Booked!

Do you also have enough interests to fill up 48 hours a day? It sucks really. More than anything I wish I had the time to read more. Well, as (bad) luck has it, Inez has been waking up a whole lot in the nighttime so I’ve been sleeping in the guest room. (I AM the one who has to go to work every morning.) This gives be an extra half hour or so to read. (Oh, what do you know, she just woke up downstairs.)

Though I still have a pile of Stephen King novels piled up I’ve mainly been reading memoirs.

Off the Rails – Aboard the Crazy Train in the Blizzard of Ozz (2008)

By: Rudy Sarzo

As a tribute to the late Randy Rhoads, his old bass compande, Rudy Sarzo, has written a biography/autobiography about the Blizzard of Ozz tour in the early 80′s. Picking up a book with a huge amount of Ozzy Osbourne in it has it’s downside (Sharon) but Rudy tells the story in a very balanced way and comes off as a very balanced guy which neither Ozzy nor Sharon does.

I might sound like a complete ass but I’m probably a bigger fan of Sarzo than I am of Rhoads
so he could’ve just as well written a book about his whole career but it’s still cool to get some insights on those particular tours. And it’s an interesting read to learn how Ozzy’s stardom was really pending after he got kicked out of Sabbath. Sarzo’s memory serves him really well and so does his pen.

Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir (2010)

By: Dave Mustaine with Joe Layden

I believe very few expected this particular memoir to be anything but a one-eyed, biased, egotistical I-did-this-and-I-am-better-than-he-and-bla-bla-bla. Surprisingly enough it is anything but that. Well, not quite. Dave Mustaine is always very frank and not late in patting himself on the shoulder, but there is one thing that the book format served him very well and that is the opportunity to think things through. (That and an editor. And a lawyer.)

He shows a decent amount of respect. He is humble a times, funny most of the times and not self-righteous all the time. He has guts to dig the Metallica-grave (coz face it, we’re all gonna say “Oh, not again”) and it is actually interesting to hear his unabridged version of those early days. It’s also a blast reading of all the other guys: Poland, Samuelson, Menza, Friedman etc.

If you’re a Dethhead, pick it up. If you are not you might as well pick it up anyways.

I’m Chevy Chase… And You’re Not (2007)

By: Rena Fruchter

I think Bill Murray (as quoted in the foreword) was completely accurate: Chevy Chase should write his own biography.

Reading someone else’s praises of someone can be quite boring. Apparently this Fruchter woman wrote a biography of Dudley Moore and then this thing. Chevy – the guy – is one of the funniest guys on the planet. The book – is not. It is however interesting if you want to get to the bottom of things, like for instance his departure from SNL some thirty years ago and you get his opinions on his own films (he rarely likes them).

It should’ve been an autobiography but it is just a biography. And in all honesty it feels more like an essay.

Been reading…

Been reading a lot lately. First off was William Gibson‘s “Virtual Light”. A really cool cyberpunk novel. Will have to check out “Neuromancer” soon. It’s a classic and I have yet to read it.

Then Elin suggest I read the Boris Starling novel “Messiah” that she gave me for my brithday, and my, was it good! That one about a London serial-killer.

Then came two books that I started reading a while back but put aside for reasons too stupid to print. “Veronika Decides to Die” by Paulo Coelho is a fantastic tale of young Veronika who tries to kill herself. Once finished I sent that one off to Sandor because I’m pretty sure that he will enjoy a good part of it. (The masturbation episode if nothing else.)

Uhm, what next? Oh yes, Neil Peart – the drummer from Rush – wrote a book called “Ghost Rider – Travels on the Healing Road”. Pretty good, and being a Rush fan there is always the trivia bonuses, but I think that he streched the whole thing too long in the end.

A couple of days ago I got asked to write an article of the life of Brian Welch (ex-Korn guitarist) – based on his book “Save Me From Myself”. I got it in the mail a couple of days back and I think the editor of the paper wants it preeeetty soon so I’ll have to read through it superfast.