Book Reviews – The Corporate Issue

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
Chuck Barris
St. Martin’s Press

You must read this book before George does whatever he’s going to do to it. Who knows. Maybe George is a genius. He certainly had the imagination and balls to pick this as his pet project. Apparently the book caused a huge stir in Hollywood when it was first published in the mid-80s, but to think that George would be the person to finally snap it up and put it into film production. Who would have guessed it? George fucking Clooney. And he’s not only starring in it (not as Chuck though)…he’s directing the thing.

Chuck Barris, the man behind the gong at The Gong Show, The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and numerous international CIA assassinations, has written the definitive unauthorized autobiography of a life fueled by sex, fame, money, and drugs. Separating the fact from the fiction isn’t the fun part, though. The point of the book isn’t whether Barris has actually had his brains baffled by his own bullshit. That’s right, “Was he really a CIA agent?” isn’t the most pressing question.

The most pressing question is “How did Chuck Barris become my closest friend?” From the first passages where he examines his dilapidated, bald, fat, aging body you’re with Barris all the way, through thick and thin, whether you remember The Gong Show or not. Confessions is a crowning achievement in the history of self-deprecating fiction/nonfiction. Now, before Clooney and company take this modern Falstaff and fuck it up (I hope I’m wrong), read the book. It’s out of print so you’ll have to surf some good used-book sites, but it’s well worth the search.

– Eddy Moretti

NAMBLA Bulletin
Vol. 21 No.3

How can you not love a magazine that discusses a Haley Joel Osment performance as “eye candy”? Of course they’re talking about the film conceived by the director of Lolita and finished off by the mind behind Hook. A.I. was apparently so mind-blowing to the gay pedophile community that this issue spends three pages doing a review, just trying to digest the film. Giving an insider’s perspective, NAMBLA calls Osment’s performance “too innocent,” stating “he doesn’t have the ability to be intentionally cruel as true human children do.” Those little bastards.

Oh sure, NAMBLA is soooo bad. A benefit embracing pervs that fuck plush stuffed animals will get Le Tigre’s support, but a salacious (though honest) appraisal of A.I.’s Jude Law/Haley Joel Osmont pairing? It’s just too much. Sure, the Moby/Natalie Portman fling was no biggie. And what about the Britney videos or David Hamilton’s readily available photobooks chock full of naked 14-year-old girls? Face it, the real upsetting fact is the fag part. But there’s NAMBLA, proudly putting the queer back in queer. You know you love it when your boyfriend says “Who’s your daddy?”

With news stories “highlighting the increasing oppression of young people,” NAMBLA is like a radical children’s-rights organization. In this issue they’re out to topple new software that allows parents to track if their kids are skipping class. In addition they’re also against school districts editing out online pictures of students accompanied by their names and hobbies, out of fear pedophiles will use the info to “hunt down children and strike up a conversation.”

Aside from contemplating robots designed to let someone play out their fantasies or wondering if it’s okay to molest them, a NAMBLA subscription is still the best way to infuriate people into a good conversation.

– Gary Glitterati

28 Pages
by Christoph Meyer

You can’t really diss a zine. They’re like the Special Olympics of the literary rat race. The cover of this zine, for example, looks like it says “86 Pages” because Christoph accidentally silk-screened it backwards. It’s also bound with three rings of twine. Those are just a few of the charms that make this zine so adorable. At times Christoph can sound a bit dorky, i.e. “biographies are my literary junk food,” but he makes up for that with the comics, which I wished there were more of.

– Lesley Arfin

Send Christopher $2 for his zine or trade him. PO Box 106 Danville, OH 43014

New World Order #1: The Saga of White Will
National Alliance
William L. Pierce and Daniel “Rip” Roush

Racism is funny. We picked this comic up at a white power rally held by the National Alliance and Resistance Records over in South Jersey. They said a lot of things that were surprisingly logical. They said segregation is inevitable and we are headed towards race-driven politics and race-driven violence. They said all this anti-confederate flag propaganda is bullshit. They even said big corporations like Walmart are killing the working man.

