One of  my old neighbors was a contemporary of Agassi’s in the 80’s and was one of his training partners at the Bolitterri Academy when they were kids. He washed out of the tour before he was 24 and when I met him he was engaged to a beautiful ad executive and worked as a tennis pro giving lessons to spoiled children in Rowayton and Greenwich, CT. At the time, he was getting ready to move to Florida to open his own tennis school. I asked him once if he was jealous of Agassi or if he wished he had what he did. He said he never did and without mentioning the rigors of the tour or the physical grind, he immediately described Agassi’s father. Unprompted he said he was a mix between Attila the Hun and the Ayatollah and described Andre as self-loathing and insecure. He said, “I wouldn’t trade what I have for that and $100 million if you put a gun to my head.” Even though he seems happy now? He said, “You didn’t know Andre back then.”

That was in 2002 towards the end of Agassi’s epic late-career dominance. By then, he had had been Number One (the oldest in history) in the world for umpteen weeks, was one of the favorites in every tournament he entered, and was considered one of the best clutch players on the tour. For a while at least, armed with maybe the best service return and baseline game in the history of tennis, Agassi was arguably the best who ever lived. Disciplined, focused, in better shape than men 10-years younger than him, and married to Stefi Graf – one of the few women in the world who could understand the pressure and strain he was under – Agassi dominated. This was an incredible transformation for him because only a few years before he was one of the worst players on the planet even though he possessed more raw talent than just about anyone save for Pete Sampras.

By the time he retired, he was not only a crowd favorite, but also someone who genuinely loved the attention and had become incredibly sensitive and empathetic towards his fans and respectful towards his place in the world of tennis. He not only won Grand Slam titles, but won an Olympic Gold Medal, competed in the Davis Cup, and became a gracious interview subject, a dramatic development considering that five or six years before, many in the press thought of him as a raging idiot with an inferiority complex. With the revelations of his book Open, all of the assumptions we had about him and the speculation that surrounded him seem foolish. What’s more, the revelations go a long way towards humanizing Agassi.

It seems so long ago that Andre had a frosted mullet and wore electric pink neon compression shorts. He listened to Richard Marx and Yanni, but sports writers insisted on calling him punk rock. He was 16, 17, 18-years-old with a white Corvette and sportswriters seemed shocked that a relative child from Las Vegas would be spending money on cars and clothes and a bachelor pad. It was absurd. Even after his win at Wimbledon in 1992, his reputation was that he was incredibly talented, but incredibly lazy and gutless. He cracked during break points; melted during tiebreakers, practically shit his pants in Grand Slam finals, and was recognized more for the Canon “Image is Everything” commercial than he was for his service-return. According to the popular press of the time he was an enfant terrible, a jackass wasting his talent, and a punk who spit on the conventions and strictures of tennis.

However, in Open, he admits in candid and stark terms that he considered himself a fraud and that he not only hated tennis, but also had no concept of who he was or what he was really doing. The clothes, attitude and hair were all a cover. He was incredibly self-conscious and naturally shy to begin with, but psychologically he could not shake the voice of his father Mike screaming “Hit harder!” at him in the backyard nor the memories of a machine he called the dragon spitting 120 mph serves at his six-year-old self. He was also going prematurely bald. His gloriously tacky mullet was a weave with a hairpiece stuck in place like an animal pelt. On 60 Minutes he admitted that during the 1991 French Open Final he was more worried about his hairpiece staying in place than winning the match. That means he won Wimbledon with the greatest hairpiece in sports since Joe Pepitone’s.

Throughout the early 90’s, Agassi had played second fiddle to the likes of Boris Becker, Jim Courier, and the cute-and-cuddly-but-annoying-and-arrogant Jesus-freak Michael Chang, all of whom dismissed Agassi as a wunderkind moron. In 1994, Agassi was unseeded going into the U.S. Open. When he began winning in the early rounds, Mike Lupica wrote that the tournament was his to lose and that he would find a way to lose because he’s not a champion. Agassi won the Open going away beating Michael Stich in straight sets. By the end of the year, he was Number One in the world and in 1996, even though he was beginning to slide, he won a gold medal at the Olympics in Atlanta.

He had dated Brooke Shields by fax and eventually married her in the quintessential match made in hell, and he shaved his head. But by 1997, everything had come apart. He was depressed and despondent, barely saw his wife, was injured, dropping out of tournaments, tanking matches, smoking meth with some cat named “Slim,” and falling to 141 in the rankings, the equivalent of being the Detroit Lions of tennis. He later failed a drug test, sent a cloying, apologetic letter and luckily faked out the folks at the ATP and got off without a suspension.

After coming so close to personal and professional disaster, Agassi pulled himself together and started over with the help of his trainer and father figure, Gil Reyes, and his coach, Brad Gilbret, reconstructing his game from the ground up. He rededicated himself to conditioning and started all over again by playing in challengers, low level professional tournaments and qualifiers where players eat rubber chicken, operate their own scoreboards manually, shag their own balls, and first place pays $3,500. For the next year he tortured himself with grueling workouts and by the 1998 French Open, he was number eight in the world, and oddly, the further he and Shields grew apart, the better his game got. By the beginning of 1999, they were divorced.

