Graffiti in the Rubber Room: Writing for My Sanity by Will Viharo

 

(oversized pb; 2023: memoir)

 

Review

Viharo’s “experimental” memoir is an ambitious take on the genre. Framed in chapter-missives to famous musicians (Elvis, Tom Waits), fictional characters (those he created, or played by actors Viharo personally knows) and family, it’s a rambling, intuitive-flow, 462-page** work that may cause those who like tight, focused writing to want to immediately pull their hair out—Viharo says as much, later in the book, but he doesn’t care: his writing here, like much of his recent writings is self-indulgent, something he’s proud of. That’s not to say Graffiti’s not often interesting, as Viharo’s trademark blend of vivid description, clever charm, pulp appreciation, and deeply-personal-to-him references (including said fictional characters and famous folk) makes for a rollercoaster, era-bounce recounting of his surreal brushes with the iconic success he craves (he says as much, a lot) and deserves, given his charm, talent, and dedication to that those endeavors. His growth as a unique individual and creative being adds heart and memorability to his work as well. That he wormholes into details—he wants to remember everything, it seems—and your reaction to that will determine if this a worthwhile read for you. If you like word-rampant journal-intense missives with lots of famous names and movies heavily and organically sprinkled in, this might be your jam. If not, check out his earlier, more tightly edited works, starting with his first Vic Valentine novel Love Stories Are Too Violent for Me.

[**eighty of the pages are photographs]

Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark by Cassandra Peterson

(hb; 2021: memoir)

From the inside flap

“On Good Friday in 1953, at only eighteen months old, Casandra Peterson reached for a pot on the stove and doused herself in boiling water, resulting in third degrees burns over 35 percent of her body. She miraculously survived, but burned and scarred, the impact would stay with her and become an obstacle she was determined to overcome. Feeling like a misfit led to her love of horror. While her sisters played with Barbie dolls, Cassandra built model kits of Frankenstein and Dracula, and idolized Vincent Price.

“Casandra left home at fourteen and supported herself as a go-go dancer. By age seventeen, she was performing as the youngest showgirl in Las Vegas, where run-ins with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., and Tom Jones helped her grow up fast. A chance encounter with the ‘King’ himself, Elvis Presley, inspired her to travel to Europe where she worked in film and toured Italy as lead singer of a band. She eventually made her way to Los Angeles, joining the famed improv group, The Groundlings, honing her comedic skills alongside Phil Hartman and Paul ‘Pee-wee’ Reubens.

In 1981, as a struggling actress considered past her prime, Cassandra auditioned for a local LA station as a hostess for their late-night horror movies. She got the job as ‘Elvira,’ never imagining it would lead to fame and a forty-year career.. .”

 

Review

Yours is a burn-through, smart, timely and entertaining read, sometime humorous, often serious, and charmingly feminist in its subject matter─as far as seriousness goes, Peterson was raped, something that only the darkest-hearted people joke about, and Peterson isn’t that sort of entertainer. The telling of that horror is balanced with practicality, maturity, and balance, one that doesn't tank the levity of much of the rest of the work.

Yours is one of the best, waste-no-words memoirs I’ve read in a long while, one worth owning.

BlacKkKlansman by Ron Stallworth

(pb; 2014: memoir)

From the back cover

“When Ron Stallworth, the first black detective in the history of the Colorado Springs Police Department, came across a classified ad in the local paper asking all those interested in joining the Klu Klux Klan to contact a P.O. box, he did his job and responded with interest, using his real name while posing as a white man.

“His decision launched what is surely one of the most audacious and incredible undercover investigations in history. During the months-long investigation, Stallworth sabotaged cross burnings, exposed white supremacists in the military, and even fooled David Duke himself.”

Review

BlacKkKlansman is a funny, fascinating and timely cop story-memoir, one worth reading. Stallworth, a few times in the book, repeats himself unnecessarily but otherwise it’s a focused, entertaining and sometimes alarming nonfiction work.

#

The resulting film was released stateside on August 10, 2018. Spike Lee directed and co-wrote the screenplay. His co-screenwriters were Charlie Watchtel, David Rabinowitz and Kevin Willmott.

John David Washington played Ron Stallworth. Adam Driver played Flip Zimmerman. Ken Garito played Sergeant Trapp. Topher Grace played David Duke. Alec Baldwin played Dr. Kennebrew Beauregard. Michael Buscemi, billed as Michael Joseph Buscemi, played Jimmy Creek.

Hail to the Chin: Further Confessions of a B Movie Actor by Bruce Campbell with Craig Sanborn

(2017: memoir)

From the inside flap

“One of my dad’s favorite jokes about getting older was ‘I went out for coffee when I was twenty-one and when I got back I was fifty-eight!’

“I get what he meant now. Time flies. My first book, If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor, was published back in 2001 and it chronicles the adventures of a ‘mid-grade, kind of hammy actor’ (my words), cutting his teeth on exploitation movies far removed from Hollywood.

“This next book, an ‘Act II’ if you will, could be considered my ‘maturing years’ in show business, when I began to say no more often and gravitated toward self-generated material. Taking stock of the overall quality of life, I fled Los Angeles and moved to a remote part of Oregon to renew, regroup and reload.

