Big Apple Blog

It’s funny how sometimes the events in your life mirror events in the world. I’d heard a bunch of talk about the book, The Davinci Code, so I ordered it from the public library. I was like 425th on the waiting list and as I read about the book, I found out the author, Dan Brown, had written a book previous that focuses on the same main character. The book was available so I ordered it.

The book is called Angels and Demons and was quite good. The interesting thing is that I finished the book shortly before the Pope died, and the plot of Angels and Demons surrounds the death of a Pope. Most of he story takes place in Vatican City while the election of a new Pope is going on. Thus, the author covered many of the details surrounding the Conclave such as the white smoke versus the black smoke and how the voting takes place.

If you like history, the author does great job of weaving history into the plot and I had a hard time putting the book down. I just got a notice from the library that The Davinci Code is now ready for me to consume.

I can’t say that I have ever read a work of non-fiction that caused me to feel like I was living in a fictional world. That was until I finished The Dirt, an account of the lives of the members of the famous metal band, Motley Crue.

Now I know what you may be thinking. “I don’t like heavy metal, that book won’t interest me.” Well, I do like a little metal now and again, but I am by no means a metal head. To be honest, I did not really even listen to Motley Crue in their prime. But man, they have one heck of story to tell. When the book came out a few years ago I heard a portion of a radio interview with some of the members and knew I would someday have to read their story.

I will say that the book does contain extremely raucous subject matter, but they are a rock band so what can you expect? Let’s just say the stories told could never make it into an “R” rated motion picture. You name it: sex, drugs, and violence – it’s all in there, in vivid detail. Heck, it’s worth reading just for the accounts of when the band is on tour with Ozzy. The stories told and the way the book is written kept me wanting more. As I read, I wanted to see what crazy thing they would do next or what depressing low they would sink to.

The four members of the band all tell their stories in independently written chapters. All of those chapters are then woven together to tell the whole story. I had never read an account written like this before and it was quite well done.

A glimpse into the lives of famous rockers is also eye opening. The public seems to adore members of bands such as Motley Crue, but in the case of these members, I can pretty much guarantee you that you would never, ever want to trade places with them no matter the riches. The stories of personal anguish, some self-inflicted of course, are gut wrenching. Are they arrogant and crude at times? DEFINITELY. Can the public at large empathize with some of their struggles? Yes.

So, if you ever want to go on a wild ride and read true stories that will make you wonder how in the world they are still alive today, The Dirt will not disappoint.

A few years ago when Bowling for Columbine came out, I remember jotting down the name of book that was brought up in the movie. Moore stood with Barry Glassner, author of Culture of Fear, in a “dangerous” section of LA during a portion of the movie.

I remember the main point of the interview had to do with slanted news coverage. According to the news, Glasser and Moore should have been the victims of gun violence for having the audacity to even enter this dangerous section of LA. As it was, they stood in public with a camera and conducted an interview without anyone paying them any attention.

I finally got around to reading the book and I enjoyed it. Glasser basically takes things the news pays a lot of attention to, and shows how overblown and out of whack a lot of news coverage is. TV, print, and radio folks often take stories that have a grain of truth to them, and then twist facts or blow things way out of proportion.

For example, illegal drugs. The “drug war” that has been going on since Nixon gets tons of press. What does not get a lot of press is the fact that just as many or more people die from taking legal prescription drugs each year. Maybe news producers and government officials don’t want to step on the toes of pharmaceutical companies that place advertisements and have powerful lobbyists in Washington huh?

A second example is coverage that newsies devote to airplane safety. Whenever an incident happens related to airplane safety, the news jumps all over it and the end result is normally a public that is fearful of flying. In reality, people should fear going to work a lot more. Here’s a snippet from the book that highlights this topic:

In the mid-1990s, while the press obsessed over airline accidents-which resulted in fewer than a dozen deaths in the best years and a few hundred in the worst-more than 50,000 Americans died in work-related fatalities each year. Almost 7 million suffered injuries. An unconscionable number of these victims were under the age of eighteen; well in excess of 50,000 children and adolescents showed up in emergency rooms with work-related injuries each year. Reporters spewed out hundreds of stories about hypothetical gaps in oversight by the FAA at a time when profound gaps existed at the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OHSA), an agency created by an Act of Congress in 1970 “to assure so far as possible every working man and woman in the nation safe and healthful working conditions.”

Studies find that, on average, when a company is inspected by OSHA and slapped with a penalty, the injury rate at the firm declines by 20 percent over the following three years. But with only 2,000 inspectors to oversee 6 million workplaces, OSHA was in a position to inspect the average work site once a century. (page 198)

I guess it’s not high science to figure out that what is more common often does not attract as much attention as incidents that occur less frequently. It’s just a shame that newsies have such a large forum and basically focus on issues that have relatively little impact on the population at large. It seems like a few enterprising editors and producers out there might figure out that there is “news in numbers” so to speak.

I would recommend this book for anyone. It will definitely make you reevaluate the news you are exposed to on a daily basis and help you to ask questions that newsies likely won’t ever provide the answers to.

Every Barnes and Noble in NYC seems to have an author speaking each night. I took several years off of reading books for the most part (other than those required for my MBA program) and stuck mostly to magazines and newspapers. I did read a few Tom Clancy novels, I have followed Jack Ryan through his entire career, and I read The Hobbit after the whole Lord of the Rings phenomenon started just to see what it was about. Last summer, a switch went off in my brain telling me to begin a reading habit. I started by hitting up some friends for book lists. After compiling the lists I marched down to the local bookstore with my list, my reawakened reading passion, and my credit card.

I walked away with several books. I chose Fast Food Nation (Recommended by Rolf) to begin my new reading quest and tore through it in about a week � a very good read. In past months I have read The Brothers K (recommended by Brendon), The Lexus and the Olive Tree, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Vagabonding (written by Rolf), The Color of Water, and I just picked up a book I had started and not finished before, Video Night in Kathmandu. I�ve been on pace for about a book a month which is not too bad I guess considering all the changes that have gone on since last summer.

Perfect compliments to a reading habit are public transportation and a media metropolis. I can keep my eyes on pages rather than roads by riding the subway or bus and I can hear authors of all sorts expound upon their writings almost anytime I wish � and heck, author readings are free.

Ariel had a sewing class the other night so I tromped through the snow to see a local movie critic, David Denby, push a book he had written, American Sucker, on his attempt to play the market during the dot.com era of rising indexes. He had a less than successful investing experience; I guess he�s trying to recoup his losses by selling a book. I got a good gist of what his book is about, a mixture of facts interwoven with a personal journal he kept during the whole experience. He is a very honest man and since he is a member of the media, had some very prominent friends during his investing times, some of who are now in federal prison. I�m sure it would make an interesting read.

That leads me to a request � since I have the reading jones, I want recommendations from all of you out there. You can email them to me or just click the �comments� link below to ad your recommendations. Comments would be a good way because then others can see your recommendations as well. I also have no real desire to hang onto books that I have purchased and read, so if you ever want me to mail you a book I talk about, be the first one to make the request and send me your address and I�ll mail it to you. Eventually I�ll try to get a link up with the books I have read for you to make requests, but for now, just email me and I�ll let you know if I still have it. Maybe a book exchange of sorts can develop over time.