Almost immediately, his comeback seemed to rocket him off the tabloids and back into the upper ranks of tennis culminating with his win at Roland Garros in ’99 making him only the third man to win a career Grand Slam and the only one to have a Golden Slam (Olympic Gold Medal). He also did two things very quietly: he opened a new charter school in the middle of the worst neighborhood of Las Vegas (donating the proceeds earned from selling his old wedding ring in Shields’ name) and began courting Stefanie Graf. Then, almost as if out of nowhere, Agassi was Number One in the world again, and the oldest to ever do it, and was winning big. In a nanosecond he became an elder statesmen, top-notch champion, and all-around good guy. And when he still couldn’t get past Pete Sampras in a Grand Slam final, no one called him a loser; they just wrote that the better player won.

Agassi’s roller coaster of an autobiography is dramatic and fascinating, not just because he persevered through it all while growing up in an incredibly unorthodox home, maturing in a fishbowl, and developing into a functioning adult while being hounded by the press and partying very hard, but because he never once advocates the life of a professional athlete nor spends any time bragging about his sexual conquests. Instead, all he wants for as long as he can remember is a normal life. Remember, Agassi, unlike say, Madonna, Derek Jeter, or Alex Rodriguez, did not choose his life in the arena. It was chosen for him by his father making all the barbs, criticism, and judgments about his character especially bizarre and most certainly difficult to take considering that he was raised to do only one thing: Hit a tennis ball really hard and make a lot of money doing it.

All things being equal, Agassi’s life is a triumph not because he won eight Grand Slams or developed into one of the finest tennis players this country has ever produced, but because he spends 386 pages carefully deconstructing the myth surrounding his carefully crafted and cultivated public image. Tremendous comeback by a player bound and determined to reclaim his rightful place among the all-time greats? Nope, he really just had nothing else he could do for a living and by that time he had a charter school to support and his family relying on him. He was an eighth-grade dropout. There was nothing else. Coupling that with the way he expanded himself beyond the lines on the court, Agassi has become a giant in the sporting world for being the one thing athletes are never expected to be: honest.

Growing up hurts. A lot. Memoirs from TV writers sound just as painful, but thankfully Paul Feig’s Kick Me – Adventures in Adolescence pays tribute to the maxim that brevity is the soul of wit. If keeping to the point weren’t enough, he also includes enough pratfalls, empathetic flashbacks and good old schadenfreude to make sure things stays interesting.

A collection of anecdotes that span from his first days at school to his high school graduation, Feig’s remembrances are qualified and partly lifted up by the fact he was the creator of Freaks and Geeks, which is the only US TV series aimed at teens to have a soul in the past 20 years. With its ensemble cast, Freaks… was routinely gut-twistingly brilliant, timeless (it was set in 1980 but made in 1999) and oddly moving in places, too. In Kick Me, Feig’s too busy sending himself up to cram all that in: laughs are delivered in place of thoughts on the strains put on a family unit, as he’s keen to paint himself as a mollycoddled wuss. He’s nothing of the sort, of course, otherwise neither Freaks and Geeks or Kick Me would exist.

There’s no room for sentimentality here, just a brilliant rendering of a young man’s folly through adult eyes. The book starts with a story of how his parents are called upon to make an elf costume for him, for the school’s Christmas play. With best intentions, they cobble together something from the stock at his father’s army surplus store. As a result, he’s “the only combat-ready elf” in the production and the first of several fist-chewing denouements unfolds. That he manages to work in run-ins with cross-dressing, playing across stumbled upon genuine Nazi regalia and recounts his first gym class of junior high in two harrowing instalments, it’s enough to wish you weren’t there but that you probably were, or at least somewhere equivalent. We’re left in no doubt that the suspicion we all have about people who are popular in school being some form of unacknowledged pure evil is abundantly true.

Girl trouble, needless to say, also makes an appearance. The fact that this book’s sequel is subtitled How I Became a 24-year-old Virgin tells you where its going, but not before he’s blown his first kiss, managed a disastrous first date with a girl who somehow stops being pretty the moment she dolls herself up and accidentally pursued a prom date to whom he’s not sexually attracted, with the feeling being mutual.

Feig’s wit and perspective is notable in a broader context for the fact that the one series he had total control over was, as elitist as it might be to say it, too smart for TV audiences. The ones who tune in en masse to maintain ad revenue with their viewing figures and make shows viable in the US, anyway. His Freaks… collaborator, Judd Apatow, continued with a natural successor, college-based Undeclared, that too was unceremoniously shitcanned. It wasn’t as good, but is now the obvious missing link between the smart, intelligent and funny storytelling and the formula that Apatow found to eventually work: broader, crasser comedies like Superbad, The 40-year-old Virgin and Knocked Up. Feig directed some episodes of Undeclared and has hardly disappeared since, working on a variety of programs. What his sole TV creation and first book both lack is the pragmatism of someone like Apatow recruiting Seth Rogan’s youth and ideas and turning both into commercial hits. Also, it’s true that Kick Me is a less accomplished novel than the similar The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson. In fairness, though, it doesn’t set the same literary goals. Instead it sets out to do one thing: make the reader laugh. In that respect, it’s faultless.

