a virus clears out all who do not fit the Nazi ideal of the Master Race. Yeah, I know, completely off the walls, batshit crazy. But wow, was this a fun action movie of a read. 4 stars.
Freaky Deaky by Elmore Leonard: My second Elmore Leonard book of 2015 led me to realize that I'm not as big a fan of his as I thought. Which is a shame. He follows two ex-hippie bombers as they try to extort a million dollars from someone they ran with back in the day, and the detective trying to stop them. Fairly bland, very dated. But I got through it in a day. 3 stars.
Ghosts of Manhattan by Douglas Brunt: Well-written story about a guy working at Bear Stearns at the the onset of the 2008 financial crisis... well-written in the sense that the story was well told. The protagonist, however, a very wealthy trader who is suddenly having a crisis of conscience with his lifestyle (oh, no, the hooker and blow life has too many hookers and too much blow... woe is me) rang completely hollow with me. I found him to be completely unlikable and his "struggle" didn't seem to be much of one at all. Liked the story, hated the storyteller. 3 stars.
The Martian by Andy Weir: The first manned mission to Mars leaves a man stranded on the surface after a freak dust storm, and he has to "science the shit out of this" to survive the estimated 600+ days it will take to wait for rescue. Brilliant and compelling, science-fiction close enough to realistic with an ease of access akin to Bill Nye The Science Guy. Thoroughly engrossing, we see the hero, Mark Watney, use science and humor to keep himself alive, hopeful and sane, alone on a barren planet, presumed dead, and billions of miles from home. Can't say enough good things about this. Read it. Now. 5 stars.
Monster by A. Lee Martinez: I underestimated this one going in, thinking it was kind of kiddie-fluff. Mistake. This turned out to be a solid supernatural read about a color-changing monster hunter and his paper-man sidekick, protecting a normal human from the magical forces trying to get to her. I'm not usually into fantasy stuff, but this was pretty fun to read. 4 stars.
Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore: The latest by my current favorite author, Secondhand Souls is the sequel to A Dirty Job. The sequel finds a resurrected Charlie Asher and his friends Lily, Audrey, retired detective Alphonse Rivera and Minty Fresh, once again battle the mythical Morrigan for the souls of the recently departed in San Francisco while their new master, Minty's cousin Lemon Fresh seeks to ascend (or descend) and become a new god of Death. I'm a massive fan of Christopher Moore, and A Dirty Job was the first book of his that I read, so naturally Secondhand Souls was incredibly fun for me. If you haven't read the earlier book, then very little of it will makes sense to you at first. But I think you'll still enjoy it as Moore's engaging and riotously funny style gets you over that hump. 4 stars.
The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore: This sequel to Fool puts Pocket the Jester in Italy as he finds himself in the middle of Shakespeare's Othello, and with old friends and a new pet sea serpent, seeks to stop a coup. I wasn't as big a fan of Fool as I was of Christopher Moore's other stuff, but it wasn't bad. It was original and funny. This is kind of like the joke you love and makes you smile, but you've heard it before so you don't enjoy it quite so much. 3 stars.
There you go. 11 books, one year. Not bad, but this year, let's see if I can do more...
So today, let's give you the rundown of what I read last year, listed alphabetically.
52-Pickup by Elmore Leonard: I read Get Shorty and Be Cool when I was in my early 20's and decided I was a fan of Elmore Leonard. I named one of my characters in my most recent novel in his honor (Dutch). I started this book expecting it to be an awesomely gritty crime story. Instead, I found it to be horribly dated, what with the free-flowing racial slurs and very outdated sensibilities. It was written in the 70's though, so I won't say he had lost touch, but the book definitely did not age well. 2 stars.
Beautiful You by Chuck Palahniuk: Palahniuk is another favorite of mine, having read six or seven of his books, including Fight Club and Choke. Beautiful You is the story of a woman who is made to be the guinea pig for a new generation of sex toy designed by a powerful businessman that has disastrous side effects up to and including death. These sex toys have turned women all over the world into masturbation addicts, and only the guinea pic, through mastery of her own sexuality, has a chance of stopping his plan for world domination. It's a well-written, off the wall story that I had a ton of fun with. 4 stars.
The Dead Run by Adam Mansbach: Yes, the Go The Fuck To Sleep guy. I liked another book of his (Rage is Back) and gave The Dead Run a look. I'm glad I did. In it, Mansbach weaves together a noir/supernatural tale that weaves together a smuggling story with a cult worshiping an immortal Incan priest. What really impressed me more than anything is that it seems Mansbach has a deep respect for ancient myths and legends regarding older cultures, and sprinkles that stuff liberally in the last two books of his I read (Rage is Back also had a mystic aspect to it, along with deep roots in B-boy culture. Another day though...). It was a great thrill ride and quite a compelling page-turner. Adam Mansbach is more than a gimmick children's writer. 4 stars.