Their main points however, seemed to be their least logical ones. “Whites are the most beautiful race” was a big deal, which seems pretty tough to defend. They kept trying, though. When the speaker held up a GQ article about resistance.com he justified cover model Ben Stiller’s good looks as “some Jew boy done up to look real nice thanks to makeup and computers.” Okay. Whatever you say. Winston Churchill was a babe.

The other thing they’re obsessed with is race mixing. They say they don’t hate other races, they just don’t want the whole world being the same race and having the same culture. Aren’t we like, ten billion years from that possibility? Jews are 2.6% of the America’s population. Blacks are 8% and Hispanics are about 10%. What the fuck are the white supremacists so freaked out about?

Anyway, this comic takes a totally absurd vision of the “black threat” and creates a gut-bustingly hilarious story that, at the very least, makes a great coffee table book.

– Christi Bradnox

Available from National Vanguard Books, PO Box 330 Hillsboro, West Virginia, 24946

Asianpunkboy
APB 1.3

APB is the indie world’s Visionaire, lovingly and painstakingly produced by Asianpunkboy himself whenever he feels like it. Usually that’s about three times a year. APB 1.3 is a special fashion issue, produced in a limited run of only 88. Inside (besides the picture of Gavin McInnes being raped, for real) you’ll find stories and random prose and photo essays and what look like normal shirts. Inside the shirts you’ll find that they’re fitted with bonus auto-erotic apparatus. For the boys the shirt has secret tassels that extend into your underwear and stimulate you wee-wee. For the girl’s, special ticklish material situated just where the girls pink, ripe titties are. These are designed to rub the nipples, making them wet and hard. Each edition of clothing comes vacuum-packed with an APB 1.3 soundtrack and booklet telling the story of the shirt. All of this is packed in a custom-made wooden box. The whole thing costs $85.00, or about a couple hundred dollars less than Visionaire’s cheapest book ever. Look for it in late January at Colette in Paris or Printed Matter in New York City. It used to sell at ALIFE, but apparently it was too obscene for them. If you live in the provinces check out www.asianpunkboy.com.

– Francine Rose

Sound Collector #7
$7.50 (includes a CD)

This is a premier music magazine. Whatever the genre, if it’s good it will be in Sound Collector, intelligently and honestly covered. In this issue you’ll find stuff on The Stickmen, American Analog Set, P.G. Six and Adrian Ward, among others. Add to this the fact that each issue is beautiful to hold and touch and you have a must for any serious sound collector.

– William Gold

For more information contact Sound Collector, P.O. Box 2056, New York, NY, 10013 info@soundcollector.com. Also check out their new site, www.soundcollector.com.
 

Hell Babies
Pan-Exotic
by Junko Mizuno

The most popular cartoon artist in Japan right now is also the cruelest. Her cute and cuddly drawings of girls slitting their wrists and eating spiders make for totally irresistable tattoos. Think Fine clothing meets Napalm Death.

– Sgt. Snuggles

The Adversary
Metropolitan Books
Emmanuel Carrère

I hereby challenge you to not read this book in one sitting. It is the true story of a man named Jean-Claude Roman who killed his wife, his kids, and his parents and then chickened out of killing himself. That’s just the beginning (literally). Jean-Claude had been living a lie since he dropped out of medical school eighteen years before. His friends and family knew Jean Claude, the World Health Organization doctor that was a good father and a great investor. The real Jean-Claude was actually a non-person, a pathetic coward of a man that would steal from his relatives and sit in parking lots all day waiting to come home.

Emmaneul is petrified of glorifying the man and has stopped and started this book several times over the past seven years. He knows Jean-Claude loves attention and uses it to avoid dealing with reality. He also knows that by writing this book, he is choosing sides – the opposite side of the victim. Instead of giving up, however, Emmanuel Carrère makes his torment an integral part of the book. The end result is a book that’s as much about writing a book about a criminal as it is a book about a criminal.

– Gavin McInness