If you want to hear a story told two different ways, read the book and watch the movie. When Let The Right One In was made into a bleak, neatly told vampire movie set in a run-down suburb of 1980s Stockholm last year, it cleaned up on the festival circuit and had its DVD screener bolt across the torrentsphere. Ironically, the latter probably robbed it of part of the box office it deserves in the wake of the feeble-minded allegories offered by summer blockbuster Twilight.

So, if you want to watch the movie, it’s now easy enough to find. The book is equally accessible to agoraphobics, provided they have a fully-functioning Amazon account, and comes similarly recommended.

The book treads the same themes and plot points as the film and even has an identical denouement, but the story is handed back to the voice that first imagined it: former stand-up and street magician John Ajvide Lindqvist. He’s also a Morrissey enthusiast (the title is derived from a Smiths lyric) who doesn’t shy away from topics like homosexuality, child abuse and the loneliness of growing up. Whether he’s condoning or condemning all of the above is a debate best left for people who like shouting at a wall: both on screen and in print, his text is allowed breathe its own life, which is slightly ironic given his predilection for the undead.

Lindqvist’s novel is pacier than its adaptation but also longer than the film version. In the movie, some characters have their stories clipped before reaching an identical fate, while others disappear entirely. Knowing how it ends initially makes these culled details seem like extraneous information when you read about them for the first time, which is a credit to the world Lindqvist has created, its strong cast of characters and the story he tells.

Luckily he’s Swedish, so the film didn’t have to clear an assault course of nervy, delusional mavens worrying about its visceral and at times unnerving subject matter to get made, but the most notable omission from the film is still an attempted rape of a child by the tale’s one paedophile character. This event and the ditched subplot it’s from briefly transports the book into zombie territory: perhaps Lindqvist didn’t realise that the world he’d created was unreal and disconcerting enough. If anything, the film benefits from its absence, becoming less a genre piece and more a meditative study of the warring agendas and contingent goals of its characters.

The film itself is so artfully, minimally shot that it both works on a budget but also emphasise the stoicism of everyone involved. If anything, that quality is reinforced by the book: here, the characters’ thoughts are described to us through internal monologue as it’s written in the third person. However, like the film, they let their actions speak louder than their words. It’s an existentialist dream, portrayed as a nightmare.

Watching the film before reading the book is a good idea. If you become infatuated by what you see on screen and want to spend more time there beyond a second viewing, the book is an invitation to be guided round by the author rather than the director, see some new sights and have what you already know described to you by a different voice, one that feels empathy for every character on the page. The back story missing from the film is kept to a minimum, serving as a case in point: it’s not essential, so you’re only ever told enough to feel compelled, but also slightly disorientated by it. In either format, Let The Right One In works as a slow-acting poison, delivered like a killer vampiric lovebite on anyone who takes the time to fully soak it up.

“The covers of this book are too far apart.”

A. Bierce

I resented Guns and Roses when they came on the scene. I imagine that, as a dipshit 7th grader, it had something to do with my musically challenged philosophy that they were ripping off equal parts Metallica and my beloved Crue. If you remember, it was only after “Sweet Child O’ Mine” that they rocketed into the stratosphere and at that time I was fully unfamiliar with the rest of the album except for a vague recollection of seeing the “Welcome To The Jungle” video. Since we were Iowan trash without cable I wasn’t exposed to the rest of the album . Thus, given the balladry of “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and the amount of people I didn’t like showing up to school wearing G N’R tees, I figured them for another hair-farmer, girl-bait band. And yet, Motley Crue were somehow paragons of integrity.

Sometime in 1988 my older brother plucked my head from my asshole and I experienced a few full listens of the greatest rock album of the past 30 years, Appetite For Destruction. For me, like many other kids, it changed my world. It was antagonistic, mean-spirited, looking for a fight with liberal usage of the word “fuck,” and god damn melodic in the face of salty old detractors and critics clinging to their Beatles records denying what was apparent. Out of the cellar of zebra spandex and Z2 double neck guitars with, well, zebra patterns, came a rabid, snarling bunch of psychotics with a record that blew doors off those dusty, near-mint record collections.

What makes Slash’s autobiography interesting is that one is constantly reminded that five dysfunctional, drug-saturated, chemically imbalanced young men were able to lay down those 12 tracks and inarguably change the face of rock and roll. For like, a couple years. Until Nirvana did it all over again, but that’s another biography.