Debbie Doesn't Do It Anymore by Walter Mosley: I have a Walter Mosley book that I haven't gotten around to reading, but when I saw the premise to this one, I had to pick it up. Porn mega-star Debbie Dare retires after the death of her cheating, abusive, porn-producer husband dies and finds herself burdened with the enormous debt her husband incurred to various LA lowlifes. In addition to figuring that out, she must reconcile with her family, his family, and the son she had when she was a teenager. It's a great setup, but it never quite got past "simmer" for me. I found myself engrossed enough to read it in a day and a half, but never quite got the payoff I was looking for. Not bad, but not great either. 3 stars.
The Dragon Factory by Jonathan Maberry: Book Two in his Joe Ledger series, of which I had read one and three and loved. The Dragon Factory features Joe Ledger and his DMS team pursuing a group of geneticists descended from Josef Mengele, who have created genetically engineered mythological creatures (dragons, unicorns, etc) for hunters sport... and to create an unstoppable army of fearsome potential to rule the world after a virus clears out all who do not fit the Nazi ideal of the Master Race. Yeah, I know, completely off the walls, batshit crazy. But wow, was this a fun action movie of a read. 4 stars.
Freaky Deaky by Elmore Leonard: My second Elmore Leonard book of 2015 led me to realize that I'm not as big a fan of his as I thought. Which is a shame. He follows two ex-hippie bombers as they try to extort a million dollars from someone they ran with back in the day, and the detective trying to stop them. Fairly bland, very dated. But I got through it in a day. 3 stars.
Ghosts of Manhattan by Douglas Brunt: Well-written story about a guy working at Bear Stearns at the the onset of the 2008 financial crisis... well-written in the sense that the story was well told. The protagonist, however, a very wealthy trader who is suddenly having a crisis of conscience with his lifestyle (oh, no, the hooker and blow life has too many hookers and too much blow... woe is me) rang completely hollow with me. I found him to be completely unlikable and his "struggle" didn't seem to be much of one at all. Liked the story, hated the storyteller. 3 stars.
The Martian by Andy Weir: The first manned mission to Mars leaves a man stranded on the surface after a freak dust storm, and he has to "science the shit out of this" to survive the estimated 600+ days it will take to wait for rescue. Brilliant and compelling, science-fiction close enough to realistic with an ease of access akin to Bill Nye The Science Guy. Thoroughly engrossing, we see the hero, Mark Watney, use science and humor to keep himself alive, hopeful and sane, alone on a barren planet, presumed dead, and billions of miles from home. Can't say enough good things about this. Read it. Now. 5 stars.
Monster by A. Lee Martinez: I underestimated this one going in, thinking it was kind of kiddie-fluff. Mistake. This turned out to be a solid supernatural read about a color-changing monster hunter and his paper-man sidekick, protecting a normal human from the magical forces trying to get to her. I'm not usually into fantasy stuff, but this was pretty fun to read. 4 stars.
Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore: The latest by my current favorite author, Secondhand Souls is the sequel to A Dirty Job. The sequel finds a resurrected Charlie Asher and his friends Lily, Audrey, retired detective Alphonse Rivera and Minty Fresh, once again battle the mythical Morrigan for the souls of the recently departed in San Francisco while their new master, Minty's cousin Lemon Fresh seeks to ascend (or descend) and become a new god of Death. I'm a massive fan of Christopher Moore, and A Dirty Job was the first book of his that I read, so naturally Secondhand Souls was incredibly fun for me. If you haven't read the earlier book, then very little of it will makes sense to you at first. But I think you'll still enjoy it as Moore's engaging and riotously funny style gets you over that hump. 4 stars.
The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore: This sequel to Fool puts Pocket the Jester in Italy as he finds himself in the middle of Shakespeare's Othello, and with old friends and a new pet sea serpent, seeks to stop a coup. I wasn't as big a fan of Fool as I was of Christopher Moore's other stuff, but it wasn't bad. It was original and funny. This is kind of like the joke you love and makes you smile, but you've heard it before so you don't enjoy it quite so much. 3 stars.
There you go. 11 books, one year. Not bad, but this year, let's see if I can do more...
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
The Billion-Dollar (Day)Dream
Powerball is at $1.3 billion for Wednesday's drawing, and if you're like me, you've got most of it spent already, what with the homes you would buy and friends and family you would help or avoid. Some would see the world, others would invest in a solid gold bathtub (because, you know, gold is a stable investment). And I would love for you all to comment on what you would do in the comments section down below.
Personally, I would send all my inner circle an email to go to the airport at a specific time. There would be a ticket waiting for them. And we would go on one EPIC adventure. After that was done, though, it would be time to make that money work for me. I may be crazy, and I'm definitely not a finance guy, but here's what I would do.
First, I would move my family (brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces) to one place, where we would own a block off homes, or a cul-de-sac or something. Thomas Town would be born.
Next, I would set up my nephews and nieces with independent million dollar trust funds, untouchable until they turn 21.
I would section off an enormous amount to simply accrue interest.