“If that sounds tame, the journey from Evil Dead to Spider-Man to Burn Notice was long, with plenty of adventures/mishaps along the way. I never pictured myself hovering above Baghdad in a Blackhawk helicopter, facing a pack of wild dogs in Bulgaria, or playing an aging Elvis Presley with cancer on his penis─how can you predict this stuff? The sheer lunacy of show business is part of the fun for me and I hope you’ll come along for the ride.

“—Bruce ‘Don’t Call Me Ash’ Campbell”

Review

Hail is an interesting, graceful, fun and smart-minded read, a mix of oddball occurrences, strange and educational encounters (often within Hollywood- or low budget film-based situations), charming self-deprecation and honest evaluations as well as the joys of, and contrasts between, Los Angeles and the boonies of Oregon. This is worth checking out from the library or purchasing for fans of Campbell and his expanding oeuvre.

Matters of Vital Interest: A Forty-Year Friendship with Leonard Cohen by Eric Lerner

(pb; 2018: nonfiction / memoir)

From the inside flap

“Leonard Cohen passed away in 2016, leaving behind many who cared for and admired him, but perhaps few knew him better than longtime friend Eric Lerner. Lerner, a screenwriter and novelist, first met Cohen at a Zen retreat forty years earlier. Their friendship guided each other through life’s myriad obstacles, a journey told from a new perspective for the first time. . . "

Review

 Matters is an intermittently (mostly) light and entertaining read, with its brief glimpses of Cohen and Lerner’s interactions. These fun, sometimes heart-warming and meaningful parts are often punctuated by story-necessary interludes about how they met via Zen faith. If you are like me, not into religion/faith/whatever, these sections were less than enthralling. Matters is an okay read, worth checking out from the library.

White American Youth by Christian Picciolini

(pb; 2017: memoir)

From the inside flap

“As he stumbled through high school, struggling to find a community among other fans of punk rock music, Christian Picciolini was recruited by a now notorious white-power skinhead leader and encouraged to fight with the movement to ‘protect the white race from extinction.’ Soon, he had become an expert in racial philosophies, a terror who roamed the neighborhood, quick to throw fists. When his mentor was arrested and sentenced to eleven years in prison, sixteen-year-old Picciolini took over the man’s role as the leader of an infamous neo-Nazi skinhead group.

“Seduced by the power he accrued through intimidation, andswept up in the rhetoric he had adopted, Picciolini worked to grow an army of extremists. He used music as a recruitment tool, launching his own propaganda band that performed at white-power rallies around the world. But slowly, as he started a family of his own and a job that for the first time brought him face to face with people of walks of life, he began to recognize the cracks in his hateful ideology. Then a shocking loss at the hands of racial violence changed his life. . . and Picciolini realized too late the full extent of the harm he’d caused.”

Review

Picciolini’s chronicled journey from lonely boy to violent racialist leader to reformed, mature man is engaging, tight and hard to set down─even at its darkest, White is a humane, timely and gripping take on the point of view of a (former) white-power agitator, who escaped his almost-certain destruction before it almost engulfed him. This is an excellent memoir, one of my favorite books read this year.

Digging Up Mother: A Love Story by Doug Stanhope

(hb; 2016: memoir)

From the inside flap

“Doug Stanhope is one of the most critically acclaimed and stridently unrepentant comedians of his generation. What will surprise some is that he owes so muchof his dark and sometimes uncomfortably honest sense of humor to his mother, Bonnie. It was the cartoons in her Hustler magazine issues that molded the beginnings of his comedic journey, long before he was old enough to know what to do with the actual pornography. It was Bonnie who recited Monty Python sketches with him, who introduced him to Richard Pryor at nine years old, and who rescued him from a psychologist when he brought the brand of humor to school. And it was Bonnie who took him along to all of her AA meetings, where Doug undoubtedly found inspiration for his own storytelling.

“Bonnie’s own path from bartending to truck driving, massage therapy, elder abuse, stand-up comedy, and acting never stopped her from being Doug’s genuine number one fan. So when her alcoholic, hoarding life came to an end many weird adventures later in Arizona, it was inevitable that Doug and Bonnie would be together for one last excursion.

“Digging Up Mother follows Doug’s absurd, chaotic, and often obscene life as it intersects with that of his best friend, biggest fan, and love of his life─his mother. And it all starts with her death. . .”

Review

Like Stanhope’s often harsh, honest and X-rated humor, Digging is not for those who are easily offended by sex, drugs and human-based darkness. While his jokes─often sourced in real-life experiences─possess such qualities, they also have an underlying sense of decency and compassion that make them truly funny and resonant, even if they are disturbing.

The first hundred pages, about Stanhope’s serial debaucheries and upbringing, are more serious than funny. (He did not get into stand-up until later in life, relatively speaking.) That is not to say it is worth reading, far from it─it is a focused, blunt and engaging read that spares no one, especially Stanhope himself. This is a worthwhile read that effectively interweaves bleak humor, touching dedication and gravitas about our baseline impulses and graces.