Reading this mashup – while learning that Slash’s real name is Saul for Christ sakes – you find yourself perplexed at how it was to all come together. Seems that all these guys were bouncing around other bands on the Sunset Strip, seemingly directionless and going nowhere fast. Slash actually auditioned for Poison at one time, for the love of God (which turned out to be one of the funniest stories in the book). Mostly there was this incestuous swapping of musicians between bands like London, Hollywood Rose, whatever else Tracii Guns had going on, Slash’s dropout band, which didn’t even have a singer, and like, Jetboy.

Slash was already dabbling in H and Axl, even then, was already a moody prick that couldn’t be counted on and told Slash’s grandma to “fuck off”. You almost have to respect that money didn’t really change Axl. Apparently, he was always fucked. Izzy Stradlin had focus but was picking up his own drug habit and Steven Adler was a gigolo since he was 12 and was without trustworthy skills in the eyes of the other soon-to-be band members. It turns out some of Duff McKagen’s connections came through at the right time and place more than once to keep this shifty bunch of undesirables from unraveling and going their separate ways before any songs were even written .

I’m always fascinated with rapid rises to fame and the rise of this group of already extremely dysfunctional men could be considered one of the most meteoric in music history. It did take a year before Appetite caught on with the public after its release and the band started headlining, but shortly after that – if you can even remember the fall of ‘88 – they pretty much ruled the planet. However, what’s most interesting is reading about the events right before they broke big. The band was opening for Queensryche, Ratt (Slash labels Stephen Pearcy a “moron”), Motley Crue (respected by Guns and Roses as incredible partiers), until they finally got a headlining slot with bands they hated, like Faster Pussycat, opening for them. Slash and Izzy were full blown heroin addicts with Slash downing a bottle of Jack or vodka per day. Those posters we all saw were not faked. You know, the ones with Slash crumpled on the ground, top hat and hair hiding his closed eyes with the neck of his guitar holding his head up? He was passed out at the shoots. And Steve Adler with a gigantic clenched teeth grin on his face? He was the band’s resident cokehead.

Fame didn’t really seem to change our boy’s habits much either. Slash had two main interests outside of playing guitar; dope and booze. As a matter of fact, and I’ve read about a lot of other junkie musicians, Slash so far is the biggest fiender I’ve ever come across. Not necessarily a junkie I suppose, but Slash was the kind of scrounger who would throw rocks at his dealer’s window at 4 in the morning, ask everyone in a public place if they could score, get his stash, and like a squirrel running off with a nut, scramble to a bathroom to fix immediately without a care that everyone knew what he was doing. At one point he says even his dealers started avoiding him.

One of his best heroin stories comes from a time he was supposed to be detoxing at an Arizona resort but instead was speedballing. He became so paranoid that the once friendly hallucinatory little corner-of-his-eye army men chased him right through the glass of his shower and eventually fully nekkid into the lobby of the hotel where he dodged between some businessman to shield him from the spazz warriors. Oh, and Slash recalls that the little bastards looked like Predator. I suspect this horde of mini-soldiers were cousins of the tiny robots that chased our head groundskeeper Erich around his pad and the little figures that repeatedly did kama sutra positions I used to see in my darkest hours.

We all know we don’t like Axl, right? I mean, for a decade it’s been common headbanger knowledge that he was the monkey in the wrench, the ointment on the cock, and that somehow – though we never really understood – it was his fault that G n’ R disbanded. Well, according to Slash, if only half of what’s written here is true, Axl Rose is the biggest piece of shit in music. If I could unsee his band of fools (your brother must be spinning in his grave, Tommy) I paid $65 to see in 2002 I absolutely would. It would’ve been more appropriate if Roseanne Barr and Margot Kidder were in the band and they called themselves The Bi-polar Bitches because Axl is the poster child of that pathetic disease.

Slash to his credit refuses to blame Rose entirely. He recounts the Use Your Illusion tours in which the singer, with perpetually hurt feelings, would keep the band waiting and go onstage three hours after they were supposed to, causing more than a couple riots, and embarrass the other guys in front of Metallica with lavish theme parties such as, seriously, Roman bathhouses and Mexican fiestas complete with big sombreros. Not to mention the biker shorts. Those fucking biker shorts. My dilemma is that I wonder if I can ever hear a G n’ R song the same way again. I just keep thinking of the little bitch that the screeching singer was all those formative years. Slash is nice enough to blame many of their problems on the addictions that overwhelmed certain band members, even though he contends that at show time, they were all, except for the lobotomized Adler who was no longer with the band, ready to go on. But not Axl Rose, no, because the lead singer of the most dangerous band in the world was as womanly as your fruitcake mother-in-law.