I would then start Thomas Holdings, Ltd as a way to allot the money in a manner that it would never be completely depleted. This company would be the way I did real estate back home (more on that later), do an entertainment startup, or any number of ventures that two or three hundred million would allow. I would have the holding company pay me and my family a salary (to at least give the illusion that there should be some degree of responsibility for one's own money) and live.
The real estate thing is a big deal to me, as it would be my way of giving back to my hometown. I'm from Brooklyn, NY (as most of you know), and grew up in Flatbush, one of the neighborhood that is at the center of the big gentrification issues going on back home. While it may be all Starbucks and hipster now, when I was there it was affordable, low-to-middle income housing (the 'hood). Some of my greatest friendships were forged there, some of my best memories happened there, and some of the best stories that can't be told start and end there. If you go to my closest circle of friends and say the words "Silencio del Gato," they will smile, laugh... and bite the cyanide pill in their teeth to avoid revealing secrets (we take that seriously). But I digress.
New York as a whole, Brooklyn in particular, has become inaccessible for the most part to the low-to-middle income citizen, despite that being the vast majority of the city. Ask any one of the five co-workers sharing a two-bedroom, 950 sq. ft. apartment in Bed-Stuy or Sunset Park, and paying a grand. Each. What I would do is, starting with the block I grew up on, buy some of the older buildings, renovate them, and rent them out to low-to-middle income families. Not the projects, but actual livable apartments. With reasonable square footage. That didn't demand 75% of your earnings to simply keep a roof over your head. There are some that would regard this as a bleeding-heart fantasy devoid of any business sense, but I disagree. Yes, can cater to the high-end and make large sums of money, but there are more people two or three tiers down than there are at the top, and that is a huge market in NYC. With a little less than a billion dollars in the bank, profit wouldn't be my primary motivation, but it would generate income nonetheless.
It's a billion-dollar fantasy that makes me smile. And if my $20 pulls that in and makes that fantasy a reality, how cool would that be?
But hey, it's the lottery. I might as well ask Santa Claus to make that happen.
Feel free to comment with your daydreams and money wishes. Cheers!
Side note: I'd be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to the late David Bowie. Along with Madonna, he was the master of innovation and reinvention, both stylistically and musically. You've gotta hand it to a man who managed to stay relevant since the mid-70s. RIP, Mr. Bowie.
Personally, I would send all my inner circle an email to go to the airport at a specific time. There would be a ticket waiting for them. And we would go on one EPIC adventure. After that was done, though, it would be time to make that money work for me. I may be crazy, and I'm definitely not a finance guy, but here's what I would do.
First, I would move my family (brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces) to one place, where we would own a block off homes, or a cul-de-sac or something. Thomas Town would be born.
Next, I would set up my nephews and nieces with independent million dollar trust funds, untouchable until they turn 21.
I would section off an enormous amount to simply accrue interest.
I would then start Thomas Holdings, Ltd as a way to allot the money in a manner that it would never be completely depleted. This company would be the way I did real estate back home (more on that later), do an entertainment startup, or any number of ventures that two or three hundred million would allow. I would have the holding company pay me and my family a salary (to at least give the illusion that there should be some degree of responsibility for one's own money) and live.
The real estate thing is a big deal to me, as it would be my way of giving back to my hometown. I'm from Brooklyn, NY (as most of you know), and grew up in Flatbush, one of the neighborhood that is at the center of the big gentrification issues going on back home. While it may be all Starbucks and hipster now, when I was there it was affordable, low-to-middle income housing (the 'hood). Some of my greatest friendships were forged there, some of my best memories happened there, and some of the best stories that can't be told start and end there. If you go to my closest circle of friends and say the words "Silencio del Gato," they will smile, laugh... and bite the cyanide pill in their teeth to avoid revealing secrets (we take that seriously). But I digress.
New York as a whole, Brooklyn in particular, has become inaccessible for the most part to the low-to-middle income citizen, despite that being the vast majority of the city. Ask any one of the five co-workers sharing a two-bedroom, 950 sq. ft. apartment in Bed-Stuy or Sunset Park, and paying a grand. Each. What I would do is, starting with the block I grew up on, buy some of the older buildings, renovate them, and rent them out to low-to-middle income families. Not the projects, but actual livable apartments. With reasonable square footage. That didn't demand 75% of your earnings to simply keep a roof over your head. There are some that would regard this as a bleeding-heart fantasy devoid of any business sense, but I disagree. Yes, can cater to the high-end and make large sums of money, but there are more people two or three tiers down than there are at the top, and that is a huge market in NYC. With a little less than a billion dollars in the bank, profit wouldn't be my primary motivation, but it would generate income nonetheless.
It's a billion-dollar fantasy that makes me smile. And if my $20 pulls that in and makes that fantasy a reality, how cool would that be?
But hey, it's the lottery. I might as well ask Santa Claus to make that happen.
Feel free to comment with your daydreams and money wishes. Cheers!
Side note: I'd be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to the late David Bowie. Along with Madonna, he was the master of innovation and reinvention, both stylistically and musically. You've gotta hand it to a man who managed to stay relevant since the mid-70s. RIP, Mr. Bowie.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)