A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut

(hb; 2005: nonfiction)

From the inside flap

“In a volume that is penetrating, introspective, incisive, and laugh-out-loud funny, one of the great men of letters of this age–or any age–holds forth on life, art, sex, politics, and the state of America’s soul. From his coming of age in America, to his formative war experiences, to his life as an artist, this is Vonnegut doing what he does best: Being himself. Whimsically illustrated by the author, A Man Without a Country is intimate, tender, and brimming with the scope of Kurt Vonnegut’s passions.”

Review

This is an excellent and wise short collection of essays that touches on the subjects of politics, social interactions, relations with women, war and other timely subjects. It sometimes dark but it is also funny, tender, sad and, on occasion, there is a spark of hope, despite Vonnegut’s admission that he has mostly lost faith in humanity. A provocative, short and burn-through read, this: one worth owning and re-reading, on occasion.

Just Tell Me When to Cry by Richard Fleischer

(hb; 1993: memoir)

From the back cover

“Richard Fleischer has directed almost fifty films. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Vikings, Compulsion, Doctor Dolittle, The Boston Strangler, Tora!Tora! Tora!, and The New Centurions are only a few of his hits. He first went to Hollywood in 1945 and over the years worked with and for John Wayne, Walt Disney, Howard Hughes, Robert Mitchum, Rex Harrison, James Mason, Kirk Douglas, Darryl Zanuck, Sidney Poitier, Charlton Heston, Jane Russell, Tony Curtis, Laurence Olivier, Akira Kurosawa, and Orson Welles, among others. Richard Fleischer tells of his forty-five plus years in the ego capital of the world by relating a series of the best stories you'll ever hear (and have never heard before) about legendary personalities and how they behaved (and misbehaved) during the course of making a movie.”

Review

Fleischer’s informative account of his filmic dealings in Hollywood and Europe is entertaining, briskly told, hilarious, troubling (e.g., when he dealt with HUAC) and consistently excellent. His writing is reader-friendly with its succinct (line or two) filmmaking explanations, which do not disrupt Cry’s storytelling. This is a great read with a lot of laughs, especially if you are a fan of old-time Hollywood. It is also one of my favorite reads of 2018, one worth owning.

Silver Screen Fiend by Patton Oswalt

(hb; 2014; memoir / humor)

From the inside flap:

"Between 1995 and 1999, Patton Oswalt  lived with an unshakable addiction. It wasn't drugs, alcohol or sex. It was film. After moving to Los Angeles, Oswalt became a huge film buff, absorbing classics and new releases at least three nights a week at the New Beverly Cinema. Silver screen celluloid became Oswalt's life schoolbook, informing his notions of acting, writing, comedy and relationships. Set in the nascent days of the alternative comedy scene, Oswalt's memoir chronicles his journey from fledgling stand-up comedian to self-assured sitcom actor, with the colorful New Beverly collective supporting him all along the way."


Review:

Oswalt's memoir is funny, serious, cinema-geeky, relatable, briefly sad and always a good, focused read. It is relatively light in tone, but this deftly-written book never skimps on substance, its substance being what it's like to get caught up in something -- in this case, dreams, movies and (a lack of) action -- and letting it impede, at least for a little while, one's potential accomplishments, maturation and (other) "could have beens": worth owning, this.

Orange is the New Black, by Piper Kerman

(pb; 2010, 2011, 2013: nonfiction/memoir)


From the back cover:

"With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money ten years before.  But that past has caught up with her.  Convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the well-heeled Smith College alumna is now inmate #11187-424 - one of the millions of people who disappear 'down the rabbit hole' of the American penal system.  From her first strip search to her final release, Kerman learns to navigate this strange world with its strictly enforced codes of behavior and arbitrary rules.  She meets women from all walks of life, who surprise her with small tokens of generosity, hard words of wisdom, and simple acts of acceptance.  Heartbreaking, hilarious, and at times enraging, Kerman's story offers a rare look into the lives of women in prison - why it is we lock so many away and what happens to them when they're there."


Review:

Good, interesting, waste-no-words and sometimes surprising - in pleasant ways - book.  There's plenty of heart and humor in this down-to-earth, non-flashy read.  Check it out.

#

Orange debuted as a Netflix series on July 11, 2013.  The show, which is scheduled for a second season in 2014, was created by Jenji Kohan (who also created the Showtime/cable show Weeds). 

Taylor Schilling plays Piper Chapman (fictional stand-in for author Piper Kerman).  Laura Prepon plays Alex Vause.  Jason Biggs plays Larry Bloom.  Natasha Lyonne, who co-starred with Biggs in the original American Pie trilogy, plays Nicky Nichols. 

Danielle Brooks plays Tasha 'Taystee' Jefferson.   Kate Mulgrew plays Galina 'Red' Reznkov.  Taryn Manning plays Tiffany 'Pennastucky' Doggett.  Michelle Hurst plays Miss Claudette Pelage. 

Michael Harney plays Sam Healy.  Pablo Schreiber plays George 'Pornstache' Mendez.