Sarah Vowell is my kind of chick. Not that I find her overly attractive mind you, but she’s got that appealing combination of sassy atheism, skepticism, and liberal disgust that is usually enough to bring the brain and loins together for a conversation. Additionally, she’s a passionate nerd, which means that she spends her time reading, traveling to unpopular destinations, and annoying the hell out of everyone in her vicinity with her quirky interests. I have no doubt that I’d bond with such a woman, and I suppose I’d accept a blowjob now and again just in case her dry lectures on James Garfield became overly familiar. But after three of her books, I am devoted to the cause of Miss Vowell; a sly wit who won’t get you rolling with hyena-inspired lunacy, but will help you find your humanity right at the moment you thought you might have lost it forever. That’s not to say that she’s gooey or sentimental, but she does explore the American landscape with a love for what makes us uniquely insane. And this time, she’s investigating our commemorative tendencies, which usually amount to little more than an obsession with markers and plaques, as if they alone could tell our national story. That said, she is vehemently pro-plaque.

The strongest element to the book lies in its undying affection for the unknown and the ignored. At this point, most Americans have severed any ties with the past that don’t involve their own yawn-inducing family tree, and this is especially true of the minor figures, regardless of how large they may have loomed in days gone by. She violates this love for the obscure by devoting a significant block to the Lincoln assassination, but more than makes up for it with sections on Garfield and McKinley. Fortunately, she avoids Kennedy altogether, I’m assuming because his death is still too fresh in our collective memory. What’s more, one need not be a history buff to find JFK fascinating, which is a testament to our preoccupation with celebrity and glamour.

I was deeply involved as she went from Springfield, Illinois to Washington, D.C. in her quest to rediscover Lincoln’s murder, but more so when she tailed John Wilkes Booth and his flight from justice. Few care about these historical hotspots any longer, as Ford’s Theater pretty much sums up what people continue to digest (and even that is a tourist trap for tubby Midwesterners). But Vowell treks from Booth’s unmarked grave in Baltimore to the Key West site of a conspirator’s prison cell. She manages to find a few fellow travelers along the way, but mostly uniformed guides who are paid to care. Of her few interactions with average citizens, she spends most of the time correcting misunderstandings and historical error. Take the D.C. stop where an oblivious parent fails to correct her dippy child on the identity of a statue. Despite an obvious marker, parent and child seem content to believe that it is Paul Revere, even though Vowell angrily submits that it is in fact General Sherman. Vowell also deals with the glassy-eyed stares of fellow guests at a bed and breakfast where she recounts the thrill of watching the Broadway musical Assassins (which I have seen — yes, it’s utterly brilliant). Because I could share her sense of isolation at that moment, I wanted to hug her with reassurance. No dear, you are not alone.

Vowell also visits assorted organs, locks of hair, pistols, and spines, which reveals a charming (and affectionate) level of morbidity. Again, her words on Garfield and McKinley warrant the most attention, as throughout we get the sense that if she didn’t make this journey, no one would. And why is it that most of the sites concerning Garfield’s and McKinley’s deaths no longer stand? True, these buildings were long ago reduced to rubble, but what have we done to resurrect their memory? Or maybe I’m thinking only of myself, for I too am the sort of American who believes a vacation is valueless unless something is being learned. Few are the eyeballs that didn’t roll with disgust upon learning that I would be spending my honeymoon wandering through presidential homes and blood-soaked Civil War battlefields. Or that I intentionally went to Buffalo, New York so that I could have a chat with Millard Fillmore’s obelisk and walk through the Wilcox Mansion, the site of Theodore Roosevelt’s impromptu inauguration. You might summer in the Bahamas, I’ll take Mentor, Ohio.

She also peppers her travelogue with interesting facts only a nerd could love, such as the strange case of Robert Todd Lincoln, who was within earshot of all three pre-JFK assassinations. It’s also worth noting that within a year of sitting with Warren Harding at the Lincoln Memorial dedication, the 29th President also dropped dead. There’s also a quietly moving visit to Long Branch, New Jersey, a popular summer destination for the elites of the Victorian era, and the current neglect (physical and otherwise) that haunts the ground that once witnessed so much history (including the dying days of Garfield). Still, Vowell never fails to probe the mind of the assassin himself, wondering how an ego careens so far out of control that it believes it has the duty to overturn the will of the electorate. Maybe she should just ask Antonin Scalia.

For her, no assassin is more entertaining than Charles Guiteau, Garfield’s killer. Guiteau was so unfailingly optimistic and deluded that he literally sang the 19th century equivalent of show tunes right up until the moment he was hanged. He was so charming in his loony worldview that he even suggested that Garfield’s doctors actually killed him, for he “only” fired the bullet. Vowell prefers the sunny savagery of Guiteau to the more somber Leon Czolgosz, the man who murdered McKinley. Czolgosz was motivated by the politics of anarchism and class warfare, which makes him a tragic figure rather than a source of entertainment. Guiteau–in contrast–even pulls at the heartstrings when he recalls that while stalking the President, he refrained from firing because his wife looked too tender and just might fall apart after witnessing the deed. Only someone of Guiteau’s madness would believe he’s being gracious by waiting until Mrs. Garfield was out of the room before proceeding with murder. Even Booth is too calculating for Vowell’s taste, even though his plot was more widespread and intricate. Still, ego carried the day as Booth genuinely thought that he’d be embraced as a national hero rather than hunted down like a villainous dog.

In the end, Vowell keeps history alive for those who’d rather focus on death, decay, and division than the so-called “unifying” elements that are largely illusory. We are a nation borne of bloodshed; conceived in the notion that we are much too sinful to take care of ourselves. Even worse, we are a nation that forgets, presumably because our “can-do” spirit is looking ever forward, but most likely because we are impatient with anything at which we could not be present. And if we choose to scour the historical landscape at all, it is only to justify and rationalize, as our prejudices and biases are far better served if accompanied by the approval of a revered (yet misunderstood) figure from the past. But Vowell sees all too well that if we are going back at all, it’s only worthwhile if we remember the numerous bodies–even those of the powerful–that line the path to understanding.

If you don’t know Tucker Max, he’s basically a cross between Bukowski and the “my dad owns a dealership” guy from Aqua Teens. Tucker tells heroic tails of boozing (although the guy strikes me as something of a lightweight), fucking and being an asshole. Some of this is among the funniest things I’ve ever read. I read it in Borders and had to stop at a couple points because I don’t like braying like a donkey thespian in Tijuana in public places. During one story about how Tucker was banned for life from a major hotel chain, I laughed so hard that a fart escaped without me noticing until I heard it. That’s about a once-a-year occurrence.

Did I want to smack Tucker across the face at times? Yes. Not because he considers the residual brain matter that is probably drifting around as he pounds a fuck buddy fresh off a late-term abortion. And not because he leaves one girl an upper decker and makes another give him a lazy Carl. But because he not only orders but repeatedly insists on referring explicitly to a “Red Bull and Goose.” Now that you’ve got a best-selling book, maybe you can move up to Louis XIII and Mr. Pibb, you cunt. And the name, ‘Tucker Max’ makes you sound like a well endowed transvestite.

The most interesting character in the book might be Tuck’s BFF, Slingblade, who is named after their mutual love of a film that barely manages to Fosbury its way into the middlebrow. Slingblade and Tucker represent the yin and yang of aggressive game. Tucker gets laid for being an asshole, while Slingblade gets shut down for being an asshole. For those of us who are assholes, it’s an invaluable case study. Most of us are in the middle. One day you spiritually de-pants some innocent fool at a party, and suddenly you’ve got more tail hanging on you than Davy Crockett. Another day, your vicious drunken ramblings so deeply alienate every woman in the room that it wouldn’t matter if you had a 10-inch, gold-plated cock. After reading this book, I feel l like I have a clearer handle on which kind of asshole behavior moistens and which kind chills. Without going very far into it, Tucker’s recipe for success seems to be to take her along for the ride, rather than leave her in the wake or, like Slingblade, run her straight over. Offer her the chance to be Bonny to your Clyde. Take care to emasculate other men at every opportunity.

It also has to be mentioned that the editing job on this book is just embarrassing. It seems as though the stories are just taken straight from the site. Jokes and descriptions are repeated. On the site, with the articles spread out over years, that’s not a problem. But, for example, when Tucker repeatedly asserts that his stories are true in one reading, it seems like he is desperate to convince. In reality, Tucker is a credible writer. The reason that his stories are enjoyable is that they are about storytelling, rather than chest thumping. This book is a failure of editing, although it remains extraordinarily entertaining. And I say that as the worst editor who has ever lived.

If the universe is ever going to start making sense, Paul Talbot, author of Bronson’s Loose! – The Making of the Death Wish Films, will not only receive the Pulitzer that is his due, but also the undying adoration of thousands of fans, all of whom have worshipped at Chuck’s blood-soaked altar for decades. Released in 2006, this book is long overdue, coming a full twelve years after the final installment of the series, and well over three years since Bronson himself succumbed to pneumonia while being cradled in the tender bosom of a woman — his wife — a full half century his junior. But it made sense after all, for how else would Paul Kersey check out than with the only type of woman he dared sleep with on screen, knowing full well the release of his member spelled doom for anything with a vagina? Still, despite the outrageous delay in celebrating the five-part masterwork, this is the sort of book fans have been dreaming about: funny, knowing, and full of delightful trivia, it respects the movies while also understanding that with the slight exception of the first, these were cynically crafted exploitation pictures designed solely to titillate, entertain, and rub our noses in appalling violence. And if they were also dripping with misogyny and racial stereotypes, so much the better. At bottom, Talbot never lets us forget why these films remain as popular as ever: the charisma and allure of Charles Bronson.

The maiden voyage of the series — the only one to receive mostly (or any) positive reviews in the press — is given the most extensive treatment, though it remains, in some ways, the least interesting of the bunch. It’s a solid right-wing fantasy, full of glorious sadism and political ax-grinding, but it takes itself too seriously and asks us to believe that its immersion in filth is some kind of moral statement. Some may take it as a “message picture” that spoke to the powerlessness of the times, but for my money, I’ll always remember Jeff Goldblum, the spray paint on the ass, and the cruel delivery of, “I rape rich cunts like you.” Talbot faithfully presents the history, the adaptation of Brian Garfield’s source novel, the financing, and all the industry gossip surrounding what at the time was a controversial release, but I always came back to the snippets of Bronson himself: tough, quiet, and always in fantastic physical condition. Hell, the man could still do over a hundred push-ups on the set of Part V, despite being 72-years-old. Bronson comes across as an ass in many ways (his undeniable greed, first of all, with the temerity to bitch about the movies once they were in the can), but nearly everyone interviewed for the book spoke to Chuck’s warm, humorous nature. For most, he was a dream on the set, despite the talk that he often clashed with his directors.

Parts II & III swim through my mind like a fevered orgasm, and the familiar will be utterly delighted by gossip, dialogue, and well-deserved attacks on the poor quality of filmmaking. As the book demonstrates, the second installment was essentially without a script, as change after change left a gaping hole where a story should have been. But who’s complaining? The final result, while atrocious and unforgivably incompetent, is a wild ride of silly performances and memorable lines. Who can forget Bronson’s, “I see you believe in Jesus….Well, you’re gonna meet him”? The best story from Part II, however, is Kevyn Major Howard’s discussion of his character “Stomper,” the very man who is plugged after Bronson’s brilliant mockery. To hear Howard’s assessment, one would think he was preparing for Shakespeare in the Park, or the tortured hero of a Tennessee Williams’ drama. Method acting might produce more authentic performances, but is it necessary to “live the character” for two months when your only job is to rape a traumatized young woman and take a bullet to the chest? Still, Howard’s conviction made me smile, as his passion for the work — even dreck — represents a dying age when so many want to break into acting simply to secure a payday.

Again, Death Wish 3 stands, with Commando, as the greatest action film of the 1980s, primarily for its willingness to throw logic, sense, and decency out the window in favor of a high body count without the burden of deep thought. It all but celebrates murder, which is perfectly reasonable given that the neighborhood we see on display was the North American Beirut of its day. It was interesting to learn that director Michael Winner and the producers were accused of exploiting the Bernard Goetz subway shootings for box office dollars, but such a charge seems to forget that it was the first film, made a decade before, that legitimized the very act committed by the white folk hero of the Reagan era. If anything, Goetz exploited Death Wish and its unique cure for assorted social ills. Along with the recap, the author pulls quotes from reliably harsh reviews, including one from the New York Times: “It’s a surrealistic neighborhood Mr. Winner creates … You can hardly go to the grocery store without being raped.” Hence the appeal, o paper of record. It’s also enjoyable to hear about how Bronson, aging quickly and badly, initially refused much physical exertion, which prompted Winner to insist that he simply set up a hot dog stand, whereby Kersey would kill the creeps with poison. Bronson took note, and geared up for his own stunts like a professional. And remember the big-titted black whore (who, the author gleefully reminds us, was the series’ first and only rape victim to be a person of color) during the final, chaotic scenes? Yep, Winner fucked her, though he later sued a British tabloid when it was suggested that he whipped her and locked her up as a sex slave.

From Part 3 on, the fascistic team of Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus provide many a humorous tale, and the author, along with mining the Death Wish series, gives us a mini-history of the Israeli brotherhood’s shoestring movie company, Cannon Group. Just about every film released by the pair defined the era’s homoeroticism, anti-Communist hysteria, and cultlike worship of death, but it is the Bronson oeuvre that we’ll best remember. Consider this gushing comment from Golan, when asked about Death Wish 3: “It has a rape in it like you’ve never seen! It’s very strong — like Michael Winner said, it’s World War III! It’s the most violent movie I’ve ever seen, but don’t misunderstand me, it’s an anti-violence film!” So much love in every word, yet such calculated delusion as to be laughable. But Winner knew better; he stated at every turn that the movie was a deliberate push away from the more somber beginning to the series. This was about fun, and all involved knew they had to take it up a notch to match high-energy cartoons like Rambo: First Blood Part II, which came out the same year. When it finally hit screens in November of 1985, I was shocked to learn that it was #1 at the box office for its opening week. The claim seems dubious to me, but I’ll take Talbot at his word. At the very least, I want to believe that the movie I’ve seen more than any other once captured the hearts and minds of the American public I now hold in such low regard.

By the time Parts IV and V roll around (and Michael Winner is dispatched), Bronson is tired, but still willing to extend his powerful hands for an easy paycheck. Certainly, these films were the worst of the series — more autopilot than genuine pleasure — but Talbot loves them just the same. Throughout, but especially as Bronson ages, the author remarks on Chuck’s physical appearance, often commenting on his hairstyle, muscle tone, and wardrobe. It’s clear Talbot is in awe, if not in love, though his worship seems less sexual than a recognition of what real manhood can be if allowed to age, develop crags, and indulge in tawdry affairs with much younger women. Sure, the book could have contained more flattering images of Bronson (stills and movie posters are in faded black and white, and look to have been reproduced on a cheap copier in need of toner), but he’s never an object of scorn, or even light judgment. Bronson’s occasional bad attitude or laziness is always excused, and because he always refuses to watch his own movies, we see him as humble, rather than hopelessly vain. It seemed odd that Bronson enjoyed shooting the fifth movie most of all, given that it’s the most worthless of the bunch, but that’s the sort of unpredictability we’d expect from such a mysterious man.

But it’s all here — the Death Wish 3 video game (“Strap on your Wildey Magnum and turn yourself into a one man fighting force armed with pump action shotgun, machine gun, and rocket launcher”), why Marina Sirtis really didn’t have any dialogue, how the cast reacted to the brutal rape scenes, why Jill Ireland’s cancer forced a drastic script change for Part IV, the benefits of filming in Toronto, and the truth behind the proposed sixth film, sans Bronson. It’s a short book to be sure (only 117 pages, plus an Appendix or two), but it’s a few hours well spent. It’s the best excuse yet to crack out the DVDs once again. For Charlie.

I’m writing from a position of some prejudice, since Maddox has a site that has some similarities to Ruthless but is about 100 times more popular.  That doesn’t bother me, though.  I like his site.  So while I am jealous of his success, that is not why I say that this book is ultimately disappointing — an ankle-breaking crossover leading to to a sagging finger roll destined for rejection.  This is more an alphabet of being a 17-year-old boy than an alphabet of manliness.  I found it to be very funny, partially because I maintain a 17-year-old’s sense of humor.  I’ll say up front that in terms of actual laughter, this is an elite of the “humor” section of the book store, and I recommend it strongly. The account of manliness, however, is just plain weak and holds this book back from greatness.  Of course, I will focus on these shortcomings.

“B is for …”  I forget, but it isn’t for booze, the best chest hair fertilizer of all.  Yes, the book contains a few mentions of exotic people such as pirates drinking, as though guzzling down rum were in the same ball park as killing a man with your peg, but that is hardly sufficient.  Liquor is a key component of cartoonish, swashbuckling masculinity.  Drinking someone under the table and drawing labia and pussy hair around his mouth is no less noble a victory than kicking his ass with your fists.  And discovering that The Terminator malfunctions after four shots would be no less an indictment of his mecha-manhood than discovering a she-male folder on his internal hard drive.  The minimal hooch talk is part of a faint odor of lapsed Mormonism that permeates the book.  There are ridicule-free mentions of church attendance, as though this were a normal part of life for the hairy-knuckled berserker.  Maddox is also from Utah and brings up things like Adam and Eve.  Each thing is innocuous in itself, but I got kind of an overall feeling that it was tolerable for a uber-duper-mensch to believe in religion, which is completely for pussies.  “Will I get to see my dog and grandma again in heaven?”=pussy.

“B”is for …”  I still can’t remember, but it isn’t bitches, either.  The book  has a boyish attitude about sex and women.  Again, I have to mention that the this is a funny book, and particularly so when it is being misogynistic.  However, there’s far too much stuff about sneaking a peak or copping a feel.  My sexual history is not Wiltesque, or probably even the-guy-who-played-Boner-on-”Growing Pains”-esque, but the days when I could derive a massive thrill from having the back of my hand graze a woman’s hip are long gone, and I think that that happens for most guys fairly early in life.  I hear it’s big in Japan, though.  Ditto sneaking a peek.  Do I check out women all day long?  Of course.  Do I feel as though I’ve achieved some grand transgression?  Not unless I happen to be sitting with infinite patience at a red light in front of a middle school.  Sneaking a peek is a trivial feat unless you’ve sneaked it not only past your target but past everyone around you, because they would probably form a lynch mob if they saw what you were ogling.  What about convincing a girl to do anal or let you have a threesome?  How about cajoling her into an abortion?  These are subjects of manliness.  The shyest of LARPers knows how to glance at passing booty with minimal chance of being caught and persecuted with dirty looks.  Nobody needs instructions.

Also,  video games are mentioned too much.  I used to like video games, before I stumbled into poker, and I realize that many men enjoy them.  But once every mention of escaping the female for some recreation involves a game console, we’ve fallen into the realm of nerddom.  What about watching sports, or TV and movies that disinterest women by being good?  Maybe you want to get some take out without having to share it with her or read a book without her interrupting by proclaiming, “I’m bored!”  Maybe you just want to go out for drinks with your boys.  But if half your leisure time is invested in any activity including the word “craft,” you are not very manly.

Part of the appeal of the book is that Maddox’s truculence has an underpinning of self-deprecation, and that allows it to be funny.  If Maddox really thought that he were a modern-day pirate, he would be a moron.  Nobody wants to read some anonymous schmuck thump his chest about how he could beat up Floyd Mayweather and sleeps with any woman he chooses. Instead, Maddox weaves in jokes about being an office drone who picks on children to make himself feel big and packs “three inches of dynamite.”   But the fact that the book has a tongue-in-cheek approach shouldn’t have prevented it from delving into manlier territory.